Peggy Sue Got Murdered

by Tess Gerritsen

  "Wait!" called M.J.

  The woman was moving quickly now, almost dragging the child after her.

  M. J. started after them. "I have to talk to you!"

  The woman and child were already scurrying towards a parked car. M.J. dashed across the last patch of lawn, reaching the blacktop just as the woman slammed her car door shut.

  "Wait!" said M. J., rapping on the window. "Did you know Peggy Sue Barnett?"

  She caught a glimpse of the woman's frightened face, staring at her through the glass, and then the car jerked away. M. J. was flung backwards. The car made a sharp U-turn, spun around in the parking lot, and took off toward the cemetery gates.

  Footsteps thudded toward her across the pavement. "What's going on?" said Adam.

  Without a word, M.J. turned and made a dash for her car.

  "M. J.?" he yelled. "What the hell-"

  "Get in!" she snapped, sliding into the driver's seat.

  "Why?"

  "Okay, don't get in!"

  He got in. At once, M. J. turned the ignition and hit the gas pedal. They screeched across the slick blacktop and through the cemetery gates.

  "We've got a choice," said M. J. as they approached the first intersection. "East or west. Which way?"

  "Uh… east is back to town. She'd probably go that way."

  "Then we go west."

  "What?"

  "Just a hunch. Trust me." M. J. turned west.

  The road took them past a shopping mall, past a Pizza Hut, an Exxon gas station, a Burger King-the institutional underpinnings of Anytown, U.S.A. At the first red light, M. J. pulled to a stop behind a line of cars. The windshield filmed over with mist. She turned on the wipers.

  A block ahead, a dark green Chevy pulled out of a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot.

  "There they are," said M. J.

  Adam shook his head in amazement. "You were right."

  "First rule of escape: Never move in a straight line. See? She's heading north. I bet she'll circle back towards town. The long way around."

  The light turned green. M. J. turned north, in pursuit of the Chevy. She kept her distance, with two cars between them. A half mile along, the Chevy turned east. As she'd predicted, her quarry was moving in a wide circle, taking secondary roads back to town.

  "Is this why you went to the burial?" asked Adam.

  "The same reason the cops went. To see who'd turn up to pay their last respects. I figured someone would. The same anonymous person who slipped Greenwood Mortuary the cash for that coffin. It was just bottom-of-the-line plywood and veneer, but it was paid for. Our mystery lady in that Chevy must've been the one."

  "Did you get a look at her?"

  "Just a glimpse. Late twenties, maybe. And a kid about six years old."

  They followed the Chevy to the Stanhope district, a bluecollar suburb of single family homes lined up ticky-tack on postage-stamp lots. From a block away, they saw the Chevy pull into a driveway. The woman got out and helped the child from the car, and together they climbed the porch steps into a house. It was a pink stucco box, irredeemably ugly, with cast-iron bars on the windows and a TV antenna the size of an oil rig on the roof.

  M. J. parked. For a moment they sat studying the house. "What do you think?" she said.

  "It's like approaching a trapped animal. She could be dangerous. Why don't we just call the police?"

  "No, I think she's afraid of the police. Otherwise she'd have called them."

  After a pause, he nodded. "All right, we can try talking to her. But the first sign of trouble and we're out of there. Is that clear?"

  They got out of the car and she smiled across the roof at him. "Absolutely."

  They could hear the sound of the TV as they approached the front door. Some kids' show-cartoon voices, twinkly music. M. J. stood off to the side of the porch, and Adam knocked.

  A little girl appeared at the screen door.

  Adam flashed his million-dollar smile. "Can I talk to your mommy?" he said.

  "She's not here."

  "Can you call her, then?"

  "She's not here."

  "Well, is she in another room or something?"

  "No." The voice wavered, dropped to a whisper. "She went away to heaven."

  Adam stared at her pityingly. "I'm sorry."

  There was a silence, then the girl said. "You wanna talk to my Auntie Lila?"

  "Missy? Who's out there?" called a voice.

  "Just a man," said the girl.

  Bare feet slapped across the floor and a woman came to the screen door. She peered out blankly at Adam. Then her gaze shifted and she caught sight of M. J., standing off to the side. The woman froze in recognition.

  "It's all right," said M. J. "My name's Dr. Novak. I'm with the medical examiner-"

  "It was you. At the cemetery…"

  "I've been trying to find someone who knew Peggy Sue Barnett."

  "My mommy?" said the child.

  The woman looked down at the girl. "Go on, honey. Go watch TV."

  "But she's talking about my mommy."

  "Just grownup stuff. Listen! I think Ducktales is on! Go on, you watch it."

  The girl, faced with the choice of adult conversation or her favorite cartoon, chose the latter: She scampered off into the next room.

  The woman looked back at M. J. "Why're you asking about Peggy Sue? You with the police?"

  "I told you, I'm with the medical examiner." She paused. "I think Peggy Sue Barnett was murdered."

  The woman was silent as she considered her next move. "It's not like I know anything," she said.

  "Then why are you afraid?"

  "Because people might think I know more than I do."

  "Tell us what you know," said Adam. "Then we'll all know it. And you won't have to be afraid."

  The woman glanced toward the sound of the TV, now blaring out a cereal commercial. She looked back at M. J. Then, slowly, she unlatched the screen door and motioned them to come in.

  14

  They sat in the dining room, in chairs upholstered in green and yellow plaid. There was a bowl of plastic fruit on the table and on the wall hung a picture of a soulful young Elvis, gazing like some patron saint from an oil and canvas eternity. Lila lit a cigarette, blew out tendrils of smoke that wreathed her close-cropped hair.

  "I was just a friend of hers," said Lila. "I mean, a good friend, but that's all. We used to hang out together, cruise the bars. You know, girl stuff." She flicked off an ash. "Then I got hitched, and we sort of drifted apart. I knew she was having a hard time of it. Kept trying to borrow money from me till I just didn't have any to give her. See, Peggy Sue, she liked to party, and she wasn't exactly responsible. Had this kid at home and she'd just go out and leave her."

  "Is that Peggy Sue's child?" asked M. J., nodding toward the TV room.

  "Yeah. That's Missy. Anyway, I got tired of Peggy Sue coming around for cash, so we had this falling out. It was her fault. I mean, she was working and all, but she just couldn't manage her wallet."

  "She had a job?"

  "She worked the phones in some boiler room. A company called Peabody or Peabrain, over on Radisson and Hobart. They do telemarketing. You know, sell Florida vacations to poor shmucks in Jersey. Easy work, sitting all day on your tush. It wasn't bad money, either. But Peggy Sue, she liked nice stuff. She couldn't keep any money in the bank."

  "We never heard she had a job," said Adam.

  Lila's brown eyes focused admiringly on Adam. Hitched or not, the woman still had an appreciation for the masculine form. She exhaled a lungful of smoke. "It was under the table. You know, no taxes, that kind of thing. Anyway, she quit about six months ago."

  "Then how did she support herself?"

  "Hell if I know." Lila laughed. "Girls like Peggy Sue, they survive. One way or another, they do okay. If they can't bum off friends, then they pick up cash somewhere else. Maybe she found herself a sugar daddy."

  "She mention any names?" asked M. J.

  "No. But I fi
gure there must've been someone, 'cause she suddenly had money to burn. All she'd say was, she got lucky, that she was set up for life. I'd babysit Missy once in awhile, see, and Peggy Sue'd drop her off here. God, she'd come back high as a kite."

  "You mean on drugs?"

  "Oh, yeah. She liked a hit once in awhile. Not all the time. She wasn't that irresponsible."

  "So this started when?" asked M. J. "The money, the drugs?"

  "About six months ago."

  "The same time she quit her job."

  "Yeah. About."

  "And then what happened?"

  Lila shrugged. "She started getting… weird."

  "How?"

  "Looking over her shoulder. Closing all my curtains. I figured it was the drugs. You know, they make you a little crazy after a while. I tried talking to her about it, but all she'd say was, things were fine. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she dropped Missy off and told me to keep her for a while. Said she was gonna party seriously."

  "Meaning?"

  "Get high. She was going to try out some new stuff she'd bought off a kid in the neighborhood." Lila crushed out her cigarette butt. "And that was the last time I saw her."

  "Why didn't you call the police?" asked Adam. "Report her missing?"

  Lila paused and looked away. "I didn't want to get involved."

  There's more to it than that , thought M. J., watching the woman's eyes, noting how she looked everywhere but at them.

  "Why are you afraid of the police?" asked M. J.

  "Get busted a few times," Lila muttered, "and you wouldn't be a fan either."

  "No, you're actually afraid of them."

  Lila looked up at M. J. "So was she. The last thing she says to me-the last time I saw her-she tells me, any cop comes around, it was real important I play stupid. Tell 'em the kid's mine and I don't know any Peggy Sue. She says I could get hurt if I start blabbing. That's why you scared me, at the cemetery. I thought maybe you were one of them."

  In the next room, Missy was flipping channels. They could hear the clack-clack of the dial, the intermittent blasts of music.

  "What about Missy?" Adam asked. "What happens to her now?"

  Lila thought about it for a moment. "I guess she'll stay with me." She sighed. "I sort of like the kid. And my old man, he doesn't mind." Lila gave a shrug and lit up another cigarette. "After all," she said, blowing out a cloud of smoke, "where else is the kid gonna go?"

  "So Peggy Sue Barnett turns out to be a major screwball," said M. J. as she drove north on Sussex.

  "You almost sound disappointed."

  "I don't know why. I guess I kept thinking of her as a victim. And I felt sorry for her. No one at the burial, no one even asking about her. A sort of… lost soul." She sighed. "Maybe I identified with her."

  "You're not a lost soul. You never were."

  She glanced at him, saw he was watching her with that penetrating gaze of his. Quickly she looked back at the road. "Oh yeah, I'm tough," she said with a laugh. "No chinks in my armor."

  "I didn't say you were invulnerable."

  One look at you, and I know just how vulnerable I am , she thought. The old temptation was back, to give it a chance, to let this relationship take root. She was feeling brave and scared at the same time, one minute certain it would work, the next minute just as certain it would be a disaster. This was someone she could love far too much, and for that sin of recklessness, there was a special place reserved in hell. Or heaven.

  She concentrated on her driving, navigating the stop-and-go traffic along Sussex.

  "Where are we going?" he asked.

  "Just a detour. To Bellemeade."

  "Why?"

  "I have this hunch. Something that might pull together some loose ends."

  "And which of the dozen-plus loose ends are we talking about?"

  "Nicos Biagi."

  She turned onto Flashner Boulevard. A half mile up, they came to the intersection of Flashner and Grove. On one corner stood La Roma Arms, a white stucco apartment building with wrought-iron verandas. From its name, M. J. assumed it was designed to resemble an Italian villa; it looked more like a crumbling version of the Alamo. She pulled into the Roma driveway and parked next to the pool area. The pool itself was empty, and a sign was posted on the fence: Temporarily closed for maintenance. About two years' worth of dead leaves were rotting at the bottom.

  "Peggy Sue's apartment?" asked Adam.

  "This is it. Flashner and Grove."

  "Why are we here?"

  "I just wanted to take a look at the neighborhood."

  She glanced up and down the street, her gaze tracing Grove Avenue. "There it is."

  "There what is?"

  "The Big E Supermarket." She pointed up the street to the grocery store, looming at the next corner. "Only a block away."

  "The Big E," muttered Adam, frowning. "Isn't that where Nicos Biagi worked? As a stock boy?"

  "You got it. A convenient location, wouldn't you say? All Peggy Sue had to do was walk down to the Big E, pick up her purchase, and she's ready to party. And Nicos goes home with a nice delivery fee. And his own private sample of the drug."

  "Which kills all of them."

  "But see, that's the part that doesn't add up," she said. "Business-wise, I mean. Here you've got a new drug that could make you millions on the street. What supplier would hand out a poisonously pure sample, thereby killing off his market?"

  "A supplier who's out to kill one buyer in particular," said Adam. "Peggy Sue Barnett."

  "But why Peggy Sue?" M. J. frowned, trying to pull the pieces together. She knew Peggy Sue was a party girl, a flake. A loser on a permanent downhill slide. Then, six months ago, her fortunes had changed. Suddenly she had money to burn. She'd quit her job and embarked on a spree of spending and partying. Was there a sugar daddy, as Lila had suspected? Or some new job with high rewards- and high risks?

  "We're missing something entirely," said Adam. "Where did all her money come from? She was getting a steady supply of cash from somewhere. And that was after she quit her job…"

  M. J. suddenly popped the car into gear. "That's our next stop. Radisson and Hobart."

  "What, her old job?"

  M. J. grinned at him. "Your synapses are finally catching up."

  "Whatever happened to solving crimes the old-fashioned way? Letting the police do it?"

  "Under normal circumstances, yeah. I'd take the lazy gal's way out and dump this mess in their laps."

  "Under normal circumstances?"

  "When alarm bells aren't going off in my head. But I'm hearing enough bells to give me a splitting headache. First, Maeve swears it's the city elite that's killing off junkies-meaning, the authorities. Then we hear Peggy Sue was afraid of the cops. So afraid, in fact, that she hid her kid from them, and told the babysitter Lila to play dumb. And finally, there's Esterhaus. Okay, so maybe he did steal the Zestron and have it delivered to Peggy Sue. But why? Who could've pushed him into it?"

  "Someone who knew about his old connections with the mob. And could blackmail him."

  M. J. nodded. "The authorities."

  "Good Lord." Adam sat back, shaken by the thought. "A revolutionary method to mop up crime."

  "I'm not going to jump to conclusions here. Let's just say I'm not quite ready to take this to the cops."

  It was a good twenty-minute drive to the Watertown District. Along the way, they stopped at a phone booth to check the yellow pages. There was no listing for Peabody under Telemarketing. In fact, there were no ps listed at all. Directory Assistance likewise came up with a blank.

  They drove on anyway, to Watertown.

  It was a section of the city M. J. seldom had reason to visit. Situated at the southeast corner of Albion, it had evolved over a half century from a thriving port to a malodorous district of fish processing plants, decaying piers, and ramshackle warehouses. At least there was still evidence of economic life in the neighborhood, mostly dockside bars and army surplus outlets. In fact, standing
at the intersection of Radisson and Hobart, M. J. could spot three surplus stores. Across the street, a sign hung in the window: Guns and ammo-for the sake of those you love. The Atlantic Ocean was only a block away, but the sea wind couldn't wash the smells of diesel and processed fish from the air.

  The name of the company, it turned out, was Piedmont, not Peabody. They had to ask at a corner bar to find it, as the name itself appeared on none of the buildings. The company occupied a third-floor office in the Manzo Building on Hobart Street. The sign on the door said simply: Piedmont. From the room inside came the whine of a printer.

  They knocked.

  "Yeah, who is it?" a man called.

  M. J. hesitated and then said, "We're friends of Peggy Sue Barnett."

  An instant later the door opened and a man appeared, looking cross. "Where the hell has she been?" he demanded.

  "Maybe we can we talk about it?" said M. J.

  The man waved them inside, then shoved the door shut. It was a dismal office, if one could even call it that. Bare walls, a steel desk. In the corner sat a computer, its printer spewing out a list of names and telephone numbers. Another doorway led to an adjoining room, equally dismal.

  "So what's the story, huh?" said the man. "She wanna come back to work or something? Well, you can tell her, forget it. And by the way, she still owes me."

  "For what?" asked M. J.

  "Two weeks' salary. I give her an advance, and she skips out."

  "Excuse me, Mr…"

  "Rick. Just Rick."

  "Rick. I guess you haven't heard. Peggy Sue Barnett's dead."

  He stared at her, looked at Adam, then back at her. "Aw, Christ. Now I'll never get the three hundred back." The phone rang. He went over to the desk, picked up the receiver, and slammed it down again. "That's what I get for being Mr. Nice Guy."

  "You're not the least bit interested in how she died?" said Adam with undisguised disgust.

  "Okay," Rick sighed. "How'd the bitch'die?"

  "A drug overdose."

  "I'm real surprised." Rick dropped into a chair and looked at them with utter disinterest. "So why're you here? She leave me something in her will?"

  "Rick, my friend," said M. J., pulling up a chair. "We have to talk. I'm from the medical examiner, see, and I have to ask you some questions."