P Is for Peril

signed a six-month lease. He's gone now and good riddance. You're welcome to talk to her if you don't believe me. I mean, Dana ought to know. It happened right under her nose. Poor mother. She still thinks Daddy's coming back to her. Bad enough he left her for such a… tart, but the fact that Crystal's still doing it makes Daddy look like a fool."
    "Which leads us to what conclusion?"
    "Crystal wants him dead. She wants him out of the way," she said with the first flash of feeling I'd seen in her. Her mouth trembled and she began to blink rapidly. She looked off toward the hallway, taking a moment to compose herself. Under her maternity tunic, I saw a knot move across her lap, probably the baby's foot. I could see why people reached out impulsively to lay a hand on such a belly. Blanche directed her comments to the far side of the room. "Believe me, she married Daddy for his money. The pre-nup was just a ploy. She might have meant it at the time, but then she ran into Clint and got involved with him. Like I said, if Daddy dies, she inherits the bulk of his estate and then she's home free. If she divorces him, she gets nothing. It's as simple as that."
    "Blanche, you don't know for a fact your father's dead. None of us know that. Even your friend Nancy claims he's still alive."
    Blanche's gaze swung back to mine, her blue eyes ablaze. "Don't say 'even Nancy' like she's a charlatan. I resent that."
    "Not my intention. I withdraw the word. The point is, she has an image of him helpless, but alive, at least from what you say."
    "But for how long? The man's nearly seventy years old. What if he's tied up, what if he's gagged and can't breathe?"
    "All right, all right. Let me see what I can do to check it out. So far, this is pure theory, but I can appreciate the worry."
    The minute I got home, I went to my desk and began taking notes, writing down the list of possibilities for Dowan Purcell's fate. I'd dismissed the notion that he'd been kidnapped, but maybe I was wrong. He might have been forcibly removed and carted off somewhere, in which case, he was either dead (sorry, Nance) or being held against his will. I detailed the other options, writing them down as quickly as they occurred to me. He could have left voluntarily, departing of his own accord, on the run or hiding out. He could have met with an accident while driving under the influence. If he were lying at the bottom of a canyon, it would certainly explain the fact that his Mercedes hadn't been spotted yet. He could have been subject to any one of a number of fatal incidents: aneurysm, heart attack, stroke. If so, it was puzzling that no one had stumbled across the body, but it sometimes happens that way.
    Or what? He could have established a secret life, having slipped from one persona into the next. What else? Fearing disgrace, he could have killed himself. Or, as Blanche suggested, someone could have killed him for gain, or to cover something worse. I couldn't think of any other permutations. Well, two. Amnesia, though that felt like an old '30s movie plot. Or he might have been assaulted by a mugger who overplayed his hand and then disposed of the body. The only other possibility was his having been arrested and jailed, but according to Detective Odessa, Purcell hadn't shown up in any law enforcement computer system. From this, I surmised that he hadn't been identified as the perpetrator of his own crimes or the victim of anyone else's.
    I studied the list. There were certain variations I had no way to pursue. For instance, if Dow had been taken ill, if he'd been injured or killed in a fatal accident, I had no way to know unless someone stepped forward with information. The cops had already canvassed hospitals in the area. This was one of those times when being a smalltown private investigator (and a lone operator on top of that) made the job difficult. I had no access to airline, immigration, or customs records, so I couldn't determine if Purcell had boarded a plane (or a train or a boat) in his name or someone else's (using a fake driver's license and a fake passport). If he were still in this country, he might well evade notice as long as he didn't use his credit cards, didn't rent or buy property, didn't apply for a telephone or utilities, didn't drive with expired tags, or in any other way attract attention to himself or his vehicle. He couldn't vote, couldn't do work that required his true Social Security number, couldn't open a bank account. He