Savages: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels) by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online Page A

up. “
The Magic Island
isn’t all that interesting, and frankly, I’m bored just sitting around. If you don’t want my help, I think I’ll go in and do some more work.”
    “I want your help,” I said.
    So we hunkered over the box like a pair of grave robbers and divvied up the contents. One thing became apparent immediately: Nancy Mathias had been something of a pack rat, saving everything, including handwritten notes to and from her husband. I looked through the notes first. There were a fair number, mostly written by her, a few ofthem crumpled as if they’d been thrown away and she’d rescued them. The usual “gone to the store, be back in half an hour”—all except one. That one said:
    Darling,
Im going to spend the weekend in CV, I need to be by myself. Please dont be angry. And please meet me at Ds at 2:00 on Tuesday. Please! I cant deal with this alone.
    N
    I showed the note to Kerry. She said, “Deal with what alone, I wonder.”
    “Could be just about anything.”
    “She sounds desperate. And begging. Three ‘pleases.’ ”
    “Which could mean Mathias wasn’t or hadn’t been responsive to whatever it was. That would fit with what Celeste Ogden says about him—cold, self-involved, controlling.”
    “Assuming ‘Darling’ was her husband,” Kerry said.
    “Pretty safe assumption.”
    “No way to tell when it was written. Can you find out?”
    “Maybe, if we can figure out what or who ‘CV’ and ‘D’ stand for.”
    Insurance policies next. House, two cars, joint term life, all of them with Pacific Rim Insurance. The death benefit amount on the life policy was $50,000, with the Mathiases as each other’s beneficiary. There was a double indemnity clause, which made the payoff to Brandon Mathias $100,000. That was a lot of money to me; to thehead of a multi-million-dollar computer software company it was more in the category of chump change. No motive for murder there—unless Mathias was so overextended for one reason or another that he desperately needed a hundred grand bailout money. Not too likely, but worth checking. If we continued with the investigation, the first thing we’d have to do was look into his entire financial background.
    Kerry said, “Here’s something.”
    She’d been poring through packets of canceled checks from the current year, and had pulled out one from the Mathiases’ joint Calvert Group investment account. The amount on it was $10,000, dated three weeks ago and made out to T. R. Quentin.
    “That’s a lot of money for one check,” she said.
    “Yes, it is.”
    “None of the other checks in this account or her Washington Mutual account come even close to that amount. No others made out to T. R. Quentin, either.”
    I made a note of the name, date, amount, and check number. “Let’s see if there’s anything among the rest of this stuff to explain the ten thousand.”
    There wasn’t. Whether T. R. Quentin was an individual or a company of some kind, neither the name nor the initials appeared anywhere else in the records. Kerry, being thorough, checked to see how many checks had been made out to individuals; there were a dozen or so, most to Philomena Ruiz, the cleaning woman, and none for more than $300.
    I shuffled through the various bill receipts, all of which were marked “paid” in the same hand that had written the “Darling” note. Nancy Mathias had paid her bills promptly, by both check and computer transfer, and they all looked to be routine—utilities, household expenses, credit card charges, women’s clothing shops, doctor, dentist, house cleaner, gardener, pool service. There were no invoices from lawyers, psychiatrists, or private detective agencies to indicate dissatisfaction, unrest, or suspicion on her part.
    One of two property tax bills solved the CV question. The Mathiases owned a second home in Carmel Valley, valued for tax purposes at $350,000. Some second home. But it was a piker compared to their primary Palo Alto residence;