On the Other Hand, Death by Richard Stevenson

Author:Richard Stevenson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: mystery, detective, gay, movies
ISBN: 1934531294
Publisher: MLR Press
Published: 1984-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

12

Passing the Deems' house, I told Timmy, "I'll stop back here later. I don't think the Deems are the main problem in all of this. Maybe none at all. But there's something I want to check. You can help me out by looking into another nagging matter."

As we bumped past the Wilsons' I explained to Timmy what I wanted him to find out about Bill Wilson.

"I'll do what I can," he said, "but this whole thing is starting to scare the hell out of me. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this rough stuff. It started out as some homophobic vandalism, which was sickening enough. And now people are actually getting hurt. Mutilated."

"I don't like it either."

"Imagine having your lover's finger arrive in a box. Of course, it could have been worse."

"It wasn't his," I said.

We turned onto Central.

"It— What wasn't whose?"

"That finger wasn't Greco's."

"Come on. Really? How do you know? I thought McWhirter told Bowman it was."

"Greco has thick black hair on the tops of his fingers. I know. He touched my face. It tickled a little. The finger in that box was slender like Greco's but practically hairless. And what little hair there was was lighter than Greco's."

"He touched your face? Kee-rist, Donald." He undulated awkwardly in his seat belt. "Do you want to describe the circumstances, lover, or should I just draw my own sensational conclusions and stick it all in your 'Seven Since June' file? Crimenee. You're just—incredible."

"He did it once standing in Dot's front yard and once standing in the parking lot outside the Green Room. It's a habit Greco has. Touching faces. He's a sweet, affectionate, uninhibited guy. It's no automatic High Homintern cocktail-party-kiss kind of thing. It's just something he can't help doing. Unconventional, but winning. Not that there's anything calculating in the gesture. You can't not like him."

"'Like.' Right."

I turned onto Colvin, south into the Pine Hills section of the city. I said, "Now who's not trusting whom?"

He threw his head around, sulked, threw his head around some more. Then he looked over at me in utter amazement. "But . . . McWhirter must have known!"

"Ah-ha."

"Presumably McWhirter is familiar with his lover's finger."

"A safe assumption."

"But then— Why did he lie? Dot told me McWhirter identified the finger as Greco's."

"Beats me. Before the day is over I'll ask him."

We swung left onto Lincoln.

"And you didn't say anything because . . . ?"

"I figured the news should be broken to the authorities by the loved one. The fact that it wasn't seemed to me a piece of information almost as fascinating as the fact of the finger itself. I think I know why McWhirter didn't speak up. But I'm not sure."

"I'm surprised Bowman didn't doubt his word. Press him on it. Maybe take him downtown for a lineup. 'Mr. McWhirter, is any of these eight fingers that of the man with whom you participate in an un-Godly relationship?'"

"Bowman will rely on the lab people," I said. "And they'll most likely come up with nothing, because I doubt that Greco has ever been fingerprinted.

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