by Nancy Martin
Just looking at his handwriting sent my thoughts rushing into warm and fuzzy memories best suited for the sappiest pages of a romance novel—the way his stroll through my door made my knees quiver, his tantalizing touch lingering on my throat, his husky whisper good-bye when we last parted. Yes, I yearned for more—dark secrets as well as hot kisses shared late at night. But the sex part wasn’t going to happen yet. Maybe not ever, but certainly not now. The sensible part of my brain cautioned that neither of us was ready to trust the other so unconditionally that love-making could be as natural—or as safe—as breathing the same air.
I hoped I would be able to recognize when we reached the right place. My life had been so shattered by Todd that even now I sometimes don’t know which direction is up.
I propped Michael’s postcard on the pepper mill in the middle of the table.
At the bottom of my heap of mail was a large white envelope, addressed to me in typewritten letters. The same kind of envelope in which I’d brought home Kitty’s invitations.
I slit open the envelope with a knife. I shook out the contents, and a sheaf of three photographs spilled onto the kitchen table.
Photographs of me.
With Tim Naftzinger.
“Good Lord,” I said.
Spike spat out the catalog and put his paws on the table. He studied the pictures with his head cocked and his lips drawn back in his usual snarl.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I said to Spike.
It looked as if Tim Naftzinger and I were more than just friends.
I knew at once that the photos had been taken surreptitiously in the cloakroom of a hotel a month earlier. It had been at a party thrown to raise money for a safe house for abused children. I clearly remembered the evening. I had attended on behalf of the newspaper and had dinner with two other couples and Tim. He had come on behalf of the hospital, but was alone and therefore needed a seat at a table with an uneven number of guests. After the dinner, there had been dancing, but Tim and I both decided to leave early. He had helped me into my coat, I recalled.
But the photographs looked like something more than a gentleman assisting a friend in the cloakroom. My dress had revealed a lot of bare shoulders, and Tim had leaned closer than I remembered. He looked ready to nuzzle my throat, in fact, and in the next picture my innocent good-night kiss to his cheek appeared to be a flash of passion between two longtime lovers.
I dropped the photos on the table. As I did so, a note fell out.
Spike grabbed the note in his teeth. I wrestled with him and won.
The note read: Ten thousand dollars by Wednesday or you are in big trooble.
Trooble?
It took me a second to realize what the misspelled word meant, and then I couldn’t get enough oxygen.
What followed were directions for placing a bag of hundred-dollar bills underneath a statue in Rittenhouse Square.
Suddenly, my hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t stuff the photographs back into their envelope.
Spike growled when I dumped him on the floor. I rushed to the telephone and picked it up, but couldn’t imagine who to call for help.
Blackmail.
I dialed Michael’s cell phone number with trembling fingers and prayed the call would reach Scotland.
It rang four times before he picked up, shouting hello from several time zones away.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Hang on,” he bellowed. “I’ll call you back from another phone.”
I hung up and waited. For a man who assured me he had nothing to hide from the law, he spent a lot of time switching telephones. Thirty seconds later, my phone rang.
“Am I pulling you out of a trout stream?”
“Salmon,” he said, in a normal tone of voice. “Scotland has salmon. But I’m—never mind. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—What time is it there? Did I wake you?”
“It’s okay. What’s wrong? You sound scared. Is it Emma?”
“No, it’s me, believe it or not. I just received a blackmail letter. A demand for ten thousand dollars. With photographs.”
“Jesus Christ. Of us?”
My throat had a big, frightened lump lodged in it. “Nothing that easy. No, pictures of me with a friend in a hotel coatroom.”
“Damn. How come I can’t get cozy with you in a coatroom?”
“This is serious, Michael. I’m not kidding. The pictures show him just helping me with my coat, but they’re very—They make us look intimate. Like an advertisement for perfume or diamond rings. Like we’re in love with each other.”
More lightly than I could have imagined, he said, “So are you going to pay?”
“You know I can’t. And unless the blackmailer has just returned from Mars, he has to know I’m penniless, too.” I could hardly breathe. “Why is this happening?”
“Take it easy. Maybe he thinks if I hear you’re snuggling in the mink stoles with another man, I’ll have the guy whacked?”
“That’s not it. In fact, it’s not even me I’m worried about. Well, I am, but—It’s my friend I have to protect. He’s a respected doctor, up for a big promotion at his hospital. He’s got a wonderful daughter, and he’s sticking by his wife, who’s been in a coma since last January.” I could feel my emotions building into the hot, awful lump just above my lungs. “He has so much to lose if something awful starts circulating, Michael. People will be shocked if they think he’s having an affair while his wife is unconscious. And his daughter would be destroyed. It’s horrible.”
“Come on,” he said. “Don’t cry on the phone. I can’t stand it.”
“I’m not crying.” Not exactly, anyway.
“You’ve got to get mad. And smart. Who the hell is doing this to your friend? Not to mention you?”
“I don’t know. I’m too upset to think.” I sat down at the table.
“Cool down and concentrate. He’s counting on you panicking.”
I tried to collect myself. “What should I do?”
“Just think for a while. What do you already know? What doesn’t make sense?”
“None of it.”
“Think.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “for one thing, there’s a misspelled word in the note.”
“A dumb crook. Now there’s a surprise. What else?”
I almost smiled. “This afternoon I met someone else who’s been blackmailed. She’s a retired ballet dancer. But she has money, and I don’t.”
“Anything else?”
“I—I think the pictures came in the same kind of envelope that was found with Rush Strawcutter’s body.”
“Okay.”
“And I found a stack of the same envelopes in Kitty Keough’s desk drawer.”
“I won’t ask why you were digging through her desk, but this is good stuff. Could the Keough lady be your blackmailer?”
“She’s got the right personality.” Hearing my tone of voice, Spike growled on the floor at my feet. I reached down and scratched his ears. The churning in my mind began to make sense. “And Kitty would love it if I suffered a misfortune.”
“What’s her connection to the ballet dancer?”
“I don’t know. Except, well, there’s a good chance she’s dating Rush Strawcutter’s business partner.
“Partners can be the death of anybody.”
I picked up the envelope and carried it through the butler’s pantry and the dining room. Spike followed in case I bumped into any dragons he could slay for me. I turned on the living room lights and curled up in my favorite chair with the phone pinned between my shoulder and my ear. Spike hopped onto my lap. “The partner, the man Kitty’s dating, is in huge financial trouble right now.” I started to tell Michael about Tottie Boarman’s activities.
“I know about Boarman,” Michael said. “I read the papers. He’s one of those well-dressed felons. You know,” he added, “crimes that happen at the same time tend to be connected.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know so.”
“Well,” I said without asking how he had come by his insider knowledge, “Tottie Boarman made a big loan to Rush.” I put my feet up on the arm of the chair and tried to put the puzzle pieces in place. “The common denominator in all this seems to be Rush, doesn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Rush used to date the dancer, too. Did I mention that?”
“Yes, it all ties together somehow, doesn’t it? Call your friend in law enforcement,” Michael advised. “Maybe he can make the connection.”
I cuddled Spike. “You, of all people, are suggesting I go to the police?”
“This is the kind of crime the police excel at. Blackmail attracts white-collar types, so the work of finding them in suburbia isn’t dangerous. And unlike your garden-variety extortionist, blackmailers are emotional. They make mistakes. They’re easy to catch because the shakedown requires them—”
“To show up in person to get the money?”
“Smart girl. Extortion, on the other hand, usually involves broken bones and nervous guys with big guns.”
I shivered. “You know how I feel about guns.”
“And justifiably so.” His voice continued to soothe.
“Give Detective Gloom a call. Believe me, I’m not happy to suggest he could help you, but he’ll probably do something useful.” In a different tone, he added, “Since this is an easy way for him to look like a hero, he’ll probably jump at the chance.”
“I’m afraid to talk to him. For fear he’ll find a way to tie all this to Emma.”
“Hm. Good point.”
A moment passed while we considered the problem. I relaxed deeper into my chair and noted that Michael didn’t sound perplexed. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy the Machiavellian challenge of outsmarting a criminal. It allowed him to open a little-used valve in the back of his mind. For the moment, though, he asked, “How’s Spike?”
“Not housebroken yet.” I rubbed Spike’s tummy, and he blinked innocently up at me before closing his eyes in bliss. “If I go to the police, I’ll expose Tim to everything I’m trying to protect him from.”
“Tim? That’s the doctor?”
“He’s a very nice person. He’s—Well, his wife was hurt in a skiing accident. It’s so sad. He stuck by her, visits her every day despite a full load at the hospital and being up for an important new job. Plus he’s got a daughter to raise himself. She’s sweet, too. You’d like them both.”
“Think Spike would bite him for me?”
I smiled and reflected that Claudine’s remark about jealousy wasn’t totally off base. It did add a dash of spice to a relationship.
I flipped the envelope over in my hand to look for further clues. I looked closely at the postage sticker. “Michael, this was mailed a week ago!”
“What?”
Spike sat up in my lap.
“I’ve been staying at Libby’s house! This envelope has been sitting in my mailbox for a week. I was supposed to pay the money last Wednesday! I missed the deadline!”
“Calm down.”
“Oh, God, what does this mean?”
“A threat is meaningless unless you follow through immediately. Well,” he said reasonably, “this takes the pressure off, doesn’t it?”
I got to my feet. “I was supposed to hand over ten thousand dollars by now. Why haven’t I heard from him?”
“This blackmailer has a relaxed timetable.”
“But—” The thought hit me like a lightning strike. “Good Lord, do you suppose Rush was the blackmailer?”
Michael considered the theory. “Somebody decided to kill him instead of pay him?”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. A minute ago, I needed ten thousand dollars. Now, it seemed, I might be in the clear. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“Did he need money?”
“Rush? Desperately.”
“And he had an envelope on him when he died?”
“Yes. I wonder if he was trying to blackmail Emma? Wait, I’m making too many leaps.”
“It’s okay. Let yourself be creative. Theorize for a minute.”
“The misspelled word,” I said, reading the note again. “I just learned Rush Strawcutter was dyslexic.” Suddenly, I wasn’t as scared as I was excited. I headed back to the kitchen with Spike trotting behind me. “That’s another clue that points to Rush.”
“Maybe you don’t need police assistance after all.”
Behind me, the microwave dinged.
Michael heard it. “You’re not eating plastic food again, are you?”
“I don’t have time to shop or cook.”
“When I get back, you’re going to make time for a lot of things.”
I tried to smile. “That sounds nice.”
“Maybe I’ll make you something with truffles.”
“Truffles?”
“Yeah. Have you ever eaten them?”
“On special occasions. They’re fabulous.”
“Expensive as hell,” he said. “But you just dig them out of the ground, you know. They’re really rare.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We had such a great dinner last night that I started thinking about truffles.”
“Are there truffles in Scotland?”
“Well—”
“You can’t bring them into this country, you know.”
“Not in your luggage,” he agreed. “But they can be shipped. Restaurants pay a fortune for just a couple of ounces, did you know that?”
“Are you up to something?”
“I’m just thinking,” he said, endeavoring to sound innocent. “Listen, I have to turn off the phone now. Don’t panic about the blackmail, okay? If you haven’t heard from the guy yet, you could be in the clear. Give it a few days. Now, tell me quick—how’s Emma?”
“Sleeping at the hospital. I’ll go see her in the morning.”
“Give her a kiss for me.”
“Fat chance.”
He laughed and signed off.
Spike began to play on the kitchen floor in the puddle of water which had reappeared. In fact, it seemed to be growing larger.
I had found myself suddenly swimming in a lot of deep water. First a murder, and now blackmail. And nobody close enough to lend me a life preserver.
Except one person.
Chapter 7
Libby’s minivan screamed up to my back door half an hour later than planned on Sunday morning.
She let herself in, wearing a white parka with a fur hood. The zipper was pulled low enough to challenge J. Lo’s latest décolletage.
She said, “Do you think there’s anything weird about these boots?”
From the scullery, I looked at her feet, which were encased in a pair of pointy-toed black boots with narrow heels and laces up the front. “Does your goddess enjoy sadomasochism?”
“Very funny.”
“Why are you asking?”
“I respect your knowledge of fashion, that’s all. You always look nice, and I only—Oh, never mind. What is all this water doing on the floor?”
Overnight, my kitchen puddle had become a pond, and frequent sweeping didn’t seem to make any difference in the tide. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be expensive. I don’t want to know where it’s coming from.”
“Good thinking.”
“But I called Mr. Ledbetter, anyway. He might as well give me an estimate.”
“Maybe it’s just condensation.” Libby ignored my mention of the handyman who’d taken care of the house when my parents lived there. She had not liked Mr. Ledbetter ever since the day he’d caught her painting his portrait while he scraped paint off the parlor windowsills. Libby had painted him nude, drawing on her own adolescent fantasies to create a more romantic figure than Mr. Ledbetter cut in real life, and he—a good Christian—had not appreciated the results. She asked, “Do I have time for a cup of coffee?”
“I thought you’d given up caffeine while y
ou’re nursing. And where is the baby, by the way?”
“Safe with the teenage girl from next door. She’s going to give him a bottle if I run late. I’m thinking of hiring someone on a more scheduled basis.”
“Sounds sensible,” I said cautiously.
“I mean, you seem to be too busy to help us now, so I might as well look for a stranger to share my heavy burden.”
“Libby—” But I caught myself before letting her suck me into feeling guilty enough to move back into the zoo that was her household. “What about Rawlins? Isn’t he old enough to baby-sit?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea where Rawlins is these days.” She sighed. “I know, don’t lecture me. He went out with some of his high school friends again last night and hasn’t come home yet. I’ll be glad when he graduates.”
If he graduates, I thought.
In motherly denial, she kept talking. “Did I tell you the twins have decided to use their new brother in their movie? He’s going to play a defender of Santa Claus against an evil monster. I have a feeling I’m appearing in a cameo role as the monster. I need to be back in time for the baby’s noon feeding, that’s all, or I’ll leak all over myself. Breast feeding is a wonderful experience, but some elements are downright embarrassing. Maybe I ought to stop now and let him discover the joys of the female breast when he’s—”
“Coffee?” I asked desperately.
“Sure.”
“There’s some in the pot.” While she found herself a cup, I debated about the best way to revisit the subject of her eldest son’s deteriorating behavior.
“I hope this is decaf. What are you doing?”
At the scullery sink—which hadn’t been used for dishes in decades and only served to clean garden pots and tools—I was elbow-deep in soapsuds, scrubbing the contents of my kitchen garbage pail out of Spike’s rough coat. Spike happily snapped at the bubbles while I worked up a lather. “I assume that’s a rhetorical question. Did you phone the hospital this morning? Have you spoken with Emma?”
“I couldn’t get past the nurse’s station.” Libby poured herself a cup and spooned in enough sugar to sweeten a birthday cake. “They kept saying she was unavailable.”
“I got the same message.”
“Knowing Emma, she’s cuddled up with a doctor or two.”
