Sweet and Deadly aka Dead Dog

Mrs. Weilenmann’s article would have an extra-thick border, Catherine resolved.

It had been a long day, even for a Monday. Catherine was covering her typewriter with a definite sense of relief as Tom walked in.

“I haven’t seen you since this morning,” she said idly. “Have you been working on the story about Leona?”

“Yeah,” Tom replied, one hand on the door. “I took my basic story back to Jewel this morning, but I told her to expect additions. I’ve interviewed everyone who knows anything, and I haven’t come up with a damn thing more than I knew this morning.”

“You’ve been doing that all day?”

“No. I went to the Lion’s Club meeting, too, for their usual ham and potato salad fest and speeches. The lieutenant governor spoke today. And then I had trouble with my car. I’ll have to take it into the shop again now.”

“Too bad,” Catherine said politely. “See you tomorrow.”

She began walking to her car, which was parked across the street by the courthouse.

“Catherine!”

She turned and saw Randall hurrying across the street after her.

As she watched him come toward her, she realized she had been too busy all day to think about the date he had made with her that morning.

“How was today?” he asked.

“If you really want to know-” she said, and laughed.

“Salton been asking too many graphic questions?”

“Salton,” said Catherine, shaking her head. “Salton says, and I have it from another source, that Leona was an abortionist. That explains something Sheriff Galton said to me yesterday.”

“Good God,” Randall said mildly. “I had no idea we had a village abortionist.” He brooded for a moment. “What did Galton say yesterday?” he asked finally, frowning.

“He asked if I sold to Leona, or knew she had, some things from Father’s office. A sterilizer and instruments, I suppose, from what she seems to have been doing to support herself in her retirement.” Catherine’s voice was arid.

“He thinks you knew? Aided and abetted?”

“Yes. Or alternatively, that I was a customer.”

Randall touched her hand.

“Oh well. I can’t convince him different,” she said. “And that’s not all.”

“More? You have had a busy day.”

“I’ll tell you now. We didn’t talk about this yesterday,” Catherine said, putting her purse on the car hood and leaning against the driver’s door. He settled companionably beside her.

“Leona left her money, her house, the whole kit and kaboodle, to my father. Naturally, she had made this will before he died, and just never changed it. I wish to God she had.”

“You’re the legatee now?”

“So it seems. Sheriff Gallon apparently thinks that constitutes a motive for me…and I guess it would, at that, if I didn’t have some money of my own. I like money,” she said simply, “but I’m not avid for more.” She paused to return the wave of Mrs. Brighton, the mayor’s secretary.

“But to keep to the track-Sheriff Galton didn’t give me a figure, but it seems there was quite a lot of money stashed in that little house. Now, I can’t imagine that many girls in Lowfield needed abortions. I think the bulk of it has to be blackmail payments.”

Randall nodded thoughtfully. She wanted to touch his hair.

“I have evidently been living in a dream,” Catherine went on quietly, “because I am really-flabbergasted-that so many people in Lowfield were blackmailable, if that’s a word.”

“Who? Did Galton name names?” asked Randall, looking at the ground.

Catherine was sharply reminded that Randall was a newspaper editor, in the business of spreading information. She became acutely uneasy at the way he was carefully avoiding her eyes. It was a moment of testing; she saw that painfully. Maybe I am brave, like Mrs. Weilenmann said, she thought bleakly. She had opened her mouth to speak, when a new line of thought occurred to her. She asked, “Randall? Not you? Blackmail?”

He looked sad behind his glasses. He knew as well as she that this was a test of faith that had come too early; she could see that in his face.

He took a deep breath. “Not me,” he said. “Maybe my mother.”

Catherine had tensed, afraid that they were going to shatter their fragile beginning. Now she relaxed.

“Miss Angel?” she said, incredulously. “I thought she was made of iron.”

“She is,” he answered with a half-smile. “But she has her chink. My father. He was a famous man, Catherine, at least in this state, and the newspaper is such a family tradition. Even a little weekly newspaper can become a name, when people like my grandfather and father run it. They were crusaders in their way. Brilliant men. Men who always had enemies.

“And my father, I’ve found out, once took a bribe.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said swiftly, dismayed.

“Well, just the outline.” He took a moment to frame what he wanted to say. “The paper was losing money. Crusaders lose advertising revenue. Even though this is the only paper in the county, some people would rather rely on word-of-mouth, or advertising in the Memphis papers that everyone here takes, than pay money to the Gazette; at least while Dad was running it. And you know our family money was tied up by my great-grandfather; we can’t pump it into the Gazette. So at a critical point my father accepted some money from someone running for office, to keep the paper going. The candidate didn’t want one of his activities made known. My father was the only newspaperman who knew of this-activity.” Randall pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

Catherine was trying to hide her shock Randall’s father had been one of her heroes.

“My mother found out after he died, when she went through his personal papers. I reckon she thought she had hidden all the traces, but I found them when I took over the paper, and I asked her about it. She told me, finally. And I know she would give anything to have no one else on earth know.”

Catherine felt honored that Randall had shown confidence in her.

“I don’t think you should worry,” she said gently. “I don’t see how Leona could have known-unless your father told mine at his office, where she could have heard.”

“It’s possible. They were friends. Close friends.”

“You’ve been brooding about this.”

“Not yesterday,” he said, with the ghost of a smile. “But today, yes, I have. I heard rumors Saturday night, about Leona’s-sideline. One of the deputies couldn’t keep his mouth shut about the blackmail material and money they found in Leona’s house. Or maybe Galton wanted that leaked, to stir things up and see what rose to the surface.”

“Miss Angel,” Catherine began, and faltered. “You know your mother better than anyone else, I’m sure. But from what I know of Miss Angel, I’d just out-and-out ask her if she had been paying Leona to keep quiet. Your mother’s that kind of woman. I think if she’d wanted to do away with Leona, she would’ve shot her on the courthouse steps at high noon.”

“I think so too,” Randall said, and grinned at her. “Now that I’ve spilled my guts, what about yours?”

With no hesitation, she told him about Jewel Crenna and Martin Barnes, and about Sheriff Galton’s son.

Randall whistled.

“Sounds like the entire population of Lowfield might have had excellent reasons to want Leona dead.”

“I know,” Catherine said. “I was so positive that the reason Leona died was the same reason my parents died. Now, I’m not sure.”

“Does it eat at you? Your parents?”

“How could it not? Vengeance sounds melodramatic, the very word…but that’s what I want. I want vengeance.” She stopped. “This may not be what you want a woman to say to you, or what you want a woman to be.” She clenched her fists and tried to pick her words with absolute accuracy. “But at my core, where I really live, I want vengeance on whoever killed my parents. My mother and father should not have died like that. It has altered me.”