Thomas Perry - Dead Aim

“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.”

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.

The sum was very high for this kind of work, particularly when the client was no longer a murder suspect. But Bobby Mallon was an intelligent man, and Lydia had warned him that he might be wasting his money. It was even possible that she was wrong and he would get his money’s worth by the time this was over.

The contract, Lydia suspected, had been the little blond lawyer’s idea. Lydia had not expected to have an old friend put everything in writing. She had often signed contracts with corporate clients who needed something to show auditors and, ultimately, had to answer to stockholders. The oral agreements that were customary in her business were not acceptable in theirs. They had to make sure they could prove what they had hired her to do, and protect themselves from liability for whatever else she might happen to do. Contracts with individual clients where rarer. She kept a standard agreement on a disk in her office for the clients who wanted one. It was full of complicated clauses that put the two parties at arm’s length from one another, declared that they held each other harmless for this or that. Some clients seemed to like that kind of thing, and Lydia didn’t mind.

As she thought about it, she changed her mind and decided the contract must have been Mallon’s idea. It had something to do with old times-maybe to reassure himself that he wasn’t merely demanding a favor of an old friend, maybe to ensure that she would allow him to pay her at all-but she had not worked out the proportions yet.

Bobby Mallon’s case had a great many aspects that she found depressing. She had always harbored a wish-not quite allowing it to grow into more than a pleasurable thought-that she and Bobby might someday meet again when they were both free. When she had first seen him in his doorway, it had come back more strongly than she had anticipated, a sudden shock to her chest, almost like air being forced into her lungs.

It had been looking into his eyes after all this time. Mallon had the kindest eyes she had ever seen in a man. They were watchful eyes, a little sad. She had once allowed herself to think that when they looked at her, he too might be entertaining a wish that he couldn’t speak aloud: he had still been married to Andrea then.

She had to admit that she had caused the feeling of emptiness she felt now. After he had called her, sometime while she was busy packing and making plane reservations and rushing down here, she had allowed that part of her brain to awaken. But now it was clear that she had been foolish. He had become a rich old bachelor-too rich for anybody to marry without seeming to be after the money-and the case was about a little chick half her age that he had taken to bed with him. She had learned to live comfortably with the idea of Bobby Mallon as a missed opportunity from long ago. This was worse.

She forced herself to concentrate on her tasks. When she had finished sending her e-mails, she turned her attention to learning about Catherine Broward. Over twenty years ago, when she had started her own detective agency, she had also filed to give legal existence to a corporation called LJM Financial Systems, which she used as a front to request credit checks and other information on people. She set to work now and used the corporation to impersonate an insurance company sending an inquiry about Catherine Broward’s driving record, including any cars registered to her, to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. She ran credit checks with the three major services. Finally, she logged on to the site of a company that collected public records. She began with New York and California and searched for any criminal judgments, civil lawsuits, marriages, divorces. Then she extended her search to Illinois and Texas because of their sizes, and Nevada because it was a stop that had often produced interesting surprises for her in the past.

When she had finished, she sent the information as an attachment to an e-mail to her computer in her office, then turned off the laptop. The part of this that she could do in Santa Barbara was done. She was going to need to travel. In a way, it was a relief.

It was nearly nightfall when Mallon returned with the food.

Lydia waited until they had eaten before she said, “I’ve got a place to begin searching, so I’m leaving.”

“When?”

“Now would be pretty convenient.” She glanced at her suitcase, which she had left in the living room. “I haven’t unpacked.”

“I’d like to go with you.”

She sat completely still and stared at him. “Why?”

“I want the answer. I don’t have any reason not to go find it myself. I just don’t know how-even where-to begin anymore. I hired you because you’re the only detective I know I can trust. You know how it’s done these days. You’re also a woman, and I think what we find may be easier for you to understand than for me. Maybe it would be better, simpler, if I didn’t go, but I’ll try to be useful instead of annoying.” He stopped speaking and waited patiently.