A Kind of Justice (36 page)

“Maybe you could bring a male prostitute to brighten my spirits and clean out my plumbing, as Cecelia would say.” Betsy doubles over with laughter, her voice rising higher. I laugh so hard I can't breathe.

She tilts her head up so her face is inches from mine. I can feel her breath on my face and see the redness of her cheeks and the fullness of her beautiful smile. She's grinning like a child on Christmas morning. “I love you,” she says. She throws her arms around my neck and pulls us together in a cheek-to-cheek hug. It is warm and perfect.

I try to breathe in every molecule of air Betsy exhales, I memorize everything, her scent, the angle of the sun on her face, the warmth of our bodies crushed together, my arms around her, her hooded cheek against mine, Robbie's excited footsteps as she jumps on Betsy,
making us both grunt. Cecelia kneeling beside us and putting her arms around us all.

This is a movie that will play in my mind for all the years I have a mind. It will bring light and sound wherever I am, whether it's a prison cell or a beauty salon.

W
EDNESDAY
, D
ECEMBER
24

R
OBBIE IS SLEEPING
and our fingers are finally warm enough to wrap presents. Lighthearted banter fills the room.

Cecelia stops wrapping and stares at me. “You're in an awfully good mood. What's going on?”

“Lots of things.” I talk about feeling good about the salon, and the outlook for Betsy and Robbie, and the joy of the Christmas season. “And also,” I add, “my soul is free. I confessed to Wilkins.”

Cecelia and Betsy gasp. Betsy's face is stricken with fear, Cecelia couldn't be more flabbergasted if the FBI were bashing in the door.

“What?” says Cecelia.

“But you told me you didn't do it,” wails Betsy. “You murdered that man?”

“I didn't murder him, but I abducted him, and I confessed to that. Someone else did the murder.”

“You confessed to Detective Wilkins?” Betsy exclaims. “Why didn't he arrest you?”

“It was off the record,” I explain. “When he turns in his report, the DA will send people to take my statement.”

“Thank goodness,” says Cecelia. Her relief is palpable.

“I'm going to tell them what I told Wilkins,” I say.

Cecelia explodes. “No! Are you crazy? Refer them to your attorney,
that's why you have her. You don't have to give self-incriminating testimony. It's in all the television shows.”

“Please listen to Cecelia,” says Betsy.

“You were right, Betsy. Back when you said I have too many secrets. Some of my secrets were just lies I hadn't told yet, things about myself I don't want other people to know. I can't do that anymore. I lived with a secret about myself for most of my life because I was ashamed to admit I was a woman. When I finally came out, it was like being born. It was horrible and wonderful at the same time, but even in the darkest moments, I was finally me. It was wonderful. Almost perfect. Except for the Strand murder.

“I'm not living with that secret anymore. I kidnapped him because he was going to kill me, and no one could protect me. I didn't kill him, but I kidnapped him with that intention. I'm going to tell my truth to the DA and let the chips fall where they may.”

Cecelia glowers at me. “You're having an attack of suicidal insanity. Let it pass.”

Betsy takes my hand. “Let's think about it for a few days. I'm sure nothing will happen until after Christmas.”

“Amen to that,” says Cecelia. “Bobbi, jail is cold and gray and mean. What would a softie like you do in a place like that?”

“At least I'd go as a woman,” I answer. “And I'd still be able to do hair. Wherever there are women, there are women who want their hair done.”

We wrap gifts in a funereal silence. Betsy and Cecelia both pause now and then to dab away tears. I feel awful for casting such a pall on the party.

The buzz of the doorbell jolts us all. Officer Phil is standing at the threshold, a box in his hands. I open the door and invite him in.

“Hi, everyone.” He waves. Betsy and Cecelia manage welcoming smiles. He hands me the box. “This was at your door.”

I offer him a libation and Santa cookies, but he has a serious expression on his face.

“Bobbi,” he says, “I have some news about Wilkins. Can we talk privately?”

“We've just been talking about him,” I say. “You can share your news with everyone.”

Phil is uncharacteristically flustered at my response. Incredible. A guy who talks to the media every day gets tongue tied with an audience of three? “Okay,” he says. He pauses, like he's working up his courage. I feel like the Chicago PD riot squad is going to come barging in any moment.

“Wilkins is dead,” says Phil. “He killed himself this morning.”

I feel like I've been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. “Oh that poor man.” Tears come streaming down my face. I keep seeing the distorted faces of the oral cancer survivors. “Suicide?” My voice squeaks. Phil puts a hand on my arm. I bury my face against his shoulder, and he hugs me while I cry.

“My goodness,” says Betsy. “Oh my goodness.”

When I stop crying and look up, Cecelia locks eyes with me. “It's a sign,” she says.

“What kind of sign?”

“A shut-up sign!” Cecelia is emphatic. “The investigation might die with him.”

“That's what I came to say,” says Phil. “I'm not sure what happened to his evidence book. It wasn't at the station and it wasn't in his apartment. Just sit tight and let's see what happens.”

“Thanks for your concern,” I say to Phil. “But, I have my own ideas about these things.”

He smiles a little. “If you ever took my word for anything I'd have to arrest you for impersonating Bobbi Logan. But Bobbi, remember, if you come forward, you could affect the lives of other people who might have been involved in that case.”

“Like who? What do you know you're not telling me?”

He asks Betsy and Cecelia if he can have a private moment with me. I take him to the kitchen.

“Maybe Wilkins told me more than one person was involved in the crime,” he says.

Phil is being too coy. “Maybe?” I echo. “Did he or didn't he?”

“Just think about it,” he whispers. “It's not just about you. If the case dies with him, maybe you should let it.”

I gape at him. It's one thing for Cecelia to counsel silence, it's quite another when a cop does. I wonder who he's protecting. When words finally come to me, they aren't profound. “Well, thanks for thinking of me,” I say.

“I've never stopped thinking of you.” His eyes are soft and sincere, his face serious and handsome. A tingle of arousal stimulates my need to break the somber mood in this place.

“Hey, big boy,” I say, trying to effect a Mae West voice. “If I end up in prison, will you drop in on conjugal visit day?”

Phil stays serious. “Don't even think about prison,” he says. “Fate has intervened. Accept it.”

Betsy intervenes, calling us all to the table for hot chocolate laced with a chocolate-flavored liqueur. It is more delicious than chocolate cake and probably more fattening. We engage in sporadic, lazy conversation about nothing, a moment of limp bodies and peaceful minds. When the moment passes, Phil excuses himself, then Cecelia.

Betsy and I tidy up the kitchen, change into nightgowns, and share the bathroom to do our nightly routines. We finish with a hug, a little tighter and longer than usual, and we share the melancholy thought that this may be our last Christmas together for a very long time. As I start for my bedroom, Betsy takes my hand.

“Please hold me tonight, until I fall asleep?”

My answer is a kiss on the cheek. We pad down the hall to her room, slide under the covers, and spoon, my front against her back,
my arm around her, my face nuzzling against her neck. As I drowse toward slumber, I'm recalling the song about making this moment last forever.

*    *    *

T
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
25

Christmas morning begins when Robbie climbs on my body and pries one of my eyelids open.

“Are you awake, Aunt Bobbi?” she whispers.

I laugh out loud, my body shaking, my mouth trying to muffle the noise. This has to be the oldest and sweetest tradition in Christendom, the wondrous child rousting the slumberous adults on Christmas morning with the old eyelid-peel maneuver.

I am still in Betsy's bed, we are still spooned, my left arm still embraces her. My movement and noise has stirred her, but not to wakefulness.

I kiss Robbie and gesture for her to snuggle between Betsy and me. Her face lights up. Robbie's snuggling is laced with wiggles and giggles and eventually wakes Betsy. She rolls onto her back, a Mona Lisa smile on her face. She kisses Robbie and hugs her for a long moment, then reaches over to touch one hand to my cheek. “I love you,” she says softly. She's saying it to both of us. We turn to face each other, Robbie in the middle, and share a group cuddle. It's like the perfect dessert at the end of a perfect meal.

The moment passes quickly. Robbie is anxious to behold Christmas morning, to see the tree, start the music, open gifts, put the popcorn out for the animals, and to express herself the way children do, with movement and laughter.

Before we follow her into the living room, Betsy puts her arms
around me and kisses me on the lips, a sister kiss. “Thank you for last night,” she says. I hug her tight. I feel like I am part of a family, a real one where we love each other, even when we disagree, even when we disappoint. Another first, in a season of firsts.

*    *    *

T
HURSDAY
, D
ECEMBER
25

Cecelia arrives at nine, laden with a group-sized container of Starbucks coffee and a huge shopping bag filled with presents and a half dozen cinnamon rolls, each one a gooey, eight-hundred-calorie assault on the waistline.

We open gifts and dine and sip and trade Christmas stories, then talk about our favorite Christmas movies. I talk about
A Christmas Story
. I was a lot like Ralphie as a little boy, so I could identify with him. But deep down inside, I wanted to be his mom. She was beautiful and sexy in an earthy way and selflessly loving. Everything I wished I could be as a woman. And I loved her curls.

At midmorning we pile into Cecelia's Caddy and do our Christmas rounds. We stop at Marilee's house and drop off small presents, have a cup of coffee, and enjoy Marilee's homemade rolls. Robbie engages Marilee in a game of hide-and-seek, always hiding behind their beautiful Christmas tree, always delighted to be found. At noon we head for the TransRising building, stopping at a catering firm on the way to pick up a Christmas dinner for twenty people—the residents and their friends. This is just part of Cecelia's holiday largesse. When the residents opened gifts this morning, each of them got a card with five crisp twenty-dollar bills in it. The cards were signed “Santa” but the elf in charge was Cecelia. The old softie.

We return home in the early afternoon to start preparing our
Christmas dinner. Cecelia leaves to complete her rounds of friends and causes. Her holiday giving list is deep and varied. I remember the first time I became aware of her generosity it was like a slap in the face. I had always thought of her as a self-absorbed transwoman at war with the world. That was before we became friends. Discovering the real Cecelia was one of many lessons I've had about judging others. My harshest judgments are so often wrong.

Phil calls just as Betsy imposes thirty minutes of quiet time on Robbie . . . and by extension, on the two of us, too. Phil wants to drop by for a moment. I'd rather not break the spell of the day. Nothing against Phil, but the sight of him often turns my thoughts to his body against mine and this is a day for family. But there's no fair way to turn him down. Fifteen minutes later he's at the front door. I don a coat and meet him on the front steps. We go to his car, double parked in front. The car is warm, holiday music plays on the radio. He hands me a shopping bag with the gifts in it, a princess doll for Robbie, a book by a woman whose husband became her sister for Betsy, an anthology of music by the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins for me. I thank him and kiss him on the cheek. His gifts are very thoughtful.

He fills me in on the latest about Wilkins. “He left a note,” says Phil. “He said he just couldn't see any reason to go on living. Apparently the surgery he was scheduled to have was disfiguring.”

“You can't even imagine,” I say. “He showed me the pictures. I wouldn't have wished that on Adolf Hitler.”

“You know,” says Phil, “sometimes you think you know a guy and you don't really know anything about him. I always thought of Wilkins as an honest cop, but hard, a man with no softness anywhere. He leaves everything to his ex-wife. How many people do that? And in his suicide letter he thanks his captain for letting him use the department car and says he hopes he doesn't mess it up by dying in it, but if he does, he leaves another note asking his ex to pay for damages. Jesus, who thinks of things like that when they're planning a suicide?”

We sit in silence for a while, paralyzed by the thought of that tortured man.

“Want to hear the kicker?” says Phil. “We all think of Wilkins as a bone crusher, and he was pretty fearless in taking down people who resisted arrest. But one of the guys who knew him told me the man never fired his firearm except on the range. Said he didn't believe in it. Can you imagine that?”

Actually, I could. But the realization came too late for me to acknowledge his human qualities to his face. Maybe it wouldn't have meant anything to him, coming from me, but maybe it would. I really have a long way to go as a human being.

“Still no word on the status of his investigation,” says Phil.