On the Other Hand, Death

I said, "As a matter of fact, there have been some developments. But none that will be helpful for you and your husband, I'm afraid. A problem's come up. Somebody is harassing and threatening Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Stout."
Her eyes narrowed and she thought this over. She brushed her hand across her own cheek the way Peter Greco had touched mine earlier. "Why don't you sit
down, Mr. Strachey," she said after a moment, and directed me to a long high-backed couch covered with pictures of "colonial" scenes. A picture of a blond haloed Jesus hung above it.
"What is this person actually doing to harass Mrs. Fisher?" she said. "Whoever's doing it. Gosh, that's an awful thing."
I stepped over the blocks and dolls and stuffed animals on the gold-colored shag rug and seated myself behind a coffee table. "Nasty slogans were painted on the carriage house last night. A letter and a phone call came today threatening death if Dot and Edith didn't leave. You're right. It's upsetting for both of them."
A toddler toddled into the room from the kitchen. "Hi-ee," she said, checking me out with big inquisitive blue eyes.
"Hi," I said. "What's your name?"
Mrs. Deem breathed, "Heather, you go out and play now. We'll have supper in a couple minutes. Go on."
"By-eee." Heather spun around several times, pretending to be dizzy, then went out and played.
"That must be real scary," Mrs. Deem said, and perched on the edge of an easy chair that matched the early American couch. "Gosh, I just don't approve of that at all. Scaring a couple of old people like that." She was speaking to me but she also seemed distracted by a thought, as if she might have knowledge of the subject she wished she didn't have, or an opinion on it that was forming itself in a troubling way.
"No one knows, of course, whether the threats are serious," I said. "But that's part of the problem in a thing like this. The not knowing. I've been hired by Millpond to track down whoever's responsible."
"Oh, I see." She looked even more worried. Then she remembered something and stood up. "Why don't you come out to the kitchen, Mr. Strachey, if that's okay? Do
you mind? I'm getting supper and we can talk in the kitchen. Jerry will be out any minute. I want him to hear about this too."
I followed her and took a seat by the Formica table. A little color Sony was on the counter. Dick Block and the anchor news team were chattily rattling off brief accounts of the day's convenience-store holdups and double suicides.
Sandra Deem dumped half a bottle of something Kelly green over a bowl of chopped-up iceberg lettuce and said, "Do you think somebody around here is doing these things to Mrs. Fisher? Is that why you're here? I mean, why are you asking us about it?"
"We have to assume that's a possibility, Mrs. Deem. The three parties with something to gain by Mrs. Fisher's being scared off are your family, the Wilsons, and of course Millpond, my employer. So I have to ask you if there's anyone in your household—or maybe some sympathetic friend of yours or your husband's—who you think might be mad enough to break the law in this way."
Her face tightened, and she stood there blinking at me with the half-empty bottle of green glop poised above the salad bowl. "No," she said after a moment. "No, I really don't think so. Not something as mean as that. No, I can't think of anybody who would do such an un-Christian thing." Her voice gained an approximation of fervor as she spoke, but there was apprehension in her eyes.
The man who padded barefoot into the kitchen, looking startled when he saw me there, was around my age, forty-three, paunchy in a fresh white Fruit of the Loom T-shirt and pale green slacks, and smelling of chemical substances meant to be cosmetic. He had thinning sandy hair, alert wide eyes the color of his pants, and the expression on his pleasant boyish face was one of mild perplexity.
"Hi, I'm Don Strachey from Millpond Plaza Associates," I said, getting up, and sounding to myself like a character on Dynasty.
"Glad to meet you. I'm Jerry Deem."
We shook hands. His eyes never left mine. He was looking for something in them, but I didn't know what. What the hell I was doing at his kitchen table, I guessed.
"I'm sorry to bother you at this time of day, but I'd like to talk with you for a few minutes about some trouble that's come up over at Dot Fisher's place."
"Oh?" He looked puzzled but not overly concerned. "Well, why don't we go out and sit on the—"
"Shhh, listen!" Mrs. Deem interrupted. "It's on the news. Oh, gosh."
We all looked at the little Sony, and Deem turned up the sound.
First we saw the graffiti on the carriage house while Dick Block's voice intoned something about "the latest alleged incident of harassment to the gay community." The "gay community," we soon saw, was Dot, seated on the stone terrace behind her house. She was being questioned by a young woman wearing the obligatory TV newswoman's scarf around her neck, even in the heat, like a drag queen trying to cover up his Adam's apple.
"And what were your thoughts," the reporter was saying grimly, "when you came out this morning and saw the words painted on your pretty barn, Mrs. Fisher?"
"Well," Dot replied, a little uncertainly, "my thoughts were . . . what I guess you would call . . . unhappy."
The reporter paused, squinting uncomprehendingly, as if Dot had just recited in Urdu. She said, "Unhappy?"
"Yes," Dot said. "Unhappy. Wouldn't you be?"
The newswoman, her mascara looking dangerously moist, was growing fidgety. She said, "You must have been . . . upset."
Dot nodded. "Yes. I was. Though these things don't
bowl you over the way they once did. I've seen a good bit of nastiness on the way to where I am now. And you learn to take a lot of it. Though only up to a point," she added emphatically.
Instead of asking about the point at which Dot was not going to lie down and take "it" anymore, the reporter continued to probe into Dot's "feelings." Dot was unaccustomed, however, to the requirements of video journalism and refused to tremble or burst into tears or turn herself into a rising fireball. Finally, the woman asked Dot who she thought might be responsible for the threats, to which Dot replied, "I'd rather not say. I'll discuss that with the police. If they ever get out here."
Throughout all this, Sandra Deem stood with her arms folded and saying from time to time, "Oh, gosh! That's awful, just awful." Jerry Deem stared at the set transfixed, not speaking or moving at all.
McWhirter appeared next. He discoursed briefly—the report must have been heavily edited—on the deficiencies of the "hopelessly homophobic" Albany Police Department, and then launched into a pitch for next June's national coming-out day and the gay national strike. He mentioned the meeting at the center that night and the bar tour that would follow. The report closed with a shot of McWhirter and Greco watering Dot's peonies—Edith was nowhere to be seen—and then a pan to the side of the carriage house while the reporter's voice said that the Albany police had told Channel 12 they planned a thorough investigation of the incident. The Millpond situation was noted briefly, and Crane Trefusis was quoted as being "sickened" by the incident.
"Isn't that awful, Jerry?" Sandra Deem said, watching her husband. "Who would do a thing like that to a couple of old ladies? Even with their lifestyle?"