One Dead Drag Queen (20 page)

“You’re in one of the most dangerous professions,” I said. “It can’t be easy living with the constant pressure and threats.”

“I’ve been a lot of places and tried to help a lot of people.
Yet, some people think I don’t value human life because of what I do. They couldn’t be more wrong. I hope the police catch who did this. I want to see justice done, not get revenge. I just would like to be able to ask whoever did it, ‘Why?’ ”

I said, “The only answer that makes sense is hatred, distorted, unreasoning hatred. All other answers are inadequate, and that one is incomprehensible to rational people. Have the police been able to tell you anything?”

“Whenever I haven’t been at the hospital, I’ve been at the police station. I’ve gone over as many threats as I can re-member. None of them stood out. We kept a log of any calls and letters, but I can’t imagine it survived the fire.”

“The police will probably be coming by to ask more questions.”

“Why? I’ve already told them everything.”

How do you say nicely, you yourself are going to be coming under suspicion because of some data a reporter happened to stumble upon? I said simply, “We were talking to a reporter who knew some data about the clinics you’ve worked at. They’ve had lots of troubles.”

“All clinics have had lots of troubles.”

“These seemed to have major problems while you were on the staff.”

I’m not much of a judge of people’s expressions, and I’m wrong often enough to be humble about it, but I thought I saw dismay followed by fear.

She rose to her feet. I figured she was about to toss us out. I was wrong. She strode behind the couch and ran her hand over it’s faded and cracked plastic. For an uncomfortably long time she didn’t look at either one of us.

Finally she whispered, “I was wondering when someone was going to notice. Years ago a friend of mine worked at a
succession of clinics. Within a month after she started in three straight places, they were victims of acid attacks.”

I knew antiabortion activists would pour butyric acid in mail slots or through small openings they’d drilled in the walls. The acid is used in perfumes and disinfectants. Undiluted it smells like rotten eggs. It irritates the skin and the respiratory system. It does an annoying, although seldom a significant, amount of damage. The clinics often had to close until hazardous-materials teams got rid of the residue.

I asked, “Did someone connect your friend with the crimes?”

“A woman reporter in Sacramento, California, was doing a profile on a clinic where my friend worked. The reporter started asking questions about her background. My friend figured out what she was after and quit the next day. She went back to school to get her law degree. She didn’t want the pressure and the insult of being investigated.”

“Did she do it?” I asked.

“No. She had solid alibis for two of the occasions.”

“So why didn’t she stick to her story?” Scott asked.

“Simply being accused is bad enough. I had a friend who set off the theft alarm on her way out of one of those chain bookstores. She had her receipt in her hand. The clerks apologized profusely. They gave her a free gift certificate, but she was too humiliated to ever go back. She never wanted to risk setting off an alarm again. To this day she won’t shop in a store that has one of those. It causes her no end of hassles, but she’s sticking to her guns.”

“Isn’t that kind of an overreaction?” Scott asked.

“To her it wasn’t. She felt debased and frightened.” Dellios walked around to the front of the couch and paced for a few moments. “I’ve been worried about someone making the link between all those places and my working there. I had no
way to stop the connection being made. Much of the time I’ve felt like my career and my life were hanging by a thread.”

“Why didn’t you just quit?” Scott asked. “There are other ways to serve the causes you care about.”

“I imagine the reasons I didn’t quit are very similar to reasons you didn’t quit playing baseball.”

Scott said, “I understand that.”

Dellios continued, “I didn’t bomb my own clinic. I have no reason to. I am not a murderer.”

I asked, “What are you going to say when the police want to know how it was that you were outside in a safe spot?”

“You mean just like you’re doing now?”

“Yeah.” I felt a little embarrassed at the boldness of the question, but I couldn’t think of another way to word it.

She brushed at some of the stray strands of hair around her face. She pulled her sweatshirt closer around her torso. She began slowly. “I’m a simple person, really. I believe in nonviolence. I grew up as the kid in the family who was always trying to make peace with my brothers and sisters, with the kids in the neighborhood, between the kids at school. It seemed so easy, so natural. Now I carry a gun. I keep a shotgun here under my bed. Me, who’s been a pacifist since high school, me owning a gun! I have a state-of-the-art burglar-alarm system surrounding this shabby apartment. I have a fire alarm in each room. I know antichoice fanatics probably wouldn’t attack just this one place, but look what they did to that city block. And they’ve found the home addresses and assassinated those doctors.” She sighed deeply. “My sister keeps telling me to get out of the business, but women need me. They need to have a place where they can feel safe to exercise their choices.” She stopped and stared into the middle distance for several moments.

I asked, “What happened at those other clinics?”

“The police never caught anyone. Just like whoever’s been targeting and killing abortion providers here and in Canada. I thought things would get better after we won that racketeering case a few years ago.”

She was referring to a case brought by the National Organization for Women and two clinics in Delaware and Wisconsin against two antiabortion groups and their leaders.

She went on, “We won the case, but it was like winning the battle and losing the war. The attacks never really lessened. I am not willing to sacrifice my sanity and my entire life. I have no clinic to return to. I am not applying for another job in one. I’m getting out.”

I asked, “Do you always leave at that time on a Saturday?”

“Why are you so concerned?”

“I think my concern is natural.”

“You sound like you’re investigating.”

“I was injured in the blast. My friend died. Alvana’s child is still not out of danger. Scott and I have been under threat. My personal life and public life have merged to the point of constant danger. I want to put a stop to as much of that as possible. I’m not ready to walk away yet. Before I retire to a lead-lined bunker, I’m going to fight back.”

Dellios said, “There’s only so much a person can take. Accusing me isn’t going to help. I’m no threat to either of you. I barely know Scott. I only know you from your part-time work at the clinic. I’m certainly sympathetic to you as a gay couple, and I’m not a killer.”

I said, “We heard a rumor that Susan Clancey was supposed to be coming to town.”

Dellios made a little
eep
noise and twittered her fingers around her throat. “I don’t know where you could have heard that.”

The intercom buzzed. She walked to the switch, flicked it on, and asked, “Who’s there?”

“Detective Jantoro, Chicago police. I need to talk with you again, Ms. Dellios.”

She buzzed him in. Before she opened the apartment door, she inspected him through the security peephole. Jantoro entered, nodded hello to us, and said, “I need to talk to Ms. Dellios alone.”

She made no protest and neither did we.

In the entrance to the apartment house Scott said, “She didn’t answer your questions about why she left when she did.”

“I know. The fact that she wouldn’t tell us why she left makes it suspicious to me. Not only that, she looked panicked when I asked her about Clancey.”

Scott said, “If she set the bomb, wouldn’t she have been farther away when it went off?”

“I guess.”

“And if she was planning to blow up that block, wouldn’t she have already had an excuse for leaving? She’d know she’d need one. I think her lack of an excuse shows that she didn’t do it. Whoever was crazy enough to set off that bomb was also bright enough to do a lot of complex planning.”

“You could be right.” I was tired. “Let’s go home. We can call that reporter’s contact on the East Coast.”

19

As we took the elevator to Scott’s penthouse, I said, “You know, we could just not call McCutcheon tomorrow and go off on our own.”

“You can if you want,” Scott said, “I have no intention of going around town without him. You can decide how brave you are and how much danger you’re willing to risk. I, for one, think we need to use him.”

We called the East Coast. As the phone rang, I eased into an overstuffed chair. It felt wonderful. I was more tired than I thought.

Thieme’s contact, Toby Ratshinski had a deep voice. I pictured a lumberjack. I explained about Thieme and what he’d told us about McCutcheon.

Ratshinski’s skepticism disappeared at the mention of Thieme’s name. It was quickly replaced with curiosity about us. “This is really Tom Mason? The guy who was on all those talk shows?”

I assured him it was and that Scott was on the extension.

“Wow. This is great. I admire you guys so much. I’d be happy to do what I can for you.”

“What were you doing in Bosnia?” I asked.

“I was the lowest rung on the reporting ladder for the
Washington Post
. I was willing to do anything to have a career in journalism. If it took going to Bosnia, I figured it was worth the risk. Better than reporting on school board and zoning meetings in the farthest suburbs around Washington, D.C. How will my knowledge about Bosnia help you guys?”

I said, “We heard you got beat up in Bosnia.”

“I sure did.”

“We’re interested in the guy who did it.”

“A nasty, tough son of a bitch.”

“Angus Thieme thought the guy looked like the owner of the security firm we’ve hired. We’re trying to be sure of his identity. Could you describe the man you made a pass at?”

“A college-wrestler type. Very wiry, lithe, not too tall. I forget the color of his eyes.”

“What happened?”

“I was in this absolute hellhole of a town. We’d been threatened by police, security officers, and the armies on both sides in the conflict. We were constantly afraid for our lives. A group of us had pretty much decided to beat it out of there. This guy was with us all the time. No one knew what his job really was. He wasn’t a reporter. Everybody assumed he was with the CIA. One night I was drinking. I was far from home, scared, and lonely. He was a stud. We were in a war zone.”

He paused. I thought I heard him take a sip of liquid. In a moment, he continued, “We talked intimately for hours. He sat closer to me than need required. He invited me to stay overnight at his place.”

When I was dating, guys had to practically spell out in
neon their interest or lack of same. A blatant grab of the crotch is a clear message, but I was never good at picking up on the more subtle nonverbal cues.

Ratshinski continued, “At the entrance to a dark, narrow, and treacherously steep stairway, I put my hand on his butt. He lost his temper. He switched from friendly and affectionate to a raging madman in an instant. He literally picked me up and threw me into the street. I’m not a very big guy, but that was unbelievable. He began pounding on me. I think he might have killed me except a jeep-load of MPs happened by. They made him stop, but they didn’t arrest him. I had no one to really complain to. The local authorities were a joke. Appeal to our military was a ludicrous idea. Anyway, as far as I could see, he wasn’t under their jurisdiction.”