would be the proud owner of a lot of worthless property.”
“But it’s worthless to him right now, Miss St. John,” said Miranda, studying the map. “Graffam needs that access road to get to his lots. And you said the road belongs — belonged — to Richard.”
“Yes, we keep coming back to that, don’t we?” said Chase softly. “That link between Richard and Stone Coast Trust. The link that refuses to go away….” He stood, clapping the dust from his trousers. “Maybe it’s time we paid a visit to our neighbors.”
“Which ones?” asked Miranda.
“Sulaway and the hippies. The other two on this road who didn’t sell. Let’s find out if Graffam put any pressure to bear. Like a blackmail note or two.”
“He didn’t try to blackmail Miss St. John,” pointed out Miranda. “And she didn’t sell.”
“Ah, but my property’s scarcely worth the effort,” said Miss St. John. “I’m just a tiny patch off to the side. And as for trying to blackmail me, well, you saw for yourself he doesn’t have a thing on me worth mentioning. Not that I wouldn’t mind generating a whiff of scandal at my age.”
“The others could be more vulnerable,” said Chase. “Old Sulaway, for instance. We should at least talk to him.”
“A good idea,” said Miss St. John. “Since you thought of it, Chase,
Chase laughed. “You are a coward, Miss St. John.”
“No, I’m just too old for the aggravation.”
Without warning, Chase reached for Miranda’s hand and with one smooth motion pulled her up in an arc that almost, but not quite, ended in his arms. She reached out to steady herself and found her palms pressing against his chest. At once she stepped back.
“Is this a request for me to come along?” she said.
“It’s more along the lines of a plea. To help me soften up old Sulaway.”
“Does he need softening up?”
“Let’s just say he hasn’t taken kindly to me since I batted a baseball through his window. And that was twenty-five years ago.”
Miranda laughed in disbelief. “You sound like you’re afraid of him. Both of you.”
“Obviously she’s never met old Sulaway,” said Miss St. John.
“Is there something I should know about him?”
Chase and Miss St. John glanced at each other.
“Just be careful when you walk into his front yard,” said Miss St. John. “Give him lots of warning. And be ready to get out of there fast.”
“Why? Does he have a dog or something?”
“No. But he does have a shotgun.”
Ten
“You’re that boy who broke my window!” yelled Homer Sulaway. “Yeah, I recognize you.” He stood on the front porch, his skinny arms looped around a rifle, his lobsterman’s dungarees rolled up at the ankles. Chase had told Miranda the man was eighty-five. The toothless, prune-faced apparition on that porch looked about a century older. “You two go on, now! Leave me alone. Can’t afford to fix no more broken windows.”
“But I paid for it, remember?” said Chase. “Had to mow lawns for six months, but I did pay for it.”
“Damn right,” said Sully. “Or I’d ’a got it outta your old man’s hide.”
“Can we talk to you, Mr. Sulaway?”
“What about?”
“Stone Coast Trust. I wanted to know if—”
“Not interested.” Sully turned and shuffled back across the porch.
“Mr. Sulaway, I have a young lady here who’d like to ask—”
“Don’t have no use for young ladies. Or old ladies, either.” The screen door slammed shut behind him.
There was a silence. “Well,” muttered Chase. “The old boy’s definitely mellowed.”
“I think he’s afraid,” said Miranda. “That’s why he’s not talking to us.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Let’s find out.” She approached the cottage and called, “Mr. Sulaway? All we want to know is, are they trying to blackmail you? Has Stone Coast threatened you in some way?”
“Those are lies they’re spreading!” Sulaway yelled through the screen door. “Vicious lies! Not true, any of it!”
“That’s not what Tony Graffam says.”
The door flew open and Sully stormed out onto the porch. “What’s Graffam got to say about me? What’s he tellin’ people now?”
“We could stand out here and yell about it. Or we could talk in private. Which do you prefer?”
Sulaway glanced around, as though searching for watchers in the woods. Then he snapped, “Well? You two need an engraved invitation, or what?”
They followed him inside. Sully’s kitchen was a dark little space, the windows closed in by trees, every shelf and countertop crammed full with junk and knickknacks. Newspapers were stacked in piles about the floor. The kitchen table was about the only unoccupied surface. They sat around it, in old ladder-back chairs that look dangerously close to collapse.
“Your brother’s the one they was really pressurin’,” Sully told Chase. “But Richard, he wasn’t about to give in, no sir. He tells us, we gotta stick together. Says we can’t sell, no matter how many letters they send us, how many lies they tell.” Sully shook his head. “Didn’t do no good. Just about everybody on this road went and signed on Graffam’s dotted line, just like that. And Richard, look what went and happened to him. Hear he got himself poked with a knife.”
Miranda saw Chase glance in her direction. Old Sully was so out of touch he didn’t realize he was sitting with the very woman accused of plunging that knife into Richard Tremain.
“You said something about a letter,” said Chase.
“Telling you to sell. Did Graffam send it?”
“Wasn’t signed. I hear none of ’em were.”
“So Richard got a letter, as well?”
“I figure. So did Barretts down the way. Maybe everyone did. People wouldn’t talk about ’em.”
“What did the letter say? The one you got?”
“Lies. Mean, wicked lies….”
“And the one they sent Richard?”
Sully shrugged. “I wasn’t privy to that.”
Miranda glanced around the kitchen with its overflowing shelves. A pack rat, this Mr. Sulaway was. He kept things, junk and treasure both. She said, “Do you still have that letter?”
Sully hunched his shoulders, like a hermit crab about to retreat into its shell. He grunted. “Maybe.”
“May we see it?”
“I dunno.” He sighed, rubbed his face. “I dunno.”
“We know they’re lies, Mr. Sulaway. We just want to see what tactics they’re using. We have to stop Graffam before he does any more damage.”
For a moment Sully sat hunched and silent. Miranda thought he might not have heard what she said. But then he creaked to his feet and shuffled over to the kitchen counter. From the flour canister he pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to Miranda.
She laid it flat on the table.
“What really happened to Stanley? The Lula M knows. So do we.”
Below those cryptic words was a handwritten note, penciled in. “Sell, Sully.”
