scheme, and Jackson, since he was only a private, would’ve dutifully gone along. He was probably scared out of his wits anyway – at being exposed as a homosexual, at being implicated in a murder, at being arrested by foreign police in a strange country. He would’ve been malleable and compliant.
At least that’s how it would’ve gone down under ordinary conditions. These weren’t ordinary conditions, though. These were three gay men who were sexually involved with one another in ways and combinations I couldn’t possibly fathom. Everything was topsy-turvy.
There was too much here I couldn’t begin to comprehend, things that were beyond my ken. Whitehall had smelled me out right away; I knew next to nothing about gays and their peculiar relationships. I knew who did, though.
I therefore left my room, took the elevator down two floors, and walked to room 430. I knocked hard three times, then tried to look perfectly guileless.
A light came on inside the room, the peephole darkened, the bolt slid open, and the door swung inward.
Katherine was wearing a skimpy T-shirt that came a quarter of the way down her thighs. She did have great legs, with long, taut muscles, slender calves, and thin ankles. Her hair was mussed and she looked groggy. She audibly groaned. Delighted to see me she clearly wasn’t.
I tried to hide my rapture at interrupting her sleep. With flawless insouciance, I said, “I’m sorry to awaken you” – which I wasn’t – “but I’ve got a few questions” – which I did.
“Drummond, it’s one o’clock in the morning.”
“Oh, so it is,” I admitted, barging my way past her. “Well, you’re already awake anyway.”
She followed me, quietly cursing. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms across her chest. “This better be good. Really good.”
“Right,” I said, falling into a chair and kicking up my feet onto her desk, just to be sure she knew I was settling in for the duration. “Start with this. Do you believe Whitehall’s claim that he and Lee were in love?”
She climbed back onto her bed, got under the covers, and hiked them up across her chest. “Drummond, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m an attorney, not a lie detector.”
“Right. But here’s my problem. You’ve got four gay guys at a party. One gets murdered. His corpse contains semen from two different men. One of those men claims he and the deceased were madly in love, an eternal love, the type that comes along only once in a lifetime. See my problem here? Don’t gays get jealous like heteros?”
“Of course they do.”
“Then how does it square? If Whitehall and Lee were an item, something doesn’t fit here. If Moran raped Whitehall’s amour, why in the hell would Whitehall invite him to sleep over?”
“I never assumed Moran raped him,” she said.
“No?”
She gave me an outsize stare. “Do you have any idea how rare homosexual rapes are?”
“Frankly, I don’t,” I admitted. “See, my mind’s all cluttered up with all those useless heterosexual things.”
If she got my taunt, she ignored it. “It’s almost unheard of. At least when the act is between two adults. Homosexuals are not nearly as sexually aggressive as heteros. Even in homosexual pedophilia, forcible rapes are rare, although of course, pedophile cases are automatically classified as statutory rapes because the victims are underage. But actual, forcible rape is almost unheard of. Forget everything you know about hetero rapes.”
“So you’re saying hetero rape and homo rape aren’t the same?”
“Rape’s rape, regardless of the sexual mix. I’m saying that in over half of hetero rapes, the victim and the attacker are at least acquainted with each other. That’s also nearly unheard of in homosexual rape cases. Except in prison, that is. There, all the rules are upended.”
“So what? You never believed Moran raped Lee?”
“You actually want my opinion?” she asked, with only the barest hint of sarcasm or skepticism.
“Why else would I be here?” I asked, failing to mention, of course, the sweet joy of waking her up in the middle of the night.
“Okay. Here’s what I suspect. Moran and Thomas willingly swapped partners.”
“And you believe the partners were willing, too?”
“These are grown men. It would’ve been almost physically impossible without their consent.”
“But why would Whitehall swap a partner he claims he loved?”
“I’m only guessing, okay? I think, though, that you might’ve elicited a motive from Thomas this evening. He and Lee, they both knew their love was doomed. Thomas had only four weeks remaining on his tour. Lee wasn’t going to join him in the States, and maybe Thomas – or Lee – decided the time had come to orchestrate a separation.”
“So you think maybe this partner-swapping thing was an effort to separate? Like some kinky kind of divorce?”
“Maybe, yes. Remember, you’re talking about gays. They were seeking a clean way to emotionally disentangle. Maybe they decided to start by physically disentangling.”
“And they did this by engaging in some kind of switch-hitting orgy?”
“No, Drummond. I’d guess they tried to handle it in a very gentle, discreet way. They probably drank a great deal to deaden their nerves and fortify themselves for something that was emotionally trying. And I’d guess that at some point in the evening, they paired off and went to separate bedrooms.”
“So this was how they chose to separate?”
“It’s possible.”
“Is that common? Is that how gays handle it?”
“Is there a common way heteros handle breakups and divorces?”
“Of course not.”
“Don’t assume there’s a universal way gays handle it, either. Every relationship’s different; every ending’s different.”
“Okay,” I said, “then see if you can figure this out. There was about a thirty-minute gap between the time Lee’s corpse was discovered and the arrival of the police. What did they do during that gap?”
She said, “Who called the police?”
“Moran.”
“Really? And why’d he do that?”
“Huh?”
“Why’d he call the police? Think about it. He awakens to find a corpse in the apartment. Now if he was the murderer, or was implicated in the murder, why would he call the police? Wouldn’t he and Thomas try to work out some way to dispose of the body? Wouldn’t they put their heads together and try to figure out how to sneak the corpse out of the building so they can dump it in the woods someplace where it would never be found? Wouldn’t they?”
“I suppose, yeah.”
“But instead, Moran called the police, right?”
“But was Whitehall aware he was calling the police?”
“Almost certainly, yes.”
“Then let me try a different tack. Whitehall’s upset at Lee. The love of his life has just refused to run off and join him back in the States. He feels jilted, rebuffed.”
“Okay…”
“They agree to try this partner-swapping merry-go-round, only instead of helping Whitehall get over it, it makes him insanely jealous. He gets incensed. They retire to the bedroom together. They start having sex, only Whitehall’s emotions fly out of control. He gets rough. First he punches him silly. Maybe he hits him in the solar plexus and knocks the wind out of him. Then he slings a belt around Lee’s neck, and before he knows it, he’s killed him. Maybe it was deliberate. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was subterranean rage boiling to the surface. He lies awake the rest of the night and tries to sort through what to do next. Act one is to seem like he’s sound asleep when Moran opens his door at five-thirty.”
“Then why would he let Moran call the police? Why wouldn’t he try to talk him out of it?”
“Because that’s act two. He’s smart. If he resists, that would be tantamount to admitting he killed Lee. Instead he says, ‘Geez, gosh, oh my God, look at this! Somebody killed my boyfriend. Quick! Someone call the police!’ ”
