Chapter 18

The patrons who had gathered at Frigo’s tavern had assumed they would be watching the Maryland Terrapins play basketball, a reasonable expectation on a winter’s night in Baltimore. But cable-less Tess commandeered the remote and began searching the talk ghetto at the far end of the seventy-five-channel spectrum. She clicked past pontificating head after pontificating head until she finally came to an oversized one with shaggy curls.

“Tess,” the bartender said, a note of pleading in his voice, “you’re killing me.”

“It won’t be for long,” she assured him. As a Frigo’s regular and, more important, the daughter of a former liquor board inspector, Tess enjoyed a potentate’s privileges. “I really need to see this.”

“We’ll buy”-Crow looked at the crowd, which was large for a Thursday night-“we’ll buy a round for everyone along the bar, because they’re most likely the ones who were counting on watching the game.”

They were, and free drinks did little to appease them when the channel changed to Face Time with Jim Yeager.

The live broadcast was normally done from a Washington studio, but Jim Yeager appeared to have taken over the set of some long-forgotten Baltimore talk show for this special edition. Not that one saw much of the 1970s-era set, with the outdated silhouette of Baltimore ’s skyline in the back. For Face Time was aptly named: It was all face, mainly Yeager’s face, shot large enough to fill the television screen.

“I always heard the camera added ten pounds,” Crow said thoughtfully, “but I didn’t think they meant the head.”

“It’s even bigger, and his face is even redder, in real life,” Tess said. “They ought to do this in three-D. He looks as if he’s about to lunge out of the screen at any moment.”

As the show wore on, Yeager’s face grew redder still, his lunges toward the camera more frequent. Tess had assumed Yeager was a cookie-cutter far-right conservative, but his anti-everything views brought to mind Groucho Marx’s anthem from Duck Soup: “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” Those guests who attempted to argue with him were dismissed with ad hominem attacks, usually a double-noun combination featuring police or Nazi.

“Oh, you’re with the nutrition police,” he sneered at a man in the first segment, a vegetarian who wanted to put federal excise taxes on junk food while providing tax breaks to those who exercised regularly. “Oh, here come the thought Nazis,” he sang out, when a syndicated columnist criticized a basketball coach for making racist comments about his own players. “When do we start burning the books, Herr Commandant?”

“So are you going to go?” Crow said, during the next commercial break.

“Go where?” Tess asked, replenishing their bowl of popcorn and ignoring the bartender’s anguished looks. What could she do? She had assumed Cecilia would be the first guest, and here they were, two Rolling Rock drafts into the dreary hour.

“To visit Bobby Hilliard’s parents, the way Daniel suggested. I think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m not so sure. Why not tell me that directly? Why doesn’t he-or she-tell me what he knows?”

Crow thought about this. “Because I don’t think your visitor knows everything. He has a few pieces of the puzzle and wants to share them with you. He trusts you, for some reason. He thinks you can do this.”

“Trusts me or wants to mislead me,” Tess said. “Hey, Cecilia’s finally up.”

Even on the less-than-stellar resolution on the Frigo bar set, Cecilia looked lovely, as did Miata. Television doted on Cecilia’s big eyes and fine bones, highlighted every muscle in the Doberman’s coiled body.

Unfortunately, the producer used far more shots of Yeager. You couldn’t call them reaction shots, for that would imply Yeager listened. When he wasn’t talking, he was like an orchestra player who cared only for his own part, counting impatiently until he could come in again.

“Cecilia Cesnik is a local advocate who was one of the first to insist the murder at Edgar Allan Poe’s grave was part of a more sinister tale, something Poe himself might have written-if he had lived another hundred and fifty years. Of course, if Poe had lived another hundred and fifty years, I imagine he would be haunted by the permissive attitudes of our culture, the idea that anything is all right as long as it feels good.”

Cecilia’s face was so thin that the camera could catch the brief flicker at the bridge of her nose when she frowned. Yeager’s intro was not promising. Then again, he wasn’t openly baiting her, not yet.

“So, Ms. Cesnik”-Yeager made Ms. buzz, until it sounded like an epithet-“you’ve made quite a fuss, insisting this homicide is related to a so-called hate crime against a prominent Baltimorean. Could you tell us what proof you have of this allegation?”

Cecilia frowned again, probably at the use of the word “so-called,” but plunged in gamely. “A source at the police department had given us information that the homicide detectives were looking at Bobby Hilliard’s death in connection with a violent assault on Shawn Hayes, a man who is well known in our community-”

“When you say ”community‘ do you mean Baltimore at large or the sodomite subculture?“

“Sodomite!” Crow echoed in wonder.

“I know,” Tess said. “I thought that word was exclusive to one of our local hate-mongers.”

Cecilia, thrown off balance, tried to keep her composure. “Yes-I mean no. I mean-Yes, Shawn Hayes was gay. Is gay. He’s still alive. He’s also a rich prominent citizen who appears to have been attacked by a violent sociopath who had no agenda other than the desire to inflict pain. I have to think if another rich Baltimorean was beaten under similar circumstances-but with the protective coloring of a different sexual orientation- police might have taken the crime more seriously from the beginning.”

“Interesting.” Yeager’s expression indicated he found it anything but; he was simply waiting to pounce, to make his next point. “But you overstepped, didn’t you, in trying to push your agenda?”

This brought a quick reaction shot of Cecilia’s puzzled face, then Yeager was back, filling the camera and looking smug.

“You went too far, you and the sexuality police. You heard there was a connection and because Shawn Hayes was a gay man and the next victim”- Yeager made rabbit ears in the air, to indicate the words gay and victim should be placed in quotation marks-“and because the next victim was ”gay‘ as well, you added one plus one and got three. But there are at least two other cases involved, are there not?“

“You’d have to ask the police about their investigation,” Cecilia demurred, her face still, her eyes wary.

“I have, and I haven’t gotten many answers. But I have my sources too. My sources tell me they’re looking at some routine burglaries, and at least one of the victims-a real victim here, not some cruising carnality-seeker who got what he deserved-isn’t gay. I hope your group has a defense fund, because you might wind up facing a slander suit.”

“I don’t consider it slanderous to say someone is gay.”

“Well, you-I suppose if we had to depend on people like you to set community standards, we’d all be running around in dog collars and mesh stockings.”

“What you do in your leisure time, Mr. Yeager, is between you and your partners. Assuming they’re consenting adults.”

Tess and Crow exchanged a quick high-five. Point for Cecilia. Really Face Time was better than Maryland basketball in some ways.

But this game was rigged in the home team’s favor.

“You were wrong about the link. Are you ready to admit that?”

Cecilia shook her head. “I can’t explain the police’s work to you. But nothing you’ve said, or they’ve said, would refute our point: Shawn Hayes was attacked because of his sexuality. Bobby Hilliard may have been killed for the same reason, I don’t know. I do know we should not wait until we have three, four, five victims. I think one is bad enough.”