Hiss And Tell

6

Sunny had to admit that Randall MacDermott was still an attractive man, though up close she could see that a slight dusting of gray had appeared at the temples of his luxuriant head of brown hair, and there was no mischief in his face today. He looked worn, even worried, as he stared down at Sunny.

Now he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I realized that sounded silly the moment the words were out of my mouth,” he said. “Let me try again.” He forced a smile and a brighter tone of voice. “Hey, Sunny. I saw your name in the photo credit on the front page of the local paper. Somebody at the newspaper office told me I could find you here. Are you free for lunch?”

When Sunny hesitated, trying to find a way out of it, Nancy said, “Go on. I’ll cover for you.”

Traitor, Sunny thought unkindly. It wasn’t as if Nancy had any reason to know that the very last thing Sunny wanted to do was go spend time one-on-one with Randall. Well, why not? the scornful voice inside Sunny’s head chimed in. Just get it over with now while you’re too tired to care.

“Okay,” she said, getting up from the desk. Sunny suggested the Redbrick Tavern, where the food was good and reasonably priced. The waitress seated them in captain’s chairs and began reciting the day’s specials. Sunny didn’t even hear her. She was too tired, and too busy wondering what Randall thought they had to talk about.

His blue eyes peered anxiously at Sunny as the waitress finished her spiel, then he thanked her in a preoccupied voice. Sunny ordered a hamburger and fries, comfort food. Maybe the protein in the burger would fuel a comeback. Randall went for the same with a pint of beer.

One sip, and I’d be out, Sunny thought. She ordered an iced tea.

They sat in silence as they waited for their drinks to arrive, the noise of the lunch crowd, mainly tourists at this time of year, clattering around them.

Randall finally spoke up. “It’s been a while. Good to see you, Sunny. You look as great as ever.”

One, maybe two lies out of three sentences. Nothing about this was how Sunny had envisioned seeing Randall again. Admittedly, those visions had had a lot of revenge fantasy involved, with Sunny receiving a Pulitzer Prize and Randall admitting how wrong he’d been. Sunny had imagined herself in a designer gown, looking perfectly made-up and classy. Instead, I probably look like I’ve just been dug out of a pit, she thought. Well, Sunny could be a journalist, too. Just stick to the basic questions, find out what he wants, she told herself. Who, what, when, why.

“How are you doing, Randall?” That was still an acceptable journalistic question.

Randall responded with a what. “Nowadays they call me editor-at-large.”

That didn’t strike Sunny as a good thing, not for a guy working at a paper ruthlessly trying to cut expenses. It sounded as though his next promotion would be editor-out-the-door.

“So, what brings you up to this neck of the woods? The Kingsbury-de Kruk wedding seems an odd kind of assignment, even for an editor-at-large.”

“I’m up here on my own, Sunny. The paper thinks I’m taking some vacation time. What they don’t know about me using my press card won’t hurt them.”

Sunny knew the next reportorial question to ask. “Why?”

“I’m following a story.” Randall leaned across the table. “Do you remember the Taxman?”

“I remember him every April,” Sunny replied. “And I often say unkind things about him.”

Randall shook his head. “Not that taxman. Don’t you remember sitting in bars after we put the paper to bed, with the old hands telling stories—ones that they couldn’t print?”

Sunny dredged up a memory. “A society blackmailer, some sort of cross between Robin Hood and the Godfather—is that the one you mean? I remember one of the older crime reporters loved to talk about that. What was that guy’s name? Izzie—Izzie Kritzik! Whatever happened to him?”

“He retired,” Randall said, not meeting Sunny’s eyes.

Sounds as though he went into retirement about as willingly as I went into the larger job market, she thought. At least I hope Izzie got a pension out of the deal. All I got was the Maine Adventure X-perience.

Randall was about to say more, but the waitress arrived with their order. There was a brief moment of silence as they both attacked their burgers. When Randall finished chewing, he sighed. “Izzie didn’t know what to do with himself in retirement. He died recently, and in his will, he left me several boxes of notes. One file held everything he’d found out about the Taxman.”

Sunny frowned, trying to remember more about the older man’s war stories. “What was the deal with this Taxman? He was supposed to be a merciful blackmailer? After getting the goods on people, he’d be satisfied with a one-time payment. But God help them if they didn’t make it, right?”

Randall nodded. “Unlike most blackmailers, who keep demanding money until they drain the victim dry, the Taxman was fairly reasonable—as long as you paid. Izzie talked to one fellow who was in line to become the president of a major corporation. The guy didn’t believe the Taxman actually had the goods on him and refused to cough up. Turned out there was plenty of proof—documentation that the man was conducting several affairs with company funds. He wound up out of a job, divorced, and in prison . . . the poster child for what happened if you ignored the Taxman. What really rubbed salt in the wound was that the cash demand wouldn’t have broken the bank.”

“So he’s not a pig, but there’s still a Godfather aspect.” Sunny lowered her voice in a bad Marlon Brando impersonation. “‘Some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.’”

“Right. The money was part of it, but the favors he was able to extract were more important. Izzie talked to one woman who expected to move from her seat in Congress into an ambassadorship. She had paid off the initial demand, but the Taxman later asked her to shepherd a bill through her House committee. Instead, she let several colleagues pressure her into backing off—and suddenly some embarrassing photos surfaced to sink her diplomatic career before it even got launched.”

“The favor bit probably explains why the Taxman can be content with a relatively small bite when it comes to money,” Sunny said. “Even after the payoff, he holds onto the incriminating information, giving him leverage with former victims to rope in new ones. That could be a favor, too.”

Randall nodded encouragingly.

Sunny stared at her former editor. “Come on, you can’t take this sort of thing seriously. It’s like an urban legend for reporters. You’d probably do better going after D. B. Cooper. Nobody knows who he really was, but at least there’s verifiable evidence that he hijacked an airliner and parachuted away with the ransom payment.”

“I was just as doubtful as you are when I used to hear Izzie in the bars,” Randall said. “But he had a banker’s box full of notes. He’d talked to people who’d had some spectacular downfalls after not paying, and who were now kicking themselves that they hadn’t just paid up or done what they were asked to do. Izzie knew how to get things out of people, and they probably wanted to vent, but even though he managed to get that far, none of them would ever say anything on the record. They were too scared of the Taxman. Once burned, twice shy.”

“Why would they talk at all?” Sunny ate some fries as she listened to Randall’s answer.

“They didn’t—not officially. The victims were specifically warned off from talking to the police or the media, but the stories about blackmail and one-time payments still spread around as rumor and gossip. Izzie thought it was some perverted form of advertising. It made the Taxman’s job easier with the next victim.”

“Sounds like Izzie had an answer for everything.” So what do you expect me to do to help you, and why should I? Sunny added silently. Unless you intend to take a page out of the Taxman’s book and blackmail me into doing a favor. She considered that for a second. Nah. He’s got nothing anymore. So she didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of her voice as she asked, “Are you really telling me that you’re taking the old guy’s pet theory seriously?”

Randall’s reply was a vigorous head bob in the affirmative as he took another bite of his burger. Once he’d swallowed, he said, “I got interested and did a little checking. Some of the people Izzie talked to have died by now.”

Sunny rolled her eyes. “That’s convenient.”

“And some of them wouldn’t talk to me.” Randall had a sip of beer before he went on. “But a couple did, and they told me the same stories they’d told him. I kept my ear to the ground, and I heard more.”

“Really?” Even as Sunny scoffed at this story, she had to admit that Randall had piqued her interest. He wasn’t some cub reporter out on his first rodeo. He was a professional.

“And all this brought you up here? Why—” She broke off. The answer was obvious: the big wedding prep. Big enough to be wedding of the year, if not the decade, around here, for sure. Two famous families about to face a media blitz. A very unfortunate time for some past indiscretion to surface. Perhaps a very profitable time for a blackmailer.

“So who’s got the dirty linen?” Sunny asked. “The Kingsburys or the de Kruks?”

“That’s the thing. The person I wanted to talk with was Eliza Stoughton,” Randall replied, almost causing Sunny to send a mouthful of iced tea out her nose. As she recovered, Randall went on. “Some of the people I’d talked with about the Taxman mentioned that she’d been poking around, too.”

Sunny coughed and took another sip of her tea. “You think she was being extorted?”

He shook his head. “About a year ago, she took a big financial hit. I think that was her making the payment. But she was trying to figure a way out of owing the favor. I think the Taxman made a demand she couldn’t or wouldn’t meet, and Eliza lost her life over it.”

Having someone threatening to ruin your life unless you did as they commanded—that might be a reason to drink too much and lash out. Sunny shook her head, trying to stir up some activity from her brain cells. She must be pretty tired to be taking any of this seriously. And instead of waking her up, the food was only making her feel more sluggish. Too much blood heading down to the stomach, not enough getting up past her neck.

She pushed her plate away. “Randall, this makes a pretty interesting story. But I’m really too tired to be having this conversation. Besides, I think it’s fiction, not journalism. After all, why would this shadowy blackmailer, who had the atomic option of ruining Eliza Stoughton’s life, kill her instead?”

“I think maybe she recognized him,” Randall said. “Or her. If so, that person may still be out on Neal’s Neck.”

Will’s locked-room mystery again, Sunny thought.

Randall pushed his plate away, too. “I know I’m rolling the dice, following up on this,” he said. “But what else can I do? I need a big story, Sunny. Something that can save my job—or make me more attractive to other news organizations. It was a real shock to see your name in print this morning. Where did you learn to take pictures like that? And when I went to their office and the kids there told me what you’d done to get the story—whoa!” He shook his head in wonder. “If this Taxman thing pans out, it could be a career changer. For both of us. That is, if we worked together on it. You’ve got all the local knowledge, and I’ve got all the background that Izzie collected. If we teamed up, it would be just like the old days.”

“Not exactly like the old days. How’s the family, Randall?” Sunny ruthlessly poured cold water over his enthusiasm. “Speaking of family,” she went on without waiting for a reply, “I’m in this small town to be closer to my dad. Maybe you remember I came back here to take care of him after his heart attack. He’s much better now, thanks for asking, but he still needs someone around. As for that photo you praised, I took classes to make myself a more valuable employee for the Standard. Funny how that worked out. At least some of the media stuff I learned helps me run a tourism website. That’s how I earn a living around here, along with doing the occasional piece for that little paper you mentioned.”

She paused, partly to draw breath but mainly because of the pained look on Randall’s face. Maybe it would have been better if I’d gone with my first plan and just smacked him, she thought. Instead, she stood up. “You stay and finish your food. I’m going home to sleep.”

Sunny got up and left the Redbrick, her steps a little wobbly, both from exhaustion and a little leftover adrenaline from what she’d just said to Randall. That made her laugh a little. Folks will think I had a liquid lunch.

She walked back to the MAX office, but no way was she going to try and drive the Wrangler home. Sunny made up her mind. “You’ve been covering for me all day as it is,” she said to Nancy. “I’m going to make it official and head home to bed.”

Then she called the number she’d known since childhood. Mike answered the phone.

“Hi, Dad,” Sunny said. “I need some help. Do you think you could drive me home?”

Mike came to pick her up on the double, his eyes anxious as he came through the office door.

“Don’t worry,” Sunny told him. “I’m just tired.” She yawned. “Really tired.”

Sunny kept yawning the whole way home, bigger and bigger until she was afraid she’d dislocate her jaw. “Maybe that hamburger for lunch wasn’t a good idea.”

“Not when you’ve got a drive ahead of you,” Mike agreed. He ought to know, having been a trucker who’d delivered road salt to over half of New England.

He escorted her into the house and up the stairs. “Do you want to take a shower?”

“After I wake up,” she replied. “Maybe in a day or two.”

Sunny kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed fully clothed. The sheet and light blanket lay in disarray. She hadn’t had time to make the bed after Ken had called. Swinging her legs up, Sunny pulled the sheet over herself. Her dad’s face loomed over her and he bent down to give her a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll take care of supper. You just rest.”

He left, and for a moment Sunny seemed to float on her mattress. Yes, eyes closing, just sink into the darkness . . .

All of a sudden, she felt a weight on her chest. Sunny’s eyes popped open, and she found herself nose to nose with Shadow, who sniffed very determinedly at her.

“If you start talking again,” Sunny murmured, but she didn’t finish the sentence. Her eyes closed again, and she was asleep.

*

From his vantage point over Sunny, Shadow tried to inhale every nuance of scent off of her. One of the things he liked about living with Sunny and the Old One was how orderly things usually were, with few surprises. Oh, sometime the Old One’s She would come over with that foolish, yellow-colored Biscuit Eater who’d woof and knock things over, but Shadow could deal with him.

But when people started leaving the house in the middle of the night and not coming back even after the sun had been up for a long time, that was not a good thing.

At least he didn’t smell smoke on her breath, or that pungent stuff the two-legs drank to act silly. He got a whiff of meat and some other kinds of food, and rising from her clothes was that salty aroma she’d come home with the other day. There were a couple of other scents Shadow couldn’t identify, but they didn’t smell like trouble to him. It had taken him a while to remember it, but he’d finally realized that the fragrance he’d noticed on Sunny when she came home yesterday could mean difficulty ahead.

He’d stayed with several sets of two-legs, couples that he’d thought of as mated pairs. Then one of the humans began coming home at odd times, or leaving during the night. And when they came home, Shadow would find traces of made smells on them, sometimes odd, sometimes nice. Then, sooner or later, the humans would end up making loud noises at one another.

Shadow never understood that. Between cats, a hiss, maybe a cuff or a show of claws, would settle the question of who was boss. But the two-legs would go in for loud noises and sad noises, wet faces and throwing things. It could get on a peaceful cat’s nerves.

Then, all too often, one of the humans would leave. And the next thing that happened was that Shadow would find himself back on the street.

He really, really didn’t want that to happen here. Sunny lived with the Old One, but Shadow thought she might end up mating with the He that kept coming around. Shadow had his problems with that one, but he didn’t seem too bad for a human male.

And he didn’t wear made smells.

But Shadow had detected another smell on Sunny. Maybe it was nothing, but it made him nervous, just like Sunny coming home to sleep while the sun was out made him nervous.

He skulked around on her bed, his tail lashing to show his displeasure. Usually he’d at least consider snuggling with Sunny, to enjoy an occasional drowsy pet from her. But she was fast asleep already, her mouth open and making that odd skrawwwk noise that humans sometimes made when they slept.

No, Shadow wouldn’t nap with her.

She’d probably turn over on me right when I got comfortable, he thought.

*

Sunny woke up feeling a bit more human, if not fully rested. The shadows were growing long in her room, so it must be almost evening. She must have zonked off for three or four hours. Sighing, she stretched, sitting up in bed. Her blinking eyes caught a flash of movement down at the bottom of her ajar bedroom door. A small, gray striped face peered suspiciously in at her, then disappeared.

“What’s the matter, fella? Did Dad forget to feed you?” Sunny got up and went to the door, but the hall was empty. Shadow had already darted off somewhere after letting his displeasure be known.

Heaving a deeper sigh, Sunny went to get her bathrobe and then headed for the shower. She wasn’t about to give Shadow another show.

After a long session under the rushing warm water, Sunny felt cleaner on the outside but definitely empty on the inside. She put on shorts and a T-shirt and headed downstairs. Mike was already at the table, arranging rolls and cold cuts. “It’s all ‘food police’ approved,” he told her. “Low fat, low sodium, low taste.”

“It’s not that bad,” she protested, and Mike shrugged.

Sunny noticed that her father had put out a bowl of salad. He’d also cored and sliced several McIntosh apples. “Figure we could do like you see in restaurants, and use them on the sandwiches with a little mayonnaise, or whatever they call that healthy stuff in that jar you bought.” He smiled. “I figured you must be up when the mange-ball came down and got something to eat.” Mike nodded at Shadow, who was crunching away at his dry food, apparently unaware of their presence until Sunny went over to pet him. Somehow he managed to avoid her hands while still keeping his head in the food dish.

Sunny gave up and returned to her father, who laughed. “He’s miffed with you for creating a stir when he’s the only one who’s supposed to be up and patrolling the house.”

“How did you feel about the stir?” Sunny asked.

Mike’s smile slipped a little. “It worried me, not knowing what you were going off to do. After reading the Courier, though, I don’t think I’d have felt any better if I had known what you were letting yourself in for.” He sighed. “At least Ike Elkins was about the safest guy you could have picked for a midnight boat ride.”

“I’ll give you the whole story while we eat,” Sunny promised. “If you don’t think it’ll ruin your appetite.”

“Just try,” Mike said stoutly, plunking a bottle of seltzer water on the table.

They made healthy inroads into the food, though Mike shook his head in dismay at Sunny’s description of spotting Eliza Stoughton. “She sounds like just a kid.”

“Definitely younger than I am,” Sunny said.

“And you saw her when you were there before?”

“Parading through the compound in her purple bikini and dancing by the pool as if she didn’t have a care in the world.” Sunny frowned, snagging a slice of apple and chewing on it. If Randall’s story was right, Eliza had had a lot of cares. Enough, maybe, to prove fatal.

Mike rose from the table and began setting up the coffeemaker, something he never did after supper.

“Are we expecting company?” Sunny asked. If it turned out to be Mrs. Martinson, there was a good chance of scoring a piece of her famous coffee cake.

“Will Price said he’d drop by,” Mike replied. “I spoke with him on the phone while you were in the shower.” He seemed very interested in his coffee preparations. “I’m afraid it’s going to be tiresome politics. You may find yourself dropping off again.”

“We’ll see.” After helping her dad with the dishes, Sunny zipped around the living room, piling up the newspapers and collecting some of Shadow’s cat toys from the floor.

Will arrived late and still in uniform, the expression on his face warning of a foul mood. “Well, even though I was short on sleep, I liaised brilliantly with the other crime busters out on Neal’s Neck,” he announced. “Kept traffic moving smoothly in spite of all the news trucks stopping in front of the compound to do remote shots. Not to mention all the idiots rubbernecking to see the crime scene.” He shook his head sourly. “At least all the evening newscasts are done for the time being. I’ll probably have to get back there for the ten and eleven o’clock broadcasts.”

“It’s going no better with the people out there?” Mike said.

“Trehearne considers me persona non grata,” Will replied. “He doesn’t even want to let me past the troopers’ roadblock. Says I’ll pass along everything I see to the Courier.”

“We kept your name out of the story,” Sunny said defensively. “Mainly, we discussed things we’d seen while we were there ourselves, either for the press conference . . . or later.”

“You did mention the arguments Eliza got into,” Will pointed out. “I was the one who told you that.”

“We kept it vague, only mentioning that there were reports of arguments, not going into specifics, and not naming a source.” She remembered how heated her discussion with Ken had gotten over how they should treat some of the stuff that Will had mentioned on the ride back to Kittery Harbor. Ken had wanted to go whole hog, but Sunny had wanted to soft-pedal Will’s revelations, arguing that they’d ruin him as a source. Journalistic sugarcoating. She hadn’t wanted the story to blow back on Will, but from the look of him, her attempts at concealment hadn’t worked.

Will shrugged. “Trehearne’s still blaming me.” He looked over to Mike. “So, how much hay has Nesbit been making, while I was away on glorified traffic duty?”

“It’s more of a whispering campaign,” Mike reported. “Frank’s not coming out and actually saying anything, but after the big show of turning the responsibility to you, a lot of his online supporters are suggesting you weren’t up to the job, letting a murder happen on your watch.”

“What a crock!” Will burst out, following up with some choice epithets about the Internet, then apologized to Sunny.

“You won’t get an argument from me,” she said. “I probably say the same thing about ten times a day.”

“Considering the scope of my authority there, the only way anyone could hold me responsible for someone getting killed would be if they got run over by an out-of-control dump truck.” He finally sat down, and Sunny gave him a cup of coffee. “So what does the rest of the kitchen cabinet say?” he asked Mike.

“That it hits at what should be your strongest point, your experience and competence.” Mike frowned. “Now, we can’t afford to run any sort of a poll. But Zach Judson’s been sounding out people in his market, and some of the fellows with connections up near Levett have been asking around, and I won’t sugarcoat it, it looks as if this has hurt you.”

“So what should I say?” Will asked.

Mike dithered for a moment. “The boys think it’s not so much what you should say as what you’ll have to do. They think you’ll have to find whoever killed that girl.”

Sunny kept her hand firmly on her cup. At least she hadn’t had a mouthful of coffee for this latest news flash from crazy-town.

Will sat in silence for a moment. Then he turned to Sunny with an inquiring expression.

“Don’t look at me,” she told him. “I was asleep while Dad and his cronies hatched this nutty idea.”

“What’s so nutty about it?” Mike argued. “You and Will have investigated mysterious deaths before.”

“But in those cases, someone we knew was involved first,” Sunny said. “We never butted into a case.”

“That goes double for me. I’m a cop. I can’t just go off investigating cases I haven’t been assigned to,” Will said. “Besides, I wouldn’t say that Kingsbury compound is impregnable, but it’s darn close. It’s almost impossible to get into Neal’s Neck right now. And Lee Trehearne, the head of security out there, doesn’t even want me inside his perimeter,” Will added. “So how could I even talk to any of the witnesses?”

The doorbell rang, and Sunny excused herself to go and answer it. Probably another of Dad’s political buddies, come to offer Will more useless advice, she thought.

But when she opened the door, she didn’t find one of Kittery Harbor’s geezer politicians. Sunny didn’t even find a man.

It was Priscilla Kingsbury. The bride-to-be wasn’t wearing as much makeup as she had when visiting the 99 Elmet Ladies, and her outfit was less formal—though not swimsuit casual. “Hello, Sunny,” she said with a nervous smile. “We didn’t get a chance to talk much the other evening, which is really a shame. Wilawiport isn’t next door, but I’ve read some of your articles in the Courier—and some of the articles about you and Constable Price. I’ve spent more time up at the compound than anyone else in the family, so I’m a little more tuned in to local news. Oh, I’m doing this all wrong.” Priscilla seized Sunny’s hand. “I think you’re the only person I can trust, and I hope you can help me.”