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Somebody Else's Music(26)

By:Jane Haddam


Peggy made sure, one last time, that Stu was asleep and likely to stay asleep. Then she walked down the short hall to their tiny living room, filthy and dark. There was enough dirt on the carpet to plant in. If she ran her finger across the top of the mantel, she would find not only dust but grime, slick as kitchen grease, half an inch thick.

She went out the other end of the living room, into the dining room, where they never ate. She went into the kitchen and felt a little better. It was much cleaner here, because Stu never came into the kitchen except to get beer from the refrigerator, and he never did even that if she was at home to get it for him. When he was watching wrestling and getting coked up, she could come in here and get rid of her nervousness by scrubbing everything down. She only wished they could do something about the inevitable wear and tear. There were at least two holes in the linoleum floor, both deep enough so that she could see the plywood underneath. Two-thirds of the cabinets had lost their door handles. She went to the refrigerator and got out the little brown bag she’d packed with a Swiss cheese sandwich and a tangerine. She always took a brown bag lunch to school, even when she was eating out, so that Stu would think she wasn’t wasting money on what he considered inessentials—although he did less of that now than he had. He bought his stuff once a week, right after she cashed her paycheck, and from that point on it was just a matter of staying out of his way until he got high enough.

Peggy went to the back door and looked out. Nancy Quayde picked her up every morning—Stu absolutely refused to let Peggy have a car, or to drive his unless he was in it, too—but she wouldn’t come to the door and knock. She wouldn’t even beep her horn. If Peggy wanted the ride, she had to be ready and waiting. Peggy let herself out onto the back porch. She was early. She just wished she knew what she should do about her anger, which had been spilling up inside her since she left Emma’s place last evening and come to full fruition while she’d been getting dressed for school. It was one thing to treat her like something less than a human being. It was another to treat her as if she were stupid. There were times these days when they all got her so mad, Peggy thought her head was going to split open. Whenever she thought that, she had a vision of it lying on the sidewalk smashed to pieces, like a dropped watermelon.

There was the sound of a car in the street and then Nancy Quayde’s four-door Saab came rolling into Peggy’s driveway, but not very far in. Nancy liked to make quick getaways, especially from here. Peggy tried the door behind her to make sure it was locked. Then she walked down the drive to where Nancy was waiting. She really hated that damned Saab. It was so stuck-up and pretentious. Nancy no more needed a four-door car than she needed a pogo stick. She’d only bought this one to let everyone know that she made more money than they did. If she ever got the superintendent’s job, she’d probably go out and buy a Mercedes.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” Nancy said, backing out without waiting to make sure Peggy had her seat belt on.

“I’ve got to tell you something,” Peggy said. “Gregor Demarkian was in Emma’s store last night. I saw him.”

The car slid backward into the street. At this time of the morning, there was no real worry about traffic. Nancy looked her over. “How did you know that?” she said.

“Because I saw him,” Peggy repeated. “I tried to tell Emma who he was, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I’m getting damned sick and tired of the bunch of you treating me as if I’d had all my brain cells removed by laser surgery. I knew who he was as soon as I saw him. He’s been in People. Emma didn’t have a clue.”

“Well,” Nancy said. Then she fluttered her hands in the air. “Why didn’t you tell anybody else? Or was Stu refusing to let you make phone calls last night?”

Peggy let that one pass. “It wouldn’t have been much use telling anybody else, would it? You’d all have just acted like Emma. What was the point?”

“Do you happen to know what he’s doing here?”

“I’d expect he was doing something with Betsy Toliver. About Betsy Toliver. About Michael Houseman. That’s the only murder mystery we’ve got around here, isn’t it?”

The car was going forward again. Nancy leaned over the steering wheel and frowned. “He’s staying out at Betsy’s mother’s place. Nobody knows for how long. Apparently, she asked him to stay with her.”

“Are they supposed to be friends?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Obviously,” Peggy said judiciously, “you know more than I do. You must have been on the phone all night with one or the other of them. Except not with me. Never with me anymore, right? We use Stu as an excuse to avoid talking about why it is none of you are my friends anymore, even though we’ve all known each other since kindergarten.”