"I still don't see what this has to do with Margie. I guarantee you I could go into any office or bar in America and find plenty of men who would be happy to grab a woman by her hair and drag her back to their cave. I'm afraid that's not ever going to change."
"I don't think you're understanding me. I'm not talking about what your average asshole thinks." Her voice started to rise, and so did the anger Diana detected beneath her words. "I'm saying that the men in this town, going back a long time, used to take women whenever they wanted. They'd beat them or they'd rape them, and a lot of times, they'd end up killing them."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's what I've heard."
"Rumors? Small town rumors, Kay. They're the preferred currency in a place like New Cambridge."
"Listen," Kay said. "My mother-in-law's grandmother had a cousin. A troublemaker admittedly. She used to run away from home, keep company with the wrong boys. This was here in New Cambridge, around the time of World War I. She went down to the old railroad depot to meet a soldier who was coming back from the war. But nobody ever saw her again, just like Margie."
"Kay..."
"I guess you can think what you want."
"I talked to John Bolton today," Diana said, hoping to steer Kay back to the present.
"Oh," she said. "That prick."
"He told me he didn't know what happened to Margie."
"He's lying. He's part of all of that."
"He told me he gave you the reward money after Margie disappeared. He said you came to his house and took the check. Is that true?"
Kay averted her eyes. "I don't remember."
"You told me he never gave you the reward money, that he blew you off. Don't tell me you don't remember, Kay. I know you do."
"Okay, I took the goddamn money. Is that what you want me to say? I took it from that rich bastard. It's the least he could do for me."
"For you? What did you do with it if you didn't create a reward?"
"I lived on it," she said. "I paid for the damn groceries and the electric bill. That's what I had to do. I didn't have anything else, missy. Do you know what it's like to be poor, to not know how you're going to make it through the next week?"
"Yes."
Diana's direct response stopped Kay's rant. She paused, her mouth half open, like a ventriloquist dummy.
Diana looked out the car window. It was streaked with dirt, and the people who passed on the sidewalk appeared fuzzy and indistinct. She bit her lip. Kay coughed behind her, a deep and wet hacking noise. She hockered deep in her throat, rolled down the window and spit. Diana fought against the revulsion welling in her gut.
"Is that the only contact you had with him?" Diana said. "Did he cut it off there?"
It took Kay a moment to respond. "No."
"What happened?"
"I called him a few times after that," she said.
"To see if he knew anything?"
"I really need to smoke," Kay said. "I'm going to keep the window down and smoke."
"Fine."
She reached into her purse and brought out the pack and the lighter. It took her two tries to get the lighter going, then she blew the smoke out the window.
"He wrote more checks to me over the years," she said. "He was having an affair with Margie. I know it."
"How? You said she didn't talk to you about these things. You said she didn't have a boyfriend. Were you lying to me about that?"
"I meant that she didn't have a real boyfriend if she was screwing around with this Bolton guy," Kay said. "If it was him, and I know it was, he was using Margie, using a dumb, innocent girl who didn't know a damn thing about men or anything else. They weren't dating. She was being preyed on."
Diana flashed back to the feeling she had talking to John Bolton. Something oozed out of him, and she wouldn't be surprised if he left a slime trail behind him when he walked.
"But you took money from him. You thought he hurt your daughter, and you took his money. You sold your daughter out just to pay for groceries."
Kay gave a bitter laugh. Her stumpy, gray teeth showed. "I was using him," she said. "I was keeping him on the line, keeping contact with him. I figured it was better to have a relationship with him than no contact at all. And he didn't want the world to know he had something going with Margie. It would ruin his standing in the community. And with his wife."
"You were blackmailing him."
"If you want to call it that," Kay said. "I thought I was putting pressure on him and keeping it on him, reminding him that someone out there was still thinking about this. The money stopped coming once his wife died, though. That bitch."
"Did you take this to the police? Did they know?"