LO, I WILL TELL YOU A MYSTERY

(Author's Note: VERONICA fans know that the girl frequently narrates her episodes in voice-over, commenting on the goings-on. I'm assuming that Veronica's comments are from her diary. I'm also trying to catch the way Veronica mood-swings between aloof commentary and deeply felt responses)

Chapter 2 Girl Talk

Several hours later Veronica Mars was to log onto her thoroughly encrypted diary and write up the day.

Dear Diary:

Met the Girardis this afternoon over late lunch. Old Girardi is straightforward enough: a good detective like my Dad, except that he didn't have his police career ruined by the Kanes.. There's something odd about the girl. Seems to be a sheltered innocent, but I think she has a secret. Watches what she says all the time, seems anxious when attention is focused on her. Of course, I may be oversensitive to such things. Probably the secret is something really boring, like she's sleeping with her boyfriend while her Dad thinks she's still a virgin. There are things I conceal from my own Dad, so I guess I should keep my nose out of Joan's business.

Dad's explained the Rivers case to Mr. Girardi. The Mrs thought her husband was seeing another woman. I trailed Rivers, and eventually saw a meeting -- not with a girl, but with a thug I recognized, an enforcer for a local loan shark. The only odd thing was, the loan shark was safely in jail in San Diego. Dad told Mrs. Rivers, she told her husband, and he finally owned up that his problem was a bad debt and not adultery. Ergo, Dad and I are off the case and no longer getting paid. Really, no good deed goes unpunished.

But a week later the Rivers had a bad auto accident--

----

Joan gasped. "What's wrong?" asked the Mars girl.

"My brother Kevin was in an auto accident," Joan murmured. "He may be paralyzed for life."

"I'm terribly sorry," said Mars. "But then, you can understand how outraged I am at the idea that the Rivers' accident was deliberate. Anything can happen in an auto accident; it's wanton violence."

"You're sure it was deliberate?" pressed Will.

"Oh, yeah. Seems a new loan shark took over the business, and the Rivers got a note from their new creditor -- carefully phrased, but too well timed to be anything but a veiled threat."

"It looks to me like you have enough to go to the police," said Will. "Why don't you, particularly since the Rivers are no longer paying you?"

Mars sighed. "First, I have to explain about Neptune, California. It's not your average city. It's a vacation resort well known in that area of the country, and I don't mean Disney. People go there to have fun, often illicit. They don't want an effective police department looking over their shoulders. They want a slack one, and that's what they got. The Sheriff is named Lamb, and he's an idiot."

Joan was startled to notice a look of hatred pass over Veronica's features for a second before the other girl composed herself. For some reason, Veronica despised Lamb.

"As for pay," Mars went on. "The loan shark had another client who doesn't want to be identified, whom we'll call X. X lucked out -- got an inheritance that let him settle his debt, but he still wants to nail the creditor. When I traced a financial link to here in Maryland, he agreed to pay for our airplane tickets and some other expenses to investigate. That's how we got here."

"I see," said Will. "I'll be glad to help -- auto accidents are horrible enough without somebody causing them on purpose. Let's go up to your room to see what you have on this guy. Joan, why don't you girls take the car and go sightseeing while we're doing the dull stuff?

"But--" started Veronica, who obviously didn't like being lumped in with "you girls". She sort of reminded Joan of Grace. But she acquiesced at a gesture from her father. "Okay. Memorials, here we come."

------

After two and a half years of service, Joan had learned to guess how her divine missions worked. She didn't think this loan shark business was her thing. Far more likely, the mission would involve the other girl, Veronica. As she drove her father's car south toward the big park on her map, she tried to chat the girl up.

"It must be a rotten kind of life," Joan said. "Having to spy on philanderers, I mean."

"Oh, yes," replied Veronica with obvious sarcasm. "I'm shocked -- SHOCKED! -- to find out what goes in people's bedrooms." Joan, who seldom saw movies filmed earlier than her own generation, was to find out later that Veronica was adapting a famous line from CASABLANCA. "But there are advantages. Most people have to pay for porn videos to see the racy stuff; I get paid for it. Not every girl has a father who can afford to shelter her from the world.."

"I'm NOT sheltered," Joan retorted, finding that last remark vaguely insulting. "You heard about my brother. I had a serious illness two years ago, Lyme Disease. And one of my best friends got murdered --"

"What?".

Joan pulled into a curbside parking space. Navigating an unfamiliar city's traffic while brooding on Judith's fate would be dangerous. "Her name was Judith Montgomery. She was a wild girl, but I loved her. Um, I don't mean--"

"Right."

"She got stabbed to death while trying to buy drugs. The drug thing was wrong, but she didn't deserve to die for it."

"Did they catch the guy?"

"What? Oh, sort of. He got murdered by some other crook. I didn't really care." It was impossible to tell the positive side of the story: that God had redeemed Judith, either for Joan's sake or because He saw something good in the tragic girl. Judith's ghost occasionally visited Joan and urged her not to worry about her.

Veronica was slumped in the passenger seat, all her initial vivacity gone, as if it were an act that she had been putting on. "I lost a best friend too. Lily Kane. Like your friend, she was no angel, but she took me under her wing when I first came to Neptune. Until some bastard bashed her head in."

It was useless to ask what happened to Lily's soul. Joan knew what sort of question Veronica expected. "Did you find out who?"

"Yeah. I was determined to track down the guy. My father originally just wanted me to help out in his office as secretary and receptionist, but I asked him to show me the tricks of the trade, and eventually I caught him. The guy's lawyers keep holding up the trial, but at least he's sitting in jail while they stall. Still, none of that brings Lily back---"

Joan and Veronica stared at each other. The recital of woes was no longer a game of can-you-top-this. It was a matter of shared sympathy, between two girls who had just met.

TBC