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Chapter 1

I met Bobby Callahan on Monday of that week By Thursday, he was dead He was convinced so to kill hiured it out in time to save him I've never worked for a dead ain This report is for him, for whatever it's worth

My naator, doing business in Santa Teresa, California, which is ninety-five eles I' alone and I suspect ed that I don't know quite hohy He was only twenty-three years old I wasn't romantically involved with him in any sense of the word, but I did care and his death served to remind me, like a custard pie in the face, that life is soe joke Not funny "ha ha," but cruel, like those gags sixth-graders have been telling since the world began

It was August and I'd been working out at Santa Teresa Fitness, trying to remedy the residual effects of a broken left arm The days were hot, filled with relentless sunshine and clear skies I was feeling cranky and bored, doing pushdowns and curls and wrist rolls I'd just worked two cases back-to-back and I'd sustainedemotionally battered and I needed a rest Fortunately, my bank account was fat and I knew I could afford to take twome nuts

Santa Teresa Fitness is a real no-nonsense place: the brand X of health clubs No Jacuzzi, no sauna, noequip the color of asphalt The whole twenty-eight-hundred square feet of space smells like men's jockstraps

I'd arrive at eight in the , three days a week, and warm up for fifteen ned to strengthen and condition my left deltoid, pectoralis one awry since I'd had the snot beaten out ofThe orthopedist had prescribed six weeks of physical therapy and so far, I'd done three There was nothing for it but to work my way patiently from one machine to the next I was usually the only woman in the place at that hour and I tended to distractoutout mine

Bobby Callahan came in at the same time I did I wasn't sure what had happened to him, but whatever it was, it had hurt He was probably just short of six feet tall, with a football players physique: big head, thick neck, brawny shoulders, heavy legs Now the shaggy blond head was held to one side, the left half of his face pulled down in a perh he'd just been shot up with Novocain and couldn't quite feel his own lips He tended to hold his left arainst his waist and he usually carried a folded white handkerchief that he used to mop up his chin There was a terrible welt of dark red across the bridge of his nose, a second across his chest, and his knees were crisscrossed with scars as though a swordsait, his left Achilles tendon apparently shortened, pulling his left heel up Working outhe had, yet he never failed to appear There was a doggedness about him that I admired I watched him with interest, ashamed of my own interior complaints Clearly, I could recover from my injuries while he could not I didn't feel sorry for him, but I did feel curious

That Monday y curls, facedown on the bench next to mine, his attention turned inward I had shifted over to the leg-press h 118 and I only have so otten back into jogging since the injury, so I figured a few leg presses would serve120 pounds, but it hurt anyway To distract ame wherein I tried to deter-curl ood candidate I watched hiain

"I hear you're a private detective," he said withoutto his voice, but he covered it pretty well

"Yes Are you in the market for one?" "Matter of fact, I am Somebody tried to kill me" "Looks like they didn't o" "Why you?" "Don't know"