Zigzag by Bill Pronzini

really had nothing definite to report that he needed to know. Courtesy call, more than anything else at this point, to maintain the cordial relationship.
    It was another fifteen minutes before Tamara came into my office, a little longer than it usually takes her to track down a location. “It’s Monte Rio, all right,” she said. “Five-five-seven Old Wood Road. Single occupant, a woman named Marie Seldon.”
    â€œMarie, not Mary?”
    â€œDefinitely Marie.”
    So either Joe Buckner had misheard the blonde’s name or Fentress had deliberately mispronounced it.
    â€œTies to Floyd Mears as well as to Fentress,” Tamara said. “She’s the girlfriend Mears beat up five months ago. One of her neighbors heard them fighting and called the law when she started screaming. She had to have medical attention but still refused to file a complaint.”
    â€œShe stay with him after that?”
    â€œIf she did, she’s crazy. Any man smacked me around, I’d dump him faster than a sack of garbage.”
    â€œHow long were she and Mears hooked up?”
    â€œThree years, according to the sheriff’s report.”
    â€œSo they were together when Fentress got himself in trouble with the law,” I said. “It’s probable he met her through Mears.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œAnd if she broke up with Mears after the beating, it seems unlikely she was acting as an intermediary for him when she and Fentress got together last week.”
    â€œUnless they got back together again. No record of it, if so.”
    â€œIn any event, who arranged the meeting, her or Fentress? And why? Another thing: Monday was the day of the shootings and seven p.m. could’ve been the time of the meeting at Mears’ cabin. But then why did he have her home address written down?”
    â€œYou could ask her, see what she has to say. Or notify Lieutenant Heidegger and let him talk to her.”
    I thought it over. “Better me at this point,” I decided. “The connections are still too tenuous to have any direct bearing on the official version of what happened at the cabin. If I can’t get anything out of Seldon, then I’ll go to Heidegger.”
    â€œLong drive up to Monte Rio.”
    â€œI don’t have anything better to do today. There anything else I should know about Seldon before I leave?”
    The answer to that was nothing much. Born in Cloverdale; married a Guerneville resident at eighteen and moved there with him; stayed in the Russian River area after they were divorced five years later. No children. Clean slate as far as any other encounters with the law went. Employed for the past three years at a place called Millie’s Gifts and Sportswear in Guerneville. Maintained a low profile for personal or financial reasons: no social media or e-mail accounts. No phone company account, either; if she used a cell phone, it was one of those prepaid jobs.
    Tamara said, “There is one other thing I found out—not about Seldon, about Vernon Holloway. Might mean something, might not. Right around the time Melanie Joy disappeared, he sold off a chunk of his stock holdings—fast, over a couple of days. Strapped for ready cash, evidently, and in need of a large wad.”
    â€œHow large?”
    â€œSix figures.”
    â€œWhy did he need so much cash in a hurry?”
    â€œThat I couldn’t find out. Might’ve been an under-the-table business deal, the kind that doesn’t leave a paper trail. Some of these rich dudes operate that way when they figure they can get away with it.”
    â€œDoes Holloway have a history of that kind of dealing?”
    â€œHard to tell for sure without some major hacking, the quasi-legal kind. If he played that game before, it was spread out over a longer period of time. Easier for his accountants to cover it up that way.”
    â€œSo his need for cash could’ve had something to do with his