X (Kinsey Millhone 24)

“After he razed the original three-story Georgian-style mansion, he built this, which is how he launched his career. He was always proud of the fact that he was featured in Architectural Digest more than any other single architect. He’s been gone now for years, and my mother has as well. The place in Malibu belongs to my husband, Geoff. He’s a G-E-O-F-F Geoff, not the J-E-F-F kind. We’ve been married two years.”

“What sort of work does he do?”

“He has a law degree, but he doesn’t have a job as such. He manages both of our portfolios and looks after our finances.”

Fragmented as it was, I had no idea where her commentary was taking us, but I was making mental notes. I couldn’t help but wonder how the neighbors felt when her father demolished the old estate and erected this in its place. The house was dramatic, but distinctly short on eighteenth-century charm.

From her remarks, I drew the two obvious inferences: she’d retained her maiden name and she’d held on to the family home. I could imagine her insisting that G-E-O-F-F Geoffrey sign an ironclad prenuptial agreement: separate properties, separate bank accounts, a cheater’s clause, and zero spousal support in the event of a split. On the other hand, his fortune might have been more substantial than hers, in which case any stingy financial arrangements might have been his idea.

She crossed her legs and smoothed the yellow silk over one knee, idly pleating the fabric. “I should tell you again how much I appreciate your agreeing to meet like this. Under the circumstances, it’s a relief doing business with a woman. No disrespect to men intended, but some things a woman understands intuitively—‘from the heart,’ you might say.”

Now I was thinking about big gambling debts or an affair with a married man. It was also possible her new husband had an unsavory past and she’d just gotten wind of it.

She reached down and picked up a file folder that rested against the side of her chair. She opened the folder, removed a paper clip, and passed the loose pages to me along with a penlight to make reading easier. I was looking at a photocopy of a newspaper article. I checked the date and heading: the Santa Teresa Dispatch, June 21, 1979; approximately ten years earlier. The article covered the trial of a kid named Christian Satterfield, a safecracker who’d finally been defeated by a run of cutting-edge vaults and had thrown that career over in favor of robbing banks, which was a much simpler proposition. No maddening array of alarms and exasperating anti-theft devices. Robbing banks entailed pithy notes directed to bank tellers, no weapons, and no mechanical skills. The work was quicker, too.

He’d enjoyed a string of successes, but eventually his luck had run out. He’d been convicted of robbing nineteen banks in the tri-counties area, an impressive number for someone a mere twenty-three years old. The photograph that accompanied the story revealed a clean-cut young man with good facial bones and an open countenance. The three-column coverage on the front page continued for an additional four columns on page four, laying out the reasoning for his choice of banks, his meticulous advance planning, and the carefully worded notes he’d composed. I could picture him licking his pencil point, trying to get the written threats just so, all of the spelling correct and no cross-outs.

I scanned the lines of print, picking up a detail here and there. His successes had netted him close to $134,000 over a period of sixteen months. In his demands, he claimed to be armed, and while he never actually brandished a gun, the tellers were sufficiently intimidated to surrender the cash without an argument. Though this was standard bank policy, three of the young women were so traumatized, they never returned to work.

Hallie waited until I’d finished reading and handed me a folded newspaper with an arrow calling my attention to a notice dated six months before. Satterfield had been released, having served a little over eight years, which I was guessing represented 85 percent of a ten-year bid.

“As you can see, he was released from Lompoc to a halfway house in the San Fernando Valley. Since he was a Santa Teresa resident when he was arrested and tried, I’m told he’s most likely been returned to the community by now. I wondered if you could get me his current contact information. I called the county probation department twice and got nowhere.”

Her manner of speaking had become more formal, suggesting she was ill at ease. The United States Penitentiary at Lompoc is a federal prison located an hour north of us. The facility opened in 1959 and houses male inmates serving long sentences for sophisticated offenses: white-collar crime, interstate drug deals, tax evasion, and major fraud. As a bank robber, Satterfield must have felt right at home. I wondered about the nature of her interest in him. To me, the two seemed an odd mix.