David and the Lion’s Den, XVI
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, Gay, Fiction, Friendship, Art

“About time!” Richard growled after he ripped his Carla persona away with his wig.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me!?” I gasped.

“Why? How didn’t you ever notice?”

Richard’s question shocked me. I think he meant for it to. Of course I should have known who Carla was all along. With my painter’s eye — my sense of shape and perspective — I should have seen through the makeup and wig immediately.

Jill and Hilda were obviously not surprised. So, why was I? I thought about that as I collapsed into my chair and picked up my coffee.

“So, what else haven’t you noticed?” Richard prodded.

“Huh?”

“Look, if you were so wrapped in yourse… in your work, that you couldn’t see who I was, then what else have you missed?”

“Missed?”

“Come on, kid. Think! Whoever killed those people had to be close to you, right?”

I nodded, warily.

Jill looked me in the eyes. “Didn’t they all die of like severe food poisoning?”

Richard agreed. “That’s what the papers are saying.”

“And that doesn’t even begin to make sense,” I complained. “I don’t get it at all.”

“Whether it makes sense or not,” Richard continued as he picked up his whip and turned it over carefully, “everyone who died had to eat something toxic. And since nobody but your models got sick …”

“Something in the lunches we delivered,” I shrugged. “It had to be, but it can’t be.”

“We know all this already,” Jill pointed out.

“What we don’t know are the details,” Richard frowned. “How did it work, David? Where did you pick the meals up, and who had access to them — other than you and Howie?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I’ve been over this a million times. Howie always had them in the van already when he picked me up. I just helped deliver. Hilda? You’d know better than me.”

She looked up from her coffee, wrinkles contorted in puzzlement. “Ja, but what I know is not helping. Is no sense.”

“Just go over it with us anyway,” Richard instructed. “And, David, listen carefully. There has to be something we’re all missing.”

So, she laid out the details — A kitchen rented from the Westbeth Community Center. Food donated from restaurants, supermarkets, and government surplus agencies. Volunteer cooks and packagers showing up every morning just after dawn. Howie and plenty of other drivers backing into loading docks under a rusted rail line near the Hudson. Boxes slung in hand over hand.

Richard asked her the key question. “But how do you know which box goes to which apartment? What’s the paperwork like for that?”

Hilda shrugged. “Maybe one day we can be so careful. But now there is no giving exact food to exact patient. No, is too difficult for us. Each box is like every other.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Howie always had a crumpled up carbon copy he got at the docks. It had the number of meals on it and a list of names and addresses. That’s all! I think he had to turn it in the next morning.”

Hilda agreed. “Exact. I am receiving all forms for bookkeeping. Ja.”

Richard summed it up. “So, nobody in the kitchen could know which delivery guy was getting which box, let alone who would ultimately eat it.”

I sighed. No wonder the papers thought we were guilty. “So now what?” I asked the table at large. “This isn’t helping unless you guys want to testify for the prosecution.”

“We’re missing something, obviously,” Richard mused. “Don’t get discouraged.”

We sat in silence for a while, nobody having any idea what to say. I was about to give in to despair again.

It was Jill who got the idea.

“Write it all down!” she suggested.

“Huh?”

“Pick a handful of days you remember really well, and write the stories. Put down every little detail, like it was a book.”

“OK,” I started, doubt weighing down my words. “But what’s the point? We already know nobody could have …”

“No, she’s right,” Richard broke in excitedly. “Listen — obviously something happened that we’re all missing. It’s probably right under our noses.”

“I guess,” I hesitated.

“Look, just start getting it written down, then as you do, we’ll get back together and go over it with you. Find the missing link. Something!”

I had strong doubts, but Jill and Hilda were so enthused that I went along.

“And don’t forget you’re a painter!” Jill added. “Write it like you’re filling in a canvas. Paint it. Make it real.”