'To protect her girls?' I said.
'Oh, I don't think so,' Klein said. 'She wasn't a dedicated mother.'
'I gather. If so, then she had no motive.'
'Hatred of Dolly?' Klein said.
I nodded slowly.
'That would be a motive,' I said.
'Sherry is very odd,' Klein said. 'I…' He let it trail away.
I drank some more of the bad coffee.
'Tell me something,' I said. 'I don't mean to pry, but when you and she were having sex, did she whisper things like 'Right on' and 'Give peace a chance'?'
Klein's head jerked up and he stared at me with his mouth hanging open. He shut it and opened it again and said nothing and shut it.
'None of my business anyway,' I said.
'How did you know we had sex?' Klein said hoarsely.
'I'm a detective,' I said.
IWENT BACKto my motel, hoping that Dr. Klein didn't have a complicated diagnosis today. It was quarter to nine when I got there. I went to the dining room and had breakfast. In the middle of breakfast I had a thought. I was pleased to have it. I'd had so few recently.
Knowing that Walter was having paternity DNA testing was not enough information to get him killed. Someone would also have to know about the prospective change in his will. I finished breakfast and went to see Rudy Vallone.
'Dalton Becker says that Clive was planning to change his will,' I said when I was in his office and seated in front of his desk.
'Always right to the point,' Vallone said.
'Always,' I said. 'Somebody had to know that besides Clive.'
'Why?'
'Trust me,' I said. 'Who could have known Clive's intention besides you?'
'It was merely inquiry, sir. It was not yet an intention.'
'Who knew of his inquiry?'
'Whoever he may have told,' Vallone said.
'You didn't tell anyone?'
'Of course not.'
I had another thought, two in the same morning. And this one was inspired.
'You know Sherry Lark?' I said. 'The former Mrs. Clive?'
'Of course,' Vallone said.
'You tell her?'
I thought Vallone colored a little bit. That's probably as close as lawyers can get to blushing.
'Of course not,' Vallone said. 'Why on earth would I tell Sherry?'
'In a fit of passion,' I said.
Vallone colored a little more.
'Excuse me?'
'Listen,' I said. 'I can find this out. It's just time and money and I've got some of both. But why drag it out? Sherry's a free spirit. She probably had reason to want to prove herself desirable, and to do so with her husband's associates. You bopped her, didn't you?'
Vallone struggled for a moment but his essential self won out. He bragged about it. 'Her idea,' he said. He leaned back in his chair and took out a cigar and began to trim the end with a small silver knife.
'Last time she was in town she came to see me. I knew her from the old days. We, ah, used to get together now and then, and when she came to see me this time, she said she was hoping we could sort of pick up where we left off so long ago.'
He paused while he got his cigar burning. 'You've seen her?'
I nodded.
'Sherry's still a fine-looking woman to my eye, and…' He shrugged.
I waited.
'Right there on that couch,' he said.
'And in those scant moments when you weren't telling each other how it was just like it always was, she might have asked about Walter and you might have let slip that he was thinking of changing his will.'
