I leafed through both reports, keeping the two documents side by side for comparison purposes. Pete had rewritten Dietz’s account on his own letterhead, embellishing in places, altering the wording so it sounded more folksy. Attached were invoices showing two sets of round-trip tickets from Santa Teresa to Reno, trips he’d certainly never made. He’d done a clumsy job of substituting his name for Dietz’s in the hotel bill, but he probably thought his client wouldn’t know the difference. I couldn’t think why he’d kept Dietz’s original. He’d have been smarter to destroy it unless he’d hoped to lift details to fashion a follow-up report. I doubted he had any intention of paying Dietz at all and what options did Dietz have? Trying to collect in California for work done in Nevada would have been an exercise in frustration. Taking Pete to small claims court would have been time consuming, and even if Dietz had won a judgment, what was he to do with it? Pete was flat broke.

“I hope he made good use of my photographs while he was at it,” he said.

He opened the manila envelope that bore his return address and removed the pictures he’d taken.

I peered over his shoulder. “That’s the gal you were hired to spy on?”

“Mary Lee Bryce, right.” Dietz shuffled through the prints while I looked on. “This is her when she first arrived at the hotel and this is Owen Pensky, the high school classmate she met with. Here’s one of her with the boss she was supposed to be having the affair with.”

“No love lost there,” I remarked.

“Unless they’re really good at faking it.”

“I bet Pete collected up front and in cash. He wasn’t the type to bill after the fact.”

“Depressing, but you’re probably right.”

“So if Willard Bryce has already paid Pete, there’s no point in asking him for the money. He’d turn you down cold.”

“When you said Pete was a scumbag, I thought you were exaggerating.”

“I should point out that you had a better motive to shoot Pete than any armed robber did. All that guy got was an empty wallet and a cheap watch.”

Dietz tossed aside the manila envelope. “You know what bugs me? Here I was so worried his death was connected to the job I did. If I’d known he was ripping me off, I wouldn’t have given it another thought.”

“He did provide a great excuse for spending time with me.”

“Well, there’s that.”

I checked the receipts for the two sets of plane tickets. “You think he actually paid for tickets? These are copies of copies. I wonder what happened to the originals.”