Denise Swanson - Murder of a Small-Town Honey

"What do you mean, took things? He was a thief, too?" Vince reached for his glass.

"Yeah. I'm never letting you set me up with a blind date again."

Simon took Skye's hand. "That's good to hear."

They were interrupted by a knock on the door and a voice calling out, "It's Darleen Boyd. Can I come in?"

Jumping out of her seat, May rushed to the door. "You come on in. You're just in time for dessert."

Darleen tried to say no, but before she knew it, she was seated between Skye and Charlie. As if by magic, a piece of apple-slice pastry appeared in front of her.

May finally allowed Darleen to speak after everyone was served their sweet. "This is kind of hard to say in front of you all, but I know that you already know most of the story. When Wally stopped by the school and told me about the record of my being blackmailed, I decided to start fresh. I took half a personal day and came over here to explain."

Skye turned to her. "You don't owe any of us an expla­nation. I'm just sorry your personal problems got dragged into the open as much as they have been." "But 1 want to tell you," Darleen insisted. Charlie patted her arm. "We're all ears." "Well, Wally and I decided to try and have a baby about three years ago. At first we weren't concerned when I didn't get pregnant right away, but then I started to worry. About a year went by and we started talking about getting tested. Before we decided, I got a letter in the mail. I still can't fig­ure out how Honey found out about this, but we weren't keeping our attempts to conceive a secret.

"Anyway, the letter revealed that back in high school Mike had a sexually transmitted disease that he gave to Honey, which made her sterile. She figured I must have the same thing and that was why I wasn't getting pregnant. So she threatened to tell Wally if I didn't pay her to keep quiet. "I quit telling Wally I wanted us to be tested and paid up. A month ago Wally insisted that we get examined. When I got the results, I finally came clean with him and stopped paying Honey."

Skye poured her a glass of iced tea and said sympatheti­cally, "We're all so sorry."

Darleen got up and made her way to the door. "You know, I do feel much better now that I've talked about it. Since this nightmare started, I haven't been able to eat much, but now I think I'm actually hungry."

Those were the magic words that May lived to hear. She packed a lunch and had it in Darleen's hand before anyone else could bat an eyelash.

Skye's curiosity was still not satisfied. "I wonder why Honey raised the blackmail amounts so suddenly?"

"I can explain that," Charlie said. "When I talked to her agent, she said her show had been canceled. She was going to be out of a job come September."

"This time I have a question for Simon." Skye pinned him to his seat with her gaze. "How did you find out my fa­vorite flower and brand of chocolates?"

He looked guiltily at May. "I asked your mother."

There is no such thing as privacy in a small town. Haven't I just watched a bunch of people learn that the hard way? Skye straightened. "Let's get back to Vince's questions about Mike's stealing. He never took valuable items, just bits and pieces. People mostly thought they'd misplaced things. When the police searched his place they found boxes of sunglasses, pens, ashtrays, key rings ... you name it. A lot of the stuff had people's names on it."

"Why would he do something like that?" Jed asked.

They all looked at him in surprise, as he rarely con­tributed to conversations.

"Well, Dad," Skye replied, "Mike's family wasn't any­thing like ours. His father was an alcoholic and abusive. He must have always felt like an outcast."

May asked, "How do you know all this?"

"Wally told me about Mike's dysfunctional family. I'm guessing the rest from my experience as a psychologist," Skye said.

May frowned. "Seems that people are always just telling you something."

"After all this," Simon said, "maybe next time someone tries to confide in you, you'd better not listen."