although we weren't actually together, you see. She was the one who spotted the body first, although I was the one who called it in because I was the one with a phone in my pocket.'
'This other lady, did you get her name?'
'No.'
'And you called from your cell phone?'
Johnny nodded. 'I carry my trusty little cellular phone with me at all times. I used to live up on Capital Hill, you see,' he/she said. 'Up there, I worried about gay bashing, especially late at night. Downtown here, it's mostly ordinary muggers and homeless lowlife panhandlers. They don't give a damn if you're gay or straight. I'd have to call them equal-opportunity criminals,' Johnny said with another raucous hoot of laughter.
'I guess you would,' I agreed, although I didn't find the joke particularly funny.
There was a momentary lull in the conversation. Johnny Bickford looked thoughtful. 'I suppose the poor man committed suicide, didn't he? Jumped off a bridge or something? You have to be feeling terribly low to just go ahead and end it all that way.'
It was interesting to me that one of the first people on the scene still thought John Doe had jumped off a bridge, while that television reporter there at the scene had specifically asked and had already somehow known that the victim had been shot. How did she know that? I wondered in passing before turning my attention back to Johnny. It didn't seem all that out of line to let the star witness know a little more about what was really going on.
'It doesn't appear to be suicide,' I said. 'We're investigating the case as a homicide.'
'Oh, my goodness!' Johnny Bickford exclaimed, clutching his/her throat. 'How awful!'
I'm surprised he/she didn't simply faint dead away at the news. I'm glad it didn't happen, however, because I'm not sure what my response should have been if he/she had.
I had been asking questions and filling in the contact report as I went. At the top of the form officers are expected to circle the appropriate title-Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Miss. Stumped, I left that one blank while I went on taking the information.
I asked all the usual questions, but other than having found the body, there didn't seem to be that much more Johnny Bickford could add to what I already knew. When we finished and I handed the paper over to Johnny for a signature, his/her eyes went directly to the top of the form and stayed there for some time. Finally, taking the pen I offered, he/she signed the paper with an overstated flourish and handed it back.
Looking at the top of the form I saw that the word Ms. had been circled in a bold, heavy-duty line. While I surveyed the form, Johnny Bickford observed me with a defiant stare.
'Even though I've never been married, Miss doesn't really apply to someone in my situation,' Johnny Bickford said. 'I couldn't choose ‘None of the Above' since that one wasn't listed. Ms. will be far more suitable after the first of February. That's when I'm scheduled for the next step in my sex change.'
'I see,' I said awkwardly, since the pause in the conversation made it necessary for me to say something.
Johnny Bickford simpered at me over the brim of his/her coffee cup, and then took another dainty sip of coffee. 'Do you?' he asked. 'My doctor doesn't believe in doing it all at once. He says Rome wasn't built in a day.'
'No,' I agreed, wishing I sounded less stupid than I felt. 'It certainly wasn't.'
Carefully, I set down my own cup and saucer on the table and gathered up my paperwork. 'I'd best be going,' I said.
'Can't I talk you into staying for another cup of coffee?' Johnny Bickford asked with a flirtatious smile. The look alone was enough to make me want to bolt for the door.
'No,' I stammered uncomfortably, getting to my feet. 'No, thank you.'
'Too bad.' Johnny said. 'I think you're awfully cute.'
I was already on my feet when Johnny reached into the pocket of his white robe and pulled out a tiny, four- inch-long scrap of newspaper article and handed it over to me. Quickly,
I scanned through it: BODY FOUND AT PIER 70
The body of an unidentified man was found floating in the water near Pier 70 New Year's Day, spotted by an early-morning jogger.
Dr. Audrey Cummings, King County Assistant Medical Examiner, stated that the man had died as a result of undetermined causes.
Seattle police are investigating.
When I finished reading the brief article, I started to hand it back to Johnny Bickford. 'Would you sign it, please?' he asked.
'Sign it?' I repeated, not quite comprehending. 'You mean autograph it like it was a baseball card or something?'
Johnny beamed and nodded. 'Exactly. I want to send it to my folks back in Wichita. I'm not mentioned by name, of course, but they'll be thrilled to know that I was the jogger in question. And having a real detective's signature on it will make it that much better. My mother is a big fan of true crime.'
What the hell? I thought. 'Where do you want me to sign?'
'Anywhere.'
Doing my best to mimic a doctor's prescription handwriting, I scrawled my signature across the body of the article and then handed it back.
'Thanks,' Johnny said gratefully. 'If you don't mind, I'll send your card along with the article. You have no idea how much this will please my mother. She would have liked me to be a policeman, you see. I've never quite had the courage to explain to her why that wouldn't work.'
I made for the door and Johnny followed. As I started down the steps, he was standing in the doorway, carefully holding the front of his robe to keep it from yawning open. I have no idea how one goes about staging a series of sex-change operations, but I have to admit, Johnny Bickford did have a figure.
He must have understood my questioning glance. He smiled. 'They don't call them WonderBras for nothing,' he said.
I was still blushing when I closed the car door and shoved the key into the ignition. I kicked up a spray of wintertime, road-sanding grit as I backed out of the driveway and headed downtown.
I was just starting south on Fifth Avenue when a call came in for me on the radio. 'Sergeant Watkins wants to know what's wrong with your pager,' the dispatcher said. 'He's been trying to reach you for the past fifteen minutes.'
In recent years, pagers, along with laptop computers and Kevlar vests, have all been added to the ordinary police detective's tools of the trade. There are circumstances in which all of them offer some advantage. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to pagers, though, the bad far outweighs the good. It's a real annoyance, especially when I'm in the middle of a complicated witness interview, to have a pager buzzing away in my pocket, telling me that I really need to be talking to someone else. A pager can be almost as obnoxious as the phone company's little custom-calling gimmick-'Call Waiting.' Call Interrupting is more like it.
Having been issued a brand-new pager, I do buckle under and wear it, but that doesn't mean I always keep the infernal thing turned on, especially not in interview situations. I try to be conscientious about turning it back on once I'm through talking to witnesses. In my hurry to leave Johnny Bickford's place, however, I had completely forgotten to do so.
'What's he want?' I asked.
'Something about Chip Raymond needing to get in touch with you. He says it's important. Want me to patch you through to Watty?'
Not particularly, I thought. Besides, if Chip was trying to reach me, that probably meant someone had turned up who looked like a possible match with Mr. Floater John Doe. 'Can you put me through to Detective Raymond?'
'No can do. Watty, yes. Detective Raymond, no.'
'Put me through to Sergeant Watkins, then,' I said. 'I might as well get it over with.'
But when Watty's voice came through the radio, he didn't say a word about the pager, not at first. 'Detective Raymond wants you to meet him at thirty-three hundred Western ASAP. The name of the company is D.G.I., ‘Designer Genes International.''
