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 was to figure out what to do about what I knew. So I went home.

Actually, I went to Susan's house. The dog runner had left Pearl there, so I went and let Pearl out and fed her and sat at the counter in Susan's silent, immaculate kitchen and drank some Johnnie Walker Blue with a lot of ice and soda.

After she finished eating, Pearl snuffled rapidly through every room in the house once more to make absolutely sure Susan was in fact not there. Then Pearl came back in the kitchen and settled onto the couch provided for her.

"I know," I said. "If I had a better nose, that's what I would have done, too."

Pearl raised her head and wagged her tail at me from the couch.

"She'll be back," I said. "Couple of weeks."

Pearl settled onto the couch and put her head on her paws and watched me, moving her eyes only, in case I should suddenly try to eat something. I drank some scotch. Susan's place sounded like an empty house, the hush of the air-conditioning, the barely audible hum of the refrigerator, the hint of street sound. Occasionally, the creak of floor joists settling half a millimeter. I could smell her perfume. The house was rich with colors: gold and green and burgundy and brown and tan and cream. There were rugs and drapes and throws, and paintings and lamps and trays, and stuff that had no other function than to be stunning.

My drink was gone. I went to the refrigerator and got more ice. There were a couple of Lean Cuisines in the freezer. In the main part of the refrigerator, there was half a bottle of Kendall Jackson Riesling, and a navel orange. There was no cork in the half-empty bottle; it was covered with a small Baggie fastened with a blue elastic band. I smiled. Everything spoke of her. I added scotch and some soda to my drink and sat back at the counter. Around the kitchen were pictures of me and Susan and Pearl. There were seven pictures of Pearl. Three of me and Susan. If I weren't such a Hunko, it might have given me pause. The house was her: elegant, flamboyant, beautiful. A thing worth doing, Susan always said, was worth overdoing. I stood and took my drink and walked into the living room. Everything you could sit on in there had so many pillows on it that you'd have to move them to make room for your rush. There were more pictures of Pearl and me. Same ratio. There was a picture of her mother and father, darkhaired and European-looking, though I knew her father ran a drugstore in Swampscott. There were pictures of Susan with people I didn't know. There was no sign of her ex-husband.

I went into the bedroom. The Spenser/Pearl ratio improved. There was one large picture, of me with Pearl beside me. The picture, in a big, clear acrylic frame, sat on her night table. There were no other pictures. There were so many decorative pillows on the bed that you couldn't sit on it, either, let alone sleep. I looked at the bed for a time and smelled her perfume more insistently. I felt my stomach tighten.

"Couple of weeks," I said. "Couple of weeks."

I went to the kitchen for a refill. Pearl had lost all interest in me, and was asleep now on her couch. I sat back on my stool at the counter and felt the scotch move through me happily.

So, Beth Ann and Royce were spending nights together. So what? What Beth Ann was telling me about Jared didn't jibe with what everyone else was telling me about Jared. So what?

I wondered if the romance with Garner was surreptitious. I wondered if Garner were married. Someone had greeted him at the door when he went home. I wondered what it all had to do with Jared, if anything. I sipped my scotch. Susan's home was built in the nineteenth century. It had high ceilings and wide hallways. Her office was downstairs. Her self was everywhere. If I weren't so autonomous and self-reliant, I would have missed her like a bastard.

"Being a seasoned investigator," I said to Pearl, "I have found that when there's stuff you don't know in a case, it's best to find it out."

Pearl was on her back, her head lolled off the couch, and she looked at me upside down. I finished my drink.

"Tomorrow," I said.

I got up and went to Susan's bedroom and cleared space among the pillows and went to bed. Pearl joined me later in the night.

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