She finally wound down, in a series of shuddering aftershocks, and lifted her head, staring out bleakly between her fingers. When she looked at Art, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief, which he held out to her. She wiped her eyes, her cheeks, and her dripping nose, then blew into it twice. By now the handkerchief was sodden, so I handed her mine, too. She repeated the maneuvers, looked at the mess she’d made of both hankies, and gave a sort of embarrassed half laugh. Then she drew a series of deep breaths, as if she had just sprinted half a mile. “I have imagined…this scene…a thousand times,” she managed to say. “A thousand different ways. Dreamed it, day and night. Lived for it, when I couldn’t hang on to anything else to live for. Prayed for it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Art. “I expect you have.”
“So as much as I’ve rehearsed it, why does it still feel like my insides have just been torn out?”
“Because they have,” he said. “This time it’s not make-believe.”
“God, we’ve worked so hard to put that behind us,” she said. “Months and months of therapy. For Joey. For Bobby. For me. For me and Bobby together. For all three of us together. The abuse damn near killed us; now, the recovery’s about to bankrupt us.”
“I understand,” said Art. “I’m sorry. I know it might not be much consolation, but this case-Joey’s case-inspired us to work harder and smarter to catch guys like Craig Willis. We’ve created a new task force to catch people who use the Internet to target children or trade child pornography. If we can catch them in cyberspace, we can charge them with federal crimes. It’s a small program right now, but it will only get bigger. And we’re closing in on several of these people right now.”
She looked both distressed and grateful to hear that.
Art checked his watch. “It’s about three o’clock right now,” he said. “What time will your husband be home from work?”
“Probably not till seven or eight. He’s working a lot of overtime-that’s how we’re paying those therapy bills.”
“Would you like us to come back this evening and tell him about this?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “He’ll be upset-he’ll need to be upset, just like I did-and it would be hard for him to do that with you. If I tell him, I can hold him while I tell him, and maybe that will make it easier for him. More bearable, somehow.” She smiled slightly. “He’s a pretty manly man,” she added. “He might actually hit you if you told him. With me, I think maybe he’ll be able to cry instead.”
Art smiled back. “Sounds like he’s married to a wise woman with a big heart.”
She teared up slightly at that. “If this is wisdom, I’ll take foolishness any day.” Suddenly she frowned. “Joey gets home from school at three-fifteen,” she said.
Art stood up. “We were just leaving.”
She looked relieved and grateful. “He can spot a cop a mile away,” she said. “I’m afraid he’d get really scared if he saw you here. I’ll call his therapist and ask how much we should tell him, and when.”
“Just remember,” said Art, “it’s likely to be in the newspapers as early as tomorrow. So if you don’t tell him pretty soon, he might hear it some other way.”
“Damn,” she said. “I think I see an emergency therapy session in our future this evening.”
“I know it’s not easy,” said Art, “but it looks like you’re doing all the right things.” He looked around the room. “Sort of like fixing a big old house that’s had a hard life. You just keep plugging away, one room at a time, one problem at a time.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Plugging away. That’s us.”
She walked us to the door. I held out my hand, and she took it in both of hers and squeezed it warmly. Art held out his arms, and she let him enfold her for a moment before propelling us out onto the porch and down the steps.
As the Impala reached the corner of the block, a school bus turned the corner, braked to a stop, and flashed its caution lights. Three children-two girls and a boy-stepped from the bus. By the time the bus lights stopped blinking and the STOP sign had folded back against the side of the bus, Susan Scott was at the corner, a smile on her face and an arm around the boy’s shoulder.
“I think that was a good thing we did just now,” I said.
“I think maybe you’re right,” said Art.
CHAPTER 20
I WINCED WHEN I unfolded the newspaper. MURDERED DRAG QUEEN WAS FROM KNOX, screamed the headline above the lead story in Friday’s News Sentinel. POLICE PROBE POSSIBLE HATE CRIME IN CHATTANOOGA, read the subhead.
The article was by a crime reporter I didn’t know, one whose byline had first begun appearing in the Sentinel only a few weeks earlier. I pored over the article.
Chattanooga police made a crucial breakthrough yesterday in a murder that has shocked the city’s gay community to its core, but now a wave of fear could ripple through Knoxville. The battered body of a young man dressed in women’s clothing and a wig was found two weeks ago outside Chattanooga, tied to a tree in Prentice Cooper State Forest. Chattanooga’s medical examiner, Dr. Jess Carter, yesterday identified the victim as Craig Willis, 31, formerly of Knoxville.
An autopsy by Carter, supplemented by a skeletal examination by University of Tennessee forensic anthropologist (and “Body Farm” founder) Bill Brockton, indicated that Willis was killed by massive and repeated blunt-force trauma to the head. Willis’s identity eluded investigators initially because no form of identification was found on his body, and the skin of his hands-including the fingerprints-had peeled off by the time the corpse was found. One piece of the missing skin was recently discovered by Brockton during a second search of the crime scene, said Carter, allowing the victim’s prints to be matched to prints on file from an employment background check Willis underwent three years ago.
One source close to the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the slaying appears to be a hate crime, motivated by the victim’s apparent sexual orientation. “He was wearing a sort of female dominatrix-looking outfit,” said the source, “consisting of a long blond wig and a black leather corset, which most people would consider to indicate an S amp;M fetish or a quote-unquote kinky lifestyle. To some guys around here, a man in that kind of getup is like a red flag to a bull.”
East Tennessee gay rights activists have decried the slow pace of the investigation. “If a straight, conventional man or woman were killed in such a horrific manner, the police would leave no stone unturned,” said Steve Quinn, coordinator of the Chattanooga Gay and Lesbian Alliance. “In this case, they seem more interested in sweeping the murder under the rug. The authorities here seem to consider homosexuals, transvestites, and transsexuals to be expendable, and that’s an outrage.” Knoxville activist Skip Turner added, “Craig Willis is a martyr in the struggle for sexual freedom. His bones cry out for justice.”