Caroline Todd, the widow of mystery writer Kenneth Todd, died March 22 of respiratory failure at the Wyndham Hotel in D.C. She was 86.
Caroline Todd and her husband operated the information business Caroline-Holland Data Services for more than a quarter century.
Mr. Todd was a former executive vice president at Bank of America in San Francisco, while his wife ran the operation while he was off in the oil industry.
Ms. Todd’s company provided access to billing, investment and development information for 4,500 businesses in the Bay Area, including local governments, movie and television producers, software developers and financial services firms.
Mr. Todd published five novels, including “Secret Sisters of New York” (1989), the story of an American woman who arrives in Paris in search of her stolen jewels.
In 1987 Ms. Todd married Frederick Ronald Van Zee, a former journalist who worked as a tutor and was a sportswriter at the San Francisco Chronicle in the late 1950s. She had been married to Henry Mollison Van Houten since 1951.
She is survived by Mr. Van Zee and two daughters. A son, Alexander Louis Van Houten, died in 1986. A daughter, Marsha Laura Van Houten, died in 2017.