Peyton Place Redux

Our local marina. We thought about a boat, but had five children instead.

Last week our community was described in the Wall Street Journal as a "tony Michigan town." Mind you, that was in an article about our annual invasion of fish flies: "This year, the bugs have been so numerous that store owners sweep up piles of dead bugs every morning. At night, thousands flutter around a single streetlight. Merchants try not to turn on their lights or they pull down heavy curtains to keep the bugs from piling up outside their businesses."


Fish flies aside, this is a pretty nice place to live—one of the last bastions of "old money", one of the best school districts in the country, two country clubs, a yacht club and a hunt club. Least you think I am boasting, I hasten to add that one of the great attractions of living here is the enormous diversity of houses, from the be-tenniscourted and be-swimmingpooled mansions along the lake to the duplexes and rental properties which are closer to where we live. 


A few months ago a woman who lived not too far from us was found strangled in her Mercedes in an alley in Detroit. The media descended on our police station, making it impossible to park outside our library, which shares a parking lot with the police station. Before arrests or charges or any investigation, there was a verdict in the comments of on-line newspapers—"It was one of "them."" "Allowing rentals was the start of all this." Those comments stopped abruptly when the husband (let's call him Mr. X) was declared a "person of interest." Then his handyman was arrested/turned himself in, I don't remember, and was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and confessed. This gentleman has an IQ of 67. So far, so good, but as the details about Mr. X emerged, we were in a world of S&M dungeons, whips, mistresses—all in our "tony" community! Now Mr. X has been arrested for putting out a contract to have the handyman killed in jail. At least one mistress (she used to work in the institution where I was employed) has fled the state and fears for her life too. In a statement to a local TV station, a dominatrix, Lady G, said: 'Several of my clients or slaves have called me today. Since this has come out I've had like over 20 phone calls.

'They are all people who have been to his parties and asked if I was involved with them. Some of them were worried there might have been hidden cameras, things like that'.

Or a little black book. Grace Metalious, where are you when we need you?