"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.