"I thought I'd told Detective Garza everything that might help," Helen was saying. "It wasn't much, but… you're still thinking that it might not have been an accident? That someone killed James?"
Neither cat opened her eyes. Neither cat allowed her ears to rotate following the conversation. Both seemed deeply under, twitching occasionally as if wandering somewhere among mysterious feline dreams.
"I understand that this is painful," Juana was saying. "But I believe you can help. Quinn was your partner for how many years?"
"Nearly ten years," Helen said. "He was a good partner, always careful in his record keeping, always cordial and considerate of our clients, never impatient with them-never stepping on my toes in a transaction. You don't work with someone that long, and that closely, and not grow to care for them."
"No one is suggesting that there was any problem between you."
Dulcie slitted her eyes open just enough to watch Davis. Juana Davis was a no-nonsense sort of woman in her fifties, squarely built, with dark hair and dark eyes. She was a steady, commonsense person, but along the way she hadn't lost her sympathy for another human being. She was just very selective as to who deserved it. Dulcie thought that Juana was still making up her mind about Helen Thurwell.
On a hunch, Dulcie unwound herself from the in box, sat up yawning, and leaped to the couch to settle down beside Helen, curling up close to her, to see what she would do.
Davis's couch was old, tweed-covered, and smelled of cocker spaniel from some past life before she bought it at the Pumpkin Coach Charity Shop. The city did not pay for items the city fathers considered luxury purchases. Dulcie didn't see why a couch would be considered a luxury; but then, she wasn't the city manager. On the coffee table before Helen lay a thick briefcase. Before she reached for her files, Helen turned to stroke Dulcie.
She seemed to know how to pet a cat, so gentle and reassuring that Dulcie began to purr. Interesting that Helen wasn't this reassuring with her daughter-but then, maybe petting an animal helped to ease Helen's tension. And dealing with her daughter did not?
When at last Helen opened the briefcase, she removed a large black ledger. "This was what you wanted? The record of my work days?" Rising, she passed the ledger across the desk.
Juana opened it, studied several pages, and nodded. "Do all real estate agents keep this kind of record?"
Helen shook her head. "The agent who trained me, the man I worked with when I first started out, he taught me to do that. He'd had a court case once where he had to testify about the specific circumstances of a sale. I guess it got pretty ugly. He couldn't be sure of some of the times involved and, as it was a murder case, he felt he hadn't been very helpful.
"Some of our documents are marked with the time of signing as well as dated; others are not. In a case like his, he'd had to go through them all, do the best he could to remember specifics. After that, he began to keep a log. He trained me to do that, and I've done it ever since." Helen looked at Juana inquiringly.
Rising, Juana moved to the credenza. Turning over two clean cups, she poured fresh coffee from a Krups coffeemaker. "Cream and sugar?"
"Neither please. Just black."
Setting one mug on the coffee table and the other on her desk, Juana picked up a sheaf of photocopies that lay on the blotter and stood looking down at Helen. "These are copies of the pages of a notebook." Juana handed the papers to Helen. "The original pages had been ripped in quarters. We taped them together and made copies, then locked them in the evidence room. Do you recognize the handwriting?"
Helen examined the first few pages. "It's James's handwriting. But these entries… these are the names of my clients." She looked up at Juana. "We both had our own clients. We simply worked backup for each other." She examined several more pages.
"I think these are the dates that offers were made, or maybe that a client went into escrow. I'd have to check the ledger." She looked up at Juana. "I don't understand. Why would James keep this? This information is all recorded in my ledger. And in the various papers that are on file."
"You notice the little symbols before each entry? What are those?"
Helen shook her head. "I don't know. Asterisk. Pound sign. Circle. Repeated over and over. I haven't any idea. I don't understand why James would keep any kind of list of my clients."
"Can you find any pattern? Remember any special circumstances about these particular meetings? Would the symbols indicate whether you met with the client in the office, or somewhere else? Whether anyone besides your office associates was present? Anything at all out of the ordinary?"
Helen studied the entries for some time, sipping her coffee. When she reached absently to pet Dulcie again, her hand had grown tense and cold. She sat a minute with her eyes closed, as if thinking. As if trying to remember, perhaps to make sure of something. When she looked up at Juana, her hand had grown very still on Dulcie's fur. And her cheeks were flushed.
"I think… I'm pretty sure there was someone in the office during each of these transactions."
Juana sat watching Helen, her square, tanned face impassive. Helen's hand on Dulcie's shoulder was so tense that under other circumstances Dulcie would have risen and moved away. Helen said, "Marlin Dorriss was… was in the office during each of these meetings. I'm sure of it. Waiting for me somewhere in the office."
Juana continued to watch her, in silence.
"Sometimes, he'd be sitting reading in a client's chair, beside some empty desk. Sometimes in one of the chairs against the wall just beyond my desk. You know how our office is, each desk with space enough to draw up chairs and sign papers, but no separate conference room for the signings."
"Anyone besides Marlin Dorriss?"
"No." Helen's face colored. "Waiting for me to go to lunch or maybe dinner."
Dulcie was pleased that Helen had the grace to feel ashamed.
"After your clients finished their business and left, did Marlin usually come on over to your desk?"
Helen looked surprised. "Yes, he did," she said thoughtfully. She gripped Dulcie's shoulder so hard that it was all Dulcie could do not to hiss. Dulcie watched Helen, fascinated.
Had Helen never once questioned Dorriss's presence in her office? Had she never wondered if Dorriss would snoop on a client's personal information that was all laid out on her desk? Dulcie imagined him retrieving bank names, memorizing street addresses, information from loan applications, social security numbers. Had he been able, as Helen turned away perhaps putting her papers in order, to jot down bank account numbers, business references, mother's maiden name-a regular buffet of vital information?
"When the clients left," Juana said, "and Dorriss came to your desk, their papers might be still lying there?"
"Yes," Helen said shakily. "Sometimes." She pressed a fist to her mouth. "But he wouldn't… He wouldn't have…" She realized she was clutching Dulcie, and took her hand away.
Juana said, "Do you have a restroom in the office?"
"Yes."
"Did he usually use it before you left for… lunch or whatever?"
"Always. But he… he is very careful about germs, almost a fetish."
Right, Dulcie thought. She could imagine Dorriss in the locked restroom busily recording all the vital information from Helen's clients. This smooth snooping had to be the setup for identity theft. She licked her paw, thinking.
Identity theft could go on for many months before the victim had any clue. Who knew how soon the recipients of such attention would wake to find their houses mortgaged or sold, their CDs cashed, their bank accounts stripped, and their credit destroyed? How many people had he already swindled?
And Dorriss had left town last night, had caught a flight somewhere. Setting out to transfer other people's funds, to collect cashier's checks secured by other people's real estate?