'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.'
