Beauty Queen

hear a lot of talk about 'Poor Mary Ellen, that skell taking her for a ride, using her for his cover.' That kind of crap."
    "You don't have to tell me," said Mary Ellen hoarsely. "I know exactly what was said. And who said it."
    Bader looked around the restaurant. "How are you doing?"
    "Okay," said Mary Ellen. "This is just temporary. When I pull myself together, I'll find something better."
    "Mary Ellen, I want you to know that Danny's file hasn't been stuck in a back drawer somewhere. The department is moving to find his killers."
    "I'm glad to hear it," she said faintly.
    "Yesterday there was a similar assault near another bar. Same MO. Same kind of note left on the body. Fortunately the victim is still alive. He's in a coma. But if he ever comes out of it, we're hoping that he can identify the assailants."
    Unable to help herself, Mary Ellen felt the blinding tears running down her face again. They ran silently, without a sob or a drawing of breath.
    Bader rubbed his hand over his face, evidently distressed at the sight of her tears.
    "Mary Ellen, do you have any information on who might have beaten Danny?"
    She shook her head.
    "If you leam anything, will you come to me with the information?" he persisted gently.
    She nodded, unable to speak.
    He studied her awkwardly. She had the impression that he was on the verge of reaching out and patting her hand, but he didn't. He just sat there, silent for a few minutes.
    Finally he said, "Mary Ellen, I want you to know how very sorry I am that you're gone. And I'm sorry that Danny is gone. He was a good cop, and a damn nice kid."
    She looked at him dumbly through her tears, and managed to nod.
    Later, when she was home having a last cup of coffee and bathing her burning eyes, it occurred to her to wonder about Captain Bader. He could have questioned her at her apartment, but he hadn't. At the apartment, he would have noted the one bedroom, and the one bed. He might have seen Liv. It was lucky that he hadn't gone canvassing to Bedford Street. She wondered if Bader was one of the real hard-core closet cases in the department. With his high rank and all his citations and his good pay and his family, he'd have a lot to lose. So a guy like that wouldn't come out to anyone.
    In any case, she couldn't help noting his delicacy in the matter—his not questioning her at home, his not questioning her in detail, his sympathy for Danny. And by questioning her himself, Bader had made sure that no one else would talk to her. With Bader's report in the files, the police would probably consider the matter closed.
    Jeannie Colter faced the TV news cameras. Something like outraged indignation was going on inside her. But she maintained her calm exterior, as she mentally rehearsed the prepared statement that she had memorized.
    The death of this obscure patrolman had certainly become a cause celebre in the city. The mush-headed liberals had the nerve to say that Blackburn's death was her fault. The liberals and the homosexuals were making a martyr out of someone who didn't deserve to be one—an unsavory character, with a record as a juvenile, who had been beaten to death by some misguided thugs (probably drunk) in an unsavory neighborhood.
    What was there to glorify in that?
    She was also very jittery, and in the back of her mind was the memory of how soothing a cocktail had been. She pushed the thought away.
    There had even been a rumor that the parents of the immoral young man were planning to sue her for a million and a half dollars. Quickly she had her attorney contact them, and it turned out that they planned no such thing. In fact they seemed as outraged about Danny Blackburn's hidden homosexual life as she was.
    The problem was that the men who beat Blackburn to death, and thousands of others like them, had no legal means to express their anti-homosexual feelings. After all, they had rights too. They had the right to live in a society uncontaminated by this element, to send their children to schools free of homosexual teachers, to live in neighborhoods where there were no homosexuals carrying on.
    In centuries past, society had a more clear-cut method of dealing with homosexuals. It put them in jail, or in insane asylums—it even dared to mandate the death sentence against them. And when you considered that in some countries, people had been hanged for stealing a loaf of bread, hanging homosexuals didn't seem severe by comparison.
    All these thoughts poured through her mind. They