M Is for Malice

her leather bag was wedged.
    "No offense," she said, "but I'm curious. Aren't you that private investigator we've heard so much about?"
    I turned the key in the ignition. "Please remove your bag." I cranked the window down about an inch, hoping she'd pull the bag free so I could be on my way.
    "Don't be in such a hurry. What's the rush? The public has a right to know these things. I'm going to get the information anyway so why not make sure it's accurate? I heard the kid spent a lot of time in jail. Was that here or up north?"
    I cranked the window up a notch and put the car in gear. I pushed my foot down lightly on the gas pedal and eased away from the berm. She held on to the bag by its strap, walking beside the car, continuing the conversation. I guess she was accustomed to having the driver at her mercy once she used the old handbag trick. I increased my speed sufficiently to force her into a trot. She yanked the strap, yelling "Hey!" as I began to accelerate. I couldn't have been driving more than two miles an hour, but that's a tough pace to maintain when you're wearing heels that high. I inched my foot down on the gas. She released the bag and stopped where she was, watching with consternation as I pulled away. I passed the two guys in the road who seemed to enjoy the rude comment she was yelling after me. I couldn't hear the words, but I got the drift. In the rearview mirror, I saw her flip me the bird.
    She removed a high heel and flung it at my rear window. I heard a mild thump on impact and saw the shoe bounce off behind me as I picked up speed. The long strap of the handbag dangled and flapped against the car door. About a hundred yards down the road, I paused long enough to roll down my window and give the bag a shove. I left it there in the road, curled like a possum, and drove to my apartment.
    There were two newspapers on the sidewalk when I got home. I picked up both and left one on Henry's back doorstep before I let myself in. I turned on some lights and poured myself a glass of wine, then sat at the kitchen counter and spread the paper out in front of me. The story was in the second section and the tone was odd. I'd expected a fairy-tale version of Guy's life to date, his estrangement from the family and his subsequent spiritual transformation. Instead, Jeff Katzenbach had patched together, in excruciating detail, an inventory of all the sins from Guy's youth: countless episodes of reckless driving, vandalism, drunk and disorderly conduct, assault and battery. Some charges dated back to his juvenile record and should have been purged or remained sealed by the courts. Where had Katzenbach gotten his information? Some of it, of course, was a matter of public record, but I'd wondered how he'd known to look. He'd obviously been tipped off by Max Outhwaite's reference to Guy's earlier scrapes. I thought back uneasily to the file of news clippings Bader Malek had kept. Was there any way he could have seen that? This would have been a second leak of sorts. The first was the fact of Guy's return; the second, this detailed criminal history. I noticed Katzenbach had couched his revelations in typical journalistic fudging. The word alleged appeared about six times, along with confidential sources, informants close to the family, former associates, and friends o f the Maleks who asked to remain anonymous. Far from celebrating Guy's good fortune, the public was going to end up resenting his sudden wealth. Reading between the lines, you could tell Katzenbach considered Guy Malek an undeserving scoundrel. Somehow his current church affiliation looked self-serving and insincere, the convenient refuge of a culprit hoping to make himself look good in the eyes of the parole board.
    For supper, I made myself a hot hard-boiled egg sandwich with lots of mayonnaise and salt and perched at the counter eating while I scanned the rest of the paper. I must have been more absorbed than I thought because when the telephone shrilled, I flung my sandwich sideways in response. I snatched up the receiver, heart thumping as though a gun had just been fired in my ear. If this turned out to be a reporter, I was going to hang up. "Yes."
    "Hey."
    "Oh shit. Guy, is that you? You scared the hell out of me." I leaned down and gathered up the remains of my sandwich, popping the crust in my mouth while I licked at my fingers. There was mayonnaise on the floor, but I could tend to that later.
    "Yeah, it's me. How are you?" he said. "I tried