Gossip (39 page)

“Fine. No need to delay this. No need to clear the court, I see. Let’s just play it and get this over with. Did either of you bring something to play it on?”

They both had. The judge chose the cassette player that Diaz took from his briefcase. The sergeant set it on the ledge of the witness stand, as if the machine were to testify, and loaded the tape. The judge gazed down his crescent lenses to the transcript.

“It’s already cued to the call,” said Gaskins.

“What else is on there?” asked the judge.

“Nothing. The deceased appears to have rewound the tape to the beginning so he could record the entire conversation.”

“Fine,” said the judge. “Let’s hear it.”

Diaz remained standing, leaning against the front of our table. Gaskins and I were seated. The sergeant pressed start.

The phone rang. I answered.

“Turn it up, turn it up,” said the judge.

“Did you watch? Did you see me?”

“Bill?”

“Now I’m your equal. I did it for you.”

Our voices sounded loud and strange.in the enormous room. Through the removes of cassette player, answering machine and phone, they seemed to echo deep inside a well, as if from a long time ago, another age. As with any recording, my own voice wasn’t mine, but mumbly, hoarse, alien. Bill’s voice, however, was utterly, disturbingly him. His smugly cheery tone, his breathy laugh. He blindly believed that he’d set everything right by coming out on television. He assumed my desire for him was so strong that I had to forgive him. He was so oblivious, so vulnerably oblivious. The cherub in a bed, a dead cherub now. I would never be rid of him. He’d surfaced in my speech to hundreds of people the other night; today he wheedled and sighed in an empty courtroom. Would he haunt me for the rest of my life? Who was this man I did not kill?

“Do you know what I’m doing while we’re talking? Here. Listen. I’m naked on my bed, pretending you’re beside me.”

When the judge understood what was happening, his mouth tightened, his chins began to quiver.

The court reporter clicked away at his adding machine.

“You’re dead, Bill. Your right-wing buddies are going to drop you like a stone. The chatline tonight was full of gay men who can’t wait to piss on your grave.”

I heard myself insult the dead. But I knew my angry words hadn’t killed him. I was furious with Bill all over again, yet there was sorrow too, my tear ducts prickling even as I, resented him for angering me and then taping it. Why had the bastard taped it? What did he hope to preserve with my voice?

And then: “Don’t you get it, Bill! You’re dead! I could kill you right now, I’m so angry. Only you’re already—”

My dial tone, another sharp love cry and the tape went dead.

I fell back in my chair, full of anger and sorrow and fear. Cut off like that, it sounded like a threat. Didn’t it? Would strangers understand what I’d meant? I’d been so enraged that I hadn’t made myself clear. Bill had struck at me from the grave. The blow made him very real; his death hurt me in every way imaginable.

Diaz peered over his shoulder as he straightened up. His deadpan face gave away nothing, but the fact that he even looked at me suggested trouble.

“Disgusting,” said the judge, dropping the transcript. “It’s nothing but an obscene phone call. Inflammatory and prejudicial. No jury of mine will hear such filth in my court. Motion to disallow is granted.”

Gaskins jumped up. “But Your Honor—”

“I won’t discuss it, Counselor. An obscene phone call that proves nothing. Anyone would be upset by it. But I won’t let my court be turned into a theater for homosexual smut.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Diaz.

He signaled me out of my chair, rushing us out before the judge could change his mind.

Just beyond the swinging door, he grabbed my elbow to stop me. He was grinning, the first real grin he’d ever shown me. “I heard Judge Carter was old-school straight and narrow,” he chuckled. “I didn’t mention it for fear of worrying you.”

Through the window in the door, I could see Gaskins on tiptoe at the bench, pleading with the judge.

“But I never dreamed it’d work in our favor. I can’t guess what a jury would’ve thought if that tape were played in court. You do have a temper, Ralph. But you were saved by homophobia. That’s an irony even I can appreciate.”

I attempted to smile. I knew I should be pleased, but it happened so quickly, and I was still full of sorrow and anger with Bill.

“Let’s wait for Gaskins. I want to see how tough she talks now that she’s lost a major piece of evidence.”

The sergeant came to the door. “United States versus Eckhart?”

“Yes?” said Diaz.

“Judge Carter hasn’t finished with you.”

Diaz looked startled. He quickly resumed his smooth deadpan and we went back in.

Gaskins remained at the bench with the judge. She’d regained her grim, cool confidence. I feared that she’d convinced the judge and I’d have to hear that tape again, when my jury heard it.

“Will the defense approach the bench?” said the judge.

Diaz motioned me back into the chair I’d just left. He joined Gaskins and the judge, who handed him his tape player and mumbled something. Diaz listened to the judge, then to Gaskins. I sat fifteen feet away, but couldn’t hear a word they said. Diaz kept his back to me. His right shoe began to tap against the floor. Gaskins let out a mirthless laugh like a sharp bark.

“Very well then,” the judge declared, wearily shaking his head. “Will the defendant please rise?”

I stood up shakily, alarmed by his attention. I was suddenly afraid that he was sending me back to jail.

“The District has decided to withdraw the charge of first-degree murder. I don’t pretend to understand this. Still—” He cleared his throat. “You’re free to go, young man.” He grumpily got up and turned away.

I just stood there. They
weren’t
sending me back to the cells? But could it mean what it sounded like it meant?

“My client and I thank you, Your Honor,” Diaz called after the judge.

Gaskins hurried out with a brisk, stern walk, refusing to look at me.

Diaz came over, his eyebrows lifted halfway up his forehead. “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it,” he said. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s go.”

I followed him out. “What just happened?” I spoke softly, as if speaking too loudly could ruin it.

“They dropped your case. Just dropped it.”

At the door we passed another lawyer and his client, a sullen man in crayon-colored sweats, on their way in.

“Does that mean it’s all over?”

“Yes!” He broke into a new grin and laughed. “What did you think it meant, Ralph? They withdrew charges! You’re a free man.”

“But there hasn’t been a trial.”

“There won’t be. Unless they turn up new evidence. Which I doubt. Or you want to sue for false arrest, which I advise against.”

“But it can’t be over,” I said. “It doesn’t feel over.”

“It never does.” He snorted and shook his head as we stepped out into the sun, still unable to believe it himself.

No, it couldn’t end like that, with only a quick chat between a judge and prosecutor, without my ever getting a chance to speak.

We climbed into the oven of Diaz’s car and sat there while the air conditioner kicked on. Diaz continued to chuckle and groan in unprofessional disbelief. “It’s what I hoped it might be all along,” he claimed, trying to talk away his surprise. “A screwup from start to finish. Political pressure made them hot to charge somebody. The police had only you and the DA’s office pounced on that, ending the investigation. But Gaskins knew they had no case. Losing the tape gave her the excuse she needed to pull out. Without it, plus the procedural mess, they were going to look like idiots in court. She blamed the FBI, claiming they’d promised a strong witness but never delivered.”

Nick. They thought they were going to get Nick? I hadn’t had a chance to tell Diaz about Nick. Now I wouldn’t have to.

But I couldn’t feel joy, not with so much left unanswered.

“Will they look for the real murderer now?”

“Oh, they’ll look. They might find him too. Only you’ll never know. Or, if you’re lucky, six months from now, a year from now, when this is all a bad memory, I’ll call you out of the blue to say I was talking to a DA here and they happened to mention a junkie confessed to the O’Connor murder. Or an ex-boyfriend you never knew about. Or even our friend, the Baltimore suspect.”

“But it’s likely that I’ll never hear?”

“Correct. In the eyes of the law, you’re nobody. Just a private nobody.” He put the car into gear. “I need to get back to the hotel. Where can I let you off?”

“The train station. I might as well go back.” Back to what? The cold fire that had become my life was suddenly out.

“You’re not going to see Wenceslas?”

“No. I have to be at work tomorrow.” I hadn’t intended to visit Nancy while I was in town. I was ashamed to face her now without the crisis that had justified all I’d said and done.

Giddy with success, finished with me as a case, Diaz turned into a chatterbox as he drove. “I didn’t always get you, Ralph. But you’re an interesting man. I would’ve preferred getting to know you over beers. Now I know you too well. The incest taboo.”

He regretted we couldn’t date? Was that what he meant? His sidelong smile seemed flirtatious after his weeks of chessplayer cool. I still didn’t even know if he was gay.

“Most clients I never want to see again,” he added. “But you came through this better than I anticipated. It didn’t make you hysterical or crazy with righteousness. It didn’t make you paranoid either. You have some kind of moral ballast that got you through. Let me just say I admire you for that.”

He didn’t know. He knew so much yet so little about me, like a doctor and his patient.

We swung in front of the glaring plaster wedding cake of Union Station and pulled against the curb.

“I guess this is good-bye, Ralph.” He shook my hand. “Good luck. Maybe we’ll run into each other in a restaurant or movie.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for everything. I mean that.” I opened the door. “I’d like to say it’s been real. But it hasn’t.”

“I can well imagine. But this was quicker and cleaner than any other case I’ve handled. And you did well. You might not think so, but you did quite well.”

I closed the door and he drove off. I stood in the hot sun, tugging at the strange tie knotted around my throat.

It was over? I’d craved this moment, ached for it, expecting to experience what a drowning man feels when he touches bottom and can get his head above water. I thought it would be like the joy of coming out of a terrible dream and realizing it had only been a dream. But I woke from a life with too much purpose into one with no purpose at all.

I wandered into the high, cool, murmuring space of Union Station. I couldn’t leave Washington yet. I found a bank of pay phones and called Nancy at work. I had to tell her the good news—I needed to hear myself say that the news was good. The receptionist said Nancy was out and wouldn’t be back until three at the earliest. I called her machine at home.

“Nancy. This is Ralph. You’re safe. We’re all safe. The DA dropped the case. There’ll be no trial. I don’t know where that leaves you and me. I’m going back to New York today. But I wanted to let you know that you and Kathleen are safe. And to thank you for risking so much.”

But that didn’t do it, did not even feel like a start. We had so much to set right between us. I needed to see Nancy before I went back, even if it meant haunting Union Station for the rest of the afternoon.

I remained wedged in the stainless-steel niche of the phone, feeling there was someone else I should call, a courtesy call I should have made long ago. I’d not been free to make it until today. I dialed information, gave the name and street, then dialed that number. A woman answered.

“Mrs. O’Connor?” My mouth was dry.

“Yes?” A timid, ladylike voice.

“My name is Ralph Eckhart. I was a friend of your son.”

W
HO WAS THE MAN
I did not kill?

A baby with corn silk hair and tiny white teeth. He laughed and clapped his hands for a studio portrait. He was once a baby, of course, an anonymous infant. He did not begin to be Bill until he was three and wore his first pair of glasses. Eyeglasses on any toddler have an incongruous look of premature wisdom. He perched uncertainly in the arms of a happy, horn-rimmed father in air force blues and sergeant stripes.

“Ralph? More decaf?” asked his mother.

“No thank you. I’m fine, Mrs. O’Connor.”

We sat in a sunny living room used only for company—waxed furniture, yellow brocade upholstery and matching drapes—looking through the white photo album in my lap.

It’s always strange being with the parent of someone you’ve slept with. Imagine that strangeness to the tenth power.

Mrs. O’Connor had been stunned at first by my call and tardy condolences. When I explained why I couldn’t respond to her card until now, she said, “Oh, I am so glad they dropped the charges. So happy for you,” with an exaggerated joy that would sound sarcastic from a peer but was quite earnest. “I know you couldn’t harm my son.” She’d like to meet with me sometime, she said. She was sorry to hear I was going back to New York today. Suddenly, without knowing why, I wanted to see her; I needed to see her. I was the one who proposed coming by the house. When she hesitated, I expected her to make excuses, but then she said yes, this afternoon was good. She told me to take a MARC train to their Baltimore suburb and she’d pick me up at the station.

Not until I stepped out on the elevated platform did I remember Diaz’s talk of relatives who took justice in their own hands. I experienced a few flickers of fear before I came out of the station and saw her: a shy mouse of a woman who stood by her car in a starched blouse, summer skirt and earrings, dressed like a widow on her first date. She smiled weakly as she offered me her petite hand. “I can’t thank you enough for coming, Ralph.” She buried her confusion in courtesy, as baffled as I was over what we hoped to achieve with this meeting.

Mother and child sat on a beach, grinning at the camera. Father and son waded hand in hand into the lapping waves. The young couple took turns posing with their offspring.