Donald Strachey

Donald Strachey's claim to fame is being the only openly gay private investigator in the Albany area. He is married to Tim Callahan, the aide to Democratic senator, Dianne Glassman. Because of the expensive house renovations Donald and Tim are going through, Donald reluctantly takes the case of John Rutka, a gay advocate, who is hated by homophobes for being so vocally gay, and by many gays, such as Donald and Tim, because he, through his website, outs gays who want to stay in the closet. The higher the profile of his targets, the better he feels he is advancing the gay cause. John was shot in his own home by an unknown assailant, while his boyfriend Eddie Santon was home with him. John wants Donald to find out and nab who shot him, before the perpetrator finishes the job. They believe that the shooter is probably working for one of the many he is investigating as possibly being gay, the three who he was contemplating possibly featuring in the next edition of his blog being the most-likely candidates. As Donald sifts through the leads on the three, further attempts are made on John's life as well as on his own and Tim's as Donald gets closer to the truth. Through it all, Donald isn't sure how much he can trust John and by association Eddie, as John has a reputation for lying to advance his own cause.

Because of a feature article on him in the Advocate, Albany based Donald Strachey has gained some notoriety as a gay private detective. His latest client, Paul Hale, a scared young man, provides Donald with a $5,000 retainer to find "someone", that person unspecified before Paul is scared off. Soon thereafter, Paul is found dead. The official cause of death is deemed suicide by the coroner's office, but Donald wants to do right by Paul by finding who killed him as the police unofficially believe he was murdered. Another person who believes Paul was murdered is his mother, Phyllis Hale. Donald learns that homophobic Mrs. Hale sent Paul to the Phoenix Foundation, run by Dr. Trevor Cornell and his wife Lynn Cornell and for which Paul was the poster child. The Foundation's raison d'etre is repairative therapy i.e. to help people turn from gay to straight. Donald believes Paul's death has something to do with the Foundation, whether it be a connection to one of the Cornells or one of the other patients. As such, Donald goes undercover as a patient at the Foundation to find the killer. This case ends up hitting home for him as he opens up for the first time to his partner Tim Callaghan about his own less than happy gay past.

Tim Callahan, aide to New York Senator Lauren Platt, is disappointed that all of the $3 million funding has been pulled from his latest pet project, a safe zone for children and youth. His personal partner, private investigator Donald Strachey, believes Tim's passion for the project stems from the fact of his own sister's troubled youth, she who has been missing since age seventeen. Tim believes his prayers have been answered when a man, identifying himself as a lawyer, tells him that he represents someone who wants to make a $3 million anonymous donation to the project. Those prayers turn into a nightmare when that lawyer is later found murdered, the dead body in Donald's car. The murdered man is Jake Lenigan, a third generation lawyer in a powerful family law firm. Jake's father was murdered twelve years earlier, the perceived suspect in that case being his wife Joan, who has since disappeared. Tim and Donald's situation becomes even more nightmarish when Tim anonymously receives that $3 million in untraceable Euro bonds. The murderer will do whatever is necessary to get that money back from Tim and Donald, the latter who is working with the police to find Lenigan's purpose in wanting to donate the money to Tim's cause, find if Jake's father's murder has anything to do with this case, discover the owner of the money and thus the probable murderer, and most importantly protect himself and his boyfriend from being possible murder victims.

A mysterious client of private eye Don Strachey pays him cash to tail a woman who turns out to be an undercover officer; an older lesbian couple are victims of threats and vandalism; an old flame of his lover Tim shows up to support the older couple; neighbors are angry at the couple for refusing to sell out to a developer; and, parents are angry at one of the couple, Dorothy, for being a good guidance counselor to gay teens. Her partner, Edith, wants to move away; Dorothy is adamant about staying. When someone dies in a fire in their barn, the stakes get higher. Don, who does not believe in coincidence, gives the police enough information to stay on their good side as he pursues the truth.