'The body was found in the river this morning. We believe it was homicide.' This brought on another round of tears, which made him feel bad for not saying right up front what he was supposed to say, what he always said and always meant. 'We're very sorry for your loss. You two were obviously close.'
Camilla nodded, blotting at her eyes with a tissue. 'Thank you. We were very close,' she sniffed. 'Not in the way you're probably thinking, of course, not as partners. We were just dear friends.'
You mentioned that he… uh, she' – Gino corrected his pronoun – 'was in here last night. Do you remember what time you last saw her?'
'I think probably around ten-thirty. She was extremely… compromised.'
'Compromised?' Gino asked.
'Drunk. Poor Sweet Cheeks. She lost someone very close to her years ago, and never got over it. She was almost always drunk. Oh, good lord, I can't believe she's dead.'
'I take it Sweet Cheeks was not a legal name.'
Camilla shook her head. 'No, just a stage name. Her legal name is… was… Alan Sommers.'
Gino scrawled on his notebook. 'Is that Sommers with an o? 'Yes.'
He pulled out his cell. 'I'll get an address from DMV.'
'No need for that. She has a couple of rooms over the Stop-and-Go Market on Colfax. That was her day job. I have a key if it will help.'
Magozzi said, 'We appreciate that. Were you aware of any plans she might have had after leaving here last night?'
'Her only plan was to go to my condo to sober up before the big drag show last night so she could perform. I often give her my key on nights when she's had too much to drink. Sometimes she just passes out until the next morning, but often she'll sleep a few hours and come back to the club, or go elsewhere – you never know with Sweet Cheeks. I didn't get home until 3:30 a.m. last night, and she wasn't there. I didn't think anything of it, of course. She's always been unpredictable in that regard.'
Was there any indication that she ever made it to your condo last night?'
Camilla frowned and tapped a long cherry-pink fingernail on her cherry-pink lips. 'Come to think of it, not really. The bed she normally uses wasn't mussed, there were no dishes in the sink… but that doesn't mean she didn't straighten the bed, although that would have been out of character.'
A sad portrait of Alan Sommers was filling in fast for Magozzi – an obviously troubled man living a high-risk lifestyle, drunk out of his gourd, stumbling along the river at night. Homicide would normally have been the last conclusion in this case, but for the film Grace had pulled from the Web. A perfect victim. And maybe, a perfect crime. The thought sent chills down his spine. 'Do you have any idea if she left with anyone?'
'None. But we have security cameras at every door. I have the tapes if you think they might help.'
Chapter Nine
It had taken Camilla less than half an hour to isolate the security footage that showed Alan Sommers in full bridal regalia entering and leaving the Tiara Club the night of his murder – alone both times – which eliminated all hope of an easy conclusion with a slam-dunk suspect.
Why don't we ever pull a case where our perp is so stupid he gets caught in the act on surveillance tape wearing his work uniform with the name tag in plain view?' Gino complained as Magozzi pulled the Cadillac away from the Tiara Club's flashing neon and headed north toward Alan Sommers' apartment. 'You read about that stuff all the time, but it never happens to us.'
'That's because the really stupid felons are almost always bank robbers.'
Gino sighed. We should move over to Robbery, then.'
'I thought you were angling for Water Rescue.'
'A mere pipe dream. I can't swim.'
'Seriously?'
Yeah.'
Why don't I know that about you?'
'Why would you? It's not like you ever asked me to go surfing or anything. Shit. It's late. I better call Angela.'
While Gino checked on his hearth and home, Magozzi watched the neighborhoods deteriorate with each city block.
This part of Minneapolis had never exactly been mink and pearls, but when the gangs moved in during the eighties and nineties, they left a lot of carnage in their wake. The MPD Gang Task Force had worked hard to sanitize things over the years, and they'd done an impressive job, but the lingering hangover of too much violence for too long was still evident. Half the houses were still unoccupied, and the few viable businesses that remained were girded in the graffiti-scarred armor of steel gates and chain-link fencing.
Gino clicked off his cell phone just as Magozzi pulled into the parking lot of the Stop-and-Go. 'How's the homestead rolling without you?'
'It all went to hell in a handbasket. The little guy has a fever and Helen has a sore throat. Angela told me to take vitamin C.'
'What's that do, and where are you going to get it?'
'Are you kidding? She tucks shit like that in my pants pockets every day, and it does absolutely nothing except keep my marriage intact.' Gino craned his neck and looked out the windshield at the darkened Stop-and-Go sign. 'When I was on the beat, the guys used to call this place 'the Stop-and-Die.' Doesn't look much better than it did back in the day. And it's closed, damnit. Don't tell me we have to come back here tomorrow for interviews.'
Magozzi shrugged. 'My gut tells me Alan Sommers wasn't killed by anybody he knew or worked with. Camilla said everybody loved him – and we didn't see any Norman Bates-type stalkers on the vid.'
'That was a bummer, wasn't it? So Alan Sommers was probably just a great victim of opportunity for some sick asshole who wanted a little exposure on the Web.'
'That's what I'm thinking. Let's see what turns up in his apartment and we can go from there.'
Gino nodded, then unsnapped his holster and drew his gun. 'I'm going in armed and dangerous. This place still gives me the creeps.'
It took them a few minutes to find the battered metal access door behind the Stop-and-Go that led up a flight of stairs to a squalid, dark hallway of doors. The place was a true dump, crawling with cockroaches and rodents that didn't seem the least bit put out by the presence of humans. If there were any other squatters utilizing the space, they were either dead, very quiet, or out for the night, because the place was as silent as an anechoic chamber. It was the kind of silence that was inherently and deeply menacing and, oddly, the same kind of silence that kept you dead quiet. If you didn't make any noise, the bad things might not find you.
They found Alan's place at the end of the hall and let themselves in with the key Camilla had given them. Magozzi flipped on a light, which cast a harsh, bare-bulb glare on a surprisingly tidy, freshly painted room that bore no resemblance to the scary hallway they'd taken to get here. There was a twin mattress on the floor, made up with a clean bedspread that Magozzi had recently seen in one of the IKEA catalogs he mysteriously received every couple months in the mail, even though he'd never shopped there. The tiny kitchen and bathroom were both spotlessly clean not a speck of dirt or a roach or rat in sight – and there was the pervasive smell of patchouli incense that battled with the funk of mold that was probably emanating from the walls in highly toxic quantities. Alan Sommers had lived in a hellhole, but he'd obviously put forth some effort to make it livable.
Gino ventured into the second room, which was little more than a big closet, filled with an astounding array of wigs, makeup cases, shoes, and gowns wrapped in plastic, hanging from a sagging dowel. And in shocking contrast, amidst all the finery, were two brown-and-yellow-polyester Stop-and-Go uniforms, neatly hung and ready for service. 'Christ, look at this,' he said. 'It's like Cinderella's closet. Char girl by day, princess by night. This guy was leading a double life. And he had more wigs than Cher.'
'It gets weirder,' Magozzi said from the living room as he stared up at a framed diploma that hung on the wall. 'Alan Sommers graduated cum laude from Billy Mitchell Law back in 1989. How the hell do you get from there to here?'
