Chapter 4: Mr. Pendelton

I set Polly down on her feet.

"Go sit on that bench and count the fish in the lobby tank," I said.

"There are nine."

"Then count them again."

She went, slowly, with her chin turned back toward us.

I faced the man in the cap.

"Mr. Pendelton," I said.

"Miss Foley."

"You let me sit in your front seat for twenty minutes and call you a driver."

"I let you assume."

"That's lying, with better manners."

He took off the cap.

Without it he looked older and a lot more expensive.

He had a dimple in his left cheek that was not showing.

"My daughter has been photographed by a newspaper twice this spring," he said.

"Her nanny quit last month."

"Polly talks to a driver."

"She does not talk to her father, who she says is always in a meeting."

"So I put on a jacket."

"And me?"

"You were a stranger at a grave with a story. I wanted to see what you did."

"What I did was walk her back to you."

"Yes."

"What did you think I'd do?"

"Ask for money."

He said it plainly, which made it worse.

"Your mother wrote me a check for ten thousand dollars before I said my middle name," I said.

"Are you telling me you didn't see that?"

"I was asked to take the car around."

"And you went."

For the first time his jaw tightened.

"I did," he said. "I would like to know why she did that."

"So would I."

"Then we want the same thing."

"I doubt that."

"Miss Foley." He looked over my shoulder at the bench where his daughter was counting fish, her whole body bent toward us like a plant.

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