Nora would have given anything to see the look on Thelma’s face. Neither she nor Channing could lay the issue at Nora’s feet even if they figured it out. What would they chide her for? Removing her own clothes from the premises to prevent Thelma from squeezing her way into them the way she’d squeezed her way into the rest of Nora’s life?

Nora locked the house and went out to the car. She looked at the clock on the dashboard, noting that it was only 3:56. The traffic north to Montebello might be slow, but she’d be home by 7:00 at the very latest. Plenty of time to dress and meet Belinda and her sister at the concert hall. How perfect was that?

11

Once Marvin left, I set up a file for Audrey Vance. Ordinarily, I’d have had Marvin sign a boilerplate contract, specifying what he’d hired me to do and agreeing to my rates. In this matter, we were operating on a handshake and my assignment was open-ended. He wrote me a check for fifteen hundred dollars as a retainer, against which I’d bill. If my charges exceeded the total, he had the option of authorizing additional expenses. Much would depend on how effective I’d been. I made a copy of his check, tucked it in the file folder, and set the check itself aside to be deposited.

In essence, I was doing a background investigation on a dead woman. In terms of our attitudes, he and I were at odds. I thought he was in denial, resisting the truth about Audrey when it didn’t tally with his hopes. I had my suspicions, but I understood his hanging on to his belief in her innocence. He didn’t want to think he’d been played for a fool. I was convinced she was a professional crook and he’d been duped. I simply hadn’t proved it yet. At the same time, I was irritated with him for being too stubborn to admit he’d fallen in love with a skunk. I’ve done the same thing myself, so if you want to consider the underlying motivation, you might say I was acting in his behalf as a way of taking care of myself. Psychobabble 101. In the past, when I was embroiled with rogues, I’d been as blind as he was and just as intractable. Here, I had a chance to take action instead of sitting around in a stew of misery. Anger is about power. Tears are about weakness. Guess which category I prefer?

I put a call through to Cheney Phillips at the STPD. Cheney was a fabulous resource and usually generous with information. I thought I’d start with him and work forward from there. Lieutenant Becker picked up the call and told me Cheney’d just gone out for lunch. Lunch? I checked my watch, trying to figure out where the morning had gone. It was clear I’d have to go hunting for him. I knew his favorite haunts—three restaurants in a four-block radius, within walking distance of the police department. Since my office was in the area, the trek couldn’t have been easier. I tried the Bistro first, the closest of the three eateries. I struck out there and struck out again at the Sundial Café. My efforts finally paid off at the Palm Garden, which was located in a downtown arcade, replete with art galleries and jewelry stores, leather shops, high-end luggage and travel goods, along with a boutique that sold trendy clothing made of hemp. The palm trees, for which the restaurant was named, survived in large square gray boxes, responding to their cramped conditions by sending out air roots that crept over the edges like worms. Really appetizing if you were sitting next to one.

Cheney was at a table on the patio, accompanied by Sergeant Detective Leonard Priddy, whom I hadn’t seen for years. Len Priddy had been a friend of my first ex-husband, Mickey Magruder, who’d been killed two years earlier. I’d met and married Mickey when I was twenty-one years old. He was fifteen years my senior and working for the Santa Teresa PD. He left the department under a cloud, as they say, accused of police brutality in the beating death of an ex-convict. On the advice of his attorney, he resigned long before he went to trial. Eventually, he was cleared in criminal court, but not before his reputation had sustained major damage. Our marriage, shaky from the start, imploded for largely unrelated reasons. Nonetheless, Priddy had seen my leaving Mickey as my abandoning him when he needed me most. He’d never said as much but on the rare occasions when our paths crossed, he made clear his contempt. Whether his attitude toward me had softened was anybody’s guess.

I’d heard plenty about him because his career had taken a similar left-hand turn after a shooting incident in which a fellow officer had been killed in the course of a drug raid gone sour. Len Priddy was a maverick to begin with, written up on more than one occasion for violations of department policy. Twice he’d been the subject of a citizen’s complaint. During the months-long Internal Affairs investigation, he was suspended with pay. IA finally concluded the shooting was accidental. He’d salvaged his standing with his colleagues, but his career had stalled out. It was nothing you could put your finger on. Rumor had it, if he took an exam, hoping for advancement, his grades weren’t quite good enough and his annual reviews, while acceptable, were never sufficient to rectify the blow to his good name.