Free The Dirt Peddler by Dorien Grey

Institute, and Tony was working at an insurance company in the Loop, taking night classes at Roosevelt. He wanted to go to Northwestern, to the Journalism school, but he couldn’t afford it.”
    She sipped her tea and smiled. “Tony can be incredibly charming when he wants to be,” she said, then added “…as you may have noticed.”
    I certainly had not, but was curious as to the implication. I chose not to ask.
    “My parents had recently died,” she continued, gazing out the window in reflection, “and left me their small house on the South Side. Tony and I started dating, and then he moved in with me to save money. I got a job at an ad agency doing commercial art, and after a while, Tony quit his job at the insurance agency to go to school full time.”
    “And you supported him?”
    She returned her eyes to me and shrugged. “Basically, yes, but I didn’t think of it that way. We were in love, he was going to be a great writer…you know the story.”
    I nodded.
    “We moved here so Tony could get a journalism degree from Goodlee. It’s not really that good a school, as you know, but then Tony wasn’t that good a writer, I’m afraid. I sold my house at a nice profit, and we lived on the proceeds. I got another ad agency job and began to do freelance illustrations for children’s books. Tony did some freelance work, too, doing sleazy features for the tabloids. When it reached the point where the money ran out and I simply couldn’t support us both, he got a job at Craylaw and Collier, and the rest is history. The week he signed the contract for Dirty Little Minds he filed for divorce.”
    “I’m curious. How long did it take him to write Dirty Little Minds ?”
    She thought a moment. “Not all that long, really, once he got going on it. I must say in his defense, however, that he had already started the book even before the Governor Keene scandal started hitting the papers. It certainly was marvelous timing, though.”
    I wondered if she knew—and was pretty sure she didn’t—that Governor Keene had been a client of Craylaw and Collier. Tunderew had somehow gotten wind of the looming scandal and recognized its potential.
    We were quiet for a moment while I tried to phrase my next question diplomatically. When I realized there wasn’t a diplomatic way to do it, I just plunged in.
    “Might I ask how you feel about the divorce?” I did not add “in light of his now having more money than he knows what to do with?”
    She gave me that Mona Lisa smile again. “It was exactly what I could have expected from dear Tony. He has never been burdened by a sense of morality. He was always a firm believer in the philosophy that what was mine was his, and what was his was his. He didn’t even bother to tell me he had signed a contract. I only found out about that part after the divorce papers were signed.”
    I couldn’t resist, “And you’re not bitter for what he did?”
    She shrugged, still smiling. “I’ve always defined ‘bitterness’ as ‘surprised disappointment.’ Absolutely nothing Tony did or does could surprise me; therefore, I couldn’t be disappointed.”
    Again, I couldn’t help but wonder how honest she was being—either with me or with herself—but I decided to move on.
    “You’d mentioned on the phone that you’d been contacted by a couple of other private investigators?”
    She finished her tea and set the cup on the coffee table.
    “So they claimed to be, but I wouldn’t know. They mainly wanted me to provide details on Tony’s notoriously roving eye. Nothing like a juicy scandal to sell tabloids…or books.”
    “Might his roving eye have included men?”
    For the first time, she looked surprised. It was a quick reaction, quickly contained. Then she laughed.
    “Oh, my! What an interesting thought, though I can’t see where he would have found the time from his bimbo collection. But then again, this is Tony T. Tunderew we’re talking about. I wouldn’t put anything past