Lydia kept walking for an interval while she considered this. Then she said, “It is in the interest of anybody in any business to convince you that spending your money will buy you important things, like wisdom or contentment, so I shouldn’t say this. But I’ve spent a lot more time than you have looking closely into the secrets of strangers, including dead ones. I don’t think that I’ve learned much that’s made me any happier.”
“I’m not sure that happier is what I’m trying to be. I want to know.”
“But what do you-” She seemed to have a sudden thought, a suspicion. “This is your first, right? You didn’t have a relative, maybe a friend, who did this when you were younger?”
Mallon hesitated, then said, “Yes. I did. It was my older sister. Her name was Nancy. She killed herself when she was away at college. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I’ll admit that the similarities haven’t escaped me: they were both young and apparently healthy, and seemed to have no reason for it. But I don’t think that what I’m trying to do is wrong or irrational. I’m not asking you to look into something that happened over thirty years ago. I just want to know what happened three days ago.”
Lydia looked up at him as they walked. “This looks like a fairly simple, straightforward investigation, Bobby. You and I used to do harder ones than this in a day. We’ve already got what looks like a real name and address. If we wait a week, the police will probably be able to tell us most of what we’d find out,” she said. “For me, it’s easy money. If you want to pay it, I won’t turn it down.”
“Thank you,” said Mallon. He let those words close the topic. He suspected that the fact that he and Catherine had been in bed together made it all seem simple to Lydia: Mallon’s interest during her life was romantic and his interest in her death is sentimental. He did not want to end the inquiry before it had begun simply because it looked like something Lydia found familiar. He was haunted by the feeling that he had faltered somehow and lost the one precious opportunity to save her. But as he walked, he noticed unexpected, contrary thoughts: maybe she had foolishly taken an action he had, at various times in his life, rejected. Or maybe she had gone ahead to show him the way.
When they had gone to the police station and surrendered the purse and the ring to Fowler, Lydia said, “Now we’d better go see your defense lawyer and let him know what’s up.”
“He’s in L.A.,” said Mallon. “My regular attorney-the one who handles my business stuff-hired a criminal lawyer, just in case the police were serious.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to assume they’re not. Who is he?”
“His name is Brian Logan.”
“Wow,” said Lydia. “Very impressive.”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Oh, sure,” she said. “We’re not buddies. The kind of people who can hire him don’t need bail bonds much.” She looked at him with sudden disapproval. “I keep forgetting you’re that kind of people now. But he’s known. Dropping his name might impress the other guys on death row when you get there. For now, let’s just keep it simple and mention this to your local guy. Who is he?”
Mallon took Lydia to meet Diane Fleming. While Mallon explained to Diane what he and Lydia had found, the two women stood in Diane’s office and eyed each other from behind wary smiles. Mallon suspected that neither had yet decided whether the other was someone to be trusted, ignored, or opposed. But when Mallon had finished, it was to Lydia that Diane spoke.
“I’m so glad you took the time to keep me informed. At first he seemed to be under the impression that this wasn’t quite serious. He didn’t even tell me about it until after he’d talked to the police.”
“I know,” said Lydia, and shook her head in frustration. “I’ve known him for years, and he’s always been too dumb to get scared when it would still do him some good.”
“For years? How did you meet him?”
Lydia glanced at Mallon. “Didn’t he tell you? He and I worked together for three or four years. We were parole officers. Whenever somebody didn’t show up for his appointment, Mallon and I would go looking for him. That’s probably why we both burned out at about the same time.”
Diane’s eyes widened. “You did?” She turned to Mallon in amazement. “I never knew you were a police officer.”
Mallon shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“I thought you were a land developer,” she said accusingly.
Lydia jumped in. “That was a long time ago too. From what I understand, he hasn’t done one useful thing since I last laid eyes on him.”
“That’s not exactly the only possible view of the subject,” Mallon told Diane.
“I thought you’d try to deny it,” Diane said, then turned her attention to Lydia again. “But you became a private detective. How interesting.”
“It’s really just a sideline, now,” said Lydia. “Years ago I became a partner in a bail bond business, and it’s grown. Most of my time is taken up tracing deadbeats who don’t show up for their trial dates. I still take a few outside clients now and then, but only cases I can do in my sleep. There’s nobody in the world better at surveillance than a middle-aged woman. We’re invisible.”
“I know the feeling very well,” said Diane, glancing at Mallon with exaggerated coolness.
By the time Mallon and Lydia left, the two women seemed to have formed an alliance that transcended him, and showed signs of going beyond his problems. They had exchanged business cards, implied that they would refer prospective clients to each other, and promised that they would talk often. As Mallon walked with Lydia to the car he said, “What was that all about?”
Lydia shrugged. “We hate each other, and we’re making the best of a bad thing.”
CHAPTER 6
Lydia Marks sent Mallon out to do some errands and buy them some dinner, then called her office and listened to the messages on the telephone voice-mail system, mentally sorting them. She was busy for the moment with the matter of Catherine Broward, and in any event had no interest in taking a lost-husband case in Denver, or getting involved in a child-custody dispute in Phoenix.
She took down the numbers, but she was listening for something that would require her immediate attention. If she’d had to guess what that might be, it would have been Donald Finnan suddenly going to the safe-deposit box at the Bank of America branch near his house in San Jose. That was where he kept his passport, and probably the valuables he would take with him if he decided to skip and become a fugitive. Donald Finnan was awaiting trial on a manslaughter charge, and he was the type who might try to leave the country. But Donald Finnan seemed to have stayed put, and none of the messages had any urgency. When the last of them had played, she erased them all, set up her laptop computer on Mallon’s dining room table, and connected it to the telephone jack.
Next she sat at the table and looked at the piece of paper on which she had scribbled what she had seen in Catherine Broward’s purse before she had turned it over to the police: her New York driver’s license number, credit card numbers, social security number, date of birth, address. She e-mailed them to her office in San Jose. She also retyped and e-mailed herself the strange little contract that Mallon had paid his lawyer to draft: I, Robert Mallon, agree to pay Lydia Marks the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, in exchange for expending her best efforts to investigate the history and affairs of the young woman who took her life in Santa Barbara, California, on June 15 of this year, tentatively identified as Catherine Broward. I, Lydia Marks, acknowledge having received and accepted, on June 19, a sum of fifty thousand dollars in partial payment for my services under this contract. In doing so, I agree to attempt in good faith to find out as much information as possible about the deceased woman and report it to Mr. Robert Mallon or his attorney, Diane Fleming.