"As you said, Rafe, I've had about enough of trick or treat." My voice came out in squeaks, and my incautious vocalizing hurt. I put my hands to my throat, a little scared and more than a little angry at the trend of their talk.
"Understandably, Mrs. Clery, but this time we can control the action."
"Nialla, honey, he may come near you, but he won't ever touch you again!"
I looked from one man to the other, not knowing which I despised more, and in that silence we all heard a car braking to a tire-stripping halt. A shrill voice was raised in vituperation, and then two people came clattering up the stairs. The door was flung open, and there stood Wendy Madison, her eyes round with anger, her face suffused with blood, and every inch of her thin body involved with her fury. Dennis, his face white and scared, stood behind her.
"Tell this… this… effing bastard that he's fired," she demanded. "Tell him right now, Ralph Clery!" She whirled and slapped Dennis across the mouth. It wasn't the first time: I now saw other marks on the boy's face. "There, you effing bastard. You'll never disobey an order from me again."
"That's enough, Madam, and Dennis is not fired. He was acting under my orders. No one was to pass that gate without checking here."
Wendy Madison stalked into the room, trembling with fury, straight up to Rafe, as if she meant to slap his face, too. Then she saw me, and before I knew what she meant, she'd swooped down, waving something wildly above her head, and slapped me with stunning force across my face.
"You bitch, you little gutter whore! I'll have you-Owww!"
Her hand was sweeping back to strike me again when Rafe caught it and twisted it behind her back so swiftly that she let go what she was clutching, and glossy photographs rained on the floor.
"Madam, I'll break your arm, mother or not, if you don't control yourself." He had her pinned in a chair. She writhed and tried to hit at him, until he gave her arm another little wrench. With a cry she bit her lip and sat, her back arching to ease the strain on her arm. "No one speaks to my wife that way. No one. Especially you."
"Just wait, Ralph Clery. Just wait until you've seen those photos. Then we'll see how we speak to your wife."
Rafe didn't ease his hold on her an inch, but he craned his neck to look at the photo nearest him. I knew what they must be! I think I knew the moment I saw her waving them as she entered. I wanted to die!
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Rafe said with utter disgust and annoyance, letting his mother go. "And you fell for them?"
Wendy Madison's jaw dropped. His reaction took away all her impetus.
"Fell for them?" A glance at me stoked her anger again. "I'm supposed to pay twenty thousand dollars to keep them from being circulated. I'm supposed to pay because you… you horny dwarf… married some cheap…"
Rafe's hand curled on her shoulder so fiercely that she cried out and shot him a glance full of fear and surprise.
"Madam, if you ever even think of my wife in those terms…"
"Ralph, you're hurting me." And tears began to fall from her brimming eyes. She was very sincere. Then her attitude changed to misunderstood and abused innocence. "You're brutal and unfeeling. I'm being blackmailed! Forced to protect the family name, all on account of your… latest wife." She didn't need to use foul language when she could inject such venom into a simple noun.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Michaels shift, and Rafe gestured him curtly to be quiet.
"Exactly what happened?" Rafe demanded in a cold, hard voice.
"These…" She gestured to the strewn photos. I couldn't eyen look to see how many had fallen face up… came special delivery… through the mails"-and that obviously doubled the outrage-"with a note. If I didn't wish to have them circulated, I must be prepared to pay twenty thousand dollars."
"Where's the note?"
Wendy Madison's eyes flashed. "That won't tell you anything. Block printing on cheap pad paper." Then her face crumbled again. "Ralph, I can't have my name linked with your… wife's… in this sordid manner. I'd be ruined socially. Give me the twenty thousand dollars"-her eyes blazed as anger overcame fear of disgrace-"because I most certainly am not going…"
"Madam…"
She winced as his fingers dug into her shoulder again.
"Really, Ralph"-and I winced to hear the whine in her cultivated voice-"she's your wife. You married her. I didn't. I didn't even know about it, and then, when I try to put a good face on it, give a reception for her, introduce her to my closest friends…" She dabbed at her eyes again, emulating distressed virtue.
"If you really need a scapegoat, Madam," Rafe said, and scooping up the photos, shoved them under her nose again, "look at the man involved. Because I can assure you, Nialla is blameless."
I wanted to die. We should have paid the man yesterday. How could Rafe do this to me?
But when I heard Wendy Madison's gasp of stunned and incredulous horror, heard her moan and knew that there was nothing feigned in that piteous cry, I was almost glad.
"Oh, no," she cried, half-doubled in anguish. "Oh, no, it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Oh, no. Lou wouldn't." Suddenly she straightened, her face wiped clear of expression. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. "They're fakes," she said with the absolute certainty and fantastic dignity of one who has perceived a truth. "Obviously retouched fakes." She rose, in regal dismissal.
"Burn them."
"Hold it," Rafe said, standing in her way. "You're not going anywhere yet. First you will make Nialla profound apology for your insults."
I couldn't see her face, but even the muscles in her slender legs tensed. Rafe just kept looking at her. If he ever looked at me that way… She turned slowly, like an automaton not wound tightly enough, and her face was a strained caricature of the courtesy she was forced to perform. "I apologize for my hasty words."
I nodded my head once, twice, my slapped cheek stinging as if her reluctant words physically impacted on me.
She turned again, desperate to leave, but now Rafe took her by the arm and escorted her, willy-nilly, back to the chair.
"Now, Lieutenant Michaels, here's your opportunity to catch a murdering blackmailer."
"Lieutenant Michaels?" Her voice was no more than a whisper, as pained a whisper as I'd been forced to use. This second shock sent color flaming to the roots of her blonde hair. One hand on her throat, the other clutching the chair arm, she slowly turned her head toward Jim Michaels.
"Your precipitate arrival, Madam, prevented me from making an introduction. May I now present Lieutenant Detective James Michaels of the Sunbury Police."
"Police. Oh, my God, Ralph, the police mustn't know."
Michaels inclined his head in silent apology for the fact that he already did know.
"Extortion threats are best handled with police assistance, ma'am," he said in a quiet voice. The woman looked absolutely shattered.
"The police! Oh, my God."
Rafe strode to the bar cabinet and poured a stiff drink, which he gave her. She knocked it back in a dazed fashion and then seemed to get a second grip on herself.
"Mrs. Madison, if you will cooperate with us, we will see that…"
"But he's threatened to send the negatives to the newspapers and Vogue and Harper's Bazaar…" And she began to rock back and forth in the chair.
"Mrs. Madison," James Michaels went on, still in that quiet calm voice, "those negatives would never be printed even if they did reach a publisher's office. The newspapers and magazines are very cooperative in these instances, believe me. What is more important is to apprehend this man before he victimizes anyone else. Before he does more harm." Michaels gestured toward me, and for the first time, I think, Wendy Madison saw the marks on my throat, and her eyes widened.