P is for Peril

"I gathered as much."

As if on cue, the other detective turned and caught sight of Odessa and me. He excused himself and headed in our direction across soft ground already trampled with footprints. Days of rain had obliterated any trace of tread marks, but the projected path of the car had been secured and searched. Evidence was doubtless in very short supply after so much time had passed. When he reached us, Detective Paglia held out his hand. "Ms. Millhone. Jim Paglia. Con Dolan's spoken to me about you." His voice was deep and uninflected. I placed him in his fifties. His head was shaved, his freckled forehead etched with a trellis of vertical and horizontal lines.

We shook hands and said hi-how-are-you-type things. Lieutenant Dolan had been in charge of the homicide unit until a heart attack dictated his early retirement. "How's Dolan doing these days?"

"So-so. Good, but not great. He misses the job." Paglia's eyebrows were black twists that tipped up at the outer corners like a pair of wings. He wore small oval glasses with thin metal frames. If the raindrops falling on the lenses annoyed him, he gave no sign of it. He'd been smoking a cigarillo with a white plastic tip, dead by the look of it, extinguished by the rain. He removed it from his mouth and glanced at the tip. "We owe you a big one. How'd you happen to come down?"

Odessa touched my sleeve. "You two go ahead. I'll be right back."

I watched him cross to the diver, whom he engaged in conversation out of earshot of those nearby. I turned my attention to Detective Paglia, whose gaze had settled unrelentingly on mine. I pegged him as ex-military, a man who'd seen death and dying at close range, possibly administering a fair amount of it himself. His manner suggested friendliness without the irksome encumbrance of any underlying warmth. If he was personable, it was a trait he'd acquired by meticulous application of the "personable behavior" rules he'd observed in the world around him. If he was pleasant, it was because pleasantries usually got him what he wanted, which in this case was aid, information, cooperation, and respect. If I were a career criminal, I'd be wary of this man. As it was-given my past tendencies toward lying, breaking and entering, and petty theft-I made certain to frame my explanation with care. While I didn't imagine he suspected me of anything, I wanted to appear honest and artless-not difficult since (in this one rare instance) what I had to offer was the truth. "I'm not sure how to describe the process. I was up at Lloyd's. He's Crystal's ex-husband."

"Leila's stepdad."

"Right. This morning, she left boarding school without permission and Crystal figured she was headed for his place. I told Crystal I'd see if I could track her down, so I began cruising the area there at Little Pony Road and the 101. She must have hitchhiked because I spotted her walking on the berm. I talked her into letting me drive her up to Lloyd's. He was gone when we got there, so she let us into the house. His is that A-frame," I said, and pointed to the far side of the lake. Under the weight of Paglia's gaze, my tone sounded false and I found myself adding a few extraneous details. "Well, it's actually not his. He's house-sitting for a friend who went to Florida. Anyway, I was just messing around while we waited for him to show. Leila was watching TV and I went up to the loft. I saw the telescope and thought it'd be interesting to take a peek. I was surprised to see where I was. I hadn't realized that section of Gramercy put him directly across the reservoir from Fiona."

"You think there's a connection?"

"Between Lloyd and Fiona? I don't know, but I doubt it. I've never heard anything to that effect."

He took out an Altoids box. He opened the lid and deposited the dead butt. I could see he'd filled the bottom of the tin with ash, his way of avoiding contamination at the scene. He returned the box to his raincoat pocket and his gray eyes met mine. I said, "Do you consider this a crime scene?"

"Suicide's a crime," he said. "Go on with your story." His lower teeth were buckled together in the center and rimmed with stains. It was the only thing about him that seemed out of control.

"When I looked through the telescope I saw the dog-this is a German shepherd named Trudy. I'd seen her up here on my two visits to Fiona's house and she was always over in this area, barking her head off."

Paglia said, "Dogs can smell a body even under water." This was the first piece of information he'd offered me.

"Really. I didn't know that. I could see she was excited, but I had no idea why. Aside from Trudy, I could see some scarring on that boulder halfway up the slope." Again, I pointed like a fifth-grader giving an oral report. "There was also damage to the vegetation, saplings snapped off. At first I figured somebody must have backed a trailer down to launch a boat, but then I caught sight of the posted warning and I remembered that swimming and boating were forbidden."