'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?'
