'You're a captain. They'll pay attention to you.'
'Sure they will-city police captains really matter to the Feds.'
'Well, they matter to me,' I said.
'Where you calling from?'
'Lamarr, Georgia.'
'Good for you,' Quirk said.
I gave him the phone number and he hung up. It was Tuesday. Susan gave a seminar on Tuesdays from nineA.M. to elevenA.M. It was nine-fifteenA.M. I drank my coffee and read the Atlanta paper until ten after ten. Then I lay back on the bed and tried to empty my mind-see if an idea popped up into the void. Mostly I thought about Susan with her clothes off. This would solve nearly any problem I had, but it didn't do much for the case. At eleven-fifteen, I called her.
'I've been trying to empty my mind,' I said.
'I thought you'd already done that,' Susan said.
'And just when I think I've done it-there you are with your clothes off.'
'How do I look?'
'Like you do,' I said.
'I'll take that to mean stunning,' Susan said. 'Are you doing anything else down there besides thinking of me with my clothes off?'
'Sometimes I sleuth a little.'
'And?'
'And I'm compiling the results.'
'Does that mean you're getting nowhere?'
'It's not exactly nowhere. I'm learning things. But generally I don't know what the stuff that I'm learning means.'
'Let me help you,' she said.
'Thank you, Doctor. Are you dressed?'
'To the nines. What do you have?'
'You remember the names of all the players?' I said.
'Of course I do,' Susan said.
'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?'
