“I may have that printed on my business cards,” I said.
The waitress appeared with a wedge of blackberry pie, and a piece of cheddar cheese beside it.
“My father used to have mince pie for breakfast,” the waitress said, “almost every Sunday morning.”
“And sired beautiful daughters,” I said.
The waitress smiled and poured me some more coffee, and gave Susan a new pot of hot water, and went off. Susan watched me eat the pie. She was having All Bran for breakfast, and a cup of hot water with lemon.
“What will you do,” Susan said, “now that you’re fired?”
“I’ll probably go back down to Alton,” I said. “And ask around some more.”
“Will it be dangerous?”
“Probably not,” I said. “Most of the cat is out of the bag, by now. There’s not much reason to try and run me off.”
“You think Alton is where you’ll find out?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know where else to look.”
chapter thirty-seven
I WAS IN the detectives’ room at the Alton County Sheriff’s Department talking with the pretty good-looking female cop who’d harassed me before. Her name was Felicia Boudreau, and she was a detective second grade.
“I didn’t much like that deal,” she said. “But you’ve been a cop. Do a lot of stuff you don’t much like.”
“Why I’m no longer a cop,” I said.
She shrugged.
“You know who put us on you in the first place?”
I nodded.
“Senator Robert Stratton,” I said.
“From Massachusetts?”
“That’s the one,” I said. “At least I never voted for him.”
“What was his problem?” she said.
“I’m investigating a murder,” I said. “Stratton was sleeping with the victim.”
“Afraid you’d turn up his name?”
“Yeah.”
“So what,” she said. “That’s mostly what they do in the Senate, isn’t it? They get laid?”
“He wants to be President,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “Give him a fancier place to get laid in.”
“Who put the tail on me?” I said.
She shook her head. She was sitting with her feet on the desk, crossed at the ankle. It showed a long, smooth thigh line. She had on light-gray slacks over black boots, and a flowered blouse with big sleeves. Her holstered gun, some sort of 9mm, lay on the desk beside her purse. Everybody had nines now.
“You grow up here in Alton?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You know Olivia Nelson?”
“Jumper Jack’s girl,” Felicia said.
“Yes. Tell me about her.”
“What’s to tell. Rich kid, about ten years older than me. Father’s a town legend, hell, maybe a county legend. Big house, racehorses, good schools, servants, hunting dogs, bourbon and branch water.”
“What happened to her?”
Felicia grinned.
“Town scandal,” she said. “Went in the Peace Corps. Married some African prince with tribal scars on his face. Jumper never got over it.”
“How about her mother?” I said.
“Her mother?”
“Yeah, everyone talks about Jumper Jack. I never hear anything about her mother.”
“She had one,” Felicia said.
“Good to know,” I said.
“Sort of genteel, I guess you’d say. Sort of elegant woman who didn’t like the muddy dogs in her house, and
