'Yes.'
'You're with Susan Silverman,' Dix said.
'Yes.'
'So you have some understanding of our business.'
'Yes.'
'What is his attorney's position on this?' Dix said.
'His attorney,' I said, 'like everyone else, as far as I can see, except his grandmother and me, including the kid, wants him to disappear quickly into the prison system and never reappear. '
'Would his attorney object?' Dix said.
'He might,' I said.
'Would access be a problem?'
I shook my head.
'The Bethel County DA will get us in,' I said.
Dix raised his eyebrows.
'Really?' he said.
'My deal with Cleary is that he lets us in, and anything we learn will be between us, and not be used in court.'
Dix was silent for a time. Entirely motionless, looking at me.
'What if I determine that he's legally insane and unfit to stand trial.'
'Cleary's a decent guy,' I said. 'We tell him what we learn. If he's convinced, he'll have his own people take a look. He wants to win the case, and he's under a lot of pressure to do so, but he doesn't want to put a seventeen- year-old kid away for life if there's, ah, mitigation.'
Dix was silent some more.
'Why not ask Dr. Silverman,' Dix said.
'She's in North Carolina,' I said.
'Ah, the conference at Duke,' Dix said.
I nodded.
'I've met her several times,' Dix said. 'Very impressive woman.'
'Impresses the hell out of me,' I said.
Dix smiled. A breakthrough!
'You have said we in talking about the interview,' Dix said. 'If I do this, I'll talk to the boy alone.'
'I'll wait outside the room,' I said.
Dix nodded.
'Okay,' he said. 'I can do this. Who will be paying the charges?'
'I will.'
'Then you'll need to know my fee.'
'I don't,' I said. 'But I think it's part of your deal to tell me.'
'It is,' Dix said. And he told me.
Chapter 48
I WAS GETTING pretty bored following Beth Ann Blair around. Pearl seemed to mind less. On the other hand, if she weren't sleeping in the backseat of the Camry, she would have been sleeping on the couch in my office, or the bed in my home. The arc of the experience was fairly tight. It was Friday night. Pearl and I had just finished visiting the patch of grass under the single tree, and were sharing a bottle of water in the car, when Royce Garner, the president of the Dowling School, his very self, pulled up in a Buick sedan and parked near the front door and got out and went in carrying a small suitcase.
'Ho, ho!' I said to Pearl.
We sat that night until 1:30 A.M. without any reappearance by Garner. And at 9:12 the next morning when I got there, with a large coffee, the Buick was still where it had been.
'Highly suspicious,' I said.
But Pearl wasn't with me. She was with Susan's dog runner this morning, in the woods, somewhere west of Cambridge. Probably wasn't much sillier talking to myself than it would have been talking to a dog. The morning crept past. Lunchtime came and crept on by. Fortunately, when I bought the coffee, I'd also purchased half a dozen doughnuts for just such an emergency. I ate a couple. At about three-thirty in the afternoon, Garner came out alone and got in his car and drove away. I followed him uneventfully to a comfortable-looking white colonial house next to the Dowling School. He parked in the driveway, took out his small suitcase, and walked to the front door. Someone opened it, I couldn't see who, and Garner went in.
My doughnuts were gone. I knew what I knew, and there was no reason to keep reknowing it. The next step
