Thomas Perry - Dead Aim

She shrugged. “Still do. Know of any reason why she wouldn’t tell her sister she was afraid?”

“Not offhand.”

“Know of any reason why she would spend all that time running to save her life, and then suddenly change her mind and kill herself?”

“No. Maybe she realized running was futile. Maybe there was a reason not to be caught alive.”

“You saw her go into the water. Was there any sign that she thought somebody was after her, or that she was in any hurry?”

“Not then,” Mallon admitted. “But she didn’t seem to be willing to put it off for one more day.” He shook his head and walked on. “But no. I specifically asked her if she was running from something, and she denied it. There was no reason not to tell me the truth.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Lydia.

Mallon unlocked the door of his bungalow and they entered. “I don’t get it.”

“I understand your attraction to her better now that I’ve seen her in the buff,” said Lydia. “Since I was forced to watch that tape, it kept occurring to me that this was a woman who was sincerely interested in the man she was with. I think it was true that she was in love with him, and doted on him, and would have cared about his every move. It’s hard to believe she wasn’t curious about what he was up to. What else do we know? We can be pretty sure that whatever got Mark Romano killed, it wasn’t innocence.”

Mallon tried to formulate a suitable answer, but he found that he had nothing to say. He nodded, to acknowledge that he had heard.

“That would be a motive for Catherine to not to tell you the truth about things, to open up to you.” She waited, then said carefully, “I’m not saying she was involved in something illegal, but maybe something was worrying her that we don’t know about. Maybe we’ve made some false assumptions about her. Think back on how she behaved with you. I mean, she hopped right into bed, but wouldn’t tell you her name.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mallon. “I know you’re right to bring it up, but I don’t think so. And I don’t think I’m fooling myself about her. One of the things that you’re thinking is that she had sex with me for some hidden reason, some practical reason, like money or a place to hide. But I had offered her money and a place to stay hours before that. Yes, the sex happened, and it was surprising at the time. But it’s a kind of information that seems at first to be important but, finally, isn’t.”

“How can it not be important?” asked Lydia.

“Because I understand it, and it leads nowhere. She had complicated reasons for doing it, but none of them were causes of her suicide-just the opposite. The sex was possible because the suicide was already a certainty. She knew that I had made a big effort to save the life of a complete stranger and asked nothing in return. She saw that I was a middle-aged heterosexual guy who lived alone and had spent his day alone, and realized that a convincing and generous demonstration of her appreciation would be to seduce me. I also like to think that she told me the truth, and really did feel an unaffected urge to do it. Since she knew she was going to die that night, she thought, ‘Why not? What have I got to lose?’ And she did it. Do you see? It wasn’t for gain, because she didn’t accept anything from me-not even dinner. Having sex with me didn’t obligate her to tell me anything, not even her name. And none of this tells us why she killed herself.”

She studied him for a moment. “I suppose it doesn’t. I guess we know why she did it: Mark Romano broke up with her.”

“I don’t,” said Mallon. “Just because Mark Romano broke up with other girlfriends, it doesn’t mean he broke up with Catherine, does it? We assume that’s what happened, that she lied to her sister out of embarrassment, or that she deluded herself into thinking he didn’t mean it or something. What if the reason she never told her sister is that it never happened, that he never broke up with her?”

“Well, for one thing, she gave her sister a new phone number, then another one six weeks before he was killed, remember?”

“One was probably the ranch where she was staying near Santa Barbara.”

“Maybe,” Lydia conceded. “But the rest of what she told her sister was a fantasy. This guy was a slimy little character who preyed on women. He got killed because he was a bum who hung around with bums. He pissed somebody off. No mystery there. But she told her sister what a great catch he was.”

“I can imagine her telling her sister a reassuring lie that would keep her from worrying. But Catherine didn’t seem like a person who would delude herself to that extent.”

“Okay,” said Lydia. “I guess she preferred the delusion that Mark Romano would treat her differently from the way he’d treated everybody else. I’m not sure that we’re ever going to know exactly what she thought, but-”

“I get the point,” Mallon interrupted. “No matter what she thought, being with him is evidence of some delusion.”

Lydia sighed as she sat on the couch. “It’s my professional opinion that we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. Whatever nuance you read into the story, the essentials are not going to change: she ran into a guy who was very good-looking, who knew how to be charming, and fell in love with him. I think the fact that he had her tape among a couple of dozen others indicates that she was nothing special, and I accept Angie’s theory that he got tired of her and broke up with her. But I don’t insist on it. Even that doesn’t matter. Either way, we know she was deprived of his company forever by the shooter. She was depressed about it-felt guilt for running away, or regret for not letting him take even more advantage of her, or sadness at being dumped, or shame for being with him at all-and took herself out.”

“But which story is it?” asked Mallon. “We still don’t know, and it makes a difference.”

“You’re the client, Bobby,” said Lydia. “It’s still your money and your choice. If you want, we’ll keep looking into it until we can determine which it was, or until we find that we can’t. But if you’re ready to quit now, I’ll refund the part of your advance we haven’t already spent and call it even.”

“I want to keep looking,” said Mallon. “I have the feeling it’s not over, but I don’t know where to look next.”

Lydia sighed. “If you’re trying to find out some single fact that changes everything, that will make you feel satisfied that things happened for the best, you’re going to be out of luck.”

“Don’t you really mean that I’m out of luck if I’m trying to convince myself that I did and said the right things?” asked Mallon.

“I guess I do,” said Lydia. “Look, I’ve known you forever, Bobby. I understood from the beginning that you’re not just a rich guy who’s got morbid curiosity about some young girl. You cared about her a lot. Probably in about a month, she could have gotten you to marry her if she’d wanted. I’m just reminding you that no matter what we find out, we already know there wasn’t a happy ending.” She squinted her eyes for a moment, then said wearily, “But I suppose you still want to do it.”

Mallon nodded. “I still want to do it.”

“Well, there are things we can still look into. I might be able to find out more about these guys Romano knew who were involved in drugs.”

“That’s about him. It doesn’t tell us anything about Catherine,” Mallon said. “I need to know what she was thinking.”

Lydia looked up at him and nodded. At some point, Lydia supposed, she was going to have to fire her client.

“Maybe I’ll check with Detective Fowler in Santa Barbara and see if there’s anything new he can tell me,” she said. “They’ve had a chance to look around in Catherine’s apartment here in L.A., and maybe something turned up there. The apartment has been locked up, but as soon as her sister gets here, that’s over. Unless there’s some indication that it’s not a suicide after all, they won’t hold anything. Sarah will probably retrieve a few family mementos, dump the rest, and take her sister home to bury her.” She stood up. “Well, I’m tired. I’ll get started on all of that in the morning, and I’ll give you a call before noon. In the meantime, don’t be too hard on yourself. The more we learn, the clearer it is that this had nothing to do with what you did or didn’t do. You couldn’t stop it, because you didn’t cause it.”