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 figure 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?