Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice by Ron Goulart Page A

and one at Easy’s car. “After all that’s apparently happened, she’s going to need looking after.”
    Easy stood up out of his car. “Don’t protect her too hard,” he said. “But see that she stays home until I get back to you.”
    “Oh, she’s not going to want to go anywhere now.” He held the umbrella over Easy.
    “Other people may want to see that she does,” Easy told him. “Keep her inside, keep anybody you don’t know away. If anything that looks like trouble comes along, call the police.”
    “No, I don’t want any police around here,” insisted Benning. “I hired you because I didn’t.”
    “Then call my office, say its an emergency and you’ll get Nan. She can send somebody.”
    “Is there likely to be more trouble?” Benning was looking back at their ranch-style house. “I guess she’s okay in there by herself for a few minutes.”
    “I’m not sure everything is over yet,” said Easy. “Until I pick up something in San Amaro.”
    “Was she serious, I can’t always tell, when she said something about people dying?”
    “Yeah, she was serious.”
    “But she didn’t …?”
    “No, she didn’t kill anyone. It all went on around her.”
    “Jesus, I still can’t believe any … well, I promised Joanna we didn’t have to talk about this tonight. There’ll be plenty of time for talking it all out, won’t there?”
    “If you’re careful.”
    A small step at a time, Benning was backing away. “I’ll go look after Joanna now. That’s what’s important now, not what she did or didn’t. When you can, Easy, I want to know what all happened. Why she was in Mexico, with who. Tonight, though, I’m just happy she’s come home finally. What do you think? You’ve been with her a long time. A whole day nearly, according to what she said when she got around to calling me. What do you think? Is she ready to stay home?”
    “That’s not one of the questions,” said Easy, “you paid me to answer.” He left his client standing there in the rain with the black umbrella still held out over the spot where he’d been.
    Easy’s office lay between the Benning house and the San Amaro Yacht Club. He stopped at the office. The small parking lot held only two cars. Further down the way, screened by a eucalyptus tree, one single back office window glowed yellow. Everything else was darkness and a fine misty rain.
    From the closet in his private office Easy took a black pullover and a pair of dark slacks. He changed in the little bathroom between Nan’s office and his, noticing his secretary had left one of her contact lenses sitting on the blue glass shelf over the sink.
    He found some packets of instant coffee in the medicine cabinet and, even though he was giving it up, he mixed himself a cup, using hot tap water. He sat behind his desk and dialed Jill’s number. It was now almost five o’clock in the morning.
    After three rings Jill answered in a wide-awake voice. “Hello?”
    “I’m back.”
    “I’m glad about that,” the girl answered. “I know you found Joanna, because Jim called me after she contacted him from Calexico.”
    “Yeah, I just delivered her home.”
    “She really was in Mexico?”
    “She was indeed,” said Easy. “I stopped at my office to call you. I’m en route to San Amaro.”
    “Why?”
    “There’s one more errand to run and then I should be finished.”
    “Good. By the way, you’re supposed to open conversations at this hour by saying, ‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’ I dated a guy once who used to ask that even when he called at three in the afternoon. People get strange ideas about models and actresses.”
    “I’ve had some myself.”
    “Are you any more battered and bruised than when I saw you last?”
    “No, I’m about as intact as I was,” said Easy. “What’s happening there?”
    “Nothing. I called Nan and she came up with around-the-clock watchdogs. On this shift there’s a Mr. F. E. Edwards out in the shrubs someplace watching