'Fenton wasn't too happy to see Don,' Peter told Dot. 'He's convinced Don must be a spy or something for Millpond. Part of the pressure they're putting on you.'
'That's understandable,' I said. 'Trefusis is one of Albany's most accomplished sneaks. I would have been just as suspicious of me myself.'
'Fenton heard all about that Crane Trefusis from me,' Dot said, getting the same nauseated look on her face that Trefusis's name tended to inspire in a lot of people, as if a dog under the table had silently farted. 'Someday I'll tell you stories about that man that will just curl your hair!'
I looked over at Greco's curly hair and wondered if he'd already heard them. For the second time in an hour I wanted to reach over and take his head very carefully in my hands.
A door opened somewhere in the front reaches of the house, and a warbly nasal voice, like a flute with a piece of straw stuck in it, wafted down the hallway. 'Dor-o-thy? Are you back there, Doro-thy?'
'Yes, we're back here, hon. In the kitchen.'
A short plump woman in a floral print dress ambled into the room. She had an abstracted, vaguely wounded look, as if preoccupied with a deep pain that had begun a long time ago, or maybe her feet hurt. Her prominent jaw was set like a pink Maginot Line, and she had snow white hair done in a beauty parlor wave. She smelled of lilac water, face powder, and old bureau drawers. Through white plastic-framed glasses, her cool blue eyes gave me a weary baleful look. I was another sign of the trouble.
'Edith, this is Mr. Strachey,' Dot said loudly. 'He's a detective.'
Edith squinted at me, looking lost, as I stood up.
'He's a detective, Edie. A detective-Donald Strachey.'
'H. P. Lovecraft? Why, I thought he was dead!'
'Strachey. Donald Strachey, Edie. A detective who's going to catch the people who wrote on the barn!'
'Yes, yes, someone wrote on the barn, you already told me about that, Dorothy. I know all about that. Has anyone watered the peonies, Dorothy? This weather… my word!'
'Fenton and Peter watered them a little while ago, hon.'
'The petunias in the window box look about ready to expire. And, my stars, I know just how they feel. Are you a gardener, Archie?'
She seemed to be addressing me. I said, 'No, I'm not, Mrs. Stout. When I was a boy in New Jersey I once caused a single onion to sprout for my Cub Scout agrarian badge, but that's about the extent of it.'
'We tried brussels sprouts too one year,' Edith said sadly. 'But the coons filched them.'
'Oh. Sorry.'
Something crossed her mind and, suddenly alert, she gave me the fish-eye. 'I suppose you're one of Dorothy's gay-lib friends. Is that it? March up and down the street, make a commotion, get us all into this trouble?'
'I guess I am,' I said. 'But I don't think I'll march today, Mrs. Stout. Not in this weather.'
'That is not what I meant,' she said, glaring, 'and you know it.' She sniffed and gave Dot a why-do-you-do- this-to-me look. 'I guess I'll just wander out and rest my feet by the pond for a spell. You young people enjoy yourselves. Are you coming out, Dorothy?'
'After a bit, hon. When it cools down a bit we can go for a stroll. And I think I'll take a quick dip in the pond later.'
'Oh, that would be lovely,' Edith said, forgetting the trouble again. 'I'll fix some cucumber sandwiches and lemonade. This weather! My land, when will we get some relief!'
When Edith had gone, Dot smiled weakly. 'Edie's hearing isn't what it once was. I guess you could tell. And, yes, she's fretful too, and forgetful and… every once in a while, thank the Lord, Edith is cheery and sweet and sharp as a tack. Just the way she used to be. But, oh dear, the years certainly are taking their toll. Not that that isn't to be expected. Edith's seven years older than I am, Don, did you know that? Edie will be seventy-six next month.'
I wanted to say she didn't seem it, but she did. Older, in fact. Edith appeared sturdy enough, her health generally sound. But her mind was on its way out, well ahead of the rest of her. I wondered who this would happen to first-Timmy or me?
The telephone rang, and Dot sprang up to answer it. She was as light on her feet as Edith was heavy, as alert as Edith was vague and uncertain.
As Dot listened to the caller, I watched the color drain from her face. Abruptly, she slammed the receiver down. The blood returned to her cheeks and neck in a rush as she looked at me, stricken, and said, 'Now they're phoning us with their horrible threats! Now this is the absolute limit!' end user
4
Tomorrow you die! was what the voice on the phone had said in a harsh whisper. Dot wasn't certain whether it had been a man or a woman speaking.
I summoned McWhirter and Greco, who had just finished up the paint-over job.
'I'm calling the police again,' McWhirter said, livid, and grabbed up the phone.
I said, 'Good idea.'
Dot sat down and shakily drank from her can of beer. While McWhirter explained to the police desk officer how he was an unwitting agent of heterosexist oppression, I asked Dot about the other families who lived on Moon Road, the ones on Crane Trefusis's list of suspects.
'I do feel sorry for them,' she said, trying hard to smile and focus on something other than her fear. 'We don't see much of one another, of course, but both the Deems and Wilsons seem like awfully nice people-or at least Kay Wilson does-and I do wish there was some way for them to get their money without my having to sell out to those thieves from Millpond.'
She sipped at the beer, glanced once at the phone, which suddenly had become a menacing object for her, then made herself go on.
'Kay Wilson used to come up and draw water from our spring and we'd chat, but she hasn't been by since last month, when I told her we definitely weren't going to sell. And Joey Deem doesn't come by to mow the lawn anymore. It's upsetting. And I feel terribly guilty sometimes, but… really. This is my home. I suppose I could pick up and start over. But after thirty-eight years in one place… well, it's hard to tell where this house ends and I begin. It would be like cutting off an arm and a leg.
'And Edith! Oh, my. She's been with me since her Bert died in sixty-eight, and what a trial it would be for her to pull up stakes. A trial for both of us. I'd probably try to drag her off to Laguna Beach or P-town, or some other reservation for old dykes, and, oh, Lord, she'd just be fit to be tied! In case you didn't notice,' she added with a little laugh, 'Edith's a conservative and I'm a liberal.'
I said, 'I caught that.'
'Well, let me tell you, young man. When I came out in seventy-nine, Edith nearly had a fit. I marched in the gay-pride parade in New York that year-that's where I met Fenton and Peter and Edith almost drove the both of us right into the booby hatch with her fussing and carrying on. Finally she did ride along with me on the bus down to the city. But then, wouldn't you know, when the parade started up Fifth Avenue, Edith just stomped over and walked up the sidewalk alongside the parade! Her legs were better then, but she still had a devil of a time keeping up.
Mad as a wet hen she was, fretting the whole time that one of the girls in our bridge club might see me on TV.
'Not that it would have mattered to me. In fact, later that summer was when I finally came out with the girls. Now there's a story I'll tell you someday, and you won't know whether to laugh or cry. There were eight of us in the bridge club back then, and now we're just five. That's a good number for poker'-she laughed-'but not worth a tinker's damn for bridge.'
'It sounds pretty awkward.'
'I guess that's one reason I'd like to hang on to this old house. It's like a true friend that doesn't judge us.'
