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“They don’t have trouble with the law.”
    â€œHave they come to the attention of the law?” I said.
    We were driving along a two-lane highway now. There were fields with farm equipment standing idle, and occasionally a Safeway market or a Burger King. Traffic was light. Becker kept his eyes on the road.
    â€œYou got a reason for asking?” he said.
    â€œI’m practicing to be a detective,” I said. “Plus the family seems to be full of people who would get in trouble.”
    â€œ ’Cept for Penny.”
    â€œExcept for her,” I said.
    â€œOld man’s calmed down some, since Dolly came aboard.”
    â€œBut before that?”
    â€œWell. For a while he was married to the girls’ mother. Don’t remember her name right this minute. But she was a hippie.”
    â€œLot of hippies around thirty years ago,” I said.
    â€œYep, and that’s when they got married. But timeschanged and she didn’t. ’Bout ten years ago she ran off with a guy played in a rock band.”
    â€œSo Penny would have been about fifteen.”
    â€œYep. The other girls were a little older.”
    â€œThey’re two years apart,” I said. “So they’d have been seventeen and nineteen.”
    â€œSee that,” Becker said. “You been detecting more than you pretend.”
    â€œI’m a modest guy,” I said. “How was the divorce?”
    â€œDon’t know nothing about the divorce.”
    â€œWas there a divorce?”
    â€œDon’t know. Not my department.”
    â€œSo what was Clive doing between the hippie and Dolly?”
    â€œEverything he could,” Becker said.
    There was a two-wheeled horse-drawn piece of farm machinery inching along in our lane. I didn’t know anything about farm machinery, but this looked as if it had something to do with hay. A black man in overalls and a felt hat was sitting up on the rig, though he didn’t seem to be paying much attention. The horse appeared to be the one on duty. Becker slowed as we approached it and swerved carefully out to pass.
    â€œBooze, women, that sort of thing?”
    â€œA lot of both,” Becker said.
    â€œAh, sweet bird of youth,” I said.
    Becker grinned without looking at me.
    â€œYou hang around those Clive girls, you might get younger yourself,” he said.
    â€œWhile Clive’s living the male fantasy life,” I said, “who’s looking after the girls?”
    â€œDon’t know,” Becker said.
    â€œIs there anything in this for me?” I said. “Clive screw somebody’s wife, and somebody wants to get even? He sleep with some woman and ditch her and she wants to get even?”
    â€œI don’t pay attention to shit like that,” Becker said. “Do I look like Ann Landers?”
    â€œYou look sort of like Archie Moore,” I said. “And you sound like a guy who knows things he’s not saying.”
    â€œIt’s a special talent,” Becker said.
    â€œThe real talent is sounding like you don’t know anything you’re not telling,” I said.
    â€œI can do that,” Becker said.
    â€œIf you want to,” I said.
    Becker watched the road.
    â€œSo why don’t you want to?”
    We passed a sign that read, “Welcome to Alton.”
    â€œBecause you want me to wonder.”
    Becker slowed and turned into a narrow dirt road that went under high pines, limbless the first thirty feet or so up. I remembered it from my last visit, eight years ago.
    â€œYou want me to look into them, but you don’t want it to have come from you, because it could come back and bite you in the ass.”
    â€œClives the most powerful family in Columbia County,” Becker said, and turned off the dirt road into a wide clearing and parked near a white rail fence near the Canterbury Farms training track.

FOURTEEN

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    W E DIDN ’ T LEARN much in Alton. An Alton