Larkin removed his wallet and flashed his badge. “Everett Larkin. I’m a detective with the Cold Case Squad.” He motioned to Doyle and said, “This is my partner, Ira Doyle.”
Phyllis opened the door the rest of the way. She was shorter than Larkin, stout, and wore white sneakers with tube socks, khaki cargo shorts that cut off at the knee, and a plain black T-shirt. To Doyle, she asked, “I talked to you last night, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’d like to ask you some questions about Esther Haycox, if that’s okay?”
Phyllis nodded, turned, and waved a hand over her shoulder. “Come on in.”
Larkin stepped inside first. The front room was an open concept—living, dining, and kitchen all together—bright with natural light and three walls painted a dreamy mint green. The fourth, a bubbly pastel pink accent wall, displayed a large abstract painting, although it wasn’t so nonsensical that Larkin wasn’t able to surmise the composition was that of two women scissoring. An entertainment stand was centered directly underneath the midcoitus, a cat tree just to the left, and a gold velvet couch with blue throw pillows opposite. The rest of the room held framed lesbian pulp fiction artwork and colorful, funky plant stands for a dozen ferns, succulents, and one particular potted plant with wide, flat leaves that were reminiscent of a watermelon that Larkin found rather delightful. A hall on the left, just past the kitchen, likely led toward a bathroom and bedroom.
“My wife’s an artist,” Phyllis said, like it was her go-to explanation for the curious color palette. She jutted a thumb at the artwork. “As if my butch-ass isn’t enough of a giveaway, she likes to remind guests right as they walk in that we’re a big ol’ pair of homos.”
Doyle moved around Larkin to study the painting. He said after a brief moment, “Your wife has a great sense of motion and color.”
“Yeah?” Phyllis asked warily.
Larkin clarified, “Detective Doyle is an artist.”
Phyllis cocked her head with renewed interest and asked Doyle, “Did you draw that picture of Essie? The one from the app?”
“I did.”
“I usually ignore all those Local4Locals notifications. Can’t get the fucking pop-ups to turn off. And around here, it’s usually just reported gunshots in Gowanus. But when I saw the one yesterday—NYPD seeks help with missing person—or whatever it said, I dunno.” She pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her cargo shorts and waved it in a sort of emphasis. “Things might be different if we’d had this technology back then.” Phyllis gestured to the two chairs at the dining table. “Take a seat. I’ll find another chair—”
Doyle said, putting a hand on Larkin’s arm and directing him, “I can stand.”
“You sure?” Phyllis asked.
“It’s not a problem,” he insisted.
Larkin unbuttoned his black suit coat, sat at an angle, and crossed one leg over the other.
Phyllis took the other chair, pulled it around so she sat beside Larkin and not across from him, then shuffled some mail at her elbow. “I thought I was losing my damn mind when I saw that drawing. I showed my wife and she told me to call the tip line.” Phyllis found a few Polaroids at the bottom of the pile and passed them over. “After you called,” she continued, directing the comment toward Doyle, “I took these out of storage. They’re from when Essie and I first met.”
Larkin accepted the photographs. Phyllis, likely younger than himself at the time they’d been taken, was wearing bellbottoms, a large buckled belt, and a tucked-in white T-shirt with the sleeves cuffed and the phrase QUEER MENACE stamped across the front. She had her arm low around the hips of the same woman from their VHS tape—shaggy hair, big doe eyes, prominent nose—who wore a black corset and a bikini bottom the size of an afterthought. She had a crimped and semitransparent material draped over one shoulder and a man’s top hat on her head, angled up and back so her face was readily visible. They were both caught midlaugh. The second picture appeared to have been taken immediately after the first, but Phyllis and Esther were tickling each other’s tonsils. In the third, Phyllis had her face pressed between Esther’s lifted breasts, and Esther was posing for the camera with an expression of mock surprise.
“So’s the NYPD into queerbaiting now?”
Larkin had turned to pass the photos to Doyle. He looked back at Phyllis and asked, “Sorry.”
“When Essie vanished, I spent eight years trying to get someone to give a shit,” Phyllis said sourly. “Esther was a person, you know? But to the cops, she was just one less queer on the street. Butches on Bikes did more in the ’80s to raise money and awareness than the city ever did. And finally, thirty years later, the NYPD sends out their best dressed and vaguely effeminate detective to what, placate an angry old lesbian and insist they did everything they could?”
Larkin drew his brows together, but it tugged at his stitches and bandage. He looked up at Doyle. “I don’t understand the usage of queerbaiting in this context.”
Doyle leaned down to set the Polaroids on the table, saying quietly, “She’s suggesting you look gay but aren’t.”
Larkin said to Phyllis, “I’m as queer as a Susan B. Anthony dollar, but I assure you, my homosexuality isn’t being leveraged as some kind of community outreach vehicle. I’ve been lead detective on this investigation since its onset, and I handle every one of my cases with the same courtesy I’d hope someone would show me if I were the victim.”
Phyllis’s eyes were still narrowed in skepticism, but she asked, a bit gentler, “But I thought Essie’s case was closed in 1990. Isn’t Cold Cases for unsolved murders? Like that TV show?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is.”
“So then you found her? Someonekilledher?”
Larkin put a hand up to get a word in edgewise. “The situation, as it stands, is rather complicated, but my squad came into possession of evidence only yesterday that would confirm Ms. Haycox has been deceased for quite some time. We suspect since 1982, when you filed the original report.”
Phyllis leaned back in the chair, scoffed, and threw her hands up. “I don’t understand.”
“What can you tell us about Ms. Haycox,” Larkin asked, listening with one ear as Doyle removed the notepad from his pocket and uncapped a pen.
