"They went that-a-way. You missed them by a half a second."

She peered out into the corridor, but there was no sign of them. "Well, that's weird. She said she wasn't feeling good, so I went to get her this."

"She looked okay to me."

Mary's mouth pulled down with puzzlement and she set the cup of water on her desk. "I wish they'd hung around. I was hoping you could talk to them."

"About what?"

She shook her head. "They're investigators from the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute. She was, at any rate. He's a special agent with the California Department of Insurance." She handed me the woman's business card.

"Him? Are you sure?"

"He was hired last month. She's been showing him the ropes."

"He looked like a hood."

She laughed uncomfortably as if she were somehow responsible for his appearance now that I'd mentioned it. "He did, didn't he? It's that tacky coat, I'm sure. I'd never let Peter out in public in a thing like that. Have a seat. Did you talk to Bibianna Diaz? God, now where'd I stick her file?" She sat down and began to sort through a stack of fat manila folders on her desk.

"Nope. She's still out. I may take my camera with me next time I go over there. Maybe I can snap a picture of her doing backflips on the lawn." I passed on the information about "Lola Flores" and the two other insurance companies. "Bibianna has to be running a second scam as Lola Flores. There's no telling how many other claims she's filed concurrently."

Mary was properly incensed. "Oh, God, I don't believe this. I'll get on it right away and let 'em know what's going on."

"Just make sure they start documenting any dealings they have with her. When we send the files to ICPI, they can send theirs along, too. It should make quite a splash."

I was still half distracted by the couple who'd just left. I checked the woman's business card. The ICPI logo was legitimate, looking somehow like a place mat complete with cutlery. According to the card, she was Karen Hedgepath from an office in Los Angeles. The problem was she didn't look like any ICPI investigator I'd ever met. Most of them are real button-down types – ties, white shuts, dark conservative business suits. This woman looked like a rock star in civilian clothes. I couldn't believe the regional manager would tolerate the punk hairstyle, let alone the spike-heeled shoes.

"Here we go," Mary said, extracting a file from the middle of the stack. The folder was marked "Diaz," a piece of scratch paper with the new address clipped to the front. She reached for an invoice stapled to the envelope it had arrived in. "I just got a whole new sheaf of bills. I guess she saw a chiropractor."

"Probably a subluxation specialist," I said, using the only chiropractic term I'd ever heard.

She punched some holes in the invoice and pronged it in the file. "Actually, they were here about Bibianna. That's why I wanted them to talk to you. I guess ICPI got wind she'd moved up here. She ran a couple of scams in Santa Monica last year and they were hoping to track her down."

"Well, that's nice. Insurance scams?"

"They didn't spell it out, but it almost has to be insurance-related, don't you think?"

I considered the situation briefly, wondering why an ICPI employee would "show the ropes" to someone working for another agency. It's not as though the ICPI and the Department of Insurance don't cooperate, but the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute isn't a law enforcement agency. And why would investigators make the trip up here in the first place? Why not put a call through to CF instead of driving the hour and a half? It just made no sense. Unless they lied. "Did you give them this address?" I asked, indicating the penciled note.

"I didn't give ' em anything. That's why I was so surprised when you said they'd left. All I did was confirm we were checking on a claim here. Why?"

"They could have spotted this while you were off at the water cooler. All they had to do was rifle the stack of files on your desk."

"Oh, come on. You don't think they'd really do that."

"Who knows? Let's just hope they were legitimate."

She put her hand on her chest like she was about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. "Oh, Lord. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you know how it is. You can hand out a business card that says anything. I've done it myself."

Mary seemed affronted, suddenly shifting from anxiety into action mode. "Give me that," she said. She snatched the woman's business card and laid it on the desk with a snapping sound. I watched her pick up the phone and punch in the telephone number with its 213 area code. "I'm going to kill myself if she isn't who she said she was." She listened for a moment and then her expression changed. She held up the receiver, which was emitting a sound like a garbage disposal grinding up a live duck.

"Maybe you dialed it wrong," I said helpfully.

"God, I can't believe I'd fall for something so obvious, but it never occurred to me to question her identity. How could I be so dumb?"

"Well, you don't have to be so hard on yourself. After years in the business, I can still be conned. It's human nature to trust, especially if you're honest to begin with. Not that I'm that honest, but you know what I mean."

"What do you think they were up to?"

"Beats me," I said. "Obviously, they knew Bibianna and they were aware of her inclination to cheat. The real question is, how'd they get to us? There must be a hundred insurance agencies in Santa Teresa. Why CF?"

"This is terrible. I'm just sick. What could they want with her?" Mary's cheeks had turned a bright, wholesome pink.

"Probably nothing pleasant or they would have played it straight."

"What should we do?"

"I don't see what we can do until we know what's going on. Why don't you track down the current phone number for ICPI and ask if they're investigating her." I held the note up. "In the meantime, I'll try to catch up with her and we'll fake it out from there."

5

I WENT HOME and stripped off the uniform. I transferred the fake ID from the pocket of my uniform pants to my blue jeans, which I pulled on with a navy turtleneck. I slipped into gym stocks and tenny bops and headed back to Bibianna's.

I hoped Mary Bellflower's naivete hadn't put Ms. Diaz at risk. There were still no cars in the drive and no sign of the couple I'd seen at the CF offices. Had they already looked up the address and hightailed it over here? They had maybe thirty minutes on me, so it was always possible that they were in the cottage right now or had been and gone. If they'd actually been quick enough to nick off her address. A few cars passed on the street, but no familiar faces peered out. For the second time that day, I left my car, locked, on the street and moved down Bibianna's driveway. It was now four thirty-five, and I could see lights on in the cottage. As I approached, I caught a tantalizing whiff of onions and garlic being sauteed in olive oil. I climbed the wide wooden steps. From inside, this time, I could hear the jaunty theme song of a television sitcom, probably a cable station doing reruns.

I knocked on the front door, which was opened moments later by a Hispanic woman of perhaps twenty-five. She was barefoot, dressed in a red satin teddy with a short red satin robe pulled over it and tied at the waist. She was slim – nay, petite – with flawless olive skin and big dark eyes in a heart-shaped face. She had two tortoiseshell hairpins clamped in her teeth as if I'd caught her in the midst of redoing her hair. Dark hair trailed halfway down her back like a shawl, a few silken strands spilling across her right shoulder. As I watched, she gathered the length of it and made a complicated knot, which she secured with the two hairpins. "Yes?"