The Girl In The Woods Part 14

When Kay was settled, Diana started.

"Did you send flowers to my mother's hospital room?"

Kay looked to be thinking the question over carefully. "Flowers?"

"Come on, Kay. No bulls.h.i.+t."

"No, I don't think so. I don't even know your mother."

"You don't know me either, but you keep showing up."

"Am I bothering you, honey? Is that it? I can go on my way-"

"Stay," Diana said, her voice firm. Kay's eyes showed a little motherly hurt. "Please. Stay."

"Okay." Kay fiddled with the b.u.t.tons on her jacket. "Do you mind if I smoke in here?"

"Yes. What did you want to see me for?"

"I guess you've heard the news," she said. "About that poor girl being taken."

Diana felt her anger subside. Until that moment, she hadn't thought of how the story would affect Kay. "I've heard. I just called a friend who's still a cop, but he didn't answer."

"It's remarkable news for us, isn't it?" She seemed almost happy.

"How do you mean?" Diana said.

"Don't you see? Another girl taken right here, just like Margie. If the police find that girl, they might find Margie, and you know they're going to find this girl because she's from a rich family. That's what they're saying on the news anyway."

"Kay." Diana tried not to sound patronizing. "There's no way the two cases are related. It's been twenty-five years. It would be..."

"Foolish to think that?"

"Yes, it would."

"You didn't grow up here, did you?"

"No. And you're the second person today to ask me that."

Kay coughed just a little. She cleared her throat. "I'm not from here either. I moved here when I got married. New Cambridge has always seemed like a strange place. If you don't belong here, if they don't accept you, it can be difficult."

"Small towns are like that."

"It's more than just small town stuff. When I first moved here, I heard the stories of the way this town used to treat women, the way the men moved them around and controlled them like pieces on a chessboard."

"I still don't see what this has to do with Margie. I guarantee you I could go into any office or bar in America and find plenty of men who would be happy to grab a woman by her hair and drag her back to their cave. I'm afraid that's not ever going to change."

"I don't think you're understanding me. I'm not talking about what your average a.s.shole thinks." Her voice started to rise, and so did the anger Diana detected beneath her words. "I'm saying that the men in this town, going back a long time, used to take women whenever they wanted. They'd beat them or they'd rape them, and a lot of times, they'd end up killing them."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's what I've heard."

"Rumors? Small town rumors, Kay. They're the preferred currency in a place like New Cambridge."

"Listen," Kay said. "My mother-in-law's grandmother had a cousin. A troublemaker admittedly. She used to run away from home, keep company with the wrong boys. This was here in New Cambridge, around the time of World War I. She went down to the old railroad depot to meet a soldier who was coming back from the war. But n.o.body ever saw her again, just like Margie."

"Kay..."

"I guess you can think what you want."

"I talked to John Bolton today," Diana said, hoping to steer Kay back to the present.

"Oh," she said. "That p.r.i.c.k."

"He told me he didn't know what happened to Margie."

"He's lying. He's part of all of that."

"He told me he gave you the reward money after Margie disappeared. He said you came to his house and took the check. Is that true?"

Kay averted her eyes. "I don't remember."

"You told me he never gave you the reward money, that he blew you off. Don't tell me you don't remember, Kay. I know you do."

"Okay, I took the G.o.dd.a.m.n money. Is that what you want me to say? I took it from that rich b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It's the least he could do for me."

"For you? What did you do with it if you didn't create a reward?"

"I lived on it," she said. "I paid for the d.a.m.n groceries and the electric bill. That's what I had to do. I didn't have anything else, missy. Do you know what it's like to be poor, to not know how you're going to make it through the next week?"

"Yes."

Diana's direct response stopped Kay's rant. She paused, her mouth half open, like a ventriloquist dummy.

Diana looked out the car window. It was streaked with dirt, and the people who pa.s.sed on the sidewalk appeared fuzzy and indistinct. She bit her lip. Kay coughed behind her, a deep and wet hacking noise. She hockered deep in her throat, rolled down the window and spit. Diana fought against the revulsion welling in her gut.

"Is that the only contact you had with him?" Diana said. "Did he cut it off there?"

It took Kay a moment to respond. "No."

"What happened?"

"I called him a few times after that," she said.

"To see if he knew anything?"

"I really need to smoke," Kay said. "I'm going to keep the window down and smoke."

"Fine."

She reached into her purse and brought out the pack and the lighter. It took her two tries to get the lighter going, then she blew the smoke out the window.

"He wrote more checks to me over the years," she said. "He was having an affair with Margie. I know it."

"How? You said she didn't talk to you about these things. You said she didn't have a boyfriend. Were you lying to me about that?"

"I meant that she didn't have a real boyfriend if she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with this Bolton guy," Kay said. "If it was him, and I know it was, he was using Margie, using a dumb, innocent girl who didn't know a d.a.m.n thing about men or anything else. They weren't dating. She was being preyed on."

Diana flashed back to the feeling she had talking to John Bolton. Something oozed out of him, and she wouldn't be surprised if he left a slime trail behind him when he walked.

"But you took money from him. You thought he hurt your daughter, and you took his money. You sold your daughter out just to pay for groceries."

Kay gave a bitter laugh. Her stumpy, gray teeth showed. "I was using him," she said. "I was keeping him on the line, keeping contact with him. I figured it was better to have a relations.h.i.+p with him than no contact at all. And he didn't want the world to know he had something going with Margie. It would ruin his standing in the community. And with his wife."

"You were blackmailing him."

"If you want to call it that," Kay said. "I thought I was putting pressure on him and keeping it on him, reminding him that someone out there was still thinking about this. The money stopped coming once his wife died, though. That b.i.t.c.h."

"Did you take this to the police? Did they know?"

Kay laughed again. "Girl, you did just fall off the turnip truck, didn't you? Do you think the police are going to investigate John Bolton? In this town? I'm sure they went and knocked on his door. He probably made them go around to the servants' entrance in the back before he gave them some song and dance about what a tragedy it was that Margie ran away. And then they dropped it. End of story."

Diana leaned back and rested against the driver's side door. She looked at Kay while she processed the details of their conversation. Some things were falling into place, but probably not the way Kay hoped they would.

"Actually," Diana said, "if there really was an affair, it makes it more likely that Margie ran away."

"What?" Kay twisted in her seat to look at Diana, her face contorted with puzzlement. "An affair would make it more likely he'd want her out of the picture."

Diana shook her head. "Except he has an alibi for the night Margie disappeared."

"Oh, that."

"It's not a small thing, Kay. He was at the hospital because his kid fell down the stairs. Hospitals keep records."

"Records can be faked."

Diana shook her head. "You're reaching too far," she said. "It's not there."

"Then go look at the records. Let's drive there and ask to see them. Come on. Go."

"Kay..."

"Start the d.a.m.n car. Let's go."

"You can't just walk into a hospital and ask to see somebody's records. There are privacy issues involved. If his kids lived in town, we could ask, but he said they'd all moved away."

"If the patient's dead, it doesn't matter. I saw that on Law and Order. If the patient's dead, they always say they have the right to look at any of those records."

"Wait a minute...who's dead?"

"John Bolton's daughter, Clarissa. She's the one who fell down the stairs that night, and she died about ten years ago. Some sort of aneurism thing when she was a teenager. She's dead, so we can see the records."

Diana didn't really hear what Kay was saying. Her mind had drifted away, considering the new information.

"Right?" Kay said. "We can see the records now? You used to be a cop. You should know these things."

"His daughter's dead?"

"Yes. Why?"

Diana shook her head again. "I don't know. It's just sad, I guess."

"Are you going to look that stuff up now?" Kay said.

Diana found herself thinking about Dan for a moment, as well as her interactions with Kay Todd. The way she'd been pushed and pulled, jerked around like a fish on the line. She wanted the hooks out of her mouth. "No," she said. "Get out of the car."

"What?"

"I'm done with you. All you've done is lie to me, and I don't have the stomach for that. Get out."

Kay looked shocked, a mother having her authority challenged. But she wasn't Diana's mother, and Diana knew she didn't owe Kay anything. She had enough troubles without taking on ones belonging to others.

"It's unlocked," Diana said. "Go."

Kay put her cigarette in her mouth and fumbled for the door handle. "Are you done looking for Margie?"

Diana waited until Kay was out of the car and had closed the door behind her. She spoke through the open window.

"I'm done with all of it," Diana said. "Anything involving you."

"Don't you want to know about your sister?"

"I wouldn't believe a word you told me."

Kay said something back, but Diana didn't hear it. She hit a b.u.t.ton with her left hand, sending the pa.s.senger side window up, leaving Kay Todd alone in the parking lot, her lips moving and the sound blocked from Diana's ears by the gla.s.s.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Diana eased to a stop across the street from Dan's house. She almost kept on going. It was full dark now, all of the houses glowing, their lights spilling out onto the neatly manicured lawns and smoothly paved driveways, and Diana felt like an intruder, a prowler come to upset the status quo.