Free The Dirt Peddler by Dorien Grey Page A

him. I’d heard that shortly before he left Craylaw and Collier, he’d been having yet another little affair with one of his coworkers. And you think it might have been a man?” She smiled. “I sincerely, sincerely doubt it. But why in the world would you ask that?”
    “Just curious. Did you by any chance have access to his checkbook?”
    “No. Has he been writing checks to young men?”
    Now there’s an interesting question, I thought.
    I didn’t answer.
    “Tony always had his own bank account,” she continued. “In the thirteen years we were married I never once knew how much money he made, or how much he spent, or on what, other than the rent on our apartment and the mortgage on the cabin. I paid all the other household expenses…food, utilities, insurance…from my own account.”
    “The cabin?”
    “Yes, our…excuse me, his since he paid the mortgage and therefore claimed it in the divorce…cabin on the Oak River, near Neeleyville. He used it as his ‘writer’s getaway.’ He spent every weekend there—supposedly writing, but usually with his conquest of the moment. Dear Tony is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. He thought I didn’t know, but it wasn’t that I didn’t know so much as that I didn’t care. Toward the end of the marriage, he was up there most of the time. He may well be living there now, but I’m not positive. We don’t exactly keep in close touch.”
    I sensed that it was about time to call our little meeting to an end.
    “Well, I really do appreciate you talking with me, Mrs. Tunderew…”
    “Catherine, please,” she corrected. “The only reason I’m keeping the last name is because that’s the name I started out with in my illustrating, and it would be just too complicated to try to switch at this stage of the game.”
    I smiled. “I understand. I wouldn’t have bothered you except that Mr.…your ex…is really concerned about this blackmail thing, and I thought you might be able to give me some ideas. I’m sure you know that he now has the wherewithal to make life miserable for whoever is responsible, if he ever finds out for sure.”
    We both got up from our chairs at the same time.
    “Well,” she said as she walked me to the door, “I’m sure he’ll be spending a great deal of money one way or the other, then, won’t he?”
    *
    By the time I’d reached my car, I’d pretty much placed my bets on Catherine Tunderew as being the blackmailer, though short of beating a confession out of her with a rubber hose, I didn’t know how I could actually prove it. But if she was the one, I hope she might have gotten the message. I’d also gotten the impression that if she was, she might be doing it more to bedevil her ex than to seriously expect him to pay up.
    Fletcher ruled out, Catherine Tunderew ruled in. That was about it, right? Not quite. The publisher was still in the picture, though on the periphery. That he had every right to be pissed at Tunderew (as did, I’m sure, just about everyone who knew him other than Fletcher) was a given. Tunderew had said he’d left his briefcase, with checkbook, on the publisher’s desk while he went to the bathroom. But again, people don’t normally go rummaging through other people’s briefcases just on a whim—and even if the publisher might have been looking for evidence that Tunderew was playing footsie with other publishers, how would he know that a check stub made out to a realty company might be potential blackmail material?
    Unless…
    I made a mental note to call Larry Fletcher when I got home.

Chapter 4
    Though it was almost time to go home, I went back to the office and called Bernadine Press.
    “Bernadine Press,” a pleasant female voice answered after the first ring.
    “Is Mr.…Bernadine in, please?” I asked. I would normally have assumed Bernadine Press was just a generic name, but Tunderew had referred to the publisher as “Bernadine,” so…
    “Senior or Junior?”
    There are two of