Hugger Mugger

by Robert B. Parker

"How could I forget. Penny Clive and her sisters won't talk to me. I'm not allowed in the house or the stables or anywhere they own anything. The ban is enforced by employees of Security South."

  "Are they still guarding the horse too?"

  "I assume so. I can't get close enough to the horse or anybody else to find out. Both Clive husbands, Pud and Cord, have been tossed. They are now living together in Pud's former love nest in the heart of downtown Lamarr."

  "Isn't Cord the apparent pedophile?"

  "Yeah. Out on his own he's like a lost lamb, and Pud, amazingly, has taken him under his wing."

  "Didn't you just mix a metaphor?" Susan said.

  "Badly. Both men feel that Penny is the one who gave them the boot. They feel that she's in charge and they also speculate that she has an intimate relationship with Jon Delroy, who runs Security South."

  "He runs it? Isn't that new information?"

  "Yeah. Apparently he is Security South. And apparently his only client is the Clive family. Even some of Jon Delroy's credit card charges were paid by someone designated PC."

  "Penny Clive?"

  "Could be. The charges appeared to be Security South-related."

  "How did you find that out?"

  "Burglary."

  "Always effective," Susan said. "Are you looking into Mr. Delroy?"

  "Quirk's checking with the FBI for me."

  "What about the sheriff person, Becker?"

  "Sheriff's deputy," I said. "I think he's a good cop, and I think he's honest. But the Clives have a lot of clout, and I don't think he can go anywhere with this on his own."

  "Is he still using you to do it for him?"

  "As best he can," I said.

  "They have that kind of clout even with the father dead?"

  "I think it was the father's money that gave him the clout," I said. "Now they've got it."

  "The three girls?"

  "Yes, equally. I talked with the lawyer for the estate."

  There was silence on the phone line. I knew she was thinking. She'd have a very slight wrinkle between her eyebrows. And she would seem to disappear into the thought process, so that if you spoke she might not hear you. It was amazing to watch and the result was often lovely. I imagined her thinking. Dressed to the nines.

  "It's Delroy, isn't it?" she said.

  "I don't know," I said. "Might be."

  "But he's the wedge in."

  "Yes."

  "He's the one that doesn't make sense. How long has he worked for the Clives?"

  "Maybe ten years, maybe longer."

  "Did your burglary turn that up?"

  "It's an estimate. He was there when Pud joined the family, and he'd been there awhile."

  "So Penny was a young girl when he arrived."

  "I guess so-she's about twenty-five now."

  "Still a young girl," Susan said.

  "Maybe."

  "Maybe?"

  "Even when her father was alive she was running the shop on a daily basis. She is very different than her sisters. She's a young girl, but she's a tough young girl."

  "Do you think Pud and Cord are right, that it was she who forced them out?"

  "The problems in their marriages didn't change. What changed was that Walter Clive died."

  "And Penny took over."

  "Un-huh."

  "Why would she do that?"

  "I don't have a Harvard Ph.D."

  "And I do," Susan said.

  "And neither of us knows why she did it."

  "Or even for sure, if."

  "I couldn't have put it better," I said.

  "I know. What about the mother?"

  "Sherry Lark?"

  "Yes."

  "Might it serve you to talk with her?"

  "I don't know. She's not around. She's an airhead, and a faraway airhead at that. She lives in San Francisco."

  "Might it serve you to go to San Francisco? Mothers are often good sources of information about their children. Even airhead mothers, of whom there is a formidable contingent."

  "Even in Cambridge?" I said.

  "Especially in Cambridge."

  "If I go to San Francisco," I said, "might you join me?"

  "I might."

  "Open your golden gate, don't make a stranger wait…"

  "Stop singing," Susan said. "You remember the case you had when you were home? Kate and Kevin?"

  "And Valerie Hatch," I said. "And her kid Miranda and her mother's dog, Buttons."

  "Stop showing off. That case reminds me a little of this one."

  "Nobody down here, that I know of, has a dog named Buttons," I said.

  "No, but the more you get into the case, the more things are not what they appear to be."

  It was nothing I didn't know, but it was worth reminding me of. It is hard to go through life assuming that things are not as they appear to be. Yet in Susan's work, and in mine, that is the norm. It always helps to be reminded of it.

  "As we discuss this," I said, "could you undress, and tell me about it garment by garment?"

  "Absolutely not," Susan said.

  "You are so inhibited," I said.

  "And proud of it," Susan said.

  We were quiet for a moment. Then Susan spoke again and her voice had the sort of lush shading it took on sometimes when she was playing.

  "On the other hand," she said. "As we've just discussed. Things are not always as they appear to be."

  "This bodes well for our rendezvous by the Bay," I said.

  "It do," Susan said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  SUSAN AND I got a room at the Ritz-Carlton on Stockton Street, at the corner of California Street, halfway up Nob Hill. She was in the room when I got there, having come in from Boston an hour and ten minutes earlier than I had from Atlanta. She had gotten her clothes all carefully hung up, with a space between each garment so that they wouldn't wrinkle. She had her makeup carefully arranged on every available surface in the bathroom. She was wearing one of the hotel-issue robes, which was vastly too big for her, and she smelled of good soap and high-end shampoo. The clothes she had worn on the flight were already hung up. But underclothes and panty hose and magazines and packing tissue were scattered around the room like confetti after a parade. Workout clothes and sneakers and white sweat socks were laid out carefully on the bed. Along with half a bagel, and two PowerBars. I was not used to being away from her as much as I'd been lately, and when I got the door closed, I put my arms around her and closed my eyes and put my cheek against the top of her head and stood for a long time without speaking while my soul melted into her. I knew we weren't the same person. I knew that it was good that we weren't. I knew separateness made love possible. But there were moments, like this one, of crystalline stillness, when it felt as if we really could merge like two oceans at the bottom of the world.

  "We're pretty glad to see each other," I said.

  "We should not be away from each other this long."

  "No."

  "Do you still want phone sex?" Susan said.

  "I think I'd prefer the real thing," I said. "Now that I'm here."

  "The real thing is good," Susan said.

  "Except there's no room for it," I said, "unless we go lie down in the hall."

  "I'll make space," Susan said, "while you rinse off in the shower."

  When I came out of the shower the bed was cleared off and turned down. From the minibar Susan had made me a tall scotch and soda, and poured herself half a glass of red wine.

  I picked up my drink and had a pull. It was lovely, pale and cold.

  "No bathrobe?" Susan said.

  "They're always too small," I said. "I guess they want to discourage people my size."

  "Well, I don't," Susan said, and took off the bathrobe.

  We spent a long time reuniting, and finally when we were lying quietly on our backs together with my arm under her neck, I said, "I'm very encouraged."

  "Yes," she said.

  We were quiet again for a long time, lis
tening to the music of the spheres, and the occasional sound of the cable cars going up and down California Street. Then I took my arm from under her neck and got up and made myself a new drink, and brought it and her wine back to the bed. Susan wriggled herself sufficiently upright on the stacked pillows to drink wine. I handed her the glass and sat beside her with my back against the headboard.

  "Have we been here together since I was out here looking for you?" I said.

  "Fifteen years ago?"

  "Um-hmm."

  "I'm sure we have."

  I was pretty sure we hadn't, but what difference did it make?

  "Hard times," I said.

  "I don't think about those times," Susan said.

  "Ever?"

  "I treat it as something that never happened."

  "But it did happen."

  "Not to the people we are now," Susan said.

  "Well," I said, "who am I to argue mental health with a shrink?"

  "You are the shrink's honey bunny."

  "That'll do," I said.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  AT SEVEN-FIFTEEN THE next morning, we walked down Powell Street in the glow of the early light off the Bay, to meet Sherry Lark for breakfast in a restaurant that called itself Sears Fine Foods, a little up from Union Square. I loved Sears Fine Foods. Their name overrated their cuisine a little, but every time I was in San Francisco I tried to eat there because, in tone and food, it transported me to my childhood. I thought that all good restaurants were like Sears until I began eating out with Susan Silverman. By seven-thirty we were in a booth, with coffee, waiting for Sherry. Susan put her sunglasses up on her head when we sat down. She had on a black short-sleeved blouse and white pants, and a little black choker necklace. Her throat was strong. Her arms were slim and strong. I knew her thighs to be firm. She sat beside me, leaving the opposite side for Sherry.

  Hippies are not slaves to the clock. Sherry arrived at eight-fifteen. We had already drunk two cups of coffee, and the waitress had begun to hover around us with the menus. Sherry's gray-blond hair was twisted into a single braid that hung to her waist. She wore a folded red bandana as a headband, and what looked like an ankle-length, tie-dyed T-shirt. It was unfortunately apparent that she was braless. I stood up as she approached the booth.

  "Sherry Lark," I said. "Susan Silverman."

  They said hello and Sherry slid into the booth across from us. I sat down.

  "Thank you for coming," I said.

  "If it's about my girls, I'm always there," Sherry said.

  The waitress pounced on us with the menus. We were quiet while we looked. I ordered scrambled eggs with onions. Susan ordered a bagel, no butter, no cream cheese. Sherry ordered waffles. Susan was watching her with a pleasant expression, but I knew her well. The pleasant expression meant she was registering that Sherry had no makeup, no bra, no socks, remarking that Sherry was wearing a long T-shirt and sandals. Susan was already sensing how seriously Sherry took herself, and smiling inwardly. The waitress brought Sherry herbal tea, and freshened up Susan's coffee and mine.

  I said to Sherry, "Odd things are going on in Lamarr."

  "Lamarr is odd," she said. "Stifling to the spirit."

  "How so?" I said.

  "All that rampant machismo, all that rancorous capitalism."

  "Of course," I said.

  "You know that the two are really mirror images of each other," Sherry said.

  "Machismo and capitalism," I said.

  "Absolutely. You're a man, you probably don't understand it."

  She turned to Susan. "But you do."

  "Yes," Susan said. "Naturally. Money is power, and power is all men ever care about."

  Sherry nodded, approving of Susan's intelligence. She put a hand out and patted Susan's forearm.

  "And they don't even know it."

  Susan looked at me and I could see something glinting in her eyes.

  "Duh!" she said.

  "Lucky I have you," I said.

  "It certainly is," Susan said.

  "When's the last time you talked to one of your daughters?" I said to Sherry.

  "Well, of course I talked with all of them at the funeral," she said. "And I talked with Penny about two weeks afterwards."

  "About what?" I said.

  "We…"

  The food came and we were silent while the waitress distributed it. Sherry got right to her waffles. When she stopped to breathe, I said, "We…?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "You started to say what you and Penny spoke of two weeks after the funeral."

  "Oh, yes. Well, can you believe it? Walter left me without a dime."

  "No," I said.

  Susan still had the glint in her eye as she broke off a small piece of bagel and popped it into her mouth.

  "I told Penny that I thought that wasn't right. I made him a home, and gave him three lovely daughters. I felt I deserved better."

  "And Penny?"

  Sherry chomped some more of her waffles. I wondered if she'd had a good meal lately.

  "Penny has always been cold," Sherry said.

  "Really," I said.

  "Like her father," Sherry said. "I'm the imaginative one. The artistic one. I'm the one whose soul has wings. Penny is very… earthbound. Since she was a small child. She has always known what she wanted and has always done what was necessary to get what she wanted."

  "She's practical," Susan said.

  "Oh, hideously," Sherry said. "So practical. So material. So… masculine."

  Susan nodded thoughtfully. I knew Sherry was annoying Susan. But I was the only one who knew her well enough to tell.

  "You get along with Penny?" I said.

  "Of course-she's my daughter."

  Susan blinked once. I knew this meant more than it seemed to.

  "But she's not sympathetic to your needs in this case," I said.

  "Oh God no," Sherry said. "Penny is not the sympathetic sort."

  "How about the other girls?"

  "Stonie and SueSue are much more like their mother."

  "Sensitive, artistic, free-spirited?" I said.

  "Exactly."

  "Did you know that they have separated from their husbands?"

  "Both of them?"

  "Yes."

  Sherry chewed her last bite of waffle for a time, and swallowed, and turned her attention to the herbal tea.

  "Well," she said finally, "they weren't much as husbands go, either one of them."

  "All three of your daughters seem to have withdrawn," I said. "They don't go out, and people are prevented from visiting."

  "Solitude can be very healing," she said.

  "You think it's grief?"

  "Their father provided for them very well."

  "Do you have any theories why both Stonie and SueSue separated from their husbands at this time?"

  "As I said, they weren't first-rate husbands."

  "They never were," I said. "Why now?"

  "Perhaps Walter's death."

  "How so?"

  "Well, now that Walter's gone, Penny is in charge."

  "And?"

  "And she's always been a puritan."

  "You think she forced the separation?"

  "Even as a little girl she was full of disapproval."

  I nodded.

  "I was supposed to clean and cook and sew dresses," Sherry said. "As if I could reshape my soul to her childish materialism."

  "You think she could have forced her sisters to give up their husbands?"

  "I don't think her sisters would have fought very hard," Sherry said.

  She signaled the waitress, and ordered two Danish pastries.

  "They didn't love their husbands?"

  "They married to please their father," she said, and took a large bite from one of her Danish. "They married men their father approved of, men he could control."

  "How come Penny hasn't married?"

  "She's young. And frankly, I think she frightens men. Men like pliant women. I find men are ofte
n frightened of me."

  "You're not pliant," I said.

  "No. I am fiercely committed to beauty, to poetry, to painting, to a kind of spiritual commingling that often threatens men."

  "If Susan weren't here, I'd be a little edgy," I said.

  Sherry smiled at me.

  "Irony is so masculine," she said. "Isn't it, Susan?"

  "So," Susan said.

  She still had half a bagel to go. Sherry polished off the rest of her second Danish.

  "Is it possible that Dolly Hartman had an affair with your husband twenty-something years ago?"

  "The whore? Certainly she's capable of it, but twenty years ago? No, Walter and I were very close at that time. The girls were small, Walter was not yet the big success he became. No, we were a happy little family then."

  "Dolly claims that she did."

  "Well, she didn't."

  I saw nowhere to go with that.

  "What do you know about Jon Delroy?" I said.

  "Very little. Jon was on the business side of things. I never paid any attention to the business side of things."

  "Do you know how long he worked for Three Fillies?"

  "Oh, I don't know. He was there before I left."

  "How long have you been gone?"

  "Nine years."

  "And what was his job?"

  "God, I don't know," Sherry said. "He was always around with his storm troopers. So tight. So shiny. So controlled. So anal-retentive. So full of violence."

  I looked at Susan. She was studying the row of people sitting at the counter across the room. "Are you still with the guitar player?" I said.

  "I'm not with anyone," she said. "Freedom is best pursued alone."

  The waitress came by and put the bill down on the table.

  "Whenever you're ready," she said.

  I had been ready since Sherry Lark sat down, but I'd come all the way to San Francisco to talk with her. I made a final stab.

  "Do you have any thoughts on who might have killed Walter?"

  "I don't think of death. It's very negative energy. I'm sorry, but I prefer to give my full energies to life."

  I nodded. Susan was still studying the counter, though I thought I could see the corner of her mouth twitch. I picked up the bill and looked at it.

  "Would it be rancorous capitalism if I paid this?" I said.

  "We both know if you didn't you'd feel threatened," Sherry said.