FIFTY-SEVEN
BECKER AND I were in the interrogation room at the Columbia County Sheriff's substation chatting with Jon Delroy and Penny Clive. Delroy sat with his hands folded on top of the shabby oak table that stood between him and Becker. Penny sat beside him, her legs crossed, her hands in her lap, her small white straw purse sitting on the edge of Becker's desk. I leaned on the green cinder-block wall to Becker's left, admiring Penny's demure exposure of tan thigh.
"Thanks for coming," Becker said to Penny.
"What's this all about, Dalton?" Penny said.
"That's what we're trying to find out. Mr. Spenser here says that Delroy attempted to kill him. Jon doesn't say anything. I know he's employed by you, so I thought maybe you could help us with this."
"You're not arresting me," Penny said.
It was said pleasantly, just clarifying.
"No, no. Just hoping you can help us get Mr. Delroy to explain his behavior."
Delroy looked at Penny and said softly, "We need a lawyer."
"Are you saying you'd like me to get you a lawyer, Jon?" Penny said. Her big eyes were wide and compassionate.
"We both need one," Delroy said, still softly, with a little emphasis on "both."
"I don't think I need one, Jon," Penny said.
Delroy nodded silently and didn't say anything else. Becker tipped back in his chair.
"Anybody like a Coca-Cola? Coffee? Glass of water?"
Nobody said anything. Becker nodded to himself.
"Now I hope you are not going to argue with me here, Jon," Becker said, "when I tell you that we got your ass. Excuse me, Penny."
Delroy didn't answer.
"Not only Mr. Spenser here but a reliable former police officer named Tedy Sapp witnessed your attempt to kill Mr. Spenser."
Penny frowned. How terrible!
"Tedy Sapp's a goddamned queer," Delroy said.
"Don't have much to do with his reliability as a witness," Becker said. "You are looking at a long time inside."
Becker shifted a little in his chair, getting more comfortable. Delroy didn't move or speak. His clasped hands were perfectly still, resting on the table.
"What I'd like to know is why you tried to kill Mr. Spenser?"
"You charging me?" Delroy said.
"Not yet," Becker said. "You used to be a police officer. You know when we charge you we got to read you your rights and let you get a lawyer, and the lawyer won't let you say anything, and we got no chance of working anything out together."
"So I could just get up and walk out of here?"
Becker didn't say anything for a moment. He looked at me. I got off the wall and walked over and leaned against the door. Becker smiled.
"Course you could," Becker said.
Delroy looked at me and back at Becker and didn't move.
"Dalton," Penny said, "I don't see what purpose I'm serving here."
"We was hoping you might urge Mr. Delroy to be forthright," Becker said.
"Well, of course. Jon, I do hope you'll be completely open with Sheriff Becker on this."
Delroy smiled a very small private smile and didn't say anything. He seemed intent on the knuckles of his folded hands.
"Maybe you could even tell us what he was supposed to be doing while he was off trying to kill Mr. Spenser," Becker said. "Sort of what was his official assignment?"
"Well, Jon didn't have any assignments, per se," Penny said. "He and his men provided security for our family and our business."
"The business being Three Fillies," Becker said.
Penny nodded yes.
"And the family being you and your two sisters."
"Yes."
"As I recall, Spenser had to rescue the two sisters from the security Mr. Delroy was providing," Becker said.
"Mr. Spenser was working under a misapprehension. My sisters were not, at the time he stole them from me, nor, I suspect, are they now, capable of caring for themselves, nor of making decisions in their best interest."
Becker nodded cheerily.
"We can get to that," Becker said. "You got any idea why Mr. Delroy attempted to murder Mr. Spenser?"
"None at all," Penny said.
"Jon," Becker said. "You interested in a shorter sentence?"
Delroy smiled again to himself, fleetingly. He looked at Penny. She didn't look at him. He returned his gaze to the backs of his folded hands.
"Okay," Becker said. "Mr. Spenser, would you open that door and ask Jerry to send those folks in?"
I stopped leaning on the door, and opened it, and stuck my head out, and nodded at the deputy and jerked a thumb toward the interrogation room, and closed the door again.
"You didn't by any chance ask Mr. Delroy to shoot Mr. Spenser, did you, Penny?"
"Dalton, that's offensive," Penny said. She was sitting straight upright in her chair. Her legs were not crossed anymore. Her knees were together, and her ankles. Her feet were flat on the floor.
"Yep," Becker said. "It is. Sorry about that, but it kind of looks to us as if you might have."
Penny pressed her lips together. The door opened behind me. I stepped to the side and, shepherded by a uniformed deputy, the Clive family circus trooped in silently: Stonie, SueSue, Pud, Cord, Dolly Hartman, Jason Hartman, and, making a special guest appearance, direct from San Francisco, Sherry Lark. Penny stared at her mother, but didn't say anything. The deputy arranged chairs and got everybody seated. He had a big mustache like an old-time western lawman.
"Stand by, Jerry," Becker said to him, and the deputy went and leaned on the wall I'd recently vacated when I went to lean on the door.
"I want to thank you all for coming," Becker said. "Especially you, Ms. Lark. I know it's a long flight."
"You sent me a ticket," she said.
Becker nodded.
"We had a little extra in the budget this month," he said. "Now, so we're clear, no one is here under duress. No one is under arrest, though it seems likely that Mr. Delroy will be."
Penny was still looking at her mother. Delroy was still looking at his knuckles. Everyone else tried not to look at anybody, except Pud. Who glanced at me and winked. Becker looked around.
"Everybody all right?" he said. "Anybody like a Coca-Cola? Coffee? Glass of water?"
Nobody did.
"Okay," Becker said. "Mr. Spenser, you been the one raising most of the hell in this case, why don't you hold forth a little bit for us."
Everyone turned their head and looked at me. I felt like I should open with a shuffle ball change. I decided against it.
"Most of you," I said, "will know some of what I'm going to say, but knowing all of it is the trick. This isn't a court of law. I'm telling you what I believe. But I can prove most of it."
The deputy with the mustache shifted a little as he leaned against the wall. I could hear the creak of his gun belt when he did so.
"About thirty years ago," I said, "Walter Clive had an affair with Dolly Hartman. The result of that union was Jason Hartman."
Stonie and SueSue both turned their gaze simultaneously on Jason. Everyone else kept looking at me.
"No one acknowledged that. Clive as far as I can tell didn't even know it. Dolly felt in the long run it would be in both her and Jason's best interests to lie back in the weeds and wait. Clive later made a will. It provided that his entire estate be equally divided among his children. Stonie and SueSue weren't too interested in the business. But Penny was, and she became more and more a part of it until she was really running things and Walter spent most of his time entertaining clients and traveling with Dolly, who resurfaced once Sherry was gone."
Everyone was still. Sherry Lark leaned forward a little, her mouth slightly open, frowning slightly to show how attentive she was being. There were probably very few unscripted moments in Sherry's life.
"I don't know what caused Dolly to bring it up when she did, and frankly, it doesn't matter much. But she eventually told Clive that Jason was his son. Clive was not a guy
who had just fallen off the feed wagon as it trundled through town. He wanted proof. So they arranged with a doctor named Klein-most of you know him, I think-for a DNA test. Meanwhile Walter, in the eventuality that the test proved out, began talking to his lawyer, Rudy Vallone, about changing his will. The change would have included Jason in the estate, but, and here's the kicker, it would also have given him control of Three Fillies."
The silence in the room was cavernous. Delroy remained immobile, looking at his knuckles. I thought I could see the lines deepening around Penny's mouth as if she were clamping her jaw tighter. Jason Hartman was quiet and elegant, comfortable in the kind of serene way people have when they are getting their due.
"The DNA testing was a secret. The only people who knew were Dolly, and Walter and the doctor. Even Jason didn't know. He thought he was just getting a routine physical. However, as luck would have it, Dr. Klein and Sherry Lark had a, ah, relationship that transcended their casual medical acquaintance, and even better, so did Rudy Vallone and Sherry Lark. And, free spirit that she is, she used those relationships to find out that Walter was being tested to see if Jason was his son, and that Walter was thinking of changing his will in favor of Jason if the tests proved out."
I paused and looked at Sherry. On her face was perhaps the first genuine expression I'd ever seen there in our brief acquaintance. She looked scared.
"And she told Penny," I said.
Somebody, I think it was Dolly, inhaled audibly. No one else did anything.
Becker said, "You do that, Sherry?"
When Sherry answered, her voice was so constricted it was barely audible.
"Yes," she squeaked.
Slowly, as if it were choreographed, everyone in the room looked from Sherry to Penny.
FIFTY-EIGHT
PENNY'S FACE WAS a little tight. Otherwise she seemed calm. Delroy glanced over at her. "You need a lawyer," he said.
"You may need one, Jon. I do not."
"You killed Daddy," Stonie said. Her voice was very small.
"Stonie, try not to be an idiot," Penny said.
"You did," Stonie said in the small voice. "And you sent my husband away."
"Your husband?" Penny said. "Your pederast husband?"
Cord didn't look at anybody. Becker showed nothing, sitting back a little in his chair, listening.
"You destroyed my marriage and locked me up and tried to brainwash me," Stonie said. She was implacable in her small way, her voice somehow more absolute for being small.
"You did," SueSue said.
She was louder, as she always was. But it was sincere. Penny looked first at Stonie and then at SueSue. Her voice was flat when she spoke.
"You," Penny said to SueSue, "are married to a drunken philanderer, and have become a drunken philanderer too." She shifted her gaze onto Stonie. "And you are married to a homosexual child molester, and have yourself become a whore." She gazed at them with a look that seemed to encompass Cord and Pud too. It was a very cold gaze. Scary almost, unless of course, you were a tough guy like me. "My family," she said. "Whores, drunks, and perverts. You don't do anything. You don't contribute anything. You simply suck sustenance out of us like a cluster of parasites."
I looked at Becker. He was listening quietly. There was a hint of satisfaction in the set of his mouth.
"Penny," Delroy said.
"Shut up," she said. "You've caused a ridiculous amount of trouble."
Delroy nodded, as if in agreement with some inner voice. He went back to studying his hands. Penny returned her attention to her sisters.
"You should be thanking me," she said. "I couldn't do anything when Daddy was alive. His precious married daughters, let them do what they want to, as long as they're married. Leave them alone. Take care of them. If they get in trouble have Delroy erase it. Why do you think we kept Delroy around so long? To keep the sty clean."
"And then Daddy died," Becker said gently.
"And I tried to clean the sty for good. Get rid of the husbands that were perverting them. Teach them, force them if necessary, to be clean."
"Like you," Becker said, even more softly.
I knew he was trying to channel the flow. It was a gamble. There was always the danger that it could interrupt the flow and she'd realize where she was going and stop. But Delroy hadn't been able to stop her, and I agreed with Becker. She couldn't stop, and maybe she could be directed.
"Yes," she said impatiently, "just like me. For God's sake, I was the perfect daughter. Pretty, smart, always helpful, good with the business, charming to everybody. Daddy used to say it was like I had a different set of genes." She smiled for a moment. It wasn't a pleasant thing to see. "And the sonovabitch didn't even prefer me. He liked those two useless cows as much as he liked me."
It all had a rehearsed quality, as if she were speaking from memory of a grievance that she had recited to herself a thousand times. And then she stopped, as if that were all she remembered. No one spoke. I heard the deputy's gun belt creak again as he shifted his weight a little. Becker looked at me.
"And then you found out he might give away the business," I said. "So you and Delroy invented the horse shootings. Just the kind of smart thing a gifted amateur might invent. And you had to smile and go along with it when your father hired me to look into things. You even chewed Delroy out in front of me, to make it look like you were with me all the way."
"And why on earth would Mr. Delroy go along with so harebrained a scheme?" Penny said.
She was quite rigid in her posture, and her mouth seemed stiff when she spoke. But her voice was perfectly calm.
"Because you and he were lovers," I said.
Penny laughed. It was, if possible, less pleasant than her smile had been.
"Mr. Delroy and I? Please. He was my employee, nothing more."
"And he was following your orders when he, ah, sequestered your sisters?"
"Yes."
"And when he tried to kill me?"
"No."
"Why did he try to kill me?" I said.
"I have no idea. Perhaps he killed my father and felt you were about to find that out."
"Actually, I was about to find out that you killed him."
"I did not," she said.
"And you think Delroy did?"
"I don't know. You asked me a question, I offered a supposition. I don't know why Mr. Delroy does what he does."
"You love him?" I said.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"You figure that means no, Sheriff?" I said.
Becker nodded slowly.
"I'd take it as that," he said. "You got a thought on all of this, Jon?"
Delroy didn't look up. He shook his head slowly.
"That's too bad," Becker said. "I was hoping maybe you'd want to argue some of the points Ms. Clive made."
Delroy didn't respond. There was an odd half-smile fixed on his face.
"Well, think on it, Jon. 'Cause we are about to arrest you, and charge you with attempted murder, and put you away for a hell of a long time, unless you got something to bargain."
Delroy looked up then, his half-smile frozen in place, and turned his head slowly and stared at Penny Clive.
"I got nothing to bargain," he said.
Becker nodded slowly again.
"Too bad," he said. "Ms. Clive, I believe you killed your father or conspired with Delroy to do so. I was hoping he'd turn on you, but he don't seem ready to. So you can go."
Penny didn't say a word. She simply stood, and picked up her purse.
"'Course, just because he won't turn on you now," Becker said, "don't mean he won't do it later."
Penny walked to the door.
"And even if he don't," Becker said, "I will spend some time every day trying to catch you. I'm slow, sure enough, but in the long run I'm pretty good at this kind of work."
Penny looked back at him for a moment, and then opened the door and went out without shutting it.
"Jerry," Becker said. "You can take al
l these folks out except Mr. Delroy."
Everyone stood up. No one had anything to say, not even Pud, who was normally as repressible as a goat.
When we were alone, Becker said, "Jon Delroy, you are under arrest for attempted murder. You have the right to remain silent…"
"I know," Delroy said. "Don't bother."
Becker plowed right on through the whole Miranda recitation without pause. When he was through listening to the recitation of his rights, Delroy sat perfectly still for a moment. Then without looking at either me or Becker, he spoke to us both.
"I been scamming women all my life," he said. "This one time, I fell in love."
"Bad timing," I said.
Delroy shrugged.
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