now.
“Trust me.”
“I dated an older man before and it was no big deal,” Amy assured me. “I find older men kinda attractive, you know?”
“Who’s Galen?” I asked again.
“You don’t like me,” Amy pouted.
“Sure, I do,” I told her honestly. “You’re a beautiful, desirable young woman. Only I have a high school yearbook that’s older than you. Besides,” I said, leaning in close, whispering, “we’re not allowed to get romantically involved with clients. The state could take my license.”
“Really?” she whispered. “You mean like psychologists?”
I nodded and Amy glanced about the restaurant in case anyone was watching. She raised her hand shoulder high like she was swearing herself to secrecy, looked around some more and said, “Galen? Galen Pivec? You asked about him? He’s with the State Capitol police. He provides security ’n’ stuff for Representative Monroe in his free time; you know, crowd control, drives sometimes. You met him this afternoon.”
“Conan?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Are you and Galen friends?”
“I guess. We talk a lot while he’s waiting at the door—you know, waiting for Representative Monroe and Ms. Senske. But we don’t date or anything,” she added quickly, looking into my eyes, hoping I believed her.
I had a thought, but pushed it out of my mind, ashamed of myself.
“How do you get to be a private eye?” Amy asked.
“You have enough hours of experience, you can take out a license. If you don’t, you can apprentice under someone else’s license until you do.”
“Did you apprentice?”
“I was a cop for ten years,” I said and handed her my photostat just in case she thought I was making it all up.
She examined the photograph, looked at me, looked back at the photograph.
“Some people say I look like Alan Ladd,” I said.
“Who’s he?”
“An actor. He was pretty big in the forties and fifties.”
“Louise would know him—if he was an actor in the fifties, I mean.”
“Louise?” I asked.
“The woman who took over the phones? I used to live with her. She was the office administrator at the law firm where Marion—I mean Ms. Senske—used to work. I applied for this job as a legal secretary—that’s what I am, really, a legal secretary, not a receptionist; I told you that, I think …”
I nodded, confirming that she had.
“Anyway, the day I arrived here, I got a copy of the newspaper, the classifieds, and started looking for a job. My first interview was with Louise and I guess she liked me right off, only she said she had to interview two or three more people before making a decision and I should leave my address and phone number and I told her I was staying at this motel near the bus station? Know what she did? She said, ‘That’s outrageous,’ and she made me get my stuff and check out and she moved me into her place. She said it was only temporary and she made me pay room and board, you know, but I had my own bedroom and I could come and go as I pleased and it was pretty okay, until …” Amy Lamb’s mood darkened, her voice along with it. “I just had to leave.”
“I can understand that,” I told her, thinking that I really did.
“Can you?”
“I think everybody should live alone for at least a year. That’s how you find out who you are.”
“Or aren’t,” Amy added.
I shrugged.
“Anyway, Ms. Senske asked Louise if she wanted to work on the campaign and Louise asked me and here we all are.”
“Just one big, happy family.”
“Oh, it is, it really is,” Amy replied and ate another mouthful of fried rice. “It seems everyone is related to somebody, or a friend of somebody. Are you related to Representative Monroe?”
“No.”
“What are you doing for her?”
“This and that.”
“Is it confidential?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” she said, disappointed.
“But maybe you can help me.”
“Really? Can I?”
“Do you know a man named Dennis Thoreau? He was around the campaign