Johan's Joy (Heroes for Hire #22) - Dale Mayer Page 0,69

the mall. He said that I’ll end up dead for having spoken up about the company. In fact, the woman who had my job before me may have been killed too.” At that they seemed completely surprised. She stared at them. “How involved are you in Westgroup?”

“We’re not,” the first man said. “We’re on the board, but that’s it. We’re also on the board of several other big companies.”

“Right,” she said. “In that case, did you have anything to do with Barlow’s murder?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Why would we?”

“Because he was blackmailing you for one,” Galen said in a sharp voice. “And that’s what the police would assume when they get here too.”

Both men shook their heads. “Yes, he was blackmailing us.” The one man swallowed hard. “We’re not proud of caving in to blackmail, but sometimes it’s what you have to do to make a problem go away. We’ve been together for over twenty years, but society still hasn’t come to a place that would accept it.”

“Well, some of it has,” Joy said. “But, yes, I can see that it’s still a problem, particularly in the business world.”

“Exactly. I don’t know how Barlow found out about us in the first place, but that’s why he was still there, serving as the head of the corporation. It’s where he wanted to be and what he wanted to do. We did anything we could to keep him happy.”

“Including paying five thousand a month?”

“Each,” Galen added.

“Yes,” the first man said slowly. “We discussed it. We tried to talk him out of that money. We said only one of us could pay, but he wouldn’t deal. It was both of us or none of us.”

“He was also blackmailing two other men,” Johan said. “I’ll show you their faces, and we want to know if you know who they are.” Frowning but not surprised, he held out the first photo. The men looked at it and nodded.

“They’re friends of ours. But we didn’t know they were being blackmailed too.”

“And their names?”

“Adson Powell and Roy Drawback,” he said. “They are also businessmen in prestigious positions. Unlike us though, one of them is still married to a woman.”

“So, of course, if these photos were to come out, that would destroy them too.” She looked at both men across from her. “And were you guys married when the photos were first taken?”

Both men nodded. “We both were. We both have children.”

“Have they come around to accept your current lifestyle?”

Both men smiled. “It’s been a long haul, but, yes, they have.”

“Good,” she said, beaming at them. “Acceptance is a wonderful gift.”

“Do you know of anybody else who might have been blackmailed?” Johan asked.

“We didn’t even know about these two,” he said, “so, no. But, if Barlow was blackmailing us, it makes sense that maybe he was blackmailing somebody else.”

“Did he ever lord it over you when you’re out in public?”

“No, but then we didn’t move in the same circles,” Mike said stiffly. “We did a lot to go out of our way.”

“Well, you’re now ten thousand a month richer,” Galen said. “That’s a hell of a motive for murder.”

“We hadn’t done anything about it for the last five years,” the one man said. “So why do anything now?”

And she had to admit he had a hell of a point.

*

Johan didn’t know how to get any more information out of anybody. Nobody had, it seemed, anything more to say. “It has to be related,” he muttered.

The two men nodded. “After he started this, we distanced ourselves. We always voted in favor of keeping him in place in the company, and, other than that, we were done and gone. We knew if we didn’t keep him in the company, it would get worse for us.”

“You never thought to call the police?” Galen asked.

They both shook their heads. “In the beginning we were both still married. We were trying to extricate ourselves nicely and figure out our own future,” he said. “Police involvement would have made it a big ugly mess. The company would have suffered. We and our families would have suffered. It seemed much easier to just pay Barlow.”

“Why that amount?” Joy asked. “It’s not that much for guys like you, is it?”

“No, not really. Not if you’re making good money, and, between the two of us, it was just an irritant.”

“Maybe that’s why his safe was full of cash, as if he wasn’t even spending it.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” the first man said. “I