One Dead Drag Queen Read online

  One

  Dead

  Drag Queen

  By Mark Richard Zubro

  The Tom and Scott Mysteries

  A Simple Suburban Murder

  Why Isn’t Becky Twitchell Dead?

  The Only Good Priest

  The Principal Cause of Death

  An Echo of Death

  Rust on the Razor

  Are You Nuts?

  One Dead Drag Queen

  The Paul Turner Mysteries

  Sorry Now?

  Political Poison

  Another Dead Teenager

  The Truth Can Get You Killed

  Drop Dead

  One

  Dead

  Drag Queen

  Mark Richard Zubro

  ONE DEAD DRAG QUEEN. Copyright © 2000 by Mark Richard Zubro. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Zubro, Mark Richard.

  One dead drag queen / Mark Richard Zubro.–1st St. Martin’s

  ed.

  p. cm.

  “The Tom and Scott mysteries”-p. i.

  ISBN 0-312-20937-1 ISBN 978-0-312-20937-7

  1. Carpenter, Scott (Fictitious character)–Fiction. 2. Mason,

  Tom (Fictitious character)–Fiction. 3. High school teachers–

  Fiction. 4. Baseball players–Fiction. 5. Chicago (Ill.)–Fiction.

  6. Gay men–Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3576.U225 O54 2000

  813′.54–dc21

  00–029674

  First Edition: July 2000

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Ric Carlson—for courage and hope

  For Paul Varnell—for chocolate and companionship

  One

  Dead

  Drag Queen

  1

  The death threats had started in June of last year. The number of anonymous phone calls and threatening letters had increased week by week, and a tap on the phone had done no good. Calls from pay phones, calls from area codes not hooked up for caller-ID tracing, calls using the caller-ID block, all very untraceable. Finally, after changing our phone number three times, we got a service to screen our calls. Everyone, including our parents, has to go through the service. Twice someone had broken into the phone company’s computer system and gotten the direct number. I had answered the phone both times. Even though I’d slammed the receiver down as soon as the obscenities started, it was never fast enough to stop the motes of terror from trembling at the edge of consciousness. Every time the phone rings now, I hesitate. Is this the time it’s going to be some lunatic who’s going to try going beyond threats?

  All our mail is screened through metal detectors. Any packages not sent by someone we know are dealt with by bomb experts.

  My paranoia had grown so much that I’d hired a security firm for the times when I make pubic appearances. They prevented any major attacks, but they weren’t able to stop the excess of minor annoyances. I’m not sure anyone could. There are just too many crazies in the world.

  A doorman at the penthouse, an alarm system at Tom’s place—I thought they would be enough, at least enough against an individual madman. Even I didn’t expect a terrorist attack.

  Tom says it a lot, that he’d never live in fear, but that’s all we’ve done lately. Live in fear.

  Complicating all this is that Tom is a worrier by nature. He’s good at it too. Even if nothing is going wrong, he can dredge up obscure problems to brood and fret over. What’s worse is that lately I’ve caught the worry bug from him.

  Until that Saturday, I always figured I was the one in the most danger. My memories of the early part of the day are very clear.

  I cleaned all morning. Yeah, I have a maid service come in, but there’s just a whole lot of clutter and personal mess that I attend to. And I like to go around to all the rooms and put on the finishing touches. Tom is reasonably good about being tidy. His attention to detail doesn’t match my standards, but he’s much better than he used to be. Still, I wish he helped with the cleaning more than he does. That man sheds enough hair of a morning in a bathroom to start his own fur farm—the price for having a furry-chested lover. Tom once said that I was obsessive-compulsive about cleaning. I admit neatness is important to me, but he doesn’t use that phrase anymore. Not after a fight we had seven years ago, which began with him using that phrase. At the time I felt compelled to remind him of several of his failings. We compromised. I eased up on him. He cleaned more.

  That morning, Tom left at seven. He’d volunteered to help with the office work for a friend of his at the Human Services Clinic. I did a light workout and then began doing chores.

  When I clean, I play annoying country music. Loudly. Loud enough to be heard in Indiana, maybe. When Tom’s out of the house, I can play the kind of music I grew up with, but which he hates. I also sing along with the music. Loudly. I confine my singing to the privacy of my own home. Tom says this is a good thing.

  It took less than an hour to finish all the bathrooms and the kitchen. After a couple loads of laundry, a little dusting and light vacuuming, I was onto the fourth repeat of the new Garth Brooks CD and ready for lunch.

  The afternoon was great. I had been looking forward to spending the time working on a rocking chair I’d been building. I’d started making it several weeks ago. It’s going to take months to finish. Solid oak. Precise measurements. No music now. Just silence. The smell of wood—newly sawn and freshly sanded. Studying plans. My hands touching, eyes judging. Adding individual touches such as minute carved figures in the sides of the arms and runners. I’d learned carpentry and carving from my granddad during long summer twilights in the old barn on his farm down the road from my folks’ place. The rocker was for my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Mostly of an evening they sit on the porch on their farm in Georgia rocking and listening to the insects. The joy, tedium, and precision involved in such a project erase all thoughts of time as I immerse myself in creating.

  I finished sanding the left runner about six. I shut my eyes and slowly caressed the newly worked bare wood. I opened my eyes, leaned back against my workbench, and enjoyed the pleasurable exhaustion I get when I’ve worked hard, and I can see and feel my own handiwork taking shape.

  I wondered if I should clean up before Tom got home. He was a little late, but when he’d left, he’d said he wasn’t sure how long it would take. We didn’t have firm dinner plans. I wasn’t in the mood to go out. I was ready for a quiet evening at home.

  I finished my shower just as the broadcast of the late-Saturday-afternoon college football game should have been ending. Instead, WBBM, the CBS affiliate in Chicago, was showing a special news report. A street scene. The reporter standing directly in front of a slew of emergency vehicles. Rotating lights in the immediate background. Farther behind, flames gushed from the front of a building. I recognized the local reporter, Brandon Kearn. He worked for MCT, Metro Chicago Television, which was started five years ago to rival CLTV as a local news source. Kearn was as famous for his good looks as he was for his legendary salary negotiations—he was by far the highest-paid reporter in the city. I wondered why he was on CBS and what part of Chicago had caught fire this time. I reached for the remote to change the channel. Just because another building is burning doesn’t mean I’ve got to watch. Nor did I want to see the unfortunate victims or inarticulate bystanders being interviewed live.

  But
I couldn’t find the damn TV remote. Why Tom can’t put it back in the same place every time, I don’t know.

  Kearn was saying, “. . . ripped apart most of this city block fifteen minutes ago. There are six people confirmed dead. There are believed to be numerous victims still in the rubble. The fire department is working frantically to keep the blaze from spreading so possible survivors can be rescued from under the debris. It doesn’t look good.”

  I found the remote under the seat cushion where it had slipped the night before as I was watching TV. My fault this time.

  My hand froze on the controls as Kearn continued, “The Human Services Clinic was among the buildings almost completely obliterated.”

  2

  My memories of the rest of that night come back to me in disconnected flashes. I know I peered closely at the street scene behind the reporter. I recognized nothing. It was late and the clinic must have been closed. Probably everyone had left.

  The phone rang.

  Queasiness burbled in my stomach. A crazed computer hacker with a hate-on for us, or Tom calling to reassure me? The woman at the answering service said, “You have an urgent call.” She gave me the number. It was a 773 area code, which meant it was anywhere in the city of Chicago outside the Loop.

  I tapped in the numbers. It rang seven times before someone answered.

  I didn’t recognize the voice. I said who I was. The other person said, “This is Gloria Dellios. I work with Tom Mason at the Human Services Clinic. There’s been an explosion.”

  “How is Tom?”

  “No one has seen him. They think he’s trapped under the rubble. I’m sorry. They’ve pulled out a number of people alive. There’s still hope.”

  I don’t remember hanging up the phone. I barely remember throwing on socks, jeans, shoes, and a sweatshirt, then grabbing my wallet and car keys. I remember wiping away tears as I took the elevator to the ground floor. Outside, it was a cloudless, crisp, perfect October evening.

  I recall running several red lights on Michigan Avenue and not caring who beeped and cursed. I remember thinking about losing Tom and being without him for the rest of my life. I know I thought about all the things we wouldn’t be able to do together. I guess it sounds sappy, but I remember thinking it was too perfect a day for Tom to die. Maybe some of this sounds like cheap sentiment, but I don’t care. Tom knows how to use words—he’s the English teacher, not me—and Tom always says he loves cheap sentiment. That Dickens made a career out of it. I’ve never read Dickens. I just know I love Tom.

  The Human Services Clinic wasn’t one building. It had started in a three-story former home on the northwest corner and had gradually expanded over the years to encompass all the buildings on the North Side of Fulton all the way from Racine to Elizabeth. Most of the buildings were over a century old.

  I took Grand Avenue over the Chicago River and turned south on Racine. Maybe the trip took ten minutes. Maybe five. I couldn’t get within four blocks of the place. Parking on the near west and north sides of Chicago is hellish at the best of times. I found an empty spot in a little parking lot under the el tracks. The clinic paid to have these few spaces at a distance from the entrance as a staging ground for patients to be escorted from. I saw Tom’s truck parked next to one of the struts supporting the el. As I got out of my car, a train rumbled by overhead. The cacophony it made was unable to drown out the screaming sirens still approaching the scene.

  My first impression was of people frantically rushing about. Firemen, paramedics, and cops swarmed over the area. They were far outnumbered by the injured and the passersby giving assistance to them. People dripping blood were being carried away from the scene. The ambulatory were gently escorted to a triage area to await their turn. Sitting at a curb was a woman with a gash across her forehead. She held a weeping child.

  I saw someone on a stretcher being wheeled up to a waiting ambulance. I hurried to get as close as I could. It was a black woman. I stopped a guy in fire gear to try to get information.

  He said, “Nobody knows anything definite.”

  “My lover was working in the clinic today.”

  “I’m sorry, buddy.” He tried to pull out of my grasp.

  I held on to his arm. “Who would know if he’d gotten out?”

  “I don’t know who could tell you. I gotta go.”

  “What if he’s in there? Are they going to be able to stop the fire?”

  “There’s a chance.” The fireman pointed. “The fire’s at the far end of the block near Carroll Street. They’re doing everything they can to stop the spread.” I let him go.

  I got as close as I could to the destruction. I was on Fulton Street halfway between Racine and Elizabeth. The entire city block from Carroll to Fulton and Racine to Elizabeth had been nearly obliterated. Masses of debris, great heaps of rubble, shattered glass, innumerable fragments of people’s lives, were scattered between me and the center core of devastation. To the east of the devastated block across Racine Street, several buildings, including the new Health and Fitness Forever Club, had been severely damaged.

  Rescue workers swarmed over the building remnants at the end of the block near me. Few glanced at the approaching flames. In the street nearby, every few moments someone would rush about bringing injured from the scene or toting stretchers to it.

  No one stood and stared at the devastation. No one told me to go away. I moved forward to help.

  Rotating lights, flames inching closer, car and truck headlights, orange streetlights, burnt-out cars. It felt and looked wickedly strange. I’d dropped Tom off at the clinic several times, but I was even more familiar with the neighborhood from the deli we stopped at once in a while on Carroll Street. Mr. and Mrs. Fattatuchi served the best chicken salad in the city. Flames were already past where their restaurant had been. They were a sweet old couple. Saturday night was the busiest of the week for them. They would have been inside when the explosion came.

  The block had been a mix of upscale urban renewal projects next to three- and four-story buildings long past the need for a wrecking ball. Like the clinic complex, many of these were over a hundred years old. Many were caught in a lawsuit between preservationists and developers. That suit would be moot now. Lots of these buildings were “residential hotels,” a synonym often used in more polite circles to describe a flophouse. The newer buildings had brightly lit, glass-fronted, trendy retail stores in first floors, mostly offices and a few lofts on the floors above.

  Along the block, between the fire and me, parts of interiors and a few exterior walls still stood. For the one hundred yards nearest to me, not much remained above two feet high. I wondered how anyone had gotten out alive.

  The Human Services Clinic had been a focal point for protesters for years. The clinic gave prenatal care and family planning counseling as well as performing abortions. If it was a slow news day, the local press could count on at least a few people from one or both sides in the controversy being in front of the building. Usually there were a couple bored cops making sure the two sides kept apart. Quite a while back when the picketing had started, the demonstrations had become violent, but I didn’t remember hearing anything in that vein for a long time.

  They didn’t let Tom work out front where the women came in. Some of the clientele and a few of the employees were pretty hostile to the presence of men. That was okay with Tom. He worked in the basement. Filing, typing, stuffing envelopes.

  A woman approached me. Her blue jeans were torn. One sleeve of her white shirt was ripped off at the shoulder. A large bandage covered that arm from wrist to elbow. The remnant of the shirt was covered with grime and dirt.

  “Scott Carpenter?”

  I was wary as I always seemed to be of strangers these days. “Yeah?”

  “I’m Gloria Dellios. I recognize you from your pictures in the media.”

  “Is Tom all right?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” She pointed halfway down the block. “There’s an alley down there. Debr
is was blown from that point outward in all directions. There’s a huge crater in the ground. The clinic was at this end of the block. I was on the steps walking out when the explosion happened. I was lucky, I was in front of one of the stone pillars. Still I was thrown halfway across the street. I’m afraid Tom was working in the back, about a third of the way down the block from the explosion.”

  I felt tears.

  “The fire isn’t near there yet. It started on the south side of Carroll Street. They’ve pulled out eight survivors from the clinic so far, so there’s still hope.”

  A bulldozer lumbered up to the entrance of the alley. I figured they were trying to move the debris to create a firebreak. At the moment it looked as if it might not be necessary. Water cascaded from four different hoses between the fire and this half of the block. At this point I could barely see any flames.

  “Is there anyone who knows anything definite?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure anyone would really have information beyond what we can see. Everybody’s concentrating on stopping the fire and getting people out first, then they’ll start investigating.”

  I hated the reasonableness of her words.

  I found a group of people clearing debris near where I thought Tom might have been working. Twenty feet away, a line of ambulances moved almost continuously as victims were hurried inside. I wanted to stay close to the medical personnel. Where they worked was the most likely spot to bring Tom when they found him.

  I wondered how they would be able to discern any desperate voice through the frantic sounds of the emergency vehicles. The innumerable fire personnel were forced to add to the noise and confusion as they performed their essential tasks.