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tried to come back. He went to the kitchen, but decided he had no desire to heat up the food he had bought. He ate a peanut butter sandwich, then stayed up until two o’clock waiting for her.
    The next day he studied the newspaper, and was relieved to see that there was no mention of trouble coming to a young girl from out of town. The
Santa Barbara News-Press
had never been a paper that spent much space on troubles brought here from out in the world, but it would have mentioned a body. But on the day after that, he did see something, a brief article he had almost missed on the fourth page. “Apparent Suicide Found in Field,” it said. The description was too close to be anybody else.

CHAPTER 4

    M allon drove to the police station on Figueroa Street, climbed the steps into the small foyer, and waited at the front counter for a few minutes before he got a chance to tell the woman behind it what he had come for. She asked him to sit on a bench of blond wood that matched the counter, then made a telephone call. After a few more minutes, a tall policeman with a muscular frame and curly black hair who was wearing a tan summer-weight sport coat and blue jeans came out of a door at the side of the counter. He looked around, saw that Mallon was the only one waiting, then stepped up and shook his hand. “I’m Detective Fowler,” he said. “I can take your report.”
    He led Mallon around the counter and through another door, then into a large office with several desks in it. He set a straight-backed chair in front of one of the desks, then sat down behind the desk and placed a pen and a yellow pad in front of him. “Now, Mr. Mallon. Can you tell me how you knew the deceased?”
    “I didn’t,” said Mallon. “I don’t even know her name. I pulled her out of the ocean the other afternoon. She had tried to drown herself.”
    Detective Fowler squinted at him as though he were having difficulty hearing what Mallon had said. Mallon went on. “I thought Ishould let you know about it.” He paused. “I’m not sure what good it does now, but it didn’t seem as though I could not tell you.”
    Fowler nodded.“How did it happen?”
    Mallon told him the story. He did not leave out the way it had felt to try to maneuver the young woman away from the ocean, to manipulate her into letting him take her to the hospital, and then to fail.
    Fowler listened patiently, staring into his face as he talked, and interrupting only to ask, “What time was this?” or “Why did she change her mind?” His questions seemed intended to be polite, to make it easier for Mallon to talk, but Mallon knew they were more than that.
    When he told Fowler about returning from the restaurant and finding an empty house, Mallon said, “I thought about calling the police that night, but I didn’t. It seemed to me that she had gotten through it, and now she would be somewhere getting a good night’s sleep. Maybe after that she would feel up to facing things. I thought that having the police show up to question her would make things seem worse to her.” Mallon sighed. “I guess I was just trying to think up reasons why it was best to do nothing. I should have reported it.”
    Fowler shrugged. “Absolutely. Then I’d be the one who feels bad today.” He added, “I mean that. Getting somebody hospitalized without her consent on a 5150 isn’t that easy. All she’d have had to do was say the suicide attempt had never happened. You’re not a relative, or even an acquaintance. If she was acting composed enough to convince you that she’d be okay, she could have convinced everybody else, too.”
    “I suppose,” said Mallon. “Well.” He leaned forward and began to stand, but Fowler held up his hand. He did it without urgency, but it was deliberate and authoritative.
    “Do you mind?” asked Fowler. “I just need to take care of a few details, and then we’ll be through.”
    “Okay,” said Mallon. He sat back down and waited.
    “Just some