“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?”

“I did that on the phone,” I said.

“Mary Smith was a very good hit for various charities.”

“She was generous?”

“More than that,” Clarice said. “She was generous with her own money, and active in getting other people to give.”

“How so?”

“She was always eager to throw a fund-raising party.”

“Like?”

“One of the things she did was to host a gourmet dinner at her elegant home in Louisburg Square, prepared by a celebrity chef from one of the restaurants. Sometimes there would be a celebrity there-sports, local television, politics, whoever they could snare. And people would pay X amount of dollars to attend. They’d get a fancy meal, and a house tour, and, if there was a celebrity, the chance to eat dinner with him or her.”

“That’s why she has a PR guy,” I said.

“You have to understand Mary,” Clarice said. “She isn’t very bright.”

“That I understand,” I said.

“And she has no training in being a rich upper-class lady.”

“Which she wasn’t,” I said, “until she married Nathan Smith.”

“Exactly.”

“And the charity work?” I said.

“Part of becoming a wealthy Boston lady.”

I nodded. Clarice drank some coffee. Her eyes were big and dark. She had on a nice perfume.

“Where’d she grow up?” I said.

“I think someone told me she lived in Franklin.”

“I asked her for a list of her friends,” I said. “She gave me a guest list, on which you are the final name. You a friend of hers?”

“Not really. Each year, the bank designates a certain sum of money to be distributed to deserving charities. I’m the one decides who gets it.”

“So she woos you for your money.”

“The bank’s money,” Clarice said. “But yes.”

“You wouldn’t put her on a list of your best friends.”

“I don’t dislike her. I feel kind of sorry for her.”

“Because?”

“Because she’s entirely confused by the world as it is. She thinks it is like the one she has seen in the movies and the women’s magazines. She’s always been sexy, and she thinks it matters in the world she’s entered.”

“Gee,” I said. “It does in my world.”

“I would guess that,” she said. “But not in the world of the wealthy Boston lady.”

“What matters there?”

“Money, pedigree, or the illusion of pedigree.”

“How do you fare in that world,” I said.

“I don’t aspire to it,” she said.

I nodded again. The room was full of well-dressed women getting coffee and salads. Most of them were young and in shape. Young professional women were a good-looking lot.

“Cute, aren’t they,” Clarice said.

I grinned. “So, would you put Mary Smith on a list of friends?”

She smiled. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

We were both quiet, drinking our coffee.

“Do you think she has friends?” I said.

“I think she thinks the people on her guest list are friends,” Clarice said.

“And the people she knew in Franklin?”

“Low-class would be my guess,” Clarice said.

My coffee cup was empty. So was Clarice’s. I remained alert to the panorama of young professional women.

“Sex apparently does matter in your world,” Clarice said.

“Does to me,” I said.

“Are you married?”

“Sort of.”

“How can you be ”sort of“ married?” Clarice said.

“We’re not married, but we’re monogamous.”

“Except for the roving eye,” Clarice said.

“Except for that,” I said.

“Live together?”

“Not quite.”

“Love each other?”

“Yes.”

“How long you been together?” Clarice said.

“About twenty-five years.”

“So why don’t you get married?”

“Damned if I know,” I said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Pequod Savings and Loan was essentially a suburban bank. It had branches in Concord, Lexington, Lynnfield, and Weston. There was a home branch next to a gourmet takeout shop on the first floor of a good-looking recycled manufacturing building in East Cambridge, near Kendall Square. A clerk passed me on to a bank officer who questioned me closely and passed me on to the home-office manager. In less than an hour I was sitting in the office of the vice president for public affairs.

She was a good-looking smallish woman with thick auburn hair and large dark eyes and a wide mouth. She was wearing a pale beige suit. Her nails gleamed with polish. She had a big diamond on her right hand. An engraved brass sign on her desk read AMY PETERS.

“Would you care for coffee?” she said.

I had decided to cut back on coffee. Three cups in the morning was plenty.

“Yes,” I said. “Cream and sugar.”

“How about milk and sugar?” she said.

“Oh well.”

She stood and went out of the office. The pants of her beige suit were well-fitted. On her desk was a picture of two small children. On a shelf in the bookcase behind her desk was a picture of her with Bobby Orr. There was also a plaque recognizing her as Pequod Person of the Year. When she came back in carrying the coffee, she brought with her the vague scent of good cologne. She gave me one cup and took the other around behind her desk and sat and had a sip.

“So,” she said. “You are a private detective.”

I had some coffee. It wasn’t very good. I had some more.

“I am,” I said.