ASK MARTHA—THE BLACKMAILER

Written by Robbie Cutler

I’m from a small town, which helps me to understand this one. Small towns have their strengths, sure. People tend to pitch in and help one another, even when the television news cameras are not recording what’s going on. But also, small towns can be inbred. People nourish their grievances, and then feed on them. That’s why I don’t think the really vicious crimes only happen in the big cities. There’s plenty of material for that right here in Centerville.

And I see it, writing for the Chronicle. Actually, you might think the whole Davis clan was working here, from the bylines I get. The business and city hall reporting comes out under my real name, James Harding Davis. For the sports pages, they use my college nickname, Crusher Davis, which used to be pretty accurate on the football field. Not many plays came my way, when the offense got a good look at my build: six foot six and two-hundred-sixty-five pounds. So much for fame in a small town. Nowadays, the Chronicle reporter who gets the most readership is Ask Martha, the advice columnist, and yes, that’s me too … but don’t tell anybody.

I didn’t know when I started the column that it would be such a help to the Centerville Police Department. CPD is a pretty fancy term for three people: Inspector Samuels, one deputy, and the City Council member who oversees the police, Linda Amberton. She glories in the title “Chief,” as if she knew anything about crime solving. Well, now she knows a lot more.

As a matter of fact, “Chief” Linda Amberton was the one who brought the latest case to Inspector Samuels. She came in quietly—a rarity for her—eased herself into his private office, looked both ways, and then told her story. As Inspector Samuels told me over coffee not long afterward, she told him she had been the victim of a blackmail attempt.

“My hat’s off to her,” Samuels said. “Not many people would have the courage to do what she did. Most would just pay up and hope it went away.”

“I’m all ears, Inspector. Blackmail sounds like a call, or perhaps a letter, usually anonymous, and always untraceable.”

“You’ve got that right, Mar—I mean Crusher. It was a letter that she found in her mailbox. There was no stamp, so it hadn’t gone through the system at all. Someone just left it there.”

“And it said?”

He looked embarrassed. I continued, “As usual, Inspector, what you tell me about your investigations stays confidential.” That decided him, and he went on.

“It said to get together ten thousand dollars in small bills. It seems that City Council Member Linda Amberton has a past. What the letter also said—it’s being dusted for fingerprints now, Crusher, not that I expect any will be found—is that twenty years ago, before she married Martin Amberton, she was really dirt poor. And she had a mother who depended on her. That was, of course, before her mother’s remarriage. So Linda started lifting clothing from stores. This was in her hometown, Riverton.”

I nodded. Riverton was fifty miles down the Interstate.

“Linda was caught. She got a suspended sentence, and the files were sealed. She was given a job, and paid everthing back. But that’s hardly the typical background for a City Council member. So the letter demands a large sum of money to keep the secret.”

“Not that blackmailers ever stop with one demand.”

“Of course they don’t. No sense of professional ethics! Naturally, we are discretely staking out the Amberton house, in case there are new communications.”

“Who knows about Linda’s past?”

“According to her, just her husband, Martin Amberton, in Centerville. She told him about it years ago.”

“Who knew about it, back when it happened?”

“Dr. Horace Sage gave her the needed job. Dr. Sage is getting on in years, and will be retiring soon. Susan Elliott was the file clerk at the courthouse, but the position is now held by Mary Devers; Mrs. Elliott has retired to Florida. Then there is Susan Royster, an old college friend of Ms. Amberton’s, who helped her settle in here in Centerville, and get a fresh start. Royster even drove her over from Riverton, since Mrs. Amberton didn’t drive then, and doesn’t now.”

“Anything about the files being stolen?”

“No. They are still sealed. As it happens, old Judge Thornton is still fairly active. He unsealed the records for me, in the interests of justice, and at Linda Amberton’s request. They still bore the same seal—literally—as when the court so ordered, twenty years ago. By the way, Riverton has changed its official seal, and the original one has been destroyed.”

“How is the ransom money supposed to be delivered?”

“That wasn’t said, oddly enough. My guess is that the next communication will be about delivering the money.”

“Can she get it together?”

“Yes. Her mother and stepfather left her very well fixed. He had that iron mill that used to employ half the town. A good thing, because the Ambertons have been living on her money for years.”

“So you’re really in a waiting mode now?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t like a blackmailer calling the shots. That’s where you come in, Crusher. You hear a lot, through that advice column of yours.”

“I’m already on it, Inspector. By the way, have you interviewed Sage, Devers and Royster?”

“Yes. Frankly, I couldn’t picture any of them sending a blackmail letter, although Dr. Sage and Susan Royster clearly need the money. His retirement money has gone up in smoke, one of Madoff’s victims, he said. And Susan Royster lost her job at the hospital when they had the cutbacks last February.”

“Anything else?”

“Well … I suppose I’m too old fashioned, for a cop. I didn’t go into details about why I was asking questions.”

***

My first interview was with Dr. Sage. He was a wrinkled general practitioner. Yes, he remembered Linda very well; Linda Molton, as she then was.

“She remembers you very well, too, Dr. Sage. Says that she owes you a lot, for giving her a job when she really needed it.”

“Well, she was a good person and a hard worker. By the way, the interview was cooked in advance. I had had a call, you see, from my old friend and fraternity brother, Judge Thornton. He said she’d been in some trouble; he wasn’t specific, but let me know that it was nothing that a good job and three square meals a day wouldn’t fix. So I hired her.”

“Many thanks, Dr. Sage.”

Mary Devers knew all about the case—it turns out that her predecessor at the courthouse was gossipy. “That Molton woman really got off lucky. Must have charmed old Judge Thornton, if you ask me!”

I wasn’t about to.

Susan Royster had a quiet dignity. She talked about Linda Amberton from the old days. I brought up the fact that she had helped Linda settle in Centerville. “So, she shoplifted in a terrible time. So what! I was pleased to help her. Still am,” Susan added, with a vigorous nod of her head.

***

The inspector and I met ten days later, when word came from Mr. Amberton that a second blackmail letter had showed up in the Amberton mailbox, one night when our surveillance detective had literally gone to sleep on the job. It demanded that Linda Amberton drive to a secluded location on the southern side of town and leave the money in a flour sack behind a small grove of white birch trees, off the road at the fifteen-mile marker.

“Does she really have to do this?” her husband asked. “She put this all behind her a long time ago. I’ll drive her if it’s absolutely necessary, but it isn’t right.”

Inspector Samuels started to say something, but my hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Amberton. We know who the blackmailer is.”