Free Dead Aim by Thomas Perry Page A

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

    L ydia 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 whichshe 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