Closet

Closet (1995) is the first in award-winning author R.D. Zimmerman’s series of mystery stories featuring reporter Todd Mills. The novel follows Todd as he tries to put his life back together after the brutal murder of his boyfriend, find the killer with the help of a new romantic interest, and manage his life as a successful TV reporter after publicly coming out as gay. Although to today’s readers, some of the elements featuring Todd’s hesitation to leave the closet now come across as dated and unrealistic, on publication, the novel won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery.

When the novel opens, 40-something Todd Mills is an investigative reporter for the CrimeEye program on Channel 7 in Minneapolis. His work has garnered two Emmy awards and is speeding Todd toward a promotion to the news anchor desk. However, ever since his teen years, Todd has been living a double life—his public success has come at the cost of being a closeted man.

For the past four years, Todd has been in a relationship with Michael Carter, an accountant who doesn’t hide his sexual orientation and is increasingly fed up with Todd’s unwillingness to live openly. One evening, Michael gives Todd an ultimatum: the closet goes, or Michael does. Todd is furious at the idea, terrified that coming out will wreck his TV career. Michael and Todd argue intensely. After Todd smashes up their belongings in a selfish tantrum, he storms out of the apartment to stew over what sounds to him like Michael’s unreasonable expectations.



For 24 hours, Todd considers his options, vacillating between his anger at Michael and the realization that he loves him too much to let him go. Finally, over some diner food, Todd realizes that Michael is right—their relationship is more important than staying in the closet. Todd rushes home to beg for Michael’s forgiveness, but it is too late. By the time he arrives, the apartment building has been roped off in police tape as emergency vehicles and the CrimeEye news van block off the street. Michael has been viciously killed. As Todd tries to recover from shock, his Channel 7 rival, Cindy Wilson, asks him on camera whether he knew the victim. Todd looks into the camera and answers, “He is my lover,” breaking out of the closet once and for all.

For a long time, Todd is so distraught that he cannot function. He and his longtime lesbian attorney friend Janice Gray commiserate over Michael’s death, and over their shared conviction that their lives would have been much easier had they been born straight. Mostly, though, Todd self-flagellates out of his guilt for treating Michael badly, for putting his ambitions ahead of his love, and for forcing Michael to tolerate being a secret for so many years. Todd also reconnects with his sister, Maggie, whose own marriage is deeply dysfunctional—together, they discuss their childhood in Chicago, their Polish immigrant father, and his decision to completely renounce his Polish name and identity after marrying an American woman. Double identities seem to run in Todd’s family.

Just as Todd’s grief threatens to overwhelm him, however, the police decide that he is the most likely murder suspect. Their theory is that he killed Michael to protect his career after Michael threatened to out him. Desperate, Todd starts using his investigative skills to hunt for the murderer himself. Along the way, he connects with a police officer who doesn’t believe that Todd is guilty—Steve Rawlins, a good-looking gay man. As they work together, following clues that lead them through a series of gay bars and nightclubs, Todd and Steve discover a mutual attraction that quickly leads to a sexual connection.



It dawns on Todd that the murderer is most likely someone he and Michael knew—an idea that bears out when Todd’s Cubs baseball cap turns up at the site of a second murder. It is clear that whoever is killing people is also trying to frame Todd. With this new evidence, however, the police close in around Todd even more, and he enlists Janice’s help to stay out of jail. He also makes friends with Jeff, a close friend of Michael’s who works as a bank teller by day and at night as drag queen Tiffany Crystal, who initially has a deep antipathy to Todd because of the way he behaved toward Michael.

The killer’s identity turns out to be as unlikely as it is hard to figure out. But by the end, Todd has managed to make peace with the fact that Cindy Wilson has outmaneuvered him on all professional fronts, that he will never get his job at Channel 7 back, and that he needs to take a step back from his life to recover. Luckily, Steve is there and wants to stick around, launching Todd’s first mature, open relationship as a gay man.