Dead Aim by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

she gave when she rented the car she parked there. She left no other identification in the room, no purse, no keys. There were none in the field where she was found, either. You didn’t happen to see any on her, did you?”
    “No,” he said. “And I didn’t see any purse, either. There was nothing but what she had on.”
    “Which was—?”
    “Shorts, sneakers, a little top with thin straps.” He paused. “I remember seeing her standing there by the rocks. Then she just started walking toward the water and didn’t stop. It was kind of odd. She didn’t dive or swim or anything, just kept walking until the water was over her head and disappeared. I didn’t even notice about the shoes at first.”
    “What about them?”
    “She left them on,” he said. “I guess she had no reason to preserve her running shoes.”
    “I suppose.”
    He opened the refrigerator and looked inside. “So I guess I don’t need a criminal lawyer after all. But thanks for taking care of this. I was really beginning to wonder.”
    “Oh, no. You do need one, and I got the one I wanted. His name is Brian Logan, and he’s a very big defense attorney, based in L.A. He’s already on your case.”
    “If there is no case, what’s he doing?”
    “He’s making inquiries, showing the flag. He’s the one who got the police to tell him you’re not a suspect. He’s very expensive, by the way.”
    “Oh?”
    “It’s part of the strategy. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you don’t look like a multimillionaire, even by Santa Barbara standards. You buy a pair of shorts from some store on lower State and then wear them practically until your ass shows through. You look like maybe an unemployed construction worker.”
    “That’s pretty much what I am.”
    “I suppose it is, but that’s not what you want to be when the police are looking for a suspect. So I hired you a lawyer that only a rich guy can afford, with a name they know.”
    “That gets me off the hook?”
    “No, it prevents you from getting on. If they discover in the next day or two that she had help shooting herself, or find that she’s been raped, you’re the only one who admits having seen her. If they know who you are, they keep looking. And it’s not as unfair as it sounds. You wouldn’t believe how few middle-aged multimillionaires are out there murdering total strangers and then telling the police about it. So we not only make them aware that you’re not going to be easy, but also that you’re highly unlikely to be anything but innocent. He’s on his way here, and we’re meeting with him in my office at four.”
    At a quarter to four, Mallon was sitting in Diane’s office, waiting.Brian Logan did not arrive alone. When the door opened he was preceded by a small woman in a business suit and a white shirt that was cut a bit like a man’s but was soft silk. Her eyes were sharp and her movements quick and birdlike. Once she had entered, the next one in was a young man whose function seemed to be to carry a couple of huge leather cases and lean his body against doors so they would stay open for Brian Logan.
    Logan entered last. When he stepped through the threshold, Mallon felt as though he had seen him before. After that instant, Mallon wasn’t sure whether he had seen him on television talking into a microphone outside some courthouse, or had seen him as one of the legal experts on some talk show about a big murder, or if he simply looked like the kind of lawyer who was on television. He seemed to be slightly younger than Mallon, and that gave Mallon a few seconds of discomfort, but he reminded himself that a forty-year-old was not a beginner, and the man’s appearance was probably calculated to please juries. He had dark brown hair that was short, but thick and shiny as a dog’s coat, and he wore a charcoal gray suit that looked like the outfits that major politicians wore on international visits, only with a better, more subdued tie. His shave was fresh, his