The silence in the room was cavernous. Delroy remained immobile, looking at his knuckles. I thought I could see the lines deepening around Penny's mouth as if she were clamping her jaw tighter. Jason Hartman was quiet and elegant, comfortable in the kind of serene way people have when they are getting their due.

"The DNA testing was a secret. The only people who knew were Dolly, and Walter and the doctor. Even Jason didn't know. He thought he was just getting a routine physical. However, as luck would have it, Dr. Klein and Sherry Lark had a, ah, relationship that transcended their casual medical acquaintance, and even better, so did Rudy Vallone and Sherry Lark. And, free spirit that she is, she used those relationships to find out that Walter was being tested to see if Jason was his son, and that Walter was thinking of changing his will in favor of Jason if the tests proved out."

I paused and looked at Sherry. On her face was perhaps the first genuine expression I'd ever seen there in our brief acquaintance. She looked scared.

"And she told Penny," I said.

Somebody, I think it was Dolly, inhaled audibly. No one else did anything.

Becker said, "You do that, Sherry?"

When Sherry answered, her voice was so constricted it was barely audible.

"Yes," she squeaked.

Slowly, as if it were choreographed, everyone in the room looked from Sherry to Penny.

FIFTY-EIGHT

PENNY'S FACE WAS a little tight. Otherwise she seemed calm. Delroy glanced over at her.

"You need a lawyer," he said.

"You may need one, Jon. I do not."

"You killed Daddy," Stonie said. Her voice was very small.

"Stonie, try not to be an idiot," Penny said.

"You did," Stonie said in the small voice. "And you sent my husband away."

"Your husband?" Penny said. "Your pederast husband?"

Cord didn't look at anybody. Becker showed nothing, sitting back a little in his chair, listening.

"You destroyed my marriage and locked me up and tried to brainwash me," Stonie said. She was implacable in her small way, her voice somehow more absolute for being small.

"You did," SueSue said.

She was louder, as she always was. But it was sincere. Penny looked first at Stonie and then at SueSue. Her voice was flat when she spoke.

"You," Penny said to SueSue, "are married to a drunken philanderer, and have become a drunken philanderer too." She shifted her gaze onto Stonie. "And you are married to a homosexual child molester, and have yourself become a whore." She gazed at them with a look that seemed to encompass Cord and Pud too. It was a very cold gaze. Scary almost, unless of course, you were a tough guy like me. "My family," she said. "Whores, drunks, and perverts. You don't do anything. You don't contribute anything. You simply suck sustenance out of us like a cluster of parasites."

I looked at Becker. He was listening quietly. There was a hint of satisfaction in the set of his mouth.

"Penny," Delroy said.

"Shut up," she said. "You've caused a ridiculous amount of trouble."

Delroy nodded, as if in agreement with some inner voice. He went back to studying his hands. Penny returned her attention to her sisters.

"You should be thanking me," she said. "I couldn't do anything when Daddy was alive. His precious married daughters, let them do what they want to, as long as they're married. Leave them alone. Take care of them. If they get in trouble have Delroy erase it. Why do you think we kept Delroy around so long? To keep the sty clean."

"And then Daddy died," Becker said gently.

"And I tried to clean the sty for good. Get rid of the husbands that were perverting them. Teach them, force them if necessary, to be clean."

"Like you," Becker said, even more softly.

I knew he was trying to channel the flow. It was a gamble. There was always the danger that it could interrupt the flow and she'd realize where she was going and stop. But Delroy hadn't been able to stop her, and I agreed with Becker. She couldn't stop, and maybe she could be directed.

"Yes," she said impatiently, "just like me. For God's sake, I was the perfect daughter. Pretty, smart, always helpful, good with the business, charming to everybody. Daddy used to say it was like I had a different set of genes." She smiled for a moment. It wasn't a pleasant thing to see. "And the sonovabitch didn't even prefer me. He liked those two useless cows as much as he liked me."

It all had a rehearsed quality, as if she were speaking from memory of a grievance that she had recited to herself a thousand times. And then she stopped, as if that were all she remembered. No one spoke. I heard the deputy's gun belt creak again as he shifted his weight a little. Becker looked at me.

"And then you found out he might give away the business," I said. "So you and Delroy invented the horse shootings. Just the kind of smart thing a gifted amateur might invent. And you had to smile and go along with it when your father hired me to look into things. You even chewed Delroy out in front of me, to make it look like you were with me all the way."

"And why on earth would Mr. Delroy go along with so harebrained a scheme?" Penny said.

She was quite rigid in her posture, and her mouth seemed stiff when she spoke. But her voice was perfectly calm.

"Because you and he were lovers," I said.

Penny laughed. It was, if possible, less pleasant than her smile had been.

"Mr. Delroy and I? Please. He was my employee, nothing more."

"And he was following your orders when he, ah, sequestered your sisters?"

"Yes."

"And when he tried to kill me?"

"No."

"Why did he try to kill me?" I said.

"I have no idea. Perhaps he killed my father and felt you were about to find that out."

"Actually, I was about to find out that you killed him."

"I did not," she said.

"And you think Delroy did?"

"I don't know. You asked me a question, I offered a supposition. I don't know why Mr. Delroy does what he does."

"You love him?" I said.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You figure that means no, Sheriff?" I said.

Becker nodded slowly.

"I'd take it as that," he said. "You got a thought on all of this, Jon?"

Delroy didn't look up. He shook his head slowly.

"That's too bad," Becker said. "I was hoping maybe you'd want to argue some of the points Ms. Clive made."

Delroy didn't respond. There was an odd half-smile fixed on his face.

"Well, think on it, Jon. 'Cause we are about to arrest you, and charge you with attempted murder, and put you away for a hell of a long time, unless you got something to bargain."

Delroy looked up then, his half-smile frozen in place, and turned his head slowly and stared at Penny Clive.

"I got nothing to bargain," he said.

Becker nodded slowly again.

"Too bad," he said. "Ms. Clive, I believe you killed your father or conspired with Delroy to do so. I was hoping he'd turn on you, but he don't seem ready to. So you can go."

Penny didn't say a word. She simply stood, and picked up her purse.

"'Course, just because he won't turn on you now," Becker said, "don't mean he won't do it later."

Penny walked to the door.

"And even if he don't," Becker said, "I will spend some time every day trying to catch you. I'm slow, sure enough, but in the long run I'm pretty good at this kind of work."