Having seen all three prisoners taken away, Kate walked into the Nightwood Bar.
The women were gathered in a tight cluster, talking quietly, Audie in their midst as if in a protected center. Raney had an arm around her, watching with troubled eyes as Audie sipped from a steaming mug of coffee which she held in two trembling hands.
Kate searched out Andrea who nodded, her smile quick and warming. Kate made her way over to Audie and bent over the table to ask softly, sympathetically, “Feeling any better?”
Audie nodded. “Yes. Some. I do thank you, the way you helped, how you handled those filthy… those…”
“I didn’t do it alone.” Kate straightened, spread both hands in a gesture that took in the entire group of women. “I had this whole SWAT team to help—unarmed but very, very courageous.”
Maggie climbed to her feet and marched out from behind the table, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her lavender bermuda shorts. She shrugged one shoulder toward Kate and said gruffly, “The woman did damn good by us.”
Patton also got to her feet to stand alongside Maggie. She had donned her yacht cap, apparently knocked off in the melee; now she doffed it in a grand sweeping gesture, bowing deeply toward Kate, and announced, “Even I will concede that this woman’s got ovaries.”
Laughing along with the women, Kate picked up a chair, carried it over to Audie’s table.
“Those punks,” Maggie said, “two of ’em white, one of ’em black. Ain’t integration grand? We even have equal opportunity gangs.”
Audie, Kate noticed, was smiling with effort through the levity of her companions. Kate placed her chair opposite Audie and sat down, but addressed Maggie. “What happened out there?”
“We heard a racket.” Maggie gestured toward the parking lot. “That souped up car of theirs—it sounded like bolts in a washing machine. So Patton and Roz went out. The three creeps had Audie—”
“Yeah,” Audie said, “they—” Her shaking voice broke. Raney pulled her closer.
“They had Audie,” Patton put in. “Trying to hustle her into their dumbshit macho car.” Her tone was withering in its contempt. “We jumped the biggest asshole, we were yelling like banshees—”
“We all went pouring out there,” Kendall said, “all of us—”
“The dimwits grabbed the pipes outta their car,” Patton said, “then you got here. Not that we couldn’t handle those sleazy creeps ourselves—”
“But we still thank you anyway,” Maggie added wryly.
“Audie,” Kate asked softly, “could we talk privately for a few minutes?” It was crucial now that she get Audie’s individual story without embellishment or interference from the women—especially Patton.
Audie cast an alarmed glance at Raney, then at Kate, then back at Raney.
“Listen, it’s okay, babe,” Raney said, “the woman’s okay. Let’s get this over with.” Raney’s long slender fingers were stroking the plump flesh of Audie’s arm in a slow, soothing rhythm.
“I want you with me,” Audie whispered.
“By all means,” Kate told Raney.
A few moments later at a table in the rear of the bar, Kate said to Audie, “I need you to answer just a few questions. Then, as soon as you feel strong enough, we’ll go to the station—”
“No.” Audie shook her head and took a deep breath, exhaled it in a sigh that took several moments to complete. “I can’t,” she said.
“Audie, try and relax. Just tell me exactly what happened. I promise I’ll take good care of you, I’ll—”
“You don’t understand,” Raney said. “She can’t press charges and she can’t testify.”
“I’m a kindergarten teacher,” Audie whispered. Tears welled, spilled down her cheeks.
“This is a lesbian bar,” said Raney. She gestured toward the rear of the Nightwood Bar, the parking lot. “What happened out there happened at a dyke bar.”
Studying Raney’s intelligent dark eyes, the handsome, chiseled face framed by the Grace Jones haircut, then Audie’s round, motherly face, Kate remembered five novels she had read in college, books by Ann Bannon which Julie had loaned her while they were lovers. Those stories had been set in Greenwich Village in the fifties, when the great fear had been of police who periodically swooped down on gay bars to round up patrons, to permanently scar many of the lives of those patrons…
“She can’t press charges,” Raney said, and reached to Audie to tenderly brush strands of gray-threaded dark hair at her temple.
Kate fastened her gaze on Audie, who stared back at her out of dark eyes awash with tears. “Audie, those three thugs who were here tonight—if they’re allowed to roam the streets, they’ll continue to prey on other gay people.”
Audie wiped her eyes with a sleeve of her cotton shirt, then placed both hands flat on the table. She sat up in her chair. “I’m a black woman,” she said in a low, quavery voice. “I know what goes on with the police and courts, I see it every day in my black neighborhood. What happened tonight—if I press charges and those three go to jail it’s only for a little while.” Her voice rose. “I have too much to lose, you hear? It’s not worth it to me, you hear me?”
Kate nodded sadly. “Yes, I hear you.” She added, “But those men who were here tonight—has it occurred to you that they might have been here Sunday night as well?”
“No.” Audie stared at her. “That’s different. If I can help about Dory—” Her voice had lowered. “If you find out they killed Dory—”
“Audie,” Kate said, “it’s not that simple. If you’re willing to come forward, it has to be now. You have to file a police report right now, not after the fact. Otherwise a defense attorney would jump on any testimony from you with both feet. My own integrity and credibility as an investigating officer would be called into question. But if you do file a police report, I have to tell you it will be thoroughly investigated.”
Audie asked calmly, “Their being here tonight—do you have any evidence about them besides that?”
“I can’t discuss that with you,” Kate answered, softening her tone. “But what went on here tonight is good evidence in itself. We’ll know a lot more when we question them tomorrow.”
“They’ll just deny everything,” Raney said. “We know nobody saw Dory get killed.”
“Only one person swung that bat,” Kate replied, respecting the acuity of both these women under these circumstances. “The other two may turn the killer in.”
“May isn’t good enough,” Audie said with quiet emphasis.
“Their car,” Raney said, “we’d have heard it Sunday night.”
“They could have used another car,” Kate countered.
“Why would they kill Dory?” Raney argued.
For kicks, Kate thought. For no reason at all. But these three dopers had been intent on taking Audie with them, and for obvious purposes. According to Patton, they had not even taken the pipes out of their car until the women came out of the bar…
Suddenly tired, Kate rubbed her face with both hands. Still, a baseball bat had been used on Dory Quillin—and it was the same MO as a pipe. And how had the three known about this secluded bar? Why had they come here tonight? Maybe only one of the three had been here that Sunday night, maybe he had come back tonight with his buddies… Maybe. Maybe maybe maybe…
“What you’re trying to do here is important, I know that,” Audie told her quietly, earnestly. “I teach young black children—and my work is important too. To me and to them. From what you’re able to tell me, with what I know—I’m sorry, the only decision I can make is no. Hope you can see why.”
“What I see,” Kate answered carefully, “is a woman under the protection of the laws of this state who isn’t exercising her basic civil rights. But,” she conceded, “I do also see your reasons.”
“I don’t think there’s any point in talking about this anymore,” Raney said. “Audie’s real upset, and I’d like to take her home.”
Tiredly, Kate nodded.
The three women rose, made their way to the front of the bar. “’Night guys,” Raney said to the group of women, “Thanks again.”
Patton said to Kate, “So now you know—Audie can’t press charges. Maybe now you can see our whole problem with you as a cop. The people you’re really protecting are heterosexual white middle class males and their female slaves.”
Kate fought down the surge of fury. Regardless of the inflammatory rhetoric, how could she not agree with the kernel of truth in what Patton had just said? From the hours she had spent in courtrooms she knew very well which class was the most adequately protected and defended.
She met Patton’s pale blue eyes. “All I can do as an individual police officer is try to make the laws of this country apply to everyone. And I think that’s worth doing, I think it’s worth trying to take from the streets creatures who don’t deserve to live among human beings.”
She gestured at the group of women, her anger returning. “But none of you will help yourselves or me. You tie my hands. It’s not just tonight—it’s everything. I’m trying to help. You wouldn’t talk to me, any of you, the night Dory was killed. You won’t do something as simple as help me find a woman I must talk to—”
“Wait,” Patton interrupted. “Don’t shit us, okay? You honestly think you can nail whoever did it to Dory?”
“I can only make every honest attempt I know how to make,” Kate answered. “I’ve done that. I’ll continue to do that.”
“We maybe haven’t been too friendly,” Patton admitted, “but we really don’t know much more than we told you Sunday.” There was an accompanying murmur of assent. “We all liked Dory, we thought she was—she had something about her—she was special, that’s all. But we didn’t know her all that well, not even me, and I—” Patton broke off in apparent embarrassment; she drew the edge of a jogging shoe along a board on the floor. “You really need to talk to Neely?”
“Yes.” Kate fixed her eyes on Patton as if to compel her with the intensity of her stare. “I still have leads to check out, but I must talk to someone who knew Dory well, I have to get more current information about her life—”
“We’ll do what we can,” Patton said.
“Yeah,” said Raney.
“Yes we will,” said Tora, her Hispanic accent liquidly musical.
Kate nodded, careful not to look at Andrea; instead she glanced at Maggie who answered with a faint but triumphant grin. Kate said to Audie, “We’ll do our best to make a few charges stick to those punks, regardless.”
But she had spoken out of a sense of needing to impart something positive to Audie for her trauma. Without corroborating witnesses and testimony, there was no case at all for assault and attempted kidnapping, or resisting arrest. Even a charge of disturbing the peace wouldn’t stick. The best she could hope for was the presence of drugs in sufficient quantities on the three thugs or in their black Pontiac to bring felony charges. Otherwise, they could only be held overnight for drug intoxication and questioning.
There was silence in the room; it felt awkward, and warm. “Listen,” Kate said, “the trouble here tonight is all over. It’s early, why don’t you all relax? I’ve got some punks I need to take care of down at the station.”
“Belly up to the bar, all you gutsy dykes,” Maggie called, striding to her post. “This round’s on the house.”
Their voices raised in animated conversation, the group of women broke up to head for the bar. Raney and Audie, an arm around each other, walked toward the front door.
Andrea joined Kate. “I think I’ll go on home as well.” Her face was tight, closed; she looked drained.
“I’ll walk out with you,” Kate said, looking at her in concern.
At Andrea’s car, a gray Olds Cutlass, Andrea turned, faced her. “You have to get to your work,” she said in a tone of regret.
“Yes,” Kate said, also regretfully. “Thank you for your help, for getting backup here so quickly.”
Andrea said in a sudden rush of words, “I pass in the straight world, I pay the price—all the humiliation I can swallow, the jokes, the remarks—”
“I know,” Kate interjected.
“I realize there are crazy people out there who hate us to the point of murder. But to actually see that murderous hate, to come right up against it—it’s like knowing about rape and then actually seeing it. And those sub-humans will get away with it…God,” she choked.
“Andrea,” Kate said in concern, “do you have someone to stay with you tonight?”
“I’ll be all right.” She gestured impatiently, looking away from Kate, her face closed again.
“Perhaps I could call you later?”
Andrea opened her bag, a large cloth affair with leather compartments, took out a case of business cards and a felt-tip pen, pushed up the sleeves of her oversize shirt, and leaned over the hood of her car. Kate watched her, thinking that Andrea seemed inordinately fond of oversize clothing.
“Yes, call,” Andrea said, giving her the card on which she had also written her address. “If you feel like it, come over and I’ll give you some coffee.”
“I’d like that,” Kate said softly. “We won’t be questioning those three till morning, so I won’t be tied up for long.”
“Good.” Andrea opened her car door, slid behind the wheel. “There’s something I may want to tell you,” she said, and closed the door.