He stepped into the too familiar lobby of the station and up to the counter. The desk sergeant had an exaggeratedly respectful expression on his face as he said, “Mr. Mallon. How can we help you today?”
Mallon’s stomach tightened. He said, “Is Detective Fowler in? Or Detective Long?”
The sergeant shook his head. “No, but I can take a message for you and make sure they receive it.”
They were all convinced he had lost his mind, but he had to try. He said carefully, “I think something strange is going on with my attorney, Diane Fleming. She may be in danger, or threatened in some way. And she’s disappeared.”
The sergeant squinted at him. He said, “What makes you believe that?”
“She suddenly took off this morning, or maybe yesterday. I’m not sure, but probably it was then. An attempt had been made on my life, and I called her a number of times, but she didn’t return any of my calls.”
He stopped and blinked his eyes. He sounded crazy. He paused, trying to think of a way to repair the impression. There was no way, so he pressed on. “A couple of hours ago, I got word from Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco that she had requested that an investment account of mine there be liquidated and the proceeds wired to another account at Moncrief and Tydings.”
“In her name?”
“I don’t think so. They said, ‘to your account at Moncrief and Tydings.’ So it must be in my name. I don’t know of an account at Moncrief and Tydings, but it’s possible one has been opened there.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know, really. It appears to me to be an attempt by someone to embezzle the money. It’s possible that they were doing it just so I wouldn’t have the use of it. Do you see? It would be hard for them to withdraw it, but if it were simply moved to another account in my name that I didn’t know about, I couldn’t use it.”
“Does she usually handle your money? Can she move it around like that?”
“Well, she has-had-a power of attorney that allowed her to move money to pay some bills and taxes and so on. But this is different.”
“How?”
“It’s a lot of money. It’s about fifteen million dollars.”
He had lost the sergeant. He could see that. Maybe the idea that he had that kind of money created a gulf between them that precluded sympathy or even understanding. Maybe the other policemen had not talked about him as a wealthy man, and his throwing these numbers around convinced the sergeant that he was hallucinating. He tried to keep his dignity. He tried to summarize his complaint. “She has left-left town, supposedly-with no notice, and is now-again supposedly-doing things she’s never done before, and which I don’t believe she would ever do, at least voluntarily.”
“Mr. Mallon,” said the sergeant. “Have you ever been to court with Miss Fleming?”
“No,” said Mallon.
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. I only saw her in court once, but it was because I was meeting her for lunch. It wasn’t anything she was doing for me.”
“You don’t recall ever hearing the word conservator or conservatorship?”
“Of course I’ve heard those terms,” he said angrily. “But they have nothing to do with me. Nobody has ever thought I needed a conservator. I’m not deluded or something. I’m telling you that a young woman, a respected attorney in this city, has abruptly disappeared, and now there are papers appearing with her signature on them that she would never sign. In other words, either she’s suddenly become an embezzler or she’s in trouble.”
“Why do you think she’s disappeared?”
“She left without telling her secretary where she was going or when she’d be back.”
“Who is the secretary?”
“Her name is Sylvia.”
“Is she worried too? Did she come to you to tell you this?”
“No. But she doesn’t know any of the things I’ve told you about the money. She was in the office to take the plants home because Diane told her not to bother coming into the office until she returned. If it was Diane. I’m beginning to think it couldn’t have been.”
“Can you give me Sylvia’s full name?”
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve never heard her last name.”
The sergeant looked at his watch and wrote something at the top of a form, then glanced at Mallon. “Seven o’clock. Do you happen to know the date today?” He held the pen above the line for the date.
It was the question doctors asked old people to see whether they had dementia. Mallon felt hot panic. “July seventh.”
“I’m going to make a full report, and make sure it gets to the detectives. They’ll let you know what they find out, I’m sure. But it’ll take a while. You may as well go home and get some rest.”
Mallon stood in silence for a moment. “I’m not insane, you know.”
“Of course not.”
Mallon stared at him for a moment, but his eyes were on the paper. He was busy writing, filling in blanks on the form. Mallon desperately searched his mind for something tangible, some piece of evidence that the police couldn’t ignore, couldn’t dismiss as either a delusion or a magnification of a routine event into something sinister. He was aware that time was passing, and that while the cop was pretending to pay attention to the form he was observing him, waiting.
Mallon said earnestly, “I know that this sounds vague, and I have no single piece of physical evidence that I can use to prove what I’m saying. But honestly, none of what’s happened is normal, or within the usual range of behavior for Diane Fleming. I need to have you take this seriously.”
The cop looked up from his paper, his clear, benevolent eyes wide open in a look of innocent surprise. “I assure you, we are taking it seriously.” The fact that he was lying was completely undisguised, and there was absolutely nothing Mallon could do about it.
He had nothing more to say that would convince anyone. He reluctantly turned and walked. Mallon left by the side door and stepped out into the sunlight. The exit he had chosen gave him a short, shaded passage to walk before he reached Figueroa Street. He walked slowly, his shoulders hunched and his eyes studying the ground ahead. At the sidewalk he turned to the left, away from his house. He needed to walk and to think.
He was in trouble. Somebody-either the man walking on the beach or the man in the boat with a rifle-had tried to kill him. Now it was clear to him that the police believed that he had imagined the whole episode, or made it up. His lawyer, the only one who really knew what had been going on since the death of Catherine Broward and could verify the details, had suddenly vanished. What Mallon decided to do next would very likely determine whether he lived or died. As he walked, he began to feel more and more alone and uneasy.
He used the intersections as opportunities to turn and look back at the streets behind to detect followers. People were driving past on their way to stores or restaurants on the streets surrounding State. As they passed, he studied the faces of the drivers, looking for something out of the ordinary, some peculiar look, some expression that would give him a warning.
Yesterday, the man on the beach had been striding along, his eyes focusing on Mallon and then moving away, then returning to check on him, as though to see how close he was getting. During those minutes, those steps on the beach, the young woman had been leaning close to the man, talking. She had slid her eyes to the side to keep Mallon in sight while she talked. She had looked like a person whispering secrets, although normal speech would not have been audible to Mallon over the surf. Mallon had never imagined that the older man and the young woman in a bathing suit were dangerous. The change had come suddenly.