"You know her husband's a chicken fucker?"
"I know," I said.
"I think she was getting even," Polly said.
SEVENTEEN
"SO WHAT DO you think?" I said.
I was lying in my shorts on the bed in the Holiday Inn in Lamarr, Georgia, talking on the phone to Susan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said she was in bed. Which meant that she had her hair up, and some sort of expensive glop on her face. The TV would be on, though she would have muted it when the phone rang. Almost certainly, Pearl was asleep beside her on the bed.
"I think you're trapped inside the first draft of a Tennessee Williams play."
"Without you," I said.
"I know."
"You're in bed?" I said.
"Yes."
"Naked?"
"Not exactly."
"White socks, gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt with a picture of Einstein on it?"
"You remember," she said.
"Naked makes for better phone sex," I said.
"Pretense is a slippery slope," she said.
Her voice was quite light, and not very strong, but when she was amused there were hints of a contralto substructure that enriched everything she said.
"Don't you shrinks ever take a break?" I said.
"So many fruitcakes," Susan said, "so little time."
"How true," I said. "What do you think of Polly Brown's theory that Stonie goes to truck stops to avenge herself on her husband?"
"It would be better if I had a chance to talk with her," Susan said.
"I'll be your eyes and ears," I said.
"Have you talked with her?"
"Once, at a cocktail party, for maybe a minute."
"Oh, that'll be fine then," Susan said. "No therapist could ask for more."
"Gimme a guess," I said.
"Her husband is actively gay, with a special interest in young men," Susan said.
"Yes."
"Would you say that she would experience that as him having sex in the most inappropriate way possible?"
"Yes."
"And is that what she's doing?"
"Seems so. So it is revenge?"
"Could be. Tit for tat. People often are very crude in their pathologies."
"Like me," I said. "I keep pretending you're naked on the bed."
"On the other hand, it may be more subtle than that. She may be simply enacting her condition."
"Her condition is smoking the cannoli in a parking lot?"
"It's good to know that you haven't lost that keen edge of your sophistication. Perhaps her activities in the parking lot are, at least symbolically, how she experiences herself."
"Because of her husband?"
"Not only her husband," Susan said. "You said her father got her husband out of a couple of boy-love jams."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Appearances," I said. "Save the family from scandal."
"So he knows her marriage is probably a sham. Other than covering up for the husband, does he do anything about it?"
"Not that I can see."
"So as far as we can tell, her father and husband don't value her beyond whatever ornamental use they put her to."
"I get it," I said.
"I knew you would," Susan said.
"There's another thing bothering me," I said. "The shooting of the horse over in Alton."
"Why does that bother you?"
"Becker and I speculate that it might be to distract me," I said. "And that's a reasonable speculation."
"But?"
"But if it's the work of some kind of serial psychopath, which is what it seems like, then distracting me would seem to be too rational an act."
"Possibly," Susan said.
"I mean, the compulsion isn't about me."
"You may have been added to what it is about," Susan said.
"Or maybe it's not a compulsion," I said.
"Are you just casting about, or have you any other reason to think it's something else?"
"Well, what kind of compulsion is this? A compulsion to shoot horses, with no concern for the result?"
"No way to know," Susan said. "Compulsions are consistent only to their own logic."
"Well, I remain skeptical."
"As well you should."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"Will that be Visa or MasterCard?" Susan said.
"I'll recompense you in full," I said, "when I get home."
"Soon?"
"I have no idea."
"It's annoying, isn't it," Susan said, "to have our life scheduled by the pathology of someone we can't even identify."
"You should know," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Sometimes I think we're doing the same work."
"Do you think that absence makes the heart grow fonder?"
"No. I'm already as fond as I'm capable of being," Susan said. "Makes me miss you, though."
"Yes," I said. "I feel the same way."
"Good," Susan said. "And stay away from the truck stops."
EIGHTEEN
THE HORSE SHOOTER upped the ante on a rainy Sunday night by shooting Walter Clive dead in the exercise area of Three Fillies Stables. I was there at daylight, with Becker and a bunch of Columbia County crime scene deputies.
"Exercise rider found him this morning when she came into work," Becker said. "Right there where you see him."
Where I saw him was facedown in the middle of the open paddock in front of the stables, under a tree, with the rain soaking the crime scene. Someone had rigged a polyethylene canopy over the body and the immediate crime scene, in hopes of preserving any evidence that was left.
"Where is she now?"
"In the stable office," Becker said. "I got one woman deputy, and she's in there with her."
"Will I be able to talk to her?"
"Sure."
I stepped to the body and squatted down beside it. Clive was in a white shirt and gray linen slacks. There were loafers on his feet, without socks. His silver hair was soaked and plastered to his skull. There was no sign of a wound.
"In the forehead, just above the right eyebrow," Becker said. "Photo guys are already done-you want to see?"
"Yes."
Becker had on thin plastic crime scene gloves. He reached down and turned Clive's head. There was a small black hole above his eyebrow, the flesh around it a little puffy and discolored from the entry of the slug.
"No exit wound," I said.
"That's right."
"Small caliber," I said.
"Looks like a.22 to me."
"Yes."
"Figure he caught the horse shooter in the act?" Becker said.
"Be the logical conclusion," I said.
"Yep. It would."
"Where was Security South during all this?" I said. "Busy polishing their belt buckles?"
"Security guy was in with the horse," Becker said.
"Hugger Mugger."
"Yeah. When I say the horse, that's who I mean. He heard the shot, and came out, ah, carefully, and looked around and didn't see anything, and went back inside with the horse."
"It was raining," I said.
"All night."
"How far out you figure he came?"
"His uni was dry when I talked to him," Becker said.
"No wrinkles?"
"Nope."
"Probably didn't want to be lured away from the horse."
"Hugger Mugger," Becker said.
I looked at him. He was expressionless.
"Of course Hugger Mugger," I said. "What other horse are we talking about?"
Becker grinned.
"So nobody sees anything. Nobody but the guard hears anything," Becker said. "We're looking for footprints, but it's been raining hard since yesterday afternoon."
"Crime scene isn't going to give you much," I said.
"You Yankees are so pessimistic."
"Puritan heritage," I said. "The family's been told?"
"Yep. Told them
myself."
"How were they?"
"Usual shock and dismay," Becker said.
"Anything unusual?"
Becker shook his head.
"You been a cop," he said. "You've had to tell people that somebody's been murdered, what would be unusual?"
"You're right," I said. "I've seen every reaction there is. Delroy been around?"
"Not yet," Becker said.
We were quiet for a while, standing in the rain, partly sheltered by the tree, looking at how dead Walter Clive was.
"Why'd you call me?" I said.
"Two heads are better than one," Becker said.
"Depends on the heads," I said.
"In this case yours and mine," Becker said. "You been a big-city cop, you might know something."
I nodded.
"Between us," Becker said, "we might figure something out."
I nodded some more. The rain kept coming. Walter Clive kept lying there. Behind us a van with Columbia County Medical Examiner lettered on the side pulled up and two guys in raincoats got out and opened up the back.
"Here's what I think," I said. "I think that you are smelling a big rat here, and the rat is somewhere in the Clive family, and they are too important and too connected for a deputy sheriff to take on directly."
"They're awful important," Becker said.
"So you're using me as a surrogate. Let me take them on. You feed me just enough to keep me looking, but not enough to get you in trouble. If I come up with something, you can take credit for it after I've gone back to Boston. If I get my ass handed to me, you can shake your head sadly and remark what a shame it was that I'm nosy."
"Man do that would be a devious man," Becker said.
"Sho' 'nuff," I said.
NINETEEN
IT WAS STILL raining when they buried Walter Clive's cremated ashes. It had rained all week. After the funeral, people straggled into the Clives' house and stood under a canopy in the backyard looking glum and uncomfortable as they ordered drinks. I was there, having nowhere else to be, and I watched as people began to get drunk and talk about how Walter would have wanted everyone to have a good time at his funeral. People began to look less glum. Just the way old Walt would have wanted it. Penny was running things. She was sad and contained and doing fine. Jon Delroy was there in a dark suit. The family lawyer was there, a guy named Vallone, who looked like Colonel Sanders. Pud and SueSue, still sober, stood with Stonie and Cord. They were dressed just right for a funeral. Everyone was dressed just right for a funeral, except one woman who wore an ankle-length cotton dress with yellow flowers on it. Her hair was gray-blond and hung straight to her waist. She wore huge sunglasses and sandals. Penny brought her over.
"This is my mother," she said, "Sherry Lark."
"It was nice of you to come," I said, to be saying something.
"Oh, it's not Walter. It's my girls. In crisis girls need their mother."
I could see Penny wrinkle her nose. I nodded.
"Yes," I said.
"Walter was lost to me an eternity past, but the girls are part of my soul."
"Of course," I said. "Have you remarried?"
"No. I don't think marriage is a natural thing for people."
She was drinking what looked like bourbon on the rocks. Which was probably a natural thing for people.
"So is Lark your, ah, birth name?"
"No. It's my chosen name. When I left Walter I didn't want to keep his name. And I didn't want to return to my father's name, about which I had no choice when I was born."
"I had the same problem," I said. "They just stuck me with my father's name."
She paid no attention to me. She was obviously comfortable talking about herself.
"So I took a name that symbolizes the life I was seeking, the soaring airborne freedom of a lark."
She drank some bourbon. I nodded and smiled.
"I relate to that," I said. "I'm thinking of changing my name to Eighty-second Airborne."
She didn't respond. She was one of those people that, if you say something they don't understand, they pretend you haven't spoken.
"Come along, Mother," Penny said. "You really must say hello to Senator Thompson."
Penny gave me a look over her shoulder as she moved her mother away. I smiled neutrally. I had a beer because I was sure that's how old Walt would have wanted it. I took a small swallow. A black woman in a little maid's suit passed a tray of stuffed mushrooms. I declined. Smoked salmon with endive and a dab of crиme fraоche came by. I declined it too. The governor of Georgia came in. He went straight to Dolly, the bereaved mistress, and took her hand in both of his. They spoke briefly. He kissed her cheek. She gestured toward her son, and Jason and the governor shook hands. Dolly's face was pale beneath her perfect makeup, and the attractive smile lines around her mouth were deeper than I remembered.
The rain drummed steadily on the canvas canopy roof, and dripped off the edges in a steady drizzle. Dutch, the family Dalmatian, made his way through the crowd, alert for stuffed mushrooms, and found me and remembered me and wagged his tail. I snagged a little crab cake from the passing tray and handed it to Dutch. He took it from me, gently, and swallowed it whole. I watched Stonie and Cord. They stood together, looking very good, and taking condolences gravely. But when they weren't talking to someone, they didn't talk to each other. It was as if they had been accidentally placed together in a receiving line, one not knowing the other. Pud and SueSue were also receiving condolences. But they were less grave. In fact they were now drunk. Pud's face was very red. He was sweating. He and SueSue appeared to be arguing between condolences, although SueSue's laughter erupted regularly while she was being condoled. There was a smell of honeysuckle under the canopy and a faint smell of food coming from the kitchen as the hors d'oeuvres were prepared. Dutch sat patiently in front of me and waited for another hors d'oeuvre. I gave him a rye crisp with beef tenderloin on it, and horseradish. He took that in as quickly as he had the crab cake, though he snorted a little at the horseradish.
"You'd eat a dead crow in the street," I said to him. "And you're snorting at horseradish."
He pricked his ears a little at me, and waited. Penny came back alone. She was carrying a glass of white wine, though as far as I could tell, she hadn't drunk any.
"I apologize for my mother."
"No need," I said.
Penny laughed.
"The last hippie," she said.
"How are she and Dolly together?" I said.
"We try to see that they're not together," Penny said.
"Was Dolly in your father's life when Sherry was around?"
"I think so," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"Occupational habit," I said.
"I think it's not appropriate right now," Penny said.
"Of course it isn't."
"Could you come see me tomorrow, stable office, around ten?"
"Sure," I said.
Penny smiled to let me know that she wasn't mad, and moved over to a foursome who stood in the doorway looking for the bar. The women were wearing big hats. She kissed all of them and walked with them to the bar. Lightning rippled across the sky over the Clive house and in a few moments thunder followed. A small wind began to stir, and it seemed colder. More lightning. The thunder followed more closely now. Some dogs are afraid of thunder. Dutch wasn't. He was far too single-minded. He nudged my hand. There were no hors d'oeuvres being passed. I took a few peanuts off the bar and fed him. I looked at the crowd, now drunk and happy. It would have been the perfect moment to call for silence and announce that I had solved the case. Except that I hadn't solved the case. So far since I'd been here I hadn't caught the horse shooter, and the guy who hired me had been murdered. I didn't have a clue who was shooting the horses, and I had absolutely no idea who had shot Walter Clive.
Spenser, ace detective.
TWENTY
"I LIKE YOU," Penny said. "And I think you're a smart man."
"I haven't proved it so far," I
said.
"You've done your best. How can you figure out the mind of a madman."
"You think all this is the work of a madman?"
"Of course, don't you?"
"Just that occupational knee jerk," I said. "Somebody says something, I ask a question."
"I understand," she said.
We were sitting in the stable office. It was still drizzling outside. The crime scene tape was gone. There was no sign that Walter Clive had died there. The horses were all in their stalls, looking out now and then, but discouraged by the sporadic rain.
"With Daddy's death," Penny said, "I have the responsibility of running things, and I don't know how it's going to go. Daddy ran so much of this business out of his hip pocket. Handshakes, personal phone calls, promises made over martinis. I don't know how long it will take me to get control of it all and see where I am."
"And you have your sisters to support," I said.
"Their husbands do that," Penny said.
"And who supports the husbands?"
She dipped her head in acknowledgment.
"I guess they didn't just get their jobs through the help-wanted ads, did they," she said.
"And I'll bet they couldn't get comparable pay somewhere else," I said.
"That's unkind," Penny said.
"But true," I said.
She smiled.
"But true."
I waited.
"Look at me sitting at Daddy's desk, in Daddy's office. I feel like a little girl that's snuck in where I shouldn't be."
"You're where you should be," I said.
"Thank you."
We sat.
"This is hard," Penny said.
I didn't know what "this" was. Penny paused and took in a long breath.
"I'm going to have to let you go," she said.
I nodded.
"I don't want any but the most necessary expenses. The investigation is in the hands of the police now, and with my father's death, they are fully engaged."
"I saw the governor at the wake," I said.
"When it was just some horses, and not terribly valuable ones at that," Penny said, "no one was working that hard on it. Now that Daddy's been killed…"
"It has their attention," I said. "I can stick around pro bono for a while."
"I couldn't ask you to do that."
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