“Then what do we do?”
“If she has to be put away, can you do it?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Because you can’t?”
“I don’t know about can’t,” I said. “But if you can do it, I’ll let you.”
“I thought you were fearless,” Susan said.
“I am, but it’s embarrassing for a guy as fearless as I am to cry in the vet’s office.”
“But it’s okay for me?”
“Sure,” I said. “You’re a girl.”
“How enlightened,” Susan said.
Pearl came back to check where we were. Since her hearing had declined she was more careful about checking on us. Susan bent over and looked at her face.
“But not yet,” Susan said.
“No.”
Susan put her arms around my waist and pressed her face against my chest. I patted her back softly. After a while she pushed away from me and looked up. Her face was bright. The shadow had moved on.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay.”
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“I have cold chicken and fruit salad,” I said. “And I could make some biscuits.”
We had to wait until Pearl looked at us and then gesture her to come. When she arrived Susan snapped her leash back on and we headed slowly, which was Pearl’s only pace, back toward Marlborough Street.
“Do you really think Mary Smith didn’t do it?” Susan said.
“I’m sort of required to,” I said. “Ah, professionally.”
Susan gave me a look. “But when you’re not being professional,” Susan said. “Like now.”
“I wish there was another explanation for how Nathan Smith got shot to death in a locked house with his wife downstairs, and she didn’t hear a thing.”
“So why do you think she didn’t do it? Other than professionalism.”
“It just doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t feel right. If she did it, wouldn’t she have a better alibi than I was downstairs watching Channel Five?”
“You said she wasn’t very bright.”
“She appears to be very dumb,” I said. “But wouldn’t she have at least faked a break-in? Window broken? Door lock jimmied? Something? How dumb is dumb?”
Susan smiled. “I would say that there is no bottom to dumb.”
“You shrinks are so judgmental,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said. “But some of us are sexually accomplished.”
“Nice talk,” I said. “In front of Pearl.”
“Pearl’s deaf as a turnip,” Susan said.
“And a blessing it is,” I said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I went back to my list of names. A number of Mary Smith’s 226 other best friends didn’t know her at all. They could be handled by phone. Some weren’t available. Some needed to be called on. None appeared to be an ex- boyfriend. The last call I made was to a woman named Clarice Taggert, who was the director of corporate giving at Illinois Federal Bank. I met her in the bank cafeteria, where she was drinking coffee at a table near the door. I had described myself on the phone and she stood when I came in.
“You said you looked like Cary Grant,” she said.
“You recognized me when I came in,” I said.
She grinned. “You don’t look like a banker,” she said. “Want coffee?”
We took our coffee to a table. She was a strong-looking black woman in a pale gray pantsuit with a white blouse. She wore a gold chain around her neck. There was a wide gold wedding band on the appropriate finger.
“What can I do for you?” she said.
“Tell me about Mary Smith, Ms. Taggert.”
“Clarice,” she said. “You don’t vamp around much, do you?”
