“Hang on….” Max interrupted, face scrunched up in confusion. “What were we even talking about?”
“You were making a point about cost of living.”
“Oh, right.”
“And yes,” I answered, “taking into account not only inflation, but the added cost of doing business in this city, I’d guess Madam Sandra was charging several hundred for a supposed heaven hotline to dear old Grandpa Al.”
Max returned to his social media creeping. “Was it the same account leaving those reviews?”
I checked my phone again. “Yeah. Someone by the name of Rosie D.” I tapped the username and brought the phone closer to read the scant history associated with the account. “It’s kind of suspicious…. Besides the shots taken at Madam Sandra these last few weeks, Miss Rosie has only reviewed a service area on the Thruway and the Kaaterskill Falls upstate. Two-star and three-star, respectively. Who three-stars a natural wonder? Were the mountains too tall?”
“Uh, boss?”
“Maybe the waterfalls were too wet….”
“Seb.”
“What?”
Max moved around the counter and came up the steps. “I checked the NYPD’s Twitter.” He raised the volume on his phone and held it between us to show a live feed of a press conference. Ferguson was speaking in front of a podium microphone. Standing behind him and off to the left was Calvin, Quinn, and Radcliff.
Max said quietly, “Calvin doesn’t look happy.”
“He looks tired. We’ve been up since three.”
“Oh my God.”
“No.”
“What’s the dude version of nymphomania?”
“Satyromania. And we weren’t fucking. We were at his precinct.”
“Wait, what?”
I waved a hand for silence as Ferguson said, “I want to assure the public that the NYPD is actively investigating this tragedy and working to make an arrest for the murder of Sandra Habel. I’m going to allow lead detective, Calvin Winter, to take a few questions.”
Calvin stepped forward, tilted the mic up, and said, “Good morning. First, I’d like to make it clear that there will likely be several questions I can’t answer, due to the ongoing nature of this investigation, but I’ll do my best to provide relevant information to the community at this time.” He pointed to a reporter off camera.
A disembodied voice asked, “Detective Winter, you were involved in the Emily Asquith case, correct?”
It wasn’t that I could see an overt change in Calvin’s expression, what with his face being about the size of my thumb on Max’s phone screen, but I’d known the guy long enough to be on the up-and-up with how to aggravate him. And asking about an unrelated case—one where he’d been kidnapped and nearly killed, no less—was a good way for this journalist to lose any and all opportunities at future interviews.
“A year and a half ago, yes,” Calvin said in a clipped manner. “That event is unrelated.” He directed his attention to the opposite side of the room, but the journalist kept talking.
“Your civilian husband was involved too.”
Calvin redirected his stare back to the still-off-camera journalist.
I felt my gut churn uncomfortably. Calvin had made the decision to come out after a lifetime of living in the closet—after being forced there by others, no less—when we’d started dating. It hadn’t only been his conservative family he’d kept the truth from either. Calvin had been in the Army for a decade, when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had been the reality for LGBT service members. Then he’d joined the NYPD, which was a viper’s nest of hypermasculinity and grossly insecure alpha males who could andwouldmake gay officers’ lives hell in order to feel superior or confident. Just ask my ex about that.
By comparison, my coming-out experience had been a fucking cakewalk. I had my dad, who was about as wholesome as they came, and studied art in college. I mean… come on. But the thing about being gay in a society where straight was still the default was that we neverstoppedcoming out. We’d had to explain our relationship to our building’s super when we’d first moved in. Once to a banking rep who hadn’t understood why there were two men’s names on the account when I was speaking to her of my then-fiancé. I mean, hell, a week ago Calvin and I had gone out to dinner and the hostess asked if we were on a double-date and waiting for our girlfriends to arrive.
Sometimes it was no big deal.
Sometimes it was scary.
We were both out, both confident in ourselves and our marriage, and were lucky to live in a safe environment, but even we had to exercise caution now and then.
