'Will it take long?'
'It shouldn't. I'm pretty sure I know who did it, and I'm pretty sure I can't prove it.'
'But you'll try,' Susan said.
'One last time,' I said.
'Then you'll come home.'
'Yes.'
There was silence on the phone line for awhile. When Susan spoke her voice had deepened somehow and become richer.
'And what's the second thing you'll want when you get here?' she said.
I was quiet for awhile lying on the bed, looking up at the unaccommodating ceiling of the house where I had spent too much time already.
'There is no second thing,' I said.
'I know… My patient is here… I love you… I have to go.'
'I love you too,' I said. 'I'll be home soon.'
'Is Hawk still with you?'
'Yes.'
'Good,' she said and hung up.
Chapter 64
I CALLED MARY Lou to make sure she'd be home. When I pulled the Explorer up in front of Mary Lou Buckman's place, Dean Walker's patrol car was parked in the driveway.
'Both the usual suspects,' I said to Hawk.
We got out and started up the walk. The horses in her corral stood at the fence, staring at us silently. The front door opened before I reached it.
'What the hell do you want?' Dean Walker said.
I kept on toward the door.
'We need to talk,' I said. 'You and me and Mary Lou.'
'What's he doing here?' Walker said, looking at Hawk.
'He's here to listen to us talk,' I said.
I thought Walker was going to slam the door on us. I helieve he thought so too, but changed his mind and stepped aside and we went in. The yellow Lab I'd met before rushed up and began to lap my hand. I scratched her under the chin. Mary Lou was sitting on the couch. She was wearing blue shorts this time, and a white tank top. The effect was just as good.
'I can't be alone with you,' she said. 'I called Chief Walker the minute I knew you were coming.'
'Good to find a cop when you need one,' I said.
Hawk stopped inside the doorway and leaned on the wall. He looked bored and amused at the same time.
'What do you want, Spenser?'
I sat on the arm of the couch, at the other end from Mary Lou. Walker remained standing. The Lab came and put her head on my thigh. I patted her. I felt kind of old. I missed Pearl. I wanted to go home.
'Here's what I think,' I said. 'I think that one day, Mary Lou and Steve were wandering around in the hills around here and found water. I don't know how. Mary Lou's a water resource geologist, maybe she found a spring that was suggestive. Maybe they did some covert drilling. Maybe they looked at surveys and rock formations. I don't know how you find water. But she did and one way or another she figured out that there was a whole new water source. She or Steve or both of them saw what that could mean.'
Except for the Lab who was wagging her tail, no one moved. With the heat packed in around the house, there was a kind of timelessness in the cool interior.
'But they didn't know quite how to exploit it, so they went to J. George Taylor, the real estate specialist in the region. He must have liked it 'cause he attracted some investors. Luther Barnes, the mayor, Henry Brown, some others, and they started buying up land.'
'Say that's true,' Walker said, 'which it''s not. But say it was. So what? There's no crime there.'
'Not yet,' I said. 'But somebody, along the line, got to thinking that if they could drive the prices down, they could make a much bigger killing much quicker.'
Walker said nothing. Mary Lou was motionless on the couch, her knees up, hugging them.
'So they took it to a guy who would know how to do things like that and had the wherewithal to do it.'
'And that would be?' Walker said.
'Morris Tannenbaum,' I said. 'He likes the deal. He sends The Preacher out to organize the Dell and harass the town until people get rid of their homes at fire-sale prices.'
'And you can prove all this,' Walker said.
'Hell no,' I said. 'Some of it I can prove, maybe. Some of it I'll probably never know. Some of it I'm making up
