Dead Hunt

converted to apartments. Diane didn’t know who originally owned it. She would have to ask the landlady sometime. Speaking of the landlady, she needed to speak with her. Diane entered the wide double doors that led to the hallway and all the downstairs apartments. The landlady’s apartment was immediately to the right of the front door. She knocked.
    The landlady, a small, white-haired, elderly woman, opened the door. She was normally a nonstop talker, but at the moment she was speechless as she stared at Diane with a rather startled look on her face. Diane was beginning to wonder if she had morphed into an insect as she walked up the steps.
    ‘‘Oh, dear, this is awkward,’’ the landlady said finally.
‘‘Who is it, Aunt . . . oh,’’ her nephew said as he came to the door. ‘‘You’re right, awkward’s the word. Come in,’’ he said with a rather faint smile.
As she entered she heard one of her neighbors from upstairs speaking. Leslie had just had a baby a few months earlier. She and her husband were students at Bartram. They were a nice couple. In the aftermath of a meth lab explosion on a nearby street, they had knocked on everyone’s door to make sure all their neighbors had heard the evacuation order. Later the two of them served coffee to Diane and the others whose grim task it was to identify the bodies in the house that blew up while a student party was in progress.
‘‘This isn’t right. It’s un-American,’’ said Leslie. Her voice was full of feeling. She sounded close to tears.
‘‘I don’t even think you can,’’ said her husband. ‘‘You’re turning this into the Salem witch trials. It’s just wrong, and Leslie and I won’t have any part of it.’’
Everyone went quiet as Diane entered the room. She looked around at the landlady’s quaint living room. The entire population of her apartment building was sitting either on the rose-covered upholstered sofas, or the matching stuffed chairs, or her needlepoint dining room chairs.
Leslie and her husband were standing with their backs against the darkened fireplace. Diane’s fortysomething downstairs neighbors were sitting on the sofa. Ramona always looked to Diane as if she were about to implode in on herself—there was something tightly constricted about her whole person. She sat with her husband. They were the ones who frequently complained about Diane making too much noise, even though Diane was at home very little.
Diane recognized several other neighbors. One of the most recent was a professor of history at Bartram named Lawrence Donner, a distant relative of the Donner family who lent their name to the ill-fated Donner party. It was Diane’s understanding that he was writing a book to clear their reputation of cannibalism. He had moved into the basement apartment vacated by another of Bartram’s professors a few months before.
The Odells, her neighbors across the hall known for their interest in everything funerary, sat in two straight-backed chairs. Several others Diane knew by first name only. Most would not meet her eyes. Diane had the strangest urge to laugh. She bit it back.
Leslie looked at her with tears in her eyes. Their baby wasn’t with them. Probably being babysat by her aunt.
‘‘I’m glad you’re here,’’ said Leslie. ‘‘They need to face you. I just want you to know that we didn’t vote for this.’’
‘‘Oh, dear,’’ said her landlady. ‘‘I really like you, Diane, I do...’’
Diane’s cell phone rang and saved the landlady from further embarrassment.
‘‘Frank,’’ said Diane when she saw the display. ‘‘Excuse me one moment, please,’’ she said and turned aside to take the call.
‘‘Hey, I just called to say that I’m going to have to stay in Atlanta this evening.’’
‘‘That’s fine,’’ she said. ‘‘No problem.’’
‘‘You sound like you’re holding back a laugh,’’ he said. ‘‘Having a good time, are you?’’
‘‘Well, I think I was just voted off the island,’’ said Diane. She saw Leslie and her husband smile at her.
‘‘What?’’ asked Frank.
‘‘I’m at my apartment house. I inadvertently interrupted a meeting.’’
‘‘They’re kicking you out? They can’t do that.’’ Frank started laughing and Diane thought she was going to lose it.
‘‘I’d better go. I’ll talk to you later,’’ she said.
He was silent a moment.
‘‘What?’’ said Diane.
‘‘You know I love you,’’ he said.
‘‘I’m so