Diana Killian - Murder On The Eightfold Path

“Where did she meet this boy?”

At the same time, A.J. asked, “Did they meet on a cruise by any chance?”

“No.” Mart sounded sure. “No, Peggy never went on a cruise. She was deathly afraid of water. To be honest, I can’t remember where she said she met him.”

“Where did your sister get her hair styled?” Elysia asked.

“Oh that overpriced place in Newton. The Salon or whatever they call it.”

A.J. and Elysia exchanged looks.

“Did she approach this boy after the blackmail began?”

“Ohhhh yes,” Mart said with grim satisfaction. “Did she ever. And she kept approaching him.” She laughed heartily. “He claimed he wasn’t blackmailing her. That it was nothing to do with him. He was romancing some other rich widow by then, and Peg did her best to stick a spoke in that wheel.”

“Did she try approaching the woman directly?”

“No. I asked her about that. She said it wouldn’t do any good. The woman wouldn’t believe her or was too crazy about the kid to care-and Peg hadn’t paid fifty thousand dollars to protect her good name just to reveal it to some stranger who was old enough to know better.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” A.J. repeated weakly. “What about those blackmail payments? Did your sister ever try to find who was picking them up from the post office box? Whether it was this boy or not?”

Mart said slowly, “I don’t know. She talked about it at one point. I don’t know if she ever really did pursue it. If she did, she didn’t tell me about it. Peg was private. That’s why she let them extort money from her, I guess. Me? I’d have said publish and be damned.” She took a defiant swig of iced tea.

“Would Peg have been likely to confront the blackmailer?”

“It’s possible. If she could have done it safely-I mean, done it and kept her secret.”

“She should have gone to the police,” A.J. said. Both Mart and Elysia gave her scornful looks. A.J. insisted, “She’s dead because she didn’t speak up.”

Elysia dismissed this with a graceful flutter of fingers.

A.J. ignored her and asked, “Do you remember what this boy’s name was? Was he Egyptian, by any chance?”

“No. Blond and blue-eyed as I recall. His name was something like Cory. I don’t remember a last name. I don’t think Peg ever mentioned it.”

“Would you have an address for him or any idea of how to get in contact with him?”

Mart shook her head.

“What about your sister’s papers? Do you think there might be something there that might provide a lead?”

Mart scratched her head, frowning meditatively. “I don’t remember seeing anything, but then I wasn’t looking for anything. Not to do with the kid, anyway. I tried to find some way to prove she had been blackmailed. But there was nothing.” She grimaced. “I’m a pack rat. My sister was the opposite. She never kept anything she didn’t have immediate use for. And I’ve seen banks that didn’t have files and paperwork as well organized as she was.”

“She wouldn’t wish to take a chance on something falling into the wrong hands,” Elysia remarked.

“Exactly. That’s exactly right. She wasn’t someone who left anything to chance. She didn’t like to gamble.”

“But she took a chance when she had the affair with Cory or whatever his name was,” A.J. pointed out.

The other two women stared at her. Then Mart reached over and patted her hand. “You’ll understand when you’re older, babycakes.”

“They killed her,” Elysia said with ghoulish satisfaction as they left Mart Crowley’s quiet suburban home and started back to Stillbrook. “Either way you look at it, they killed her.”

“If she killed herself because she was being blackmailed, I agree that philosophically and ethically the blackmailers are guilty. But I don’t know how that would hold up in a court of law. I don’t know that could ever be proved since she didn’t leave a note.”

Elysia shifted into high gear as they reached the open highway. “Immaterial. She didn’t kill herself. They killed her.”

A.J. wasn’t so sure. In fact their interview with Mart Crowley had left her less sure. “That wouldn’t be so easy to do, Mother. First of all, Peggy didn’t typically take sleeping pills, so how would they get her to swallow an overdose?”

“Force-feed her. Slip them in her bedtime warm milk. I don’t know. I just know they did.”

“But once Mart started claiming foul play the police would surely have checked for signs of violence. There couldn’t have been any.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Well, we can find out.” Jake would surely do this much for her. A.J. added, “Plus how would the blackmailers have gained access to Peggy’s warm milk?”

Elysia said exasperatedly, “I was being facetious.”

“I know you were, but the point remains. If she didn’t take the pills herself, how would they have been administered? Someone would have to have access to her home and her pills and her food or drink.”

“This boy she was having the affair with would have had access. This Cory.”

“We don’t know that. According to Mart, Cory was just a boy toy. I can’t imagine someone as fearful of publicity as Peggy seemed to be giving a casual sexual partner the key to her home.”

“Maybe he stole a key.”

“Maybe he did, but this is getting totally into the realm of speculation. We don’t know that Cory ever had access to Peggy’s keys, let alone that she ever brought him home.”

“We need to find out.”

“We need to be careful,” A.J. corrected. “For one thing if there is some connection between Maddie’s death and Peggy’s we don’t want anyone to know we’re poking around in this. It could prove extremely hazardous to our health.”

Elysia made a disgusted sound.

“I’m serious, Mother. If Maddie was killed I think there’s a very good chance it was because she knew something about Peggy’s death. Or someone thought she did. And if that’s the case, they acted swiftly and ruthlessly.”

Elysia had no response to that.

“Why don’t we put together a list of questions and I’ll ask Jake-”

“Jake!”

“Yes, Jake. I don’t have another police contact. Do you? Plus I believe him when he’s trying to help you. If we can present him with a viable alternative suspect and motive, he’ll take it to the DA. So let’s figure out what we need to know. Like did they investigate this Cory at all? Was there any record of where the sleeping pills were purchased? That kind of thing.”

“The fact that four people connected to this case are also connected to the same hairdresser is too much of a coincidence for me.”

“I agree. But not everyone seems to think it’s that amazing a coincidence. And, in fairness, The Salon is very popular. Besides, we already knew Peggy went to The Salon,” A.J. reminded her. “Maddie learned about her death at The Salon.”

Elysia sighed. “True.”

They debated a short list of questions A.J. could present to Jake in hopes that he might follow up where they could not. By the time they had worked out their short list, they were pulling into the long, dirt drive that led to the farmhouse at Deer Hollow.

As A.J. got out of the SUV, Elysia leaned across and said, “Anna?”

A.J. bent, absently reflecting that even a week ago she would have been unable to make so simple a move without pain. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“Of course!” A.J. said quickly. She wasn’t even exactly sure what her mother was thanking her for, but she was a little embarrassed.

“I know you think we should trust the police and leave any further investigating to them. I couldn’t do this on my own, so… thank you.”