Hugger Mugger

FORTY-TWO

I SAT WITH Becker in his office. The air-conditioning was on and the blades of a twenty-inch floor fan were spinning in the far corner. We were drinking Coca-Cola.

"Two days before Clive was murdered," I said, "he learned for certain that he was the father of Dolly Hartman's son, Jason."

"Learned how?" Becker said.

"DNA test results came back."

"Hundred percent?"

"Yes."

"So he's got another heir," Becker said.

He was rocked as far back as his chair would go, balanced with just the toe of his left foot. He had taken his gun off his belt and it lay in its holster on his desk.

"His will mentions only his three daughters."

"Suppose if he'd lived longer that would have changed?"

"The timing makes you wonder," I said.

"There's other timing makes you wonder," Becker said. "Kid's about what? Twenty-five?"

"Dolly says she had an affair with Clive early, and then disappeared until Sherry was gone."

"Slow and steady wins the race," Becker said. "You figure one of the daughters scragged the old man to keep him from changing his will?"

"Or all three," I said.

"Why not pop the kid, Jason?"

"Old man is readily available," I said. "And if he included the kid, before they knocked the kid off, then his estate would be in their lives."

"You like one daughter better than another?"

"Well, that's sort of sticky," I said. "I figure Stonie or SueSue would be willing to do it, but would have trouble implementing. I figure Penny could implement all right, but wouldn't be willing."

"How about our friend the serial horse shooter?"

"Billy Rice came and told me that there's no more security on the horse."

Becker frowned a little. It was the first expression I'd ever seen on his face.

"Rice is the groom?"

"Yes."

"Well," Becker said. "Been couple months now."

"I know, but it's a valuable horse, and there's still security on the stable area and on the house. But no one's paying any special attention to the horse. Except Billy, who's sleeping in the stable with a ten-gauge."

"Case a hippopotamus sneaks in there," Becker said.

Becker let his chair tip forward. When he could reach the holstered gun on his desk, he tapped it half around with his forefinger so that it lined up with the edge of his blotter.

"So it seems like they're not expecting anyone to try to shoot their horse," I said. "Why would that be?"

"Might be that the horse shooter is a Clive," Becker said.

"And the whole horse shooter thing was a diversion?" I said.

"Except it went on for quite a while before the DNA results came back."

"How about this?" I said. "The killer or killers find out ahead of time about the paternity thing. They know Clive is going to have DNA testing done. They put the serial horse shooting in place so that if it turns out wrong, and they have to kill him, it'll look like a by-product of the horse shooting."

"It would explain why no one seemed to care if the horses died or not," Becker said.

"Yes."

"Nice theory."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Pretty cold," Becker said.

"Very cold," I said.

"Can you prove it?"

"Sooner or later," I said.

"Where's Delroy fit into all of this?"

"I don't know. Pud Potter says that Delroy and Penny Clive are intimate."

"Penny?"

"That's Pud's story."

"Was he sober when he told it?"

"Yes. The other thing about Delroy is that he's a phony. He was never with the FBI. He was never in the Marine Corps. And I'm pretty sure that there isn't any big company that he works for. Security South is him, working out of a letter drop in Atlanta."

"Well, you're a detecting fool, ain't ya?"

"We never sleep," I said.

"On the other hand, so he's bullshitting his way to success," Becker said. "Don't make him unusual. He's got the proper accreditation from the state of Georgia."

"That would mean his prints are on file," I said.

"Sure."

"Maybe you could run them for us, find out what he was doing while he wasn't in the FBI or the Marine Corps."

Becker took a pull at his Coke.

"Yeah," he said. "I can do that."

"While you're doing that, I'm going to commit several covert acts of illegal entry," I said.

"Be good if we get something that will be useful to us in court," Becker said.

"On an illegal entry by a private dick who's not even licensed in Georgia?" I said.

"Be better if you didn't get caught," Becker said.

"Be good if you don't look too close at what I'm doing."

"Be good if nobody asks me to," Becker said.

"Eventually I'm going to find out what happened," I said.

"Be nice," Becker said.