Dead Aim by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

knew that if he disappeared, there would be little notice. He was not a person who was living a life here. He was just very, very slowly passing through.
    Diane Fleming’s office was in one of several low Spanish-style buildings on De la Guerra Street painted blinding white with big brass plaques beside their doors. She kept him waiting for five minutes, then rushed into the outer office and shook his hand, and held on to it. “Robert!” she said. “Come on in!” She was in her mid-thirties, and had the distinctive broad-faced blond look that half the women in Santa Barbara had. They had big legs and strong hands like small men, and their appeal was not femininity but a kind of frank robustness. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, but I was on a call. Sylvia should have told me sooner.” She kept his hand in hers as she led him into her office and sat beside him on a leather couch, then released it.
    “It’s okay. I should have called for an appointment,” he said. “But I need your help with something.”
    “What kind of something, and what kind of help?”
    “I’ll let you decide. Have you read about the young woman they found dead in a field two days ago?”
    She nodded, her face allowing an acknowledgment that was cautious, tentative. “I did see that in the paper.”
    “I had pulled her out of the ocean a few hours earlier. I guess she tried again and succeeded. I went to the police and told them. They listened, then asked for a blood sample and fingerprints.”
    “They think
you
killed her?”
    “That’s not what the detective said, but I don’t think he would tell me if he did. It’s possible.”
    She rolled her blue eyes. “Robert, I’m basically a tax attorney. You’re going to need a criminal lawyer right away. I’ll make some calls and see who we can get. Now go home, and I’ll call you later.”
    He had somehow expected a longer conversation, and he had especially expected that she would spend some time reassuring him and telling him there was nothing to worry about before she called in a criminal lawyer. But obviously she agreed that there was something to worry about. He saw no reason to delay her telephone calls. He stood and walked to the door. “Thanks, Diane,” he said, and left. As he was walking through the reception area, he saw Sylvia pick up her phone. She said, “Sure, Diane, right away.”
    He went for a long walk down State Street to pick a place to have lunch, but the idea was a failure. He had no appetite, just a restlessness that kept him walking. Mallon barely saw the streets as he walked, because the memory of the girl flooded his mind. He knew that the smooth, beautiful skin he had touched was now cold and lifeless, the voice silenced, but he could still see and hear her, and the knowledge that even that vestige would fade made him want to weep.
    He tried to decide whether he had fallen in love with her. He hadnot been naïve enough to allow himself to let go, to place his fate in her hands that way. He had been fairly certain that their day together had been as much of an aberration as what had caused it, a violent diversion from the normal trajectories of their lives. He had, at every moment, been prepared to relinquish her, to send her back to the world, where she would make a life with people her own age. But he had loved her. He had listened to her and watched her and touched her. She was a creature he had been glad he had preserved, somebody he was delighted with and wanted to live on and on, even if he never saw her again. Now that was over, beyond reach. Nobody else seemed to know what a precious thing had been wasted.
    When he reached his house, Diane had already called and left a message on his answering machine. When he called her back, she said, “They’re not treating you as a suspect.”
    “How do you know?” he asked.
    “It’s a long story. They also don’t really know who the girl was. The name she used in the motel didn’t match the name