'Don't you ever work just to be working? I never saw anyone like you.'

'I know. I'm a dog. You never see a dog do anything when he's not hungry. If I'm not hungry, why work?'

'What about the General? I do work when I'm not hungry. And I've got plenty of that here.'

'The old boy is trying to die. My old sergeant thinks somebody is trying to kill him. Slowly, so it looks like a wasting disease.'

'Is somebody?'

'I don't know. He's been doing it a long time. You know a way to do that?'

'What's his color like?'

'His color?'

'Sure. There are poisons you could use in c.u.mulative dosages. The color is the giveaway.'

'He's kind of a sickly yellow. His hair is falling out in clumps. And his skin has a translucent quality.'

Morley frowned. 'Not blue or gray?'

'Yellow. Like pale b.u.t.terscotch.'

He shook his head. 'Can't tell you based on that.'

'He has seizures, too.'

'Crazies?'

'Like heart tremors, or something.'

'Doesn't sound familiar. Maybe if I saw him.'

'I'd like that. I don't know if I can arrange it. They're all paranoid about strangers.' I gave him a rundown on the players.

'Sounds like a bughouse.'

'Could be. All of them, except Jennifer and Cook, spent at least thirty years in the Marines, mostly in the Cantard.'

He grinned. 'I'm not going to say it.'

'Good for you. We all make the world a little holier when we resist temptation. One more thing. The old man thinks he hired me to find out who's stealing the silver and his old war trophies.' I produced the list. Morley started reading. 'I'll pay legwork fees for somebody to make the rounds and see if any of that is moving through the usual channels.'

'Saucerhead needs work.' Saucerhead Tharpe is a friend, of sorts, in a line somewhere between Morley's and mine. He has more scruples than Dotes and more ambition than me, but he's as big as a house and looks half as smart. People can't take him serious. He never gets the best jobs.

'All right. I'll pay his standard rate. Bonus if he recovers any of the articles. Bonus if he gets a description of the thief.'

'On the cuff?' That was a hint.

I gave him advance money. He said, 'I thank you and Saucerhead thanks you. I know you're doing an old buddy a favor but it seems d.a.m.ned tame. Especially if the old guy is just dying.'

'There's something going on. Somebody tried to off me.' I told him.

He laughed. 'I wish I could have seen the guy's face when he swung that ax and you bonged like a bell. You've still got the luck.'

'Maybe.'

'Why are they after you?'

'I don't know. Money? That's the one angle that makes this interesting. The old boy is worth about five million marks. His son is dead. His wife died twenty years ago. His daughter Jennifer gets half the estate and the other half goes to his Marine cronies. Three years ago he had seventeen heirs. Since then two died supposedly natural deaths, one got killed by a mad bull, and four disappeared. A little basic math shows that nearly doubles the take for the survivors.'

Morley sat down behind his desk, put his feet up, cleaned his pearly white teeth with a six-inch steel toothpick. I didn't interrupt his thoughts.

'There's potential for foul play in that setup, Garrett.'

'Human nature being what it is.'

'If I was a betting man I'd give odds that somebody is fattening his share.'

'Human nature being what it is.'

'n.o.body walks out on that kind of money. Not you, not me, not a saint. So maybe you have something interesting after all.'

'Maybe. Thing is, I don't see any way to tie it up in a package. If I find out who's stealing-which makes no sense considering the payoff down the road-I'm not likely to find out who's killing the old man. That doesn't make sense for whoever is cutting down the number of heirs. He'd want the old man to hang on.'

'What happens if the daughter checks out before he does?'

'd.a.m.n!' A critical point and it hadn't occurred to me. If everything went to the boys she'd really be on the spot. 'The odd thing is, none of them act like they know what's going on. They seem to get along. They don't watch each other over their shoulders. I did, and I was only there one night.'

'A marvelous aspect of your species is that most of you see only what you want.'

'What's that mean?'

'Maybe those guys are old buddies and only one of them realizes that throat-cutting can be profitable. Maybe n.o.body is suspicious because they all know their old buddies wouldn't do something like that after all they've been through together.'

Could be. I'd kind of had that problem myself. I couldn't picture me turning on anybody I'd been running with that long. 'And the whole thing could be what they say it is. Three dead by explainable cause and four who couldn't handle the life-style and walked because money didn't mean anything.'

'And the moon could be mouse bait.'

'You have a dark outlook.'

'Supported every day in the street. The other night a thirty-six-year-old man knifed his mom and dad because they wouldn't give him money for a bottle of wine. That's the real world, Garrett. We're our own worst nightmares.' He chuckled. 'You're lucky this time. You don't have anything weird. No vampires, no werewolves, no witches, no sorcerers, no dead G.o.ds trying to come back to life. None of the stuff you usually stumble into.'

I snorted. Those things aren't on every street corner, but they're part of the world. Everybody brushes against them eventually. They didn't impress me, though I was happy not to deal with them.

I said, 'I could have seen a ghost.'

'A what?'

'A ghost. I keep seeing a woman that n.o.body admits is there. That n.o.body else sees. Unless they're pulling my leg. Which they probably are.'

'Or you're crazy. She's a gorgeous blonde, right?'

'A blonde. Not bad.'

'You're daydreaming out loud in your eyes. Your wishful thinking has gotten to you.'

'Maybe. I'll know before I'm done. There was something else I wanted but it escapes me now.'

'Must not have been important.'

'Probably not. I'd better get back out there.'

'You take some equipment? Hate to think of you up to your ears in killers with nothing but your teeth and toenails.'

'I've got a trick or two.'

He grunted. 'You always do. Don't turn your back on anybody.'

'I won't.'

As I started to close the door, he asked, 'What's the daughter look like?'

'Early twenties. A looker but not a talker. Spoiled rotten, probably.'

He looked thoughtful, then shrugged, got up, dropped down and started doing more push-ups. I shut the door. I can't stand seeing a man abuse himself.

12.

I headed south feeling smug. I knew my Morley Dotes. Curiosity would get him. He'd push his end beyond what I'd hired him to do. He'd go fis.h.i.+ng amongst his contacts. If there was something going on involving the Stantnors, he'd find out.

The smugness disappeared after I walked out South Gate.

That's when the drizzle started. That's when I started cussing myself for my distrust of horses. h.e.l.l, if I couldn't ride, I could hire a coach. I had a client. I could charge it to expenses. Expenses are wonderfully flexible-especially if the client fails the att.i.tude test.

I got some wet before I reached my destination.

Odd. Most of those big country places have names. The Maples. Windward. Sometimes something that doesn't make any sense, like Brittany Stone. But this one could have been a squatter's hut. The Stantnor place. Ancient family seat and museum but not enough of a home for anybody to give it a name.

I was still a quarter mile off when Jennifer Stantnor flew out the front door, headed toward me. She hadn't put a wrap on. Peters came after her, gaining but not looking like he was trying to catch her.

They reached me at the same time. Jennifer looked irked that Peters had come. Peters looked exasperated at her. I did my best to look puzzled, which isn't hard. That's where I am most of the time. I raised an eyebrow way up. It's one of my best tricks. Jennifer just stood there, panting. Peters, less winded despite being almost three times her age, said, 'There's been a hunting accident.'

I kept a straight face. 'Oh?'

'Let's get in out of the rain.'

I looked at the girl. I think she wanted to talk. Grimly, she said, 'I don't think it was an accident.'

It probably wasn't, if someone had gotten killed. But I didn't say that. I just grunted.

Peters talked while we walked. 'We've had trouble with poachers. There are deer on the grounds. A fair herd.'

Jennifer interjected, 'We put out feed. We don't take many.'

'Three all last year,' Peters said. 'Peasants...The animals make easy targets. They're not so wary here. The past month we've had six intrusions. That we know of.'

Jennifer said, 'Dad gets more upset about the trespa.s.sing than the poaching. He has a thing about boundaries. Like they're lines of steel.'

'After the last incident,' Peters said, as we climbed the steps to the house, 'the General ordered regular patrols. He wanted someone caught and an example made. Today Kaid, Hawkes, Tyler, and Snake had the duty. Hawkes apparently caught somebody in the act. He sounded his hunting horn.'

Jennifer said, 'When the others got there, he was on the ground with an arrow in him. A gutted deer was hanging in a tree fifty feet away.'

'Interesting. And sad. But why tell me? Sounds like something you people can handle.'

Jennifer looked puzzled. Peters said, 'This is going to sound silly. You're the only scout around here. All these lifers and none of them can follow a trail.'

'Oh.' Maybe. 'It's been years. And I wasn't that good.' I recalled my stumbling around during a few recent cases.

'Mediocre is better than what the rest of us are.' Peters looked at Chain, who was headed our way. 'How is he?'

'I don't think he'll make it. He needs a surgeon.'

'You know the old man. No doctors in the house.'

'We can't move him without killing him.'

Jennifer snapped, 'Get a doctor! My father doesn't have to know. He never comes out of his room.'

'Dellwood will tell him.'

'I'll handle Dellwood.'

'Go,' Peters told Chain, and Chain got his carca.s.s moving.

I said, 'I take it Hawkes is still alive.'

'He's fighting.'

'Can I talk to him?'

'He's out. Way out. Not much chance he'll come around unless Chain gets a cutter in time.'