'They're lovely animals, and I'm sure they miss you.'
'Take me home.'
'Will you talk to me about Vernon Langsford?' Kerney asked. 'Danny said he told you everything.'
'I need to hear your side of the story,' Kerney replied, 'in order for it to be official.'
Margie nodded.
'Tell me about Vernon.'
'He was a bad boy.'
'What did he do?'
Margie's eyes closed. 'He made me play with his lollipop-that's what he called it. I had to let him put it everywhere.'
'How old were you when this happened?'
'Very young. It went on for years.' Margie's fingers touched her chest and she smiled ruefully. 'Until I got breasts. They never did get very big.'
'Did you tell anybody?'
'I told Danny what Vernon was doing to me the summer I turned ten and he turned fifteen. He said it was my fault.'
'You told no one else?'
'I was scared to. But I think my daddy knew. He went to work for Vernon's father that same summer and stayed with the company until he retired.'
Kerney thought about Margie's years of pain and shame. 'Vernon can't hurt you anymore.'
Margie smiled bitterly. 'I always thought Vernon's death would be a remedy. But it's not.'
'Why don't you get packed,' Kerney said gently, resisting the impulse to reach out and comfort Margie. Based on what he'd just heard, he doubted that a man's touch would soothe away any of her hurts.
The flight back to Albuquerque and the drive to Roswell took up the remainder of the day. Kerney got Margie home at nightfall, his mind reeling from her descriptions of Vernon's sexual assaults. In a tiny little voice, she'd recalled the events as though they were fresh and recent. The fact that Danny Hobeck had freely made his kid sister available to Vernon turned Kerney's stomach.
He stayed with her while she checked on her cats, fed them, called the neighbor to report her return, and then disappeared into the bathroom. Ten minutes later she emerged with a dreamy look on her face, all traces of agitation and worry gone.
He said nothing about her drugged condition and left thinking that if anybody had a legitimate reason to get loaded on tranquilizers, it was Margie.
Penelope Gibben's house was dark when he drove by. By phone he contacted a staff member at Ranchers' Exploration and Development and learned that Gibben was on a business trip to Dallas and wouldn't be back until midweek.
Linda Langsford's house was lit up, but the cars in the driveway, including her minister's Chevy and her law partner's top-of-the-line Volvo station wagon, canceled the possibility of a private conversation.
It was just as well, Kerney thought, as he drove away. He was drained from hearing Margie's gut-wrenching accounts and wasn't sure he could maintain the focus of another interview with either woman on the heels of what he'd recently learned.
Besides, the weakest link in the chain other than Margie was Kay Murray. As an admitted drug user, he could lean on her, if necessary.
He'd see her in the morning when his mind was clear.
A bad dream forced Kerney into consciousness. He woke in his Ruidoso motel room with a jumble of ugly images in his mind. In it, Randy Shockley and Eric Langsford were stalking a prepubescent Kay Murray with shotguns, like hunters chasing a jackrabbit. Murray suddenly transmuted into Sara, and Kerney couldn't reach her in time to save her from the blasts that took her down.
He checked the time and stifled an urge to call Sara-she was long gone from her quarters to morning classes. In the shower he let the water beat on his head until the last remnant of the dream evaporated.
Kay Murray wasn't at her town house, but Kerney found a newly planted realtor's FOR SALE sign next to the walkway very interesting. He caught up with Murray at Vernon Langsford's, where she was loading personal belongings into the back of her Ford Explorer.
She wedged a box into the back of the vehicle and faced Kerney as he approached.
'You don't listen well,' she said. 'Let me be clearer: Fuck off.'
'The more I think about it, the more I believe you never had a sexual relationship with Vernon,' Kerney said. 'At least, not as an adult.'
'Excuse me?' Murray tried to step aside and Kerney crowded her back toward the Explorer.
'I talked to a woman yesterday who told me Langsford had been a pedophile since boyhood. I've been thinking that he used Penelope Gibben as a cover for his pedophilia, and after his wife was killed and he moved here, he used you to fill the same role. Did you ever tell Linda her father was a child molester?'
'I don't have to listen to this.'
'Yes, you do,' Kerney snapped. 'Answer the question.'
She winced, fell silent, and lowered her head. 'Linda always knew,' she finally said in a harsh voice.
'I thought Linda hated her father because he was unfaithful to her mother. Wasn't that the party line you and Penelope gave me?'
Her head stayed down. 'Linda always knew,' she repeated.
'How long is always?'
Murray's head came up, and she averted her face. 'From the time I was eight. Vernon didn't bring Linda to Penelope's house so I could play with her. He brought her there so that he could play with her.'
She snapped her cold eyes in Kerney's direction. 'Now do you get it?'
'Who else knew?' Kerney asked, his stomach twisting.
'Eric, Arthur, their mother. All of them knew or at least guessed at what was going on.'
'How many?' Kerney asked.
'What?'
Kerney couldn't contain his antagonism. 'How many little girls did Vernon molest while you and your aunt were busy protecting his reputation?'
She looked over Kerney's shoulder with dead eyes. 'He gave that up when I started working for him.'
'In exchange for what?'
'My attention.'
Kerney studied the woman, looking for anything that signaled regret All he saw was misery.
'Was it worth it? The money? The gifts?'
Her eyes strayed to Kerney's face, remote and narrow. 'After Vernon tired of Linda, he grew fond of me, if you get my meaning.'
Kerney's anger dissipated as though doused by a chilling rain. He waited for more.
'I've learned to cope with life in my own way,' she added.
'Did Penelope know Vernon sexually assaulted you during the summers you stayed with her?'
'She more than knew, she helped it happen. But she also made sure I got opportunities I never would have had otherwise. She's done a great deal for me.' There was no gratitude in her voice.
'Help me sort everything out,' Kerney asked.
'What purpose would that serve?'
'You really don't have a choice.'
'We'll see about that,' Murray said.
'You helped Eric rip off his father.'
