Lynn Peterson’s abduction and murder transform Philip Marlowe’s search for her supposedly dead brother into an investigation shadowed by a killing he could not prevent. The men who take her appear to be pursuing Nico Peterson over a debt; after Lynn is found dead, Marlowe must face both his connection to the case and his inability to protect her.

Causes and Abduction

Before the attack, Marlowe tells Joe Green that the Mexican men had already been seen watching the Peterson house, looking through its windows. He suspects Nico owed them a substantial amount of money, though this is Marlowe’s inference rather than confirmed knowledge. The men’s interest in the house therefore precedes Lynn’s appearance and links the abduction to their pursuit of her brother.

When Marlowe is at the house, Lynn is preparing drinks. Armed men enter through the back door, strike Marlowe, and take her away. He later tells Joe that there was no time to ask Lynn why the men were looking for Nico. The attack leaves Marlowe injured and the reason for the gunmen’s interest unresolved; his suspicion of a debt offers a likely motive, not an answer established by Lynn herself.

Discovery at Encino Reservoir

After the abduction, Joe Green summons Philip Marlowe to Encino Reservoir, directing him along Encino Avenue and telling him to turn at a no-entry sign. The news that the missing woman has been found shifts the case from a search to the confirmation of a death. On the drive, Marlowe thinks of Clare Cavendish, whom he had recently frightened and angered, and of his own earlier confrontation with the armed men. He wonders whether keeping his temper might have prevented them from taking Lynn, while recognizing that this is uncertain; the possibility nevertheless gives his arrival an added weight of personal guilt.

At the reservoir, Lynn is identified through her driver’s license, though the condition of her body makes recognition difficult. The violence inflicted on her is described as severe, and the medical examiner indicates that her throat was cut before she died. Marlowe’s recollection of seeing her at the Peterson house—standing by the sink with an ice tray and telling him where to find the Canada Dry—sets an ordinary moment of hospitality against the fate that followed. The contrast makes the discovery more than a case detail: the woman he had only just met is now dead, and the men who took her have turned his search for Nico Peterson into an inquiry inseparable from her murder.

Investigation and Responsibility

Lynn Peterson’s death also turns Marlowe from an investigator into a person the authorities have reason to examine. Bernie Ohls points to the sequence that connects him to the case: Marlowe had been searching the Peterson house for Nico, Lynn appeared, armed men took her after knocking Marlowe down, and she was later found dead. Marlowe insists that he had met Lynn only that day and rejects the implication that he was involved, but he understands that Ohls is doing his job. He warns that pursuing the connection will waste time; Ohls regards Marlowe’s presence in the chain of events as a sufficient link to investigate.

That suspicion compounds Marlowe’s private sense of failure. He had already questioned whether calling Joe Green about Clare Cavendish’s sighting of Nico betrayed Clare’s trust, and whether he should have followed the lead longer before bringing the police in. After the abduction, he wonders whether a cooler response to the gunmen might have prevented them from taking Lynn, while admitting that this is only a possibility. The investigation therefore leaves him caught between professional judgment and personal accountability: he cannot know whether different choices would have changed Lynn’s fate, but he cannot treat her murder as merely another clue in the search for her brother.

Narrative Presentation

The news reaches Philip Marlowe through Joe Green’s abrupt, joking exchange with him: Joe first answers Marlowe’s account of having stepped away with a sarcastic remark, then says the missing woman has been found and gives directions to Encino Reservoir. The shift from banter to the practical instruction to come and see makes the revelation arrive as a change in the conversation’s register before Marlowe encounters its full meaning. Because the episode is narrated through Marlowe’s immediate reactions, the earlier ordinary image of Lynn Peterson at the sink remains close to the later discovery, while the investigation’s language of leads and connections is made to carry the weight of a particular person’s death.