The Stranger

Merle looked at Bennie, and seemed relieved that the vendor was fully absorbed with another customer.

“Because I’m being blackmailed. And I want you to catch the bastard who’s doing it.”

Twenty minutes later, when they were settled at Tyler’s favorite café, and the waiter had taken their order and departed, Tyler knocked back some scalding black coffee and turned to the man beside him.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s start over. Slowly. From the beginning. Because I’m having a little trouble believing I heard you right.”

“You did.” Dilday Merle had ordered bottled water, and he was carefully decanting it into the empty glass the waiter had provided. “I’m being blackmailed.”

This time, Tyler was better able to control his shock. But still…it was insane. Seventy-something-year-old Dilday Merle, with his old-fashioned etiquette and his bow ties, and his owl eyes?

This stuffy, ivory-tower academic was being blackmailed?

Though it was the lunch hour, and dozens of people thronged the quaint little café, the anonymity of the crowd provided its own privacy.

“What the hell could anyone blackmail you about?”

“Hell is the perfect word for it.” Merle’s voice carried some heat. He might be close to eighty, but there wasn’t anything frail about him. “Some bastard has been calling me up, ordering me to pay him a thousand dollars every two weeks or else he’ll tell the board of regents that I was mixed up with the Heyday Eight.”

Tyler, who had just lifted his coffee cup, froze in place. He felt the steam moisten his lips, but he was too distracted to drink.

Dilday Merle and the Heyday Eight?

He didn’t want to fall into stale clichés about old people, but come on. His mind tried to picture Greta Swinburne or Pammy Russe straddling this elegant, elderly man, snapping their little black whips across his bony backside.

No way.

“For God’s sake, son, get that look off your face.” Merle tightened his mouth. His high forehead wrinkled in an intense scowl. “It isn’t true.”

As if the projector of his life had started rolling again, Tyler blinked back to reality. He sipped at his coffee, trying to look unfazed.

“Of course it’s not true,” he said. “Greta gave me the complete list of their customers when I broke the story. You definitely weren’t on that list. I would have noticed.”

“And plastered my name all over your story, no doubt.”

Tyler shrugged. He was used to this attitude. He hadn’t made those stupid college girls buy rhinestone-studded sex-whips, and he hadn’t made those pathetic men buy their services. He’d just let the world—including the girls’ parents, the men’s wives, and the local police—know what was going on.

You’d think they might even be grateful that he’d brought an end to something so fundamentally unhealthy for all concerned. But about ninety percent of the people in Heyday had automatically hated Tyler Balfour’s guts.

Oh, well, it was an occupational hazard for journalists. Everyone liked to shoot the messenger.

Still, he wondered what the huffy Heydayers had thought when they’d learned who journalist Tyler Balfour really was. When they learned that he was a McClintock by birth and had inherited a third of their precious little town.

But that was another story.

Merle was still frowning. “Wouldn’t you?”

“What? Publish your name?” Tyler returned Merle’s gaze without flinching. “You are a high-profile community leader. You worked with those girls at the college, in a position of trust. At least part of your salary comes from public funds. So yeah, I probably would have put your name front and center.”

Merle snorted softly. He managed to make even that sound elegant. “Fair enough. Well, anyhow, this accusation is a bunch of baloney. But the blackmailer obviously knows that, in my position, I can’t afford to have charges like that leveled at me. The school can’t afford it, not after the scandals it’s already been through.”

Tyler nodded. “The guy sounds pretty clever. He’s made the payment just small enough that it’ll hurt less to pay it than to fight it. That’s what usually trips blackmailers up. They get greedy and they ask for too much. Their victim is left with no choice but to call in the police.”

Merle offered him a one-sided smile. “Two thousand dollars a month hurts plenty,” he said. “Not all of us just inherited a small town, you know. In fact, I have to tell you it still seems positively feudal that anyone can inherit a town.”

Tyler chuckled, then leaned back as the waiter arrived with their meals. It did sound ridiculous, which was why he didn’t intend to touch this inheritance with a ten-foot pole. He had left a standing order to sell everything, as soon as there was a legitimate buyer. So far he hadn’t been able to unload any of it. Property in Heyday, Virginia, wasn’t exactly in high demand.

Neither of them spoke until the waiter had gone through the requisite frills and flourishes, asking them three times if they needed anything further.

Finally they were alone. Merle looked at his dark green and yellow salad as if he’d never seen anything like it before. Then he put his fork down and gave Tyler another of those appraising stares. Tyler had to smile. He could just imagine how effective that glare had been in the classroom.

“I’ve always wanted to ask you something,” Merle said. “When you came to Heyday and uncovered the prostitution ring, no one had any idea you had a connection to the town.”

While Tyler waited for Merle to continue, he chewed a mouthful of sprouts and spinach. Georgetown college students were way too health-conscious. Even the dressing was clear and artery-friendly. The damn thing tasted like wet grass.

Merle was still staring at him. “No one knew you were related to the McClintock family.”

“Right.” Tyler washed his grass down with coffee. “But you said you wanted to ask me something. I haven’t heard a question yet.”

“I’m asking if it was just coincidence. Because I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that you just happened to be passing through the very town where your natural father lived. I don’t believe that, out of all the insignificant little burgs on the map, you stumbled by accident onto Heyday.”

“Of course I didn’t. I went there to check out McClintock. I had just found out about him. My father—”

Tyler paused. It had been several years now since he’d learned the truth, but it still caught him by surprise to think that Jim Balfour was merely his adopted father. It still disappointed him, too. Jim Balfour was a great man, quiet and introverted, but more decent and loyal than anyone Tyler had ever met. Anderson McClintock, on the other hand, had been something completely different. Fiery, self-indulgent, opinionated, arrogant. The classic rich SOB.

He started over. “The man I considered my father, Jim Balfour, decided that I ought to know. My mother had just died. She was the one who had been determined to keep it all a secret. I think she was ashamed. She and Anderson hadn’t ever married.” He forked another clump of grass. “Although, when I did my research, I discovered that she was probably the only woman in Virginia he didn’t marry.”

Merle smiled. “That’s overstating it, but not by much.”

“Whatever. So I went to Heyday to get a look at the guy. I didn’t announce myself, obviously. I wanted anonymity, in case I—”

“Hated him?”

Tyler chuckled softly. “Now that’s an overstatement. You can’t hate a total stranger. And frankly I don’t waste energy hating anybody. I like to keep things simple, that’s all. The whole thing—second father, second family, second set of entanglements—sounded far too complicated. I thought it quite likely I wouldn’t want to get involved.”

Merle had an infuriatingly unconvinced expression on his face, as if he didn’t believe a word Tyler was saying. Well, too bad. Ten years ago Tyler had learned to keep a safe distance from messy emotional situations, and once he learned a lesson, he never forgot it.

“Must have come as a shock, then,” Merle observed dryly, “when Anderson put you in his will. Inheriting almost a full third of Heyday, just like his other sons. Your brothers, who were, of course, just as shocked as you were, I’m sure. Kind of hard to keep your distance from that.”

Tyler put his napkin on the table and gave up all pretence of eating. “Look, Merle, I don’t mean to be rude, but maybe we should get to the point. You didn’t come here to talk about the complexities of life as Anderson McClintock’s secret baby.”

Merle tilted his head. “No. You’re right. I didn’t.”

“So let me tell you what I think this is all about. You obviously heard I’m writing a book on the Heyday Eight. You knew I’d be interested—more than interested—to learn there are new developments in that situation. A blackmailer operating nearly three years after the girls were put out of business is definitely great copy.”

Merle smiled wryly. “I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but—” He nodded. “Yes. I was hoping your curiosity would be piqued. I’m checkmated here, Tyler. If I don’t pay him, he’ll smear me, I’ll be ruined, and the police won’t ever expose him. They won’t even have enough incentive to try very hard. But you might. Naming the blackmailer. Having an arrest. That would make even better copy, right?”

“Right.”