All or Nothing Read Online Free PDF Page B

years.
    “The fact is, Mr. Zuckerman, that not only am I an attorney but I’m also a private detective.” She crossed her fingers, rolling her eyes heavenward as she lied. After all, it was almost true. Or it would be before the day was out. “My partner, Al Giraud, and I happened to be in the bar at the Ritz–Carlton in Laguna Niguel at what appeared to be your client’s first meeting with Laurie Martin. . . .”
    She described the meeting, and their later sighting of the couple drinking champagne at the Hotel La Valencia in La Jolla.
    “I just wanted to tell you, as Mr. Mallard’s attorney, that despite the champagne it seemed to me a business relationship. I mean, there was no touching, no holding hands, no eyes linked across the table. . . .”
    “I get it,” Zuckerman said patiently. “But how does this help my client, Ms. Cwitowitz?”
    “It might not help him much, but it might very well help his wife,” Marla said abruptly. “It was her I was thinking about.”
    She left her home phone number and Al’s number in case Zuckerman needed to get in touch, and said good–bye, wondering doubtfully whether she had done the right thing and if Vickie Mallard would give a damn at this point who had seen her husband with Laurie Martin. Probably half the world had claimed to have seen them together by now.
    Shrugging, she packed up her black leather Prada tote and drove slowly home. Vickie Mallard and her daughters were still very much on her mind.
    She was in Brentwood, driving in the usual mass of traffic past the infamous Bundy Drive, scene of the O.J. murders, when it occurred to her. What if she were wrong? What if Steve Mallard was guilty after all?

7
    One week later there was still no trace of Laurie Martin and the case was driving Detective Lionel Bulworth crazy.
    “Gosh darn it,” he said––or words to that effect––pacing the white carpet in Laurie Martin’s condo for the hundredth time and leaving a flattened trail of size seventeen footprints in the thick pile. “The evidence against Steve Mallard is piling up. We have everything except the body.”
    His assistant, Detective Pamela Powers––known affectionately as “Pammie” to her friends, and as “Pow!” complete with the exclamation mark, to her coworkers at the La Jolla PD or “Pushy” because of her powerhouse pushy ways––frowned.
    “You mean another abuser is gonna get away with it?” Her lip curled scornfully. “Not if I have anything to do with it.
Sir,
” she added, as a token to the fact that Bulworth was her senior. She shoved her red hair firmly under her cap, squaring her broad shoulders. “The fucker’s guilty as hell.”
    Bulworth eyed her speculatively. Sometimes Pammie’s feminist dictates got in the way of her clear thinking. “You’ve been reading too many mystery novels, Powers,” he said curtly. “And there is the small matter of a body?”
    “We’ll find that, you can bet on it. He’ll make a mistake, lead us to it. That guy’s as nervous as a cornered rattler. Trust me . . . 
sir.
”
    Bulworth sighed. His team had gone through Laurie’s apartment with a fine–tooth comb, every hair, every fiber, every fingerprint. Nothing. Except what belonged to Laurie Martin herself. Presumably the woman never entertained at home. Certainly not Steve Mallard, anyway. But Bulworth had wanted to check himself, just one more time. Frustration did that to you. He just couldn’t believe they hadn’t come up with anything. That there wasn’t something there, perhaps so blatantly obvious that the searching eye skimmed over it. But no such luck.
    Laurie Martin lived a quiet life. She went to work; apparently did a good job; attended a local church on Sundays.
    But Bulworth already had a sizable dossier on Laurie and Steve Mallard. Witnesses had come forward claiming to have seen them together having drinks; and dining in restaurants, or riding in her Lexus. There were messages from Steve on