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questions I have to ask. After you saved her life, did she seem grateful, affectionate?”
    Mallon shook his head. “No. Not really. She understood that I wastrying to help her—she thanked me—but at first it took just about all her patience to be polite about it.” He decided he had to move closer to the parts of the evening that were more difficult to discuss. “After her nap, when she was feeling better, she was affectionate.”
    “She seemed to like and trust you. She walked all the way to your house and went to bed. Did you have sexual intercourse?”
    Mallon was shocked, appalled at the suddenness. “No,” he said firmly, then caught himself. He couldn’t lie to the police. “Not right away. It was after her nap. We each had a shower, and we ended up in the bath together. It wasn’t anything I intended. It was her idea, and she was very insistent.” The intensity of his own reaction suddenly struck him as suspicious. He began to identify the reasons aloud, so he wouldn’t sound defensive. “She was attractive, but she seemed to me to be around twenty-five, and I’m forty-eight. I thought I must have struck her as ancient. Besides, I assumed she must be emotionally …” He searched for a word, and came up with “unhealthy. Weak.” He added, “But at the time, when we were talking about it, she seemed to be sane and in control of herself.”
    Fowler nodded. “I understand. I just have to ask all these things, because somebody has to, and I’m the one it fell to. If something we’re supposed to get on the record came out later, and we hadn’t already covered it, that might make us both look bad. Let’s see. You said that at first she wasn’t affectionate or friendly. Did she resent you for saving her?”
    Mallon reflected. “I’m not sure. Maybe a little.”
    “Did you have to struggle with her, maybe to get her out of the drink, or make her go with you after?”
    “No.”
    Fowler looked at him with a furrowed brow, as though asking him for a favor. “Sometimes drowning people get a panic grip on you—climb right up on you and hold you under. You might have to hit them to keep them from dragging you under with them.”
    “No,” said Mallon. “She was unconscious.”
    “Even then,” said Fowler. “An unconscious girl is just a hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight. Sometimes you have to grab them any way you can.”
    “I used a cross-chest pull, my arm over her left shoulder and under her right arm. She didn’t fight, and I didn’t have to do anything but swim. When I got her to the shallows, I took both her wrists and dragged her up on the sand. It didn’t hurt her, and all I was worried about was keeping her face above the surface. When I got her to the shore I gave her CPR, and she coughed up some water. She never said anything about pain, so I assume there was none.”
    Fowler said, “Okay. Thanks very much for coming in and telling us about this, Mr. Mallon. It will help us clear this up. When a young woman like that dies, it’s just … mysterious.”
    “You’re welcome,” said Mallon. He stood up to leave, but Fowler made a quiet
uh
sound, and Mallon turned his head and waited.
    Fowler was looking at his notes, then at Mallon, then at his notes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll need to have you give the evidence guys your prints and a blood sample.”
    “Why? The most my DNA would tell you was that we had sex, and I already told you that.”
    “Standard procedure. We do it in any case like this. It’s mainly to eliminate you if something should come up later. If there’s a second set of prints on the weapon, you’ll want us to know right away they’re not yours. Likewise, blood and so on.”
    Mallon was sure now that the detective had been lying to him from the beginning. He had been prodding Mallon with these questions because he suspected him of something: killing the girl, or maybe rape. “It doesn’t sound like standard procedure. Should I call my