The Dirt Peddler by Dorien Grey

Author:Dorien Grey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2016-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Two things that attempted call had made crystal clear: First, that Catherine Tunderew was a lot more complex a character than she ever let on, and one who needed a lot closer looking into. Secondly, that Randy’s relationship with Tunderew went considerably beyond being a casual trick, as I had been increasingly suspecting. If Randy had the phone number to Tunderew’s cabin, given Tunderew’s notorious love of secrecy, there had to be a damned good reason. Randy said he expected to get a job—obviously from Tunderew, somehow. And then there was that bank account with the twelve regular hundred-dollar deposits. If they came from Tunderew, I was pretty sure I knew why.

Obviously, Tunderew’s next book had something—well, I’d wager a lot more than “something”—to do with the Dinsmores, New Eden, and the Eternal Light Foundation! Randy had been a plant, Tunderew’s spy. He was using Randy to get dirt for his new book just as he’d used Larry Fletcher for Dirty Little Minds. Chances are that Tunderew had opened the account in Randy’s name and made the deposits—I’d be willing to bet in the form of money orders—into the account. He’d probably have sent the bankbook in with each deposit and had it returned to a P.O. Box—probably a separate one. And that answered the question of why the name of the bank had been taped over. That way he could show Randy that deposits were being made in his name but, not knowing which bank the account was in, he couldn’t access the money until Tunderew was through with him.

I was more convinced than ever that Tunderew’s—and Randy’s—deaths had been no accident.

The Dinsmores moved onto and toward the top of the suspects list. If they had found out that their little empire was the target of Tunderew’s next book, they would understandably do whatever they could to keep it from being published. Including murder? Anything is possible, of course, but “possible” and “likely” are far from being synonyms.

One thing was for sure…I wouldn’t run out of leads to follow for quite a while.

*

Sunday’s barbecue at Bob and Mario’s went very well, and I did my subtle best to find out if there might be anything more Jake could tell me about New Eden in general and the Dinsmores in particular. There wasn’t. They were apparently everything that Mom, apple pie, and the American flag stood for. All of which, of course, meant that any juicy scandal that Tunderew might have dredged up couldn’t help but be a runaway best-seller.

But first things first, and the first thing on my agenda when I got to the office Monday morning was Catherine Tunderew. Had she known she was being cut out of Tunderew’s will? How did she know how far along the new manuscript was? Or was she just trying to con the Bernadines into footing the bill for Tunderew’s funeral by saying she did?

One way to find out. I picked up the phone.

*

Since I’d been to Catherine Tunderew’s twice, I decided to invite her to join me for lunch.

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