A Conspiracy of Fear Read online

“I love all of you. I just take a while longer for my fuse to be lit. I want to make sure there’s a reason.”

  “I think I see a reason.”

  “As do I, but figuring out what to do about this, about how to heal our wounds, both physical and psychic, is going to take time. I think arguing with each other is one way of getting our emotions out. Maybe we’d rather fight with each other than face the horror of what did happen and what could have happened. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Ever.”

  “I don’t want to upset you. I don’t want to tell you what to do.” I held out my hands to him. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ll lose you. I almost lost you.”

  “I’m afraid too.”

  “I want the pain to stop. I want the hate to stop. I want the fighting to stop. I don’t want to hurt anymore.” By the time I was finished I was crying, and he had me in his arms. I kept murmuring, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His warm arms enveloped me and held me tight.

  That night we didn’t make love. I fell asleep first and had the first decent night’s sleep since the massacre.

  FORTY

  Monday - 9:07 A.M.

  In the morning I found Scott in his downstairs workshop carving a piece of wood. It was about two-thirds finished. I could see it would be a twenty-four inch tall, Eeyore, my favorite Pooh character. I admired the work and kissed him good morning.

  I poured myself coffee and made sure he had some. “We okay?” I asked.

  “I am. I love you.”

  I held him tight.

  We hovered around each other as we ate toast and coffee. Then I called the answering service. I returned Molton’s call first.

  When I finished with him, I told Scott that Molton wanted to see us for an update. We drove to Area Ten headquarters.

  The Commander led us upstairs to the squad room. A cluster of detectives were grouped around a large monitor. We’d met Detectives Paul Turner and Buck Fenwick on a prior case some years before. We said hello then turned to the case at hand.

  Molton filled us in. They showed us a huge spreadsheet on a monitor filled with myriad details. Some the simplest, date of birth, phone numbers, addresses. Others with who was connected to whom and how. Molton showed it to us and then shook his head. “Basically we’ve made no progress.”

  Since Fulham wasn’t the murderer, and Molton had his hands full, I figured the revelation about what he’d done in St. Louis would cause no repercussions to fall on the sad old man. We explained what we’d learned about Fulham and included the danger and/or odd behaviors in Nebraska and St. Louis.

  Molton said, “This is the old guy who is claiming it’s all about him and making the accusations about discrimination decades ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve been checking it out since the accusation came to our attention from the Internet.” Molton shook his head. “We’ve been unable to establish any connection. He may have gotten the short end of the stick for his career. As for the massacre, well, it’s kind of like those who feel it’s their fault. There are those who feel it was aimed at them. Sort of the same thing.”

  Turner had taken notes while we talked. He now sat at a desk and began to add rows and columns with Fulham’s name and those who were connected to him that we’d just given to the spreadsheet. We watched the monitor expand in real time.

  Molton said, “We need to get phone records and re-interview all these people and the new ones to find out who knew who. Get that Darryl person in here.”

  Detectives scattered to run out and get started on what we’d told them.

  Molton shook his head. “I can make no sense of what’s happened. Danger for you guys throughout the Midwest? I just don’t see how this works into solving the massacre, but it’s an anomaly. I don’t like them. That St. Louis private security firm stuff is strange. I’ll call the police down there, and the security firm, and check it out.” He gazed at the spreadsheet on the monitor. “Nothing is a coincidence, or at least we don’t treat it as such, but you might have stumbled on a clue.”

  Scott asked, “A good one?”

  Molton gave a short, sharp laugh. “When you’ve got nothing, like we do now, any bit of something is gold. With this case we follow everything. In light of the new people you’ve met and the continuing danger you’ve faced, I’d like you both to go over some videos.” Molton saw our looks. “Yes, I know there are hours and hours of tedious work. We’ve culled the most relevant. You want car chases? Try the movies. This is real police work.”

  Scott looked at me. “Tedious, dull, and boring. You should love it.”

  To Molton I said, “If you think it will help.”

  Molton gave us a rueful look. “I don’t have a clue what will help at this point. One, you’ll be safe in the basement here. No one ever goes down there except the biggest nerds in the department.”

  I saw Fenwick give a brief smile.

  Molton continued, “Two, everybody else has looked at the damn things. You’re in danger. You’ve met some people others haven’t. Who knows what you’ll see? Probably nothing. In this case, we’ve got time to spend on the little bit of something you’ve given us. Maybe it will lead to something. I’m not dismissing it until we’ve tried.”

  We agreed.

  They sat us in front of a twenty-four inch monitor in a cement-block-walled basement room. We didn’t want to watch separate screens because we didn’t want to miss something the other might catch.

  We looked at them for hours. The people we saw ran the gamut of any vast collection of random humans. Included in this were a lot of thin, rangy guys in jeans and in other kinds of pants, with cowboy boots and with regular shoes. Not that many cowboy boots, since it was Chicago.

  It wasn’t toting barges and lifting bales, but it was boring, even for me who specializes in boring.

  At noon they brought us sandwiches and water. We continued looking. Around two o’clock I sat up and stared at the screen. I rewound it several minutes then hit forward.

  “What?” Scott asked.

  “That cannot be.”

  He peered at the screen. “Not the damn belt buckle.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of fuzzy.”

  “I know it’s the same. Even the idiot mayor wore one. It has a unique design, sort of a Fulham family crest.”

  Scott tapped the screen. “Is this the mayor?”

  I squinted. “I can’t tell.”

  “Or anyone else you met here or in Nebraska or, what the hell, St. Louis?”

  My nose was within inches of the screen. I shook my head. “I can’t tell.” We hit zoom to enhance the figure. I called up the pictures on my phone of the Fulhams that Millicent had sent. Scott and I went back and forth from monitor to phone screen for an hour. Nothing.

  We asked if Molton could join us. When he arrived and we explained, he shook his head. “There could be thousands of those belt buckles.”

  I explained why it was supposed to be unique.

  He said, “But you’re not sure who this is?”

  The face was blurry. It was from an underground passageway and ill-lit.

  “No,” I said.

  “I’ll put my tech people on it. We’ll run all the video again looking for this and try to match anything anywhere in the vicinity of the gallery, at the airport, hell in the whole city if it takes that.”

  I said, “It might not be anything.”

  Molton smiled, “You know how much nothing we’ve had so far? This will give the tech people something a little specific to look for. Maybe it will give us someone as well.”

  I asked, “Does this mean the old guy had something to do with it?”

  Molton shook his head. “You were standing practically right next to him when the shooting started. We’ll try to talk to him, but sometimes it’s as hard getting something useful in an investigation out of an old person as it is a child. Their memories are shot, and they lie better than kids.”

  We looked for another hour, but found nothing. I was r
estless.

  “What?” Scott asked.

  I ran the bit where I’d seen the belt buckle. There it was again. I said, “I want to talk to that lying sack of shit.”

  “Who?”

  “Fulham.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Monday - 4:10 P.M.

  We told Molton where we were going then hurried to the hospital.

  I called Todd from the car, put him on speakerphone, and told him the news.

  His response came in his shrillest tone. “A gay serial killer! A gay mass murderer! He’ll be infamous. His reputation will tarnish the gay community for years.”

  “Only the prejudiced will go there.” Scott reminded him, “He couldn’t have pulled the trigger. He was inside with us.”

  I said, “He was in on it with some member of his family.”

  “Why?”

  This stumped me.

  Todd said, “This will resound for years, if it’s true.” We rang off.

  I pulled in deep breaths. I felt tears start. “He was trying to kill you. All those people died. The man is a horror.”

  “He led a long confused life of hate and fear.”

  “Are you trying to excuse him?”

  He let a silence draw out then said, “You know I’m not. You’ve said it yourself. A violent reaction to having violence done to you is understandable. We are not all Gandhi. You know that’s what the vicious count on, that we’ll be passive.”

  “Do we turn him in?”

  “He’ll be lucky to live long enough to go to trial.”

  “And his fellow conspirators? Who was on that roof? We’ve got a conspirator but not a killer.”

  We entered his hospital room. Scott motioned Darryl to the door and took him into the hallway. We’d agreed we might be more likely to get the truth if it was just the old man and I.

  I sat in the chair next to the bed. Fulham’s eyes were closed. I saw the slight shifting of the sheet over his chest as the murmurs of the rattles of his breath went in and out.

  I couldn’t stand to look at the man. I didn’t want to be in his presence. I didn’t want what I knew to be the truth to be confirmed by this sad duplicitous son of a bitch.

  He woke, looked at me, smiled for an instant, then his face fell to panic.

  “Have detectives been here?” I asked.

  “Why did you tell them I killed someone?”

  “I didn’t. I told them what I knew.”

  “I sent them away.”

  “The truth is going to come out.”

  In his raspy voice he demanded, “Whose truth?”

  I asked, “Why try to kill Scott?”

  He shut his eyes. His tongue flicked out and in. He pursed his lips. He let out a long exhale. For a moment I thought he’d stopped breathing.

  I was horrified at myself that I hoped he was dead.

  His eyes opened and he looked at me. I guess I wasn’t able to keep the expression of dismay off my face.

  “You know,” he whispered. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that I had to lean forward to hear him. I inched the chair closer, but I still couldn’t make out the words. I moved to the edge of the bed and leaned so that my ear was within a foot of his lips.

  The smell was antiseptic.

  He gulped great gusts of breath with each phrase. “I didn’t see why you should have what I never could. You and Scott had love, had each other, had a life of happiness.”

  I demanded, “What were our lives to you?”

  Was our conversation sapping his strength? Was I killing him? Or were ninety-three hate and fear filled years catching up to him? I forgot my fears and listened.

  His eyes sought mine. “Everything.” He gasped and wheezed. I couldn’t find an ounce of pity left.

  My voice was a harsh whisper. “Everything what?”

  “I’ve been angry for a long, long, long time. I wanted relief from so much hate.”

  “Why not talk to a therapist? Why kill Scott?”

  “You think ninety-three years of being a shit comes easy? I wanted him to die. I wanted to be the one inflicting pain this time.”

  I just kept my eyes on his until he looked away. “I wanted him to die, and I wanted you to suffer.”

  I knew I was looking into the face of pure evil.

  I said, “Who was your accomplice on the roof?”

  “It wasn’t hard to find one of the gun nuts who was angry at that stupid sculpture.”

  “Who?”

  His body seemed to shrink back.

  “Your niece came to reach out to you? That’s what started all this in motion. Why?”

  “I needed money. Darryl’s last few checks were a bit late.”

  “He never said anything.”

  “He was loyal.” He coughed and swallowed. “Millicent came, but I couldn’t face her. But I needed cash. The family has tons of money, which I should have by rights inherited. They owed me after all these years. They’re all gun crazy. They hate gay people.”

  “You made an alliance with homophobic pigs to kill your own? Who came to you?”

  “Malcolm came to me.” I’d met Malcolm at his feed store in Farthingdale.

  Peter’s tongue licked out at his lips. “He came to order me not to meet with Millicent or anyone else, ever.”

  “Why didn’t he just tell Millicent’s parents?”

  “Once we were plotting, he didn’t want to give away his visiting me. For doing that, he’d have been drummed out of the family as well. But I was using the dumb son of a bitch for my own purposes. It’s so easy to twist those who hate. You don’t need facts. You just need to feed their prejudices. So I did.”

  He paused, gasped for air, then after a few moments settled back. His tongue flicked out again. His lips were cracked. He whispered, “Ice.”

  A large bucket filled with cubes and chips sat on the bed table. Yes, I could do a bit of kindness for a total shit. I don’t think I get the saints points because I felt hatred for him burgeoning in my heart and mind. I used a washcloth draped on the edge of the bucket to pick up a small lump of ice.

  “Please,” he said.

  I dabbed and wiped the ice along his lips. His tongue seemed to follow the coolness. I stopped after a few minutes. He closed his lips, shut his eyes, and leaned his head back.

  I put the washcloth and residue in the bucket. I’m afraid the old folk music shaggy-dog song, “There’s a Hole in the Bucket,” flashed in my mind, Odetta’s version of course.

  I settled back on the edge of the bed. I said, “I’m not going anywhere. Why’d Malcolm agree?”

  “We argued about money, about the scandal I was willing to cause the whole family. In their middle-of-the-last-century Nebraska world, they wouldn’t have been able to hold up their heads.” He drew in several deep breaths. “He hates gay people. He wanted to make a statement that would change the world.”

  “You went back for help to people who could hate you and kill you in the middle of a cornfield late at night?”

  “Hatred has its reasons. He came to forbid and command, but I convinced him to stay and conspire. He thought he could stop my autobiography.”

  “Why not just kill you then?”

  “He couldn’t kill someone from his own family.” He smiled. “Ya gotta have some standards.”

  I wanted to put a pillow over his head and smother him.

  “It was my plan. The diversion with the fireworks. All of it. I wanted you both to die, but Scott most of all. He had what I could never have.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You. A true love. Happiness. I had a lifetime I could never get back.”

  “So we shouldn’t have fought all these years so the world could stay just as shitty for gay people so you wouldn’t feel bad about your life? You sick son of a bitch.”

  “You won’t turn me in.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you do, then you will give the gay community a black eye for years. The perpetrator of the Great Chicago M
assacre was gay? You won’t do it. You’re loyal to your community.”

  “You delusional asshole. I understand how someone with the disappointments you’ve been through, a hideous childhood, the death of a man you loved, a career disappointment. It’s all sad and poignant. I understand it, you fucking son of a bitch, but that doesn’t mean I’m a traitor to all that is human and decent. You dumb fuck. You’re guilty as sin.”

  I drew in ragged breaths and went on. “I’m afraid I understand it. You’ve been shit on, and put down, and bullied, and demeaned, and if you get angry and fight back, you are demeaned and ridiculed for being angry. Fury at the failures in this life makes sense. But why try to kill us? Why not kill them?”

  “Them who?”

  “Why not kill Zalachis, or any of the huge number of random homophobes that exist?”

  “I hated you every time I saw pictures of you or saw stories about you. When I reconnected with Malcolm, I saw a chance. I wanted you to suffer the loss for the rest of your days. That’s all this is. To make myself feel better. So the damn thundering in my head would go away. To make you as afraid as I’ve been all my life.”

  “So telling me the story at the gallery was a diversion?”

  He settled himself into his sheets and continued, “And a confession. That night at the gallery, I wanted to get you away from him.”

  “You made the whole thing up about killing Kemmler.”

  He shook his head. “No, that part was true. I did think I killed him. All these years I thought I had. It’s what made planning this easier. I’d killed once. I could again. I’d lost every man I ever tried to love. Maybe I wasn’t good at it.”

  “Offering blow jobs is a way to get love?”

  “Yeah, well, I took what I could get.”

  I said, “You could have died in the attack.”

  “For which I would have been grateful. I’m old. I’ll be gone soon, but your suffering would have lasted for years.”

  Scott and Darryl entered the room followed by a tall nurse in a maroon uniform. I glanced down at his shoes. Cowboy boots. Then I saw the gun the nurse had leveled at their backs. I looked again at the nurse’s face.

  It was Malcolm Fulham, and as we’d thought, he had been disguised as cop, rescue worker, or some kind of medical person in order to escape the scene.