Murder of a Small-Town Honey

hall­way went to the right.

'Why do you have to search it? I'm sure the police al­ready have.'

At the kitchen doorway, Skye was greeted with a scene similar to the one she had found at Charlie's. She stepped aside so Simon could see. 'Someone sure has, but I don't think it was the cops.'

'Well, that takes care of that. Let's go.'

'I'm still going to have a look.'

He gestured at the mess in the kitchen. 'Anything worth finding is gone.'

'Maybe they didn't know what they were looking for and passed it by.'

'And you do? Know what you're looking for, I mean.'

Skye nodded. 'I'll know it when I see it. Look at it this way, now that we don't have to be careful it will be much quicker.'

'If there were any other way for you to get home I'd leave you here.' Simon's jaw was set, and the muscle in his cheek was rigid.

She laid her hand on his chest and smiled up at him through her lashes. 'I appreciate your not abandoning me.' Feeling him relax his stance, she continued, 'If we both look we'll be out of here that much quicker.'

He was examining the last of the shelves in the living room while Skye investigated the bathroom. There had been nothing of interest in the bedroom, the home office, or the kitchen.

It looked as if everything had been ripped apart and left in the middle of the floor. This did not stop Skye from crawling into the cupboard under the sink. Wedged into a corner was a package of Stayfree Maxi Pads. At first glance it appeared to be unopened, but Skye's heart beat faster when she noticed the irregular seam in the plastic.

'Come quick, Simon, I think I've found something,' she called excitedly.

His running footsteps faltered when he saw the container she held aloft in one hand. His fair-skinned face turned red. They stared at each other for a moment before Skye giggled and Simon dissolved into laughter.

When she was able to stop, she said, 'Okay, so this wasn't what you expected on a first date, but look, this package has been opened and sealed shut again.'

He took the container from her and examined it closely. While he was doing that, she got to her feet and dug out her pocketknife. 'Give it back and I'll open it.'

'Maybe we should take it to the police while it's still sealed,' Simon suggested.

'And how would we explain having it?'

'I thought you had Charlie's permission to be here.'

Ignoring him, she worked the edge of the blade between the two pieces of melted-together plastic. It opened with ease, further indicating that it had been tampered with be­fore. She reached in and felt among the wrapped pads. Her fingers touched one that was more rigid than the others, and she pulled it out. Peering inside, where the packet wasn't completely fastened, she stuck in two fingers and withdrew a small address book.

On the front was a picture of a puppy and a kitten frol­icking in the grass. Skye looked at Simon and then opened it up. Only a few pages had been written on, and they weren't coyered with addresses. Instead, there were columns of ini­tials and numerals.

Skye refused to talk about their find on the way home. She felt that anyone driving in the city needed to concen­trate on the road and not be distracted, especially anyone driving a beautiful and expensive car like Simon's Lexus.

By the time they reached 1-55 and she could relax her vigil, she was caught up in her own thoughts and didn't want to explain them until she was sure. Digging out a small pad of paper and a pen from her purse, Skye began making notes.

She twisted the pen point back into the casing just as they pulled into her driveway. 'I've figured it out.'

'You know who the murderer is?' Simon turned toward her with an incredulous look on his face.

'No, but I know what the killer has been searching for and why.'

'And the answer is ...' Simon made a 'go on' motion with his hand.

'Let's go inside. It'll be easier if I show you.'

Simon got out of the car, coming around to Skye's side to help her out, and had them both at the front door in record time. Skye had her keys ready and they were inside and at the kitchen table before the screen door finished swinging shut.

'Would you like something to drink?' Skye indicated the refrigerator.

He smiled stiffly. 'No, but I would like to see the object for which I risked getting arrested.'

She started to spread out the papers she had been writing on in the car but stopped. 'Gee, I'd sort of like a soda be­fore I explain. My throat's awfully dry. Oh, darn, I forgot. I don't have any Diet Coke.'

'Skye,' he said softly, 'show me. Now.'

'Fine, be that way.' When she finished straightening the sheets, Skye handed him a copy of the address book.

Before they had left the condo, she'd used Honey's well-equipped home office to duplicate the book. Then, after

having carefully wiped her fingerprints off its surface, she had put the original in an envelope addressed to Chief Boyd and dropped it into a mailbox in Chicago.

'See if you can figure it out,' she said.

Simon got up and turned his chair around. Resting his chin on the high back, he looked from the copies in his hand to what Skye had written. After a while he asked, 'Is this a record of payments?'

She nodded.

'It looks to me like Honey was blackmailing four peo­ple. Four identical sets of letters and numbers appear re­peatedly. The letters must refer to who and the numbers to how much. Do the columns refer to monthly payments?'

'Probably. It looks like she started blackmailing the first person about sixteen years ago. Maybe just before she left town. She added another cash cow six months after that. The next was six years later, and the fourth started to pay only about two years ago.'

'I'm surprised anyone would or could pay as long as those first victims.' Simon tapped the pages in front of him.

Leaning forward, Skye pointed to her notes. 'If I figured this right, she demanded very small amounts, only fifty dol­lars a month to start with, and the increases were small, too. So, as the person grew older and made more money she upped the ante, but only a little at a time. She made sure they never felt the pinch.'

'Are you figuring that the numbers in the address book should be multiplied by ten to get the actual cash value? How did you come up with that?' Simon got up again and turned his chair back around.

Skye cocked an eyebrow at him. 'Bored?'

'No, I've just always had a lot of nervous energy. Go on.'

'I'll explain my reasoning if you promise not to tell any­one what I tell you.'

'Hey, I've already sworn not to tell on your mom.' Simon took Skye's hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

Taking a deep breath, she squeezed back before gently removing her hand. 'Okay, we have four sets of two letters, obviously initials of some sort. But OH, NB, EW, and WY fit no one's name who is involved.'

'How do you know? Couldn't it be people from her city life that you aren't aware of?'

'Possibly,' Skye conceded, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. 'But the truth is, my brother was one of her victims, and since I know that and the amount of the last demand...'

'You worked backward.'

'Yep. He was supposed to pay her twenty-five hundred dollars the week after the parade. So, I looked for the latest entry after each initial. Two, NB and OH, had a hundred and fifty written next to them, and WY had a fifty after it. But EW had two hundred and fifty in its column. And the one before that was one hundred.

'EW had to be Vince because he was supposed to pay twenty-five hundred and he was asking to borrow fifteen hundred, which is the difference between the prior month's payment and the current month's.'

Simon got up and strolled over to the refrigerator. He took out a can of Diet Pepsi and waved it at Skye, who