A Death In Beverly Hills (4 page)

Chapter Eight

"Here you go, Mr. Janson." Smiling, Markham's receptionist handed Steve a buff envelope. Inside was a written authorization to interview Tom Travis in the County Jail, authorizations to review copies of Marian Travis's and Tom Travis's medical records, a "To Whom It May Concern" letter attesting that Steven Janson was retained by the Law Offices Of Gregory Markham as an investigator in the case of 'The People versus Thomas Travis' and requesting all possible cooperation, and lastly, a check for $14,000 covering the first week's work. As much as he hated everything about this job, Janson allowed himself a small measure of satisfaction in taking fourteen thousand dollars of Tom Travis's money.

Markham's offices filled a restored Victorian in Santa Monica a few blocks from Kenny's, a deli that Steve hadn't visited since Lynn's death. He was debating going back there when he noticed a woman standing in the shadows beneath an old sycamore in front of Markham's gate. As he approached a thin breeze rustled the leaves and gray shadows crawled up and down Cynthia Allard's bare arms.

"Hi, Steve. What are you doing here?" Expensively dressed in a silk business jacket, pearl blouse and charcoal skirt, Cynthia extended a ring-free hand.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Are you kidding? Greg Markham's the lead defense attorney in the Trial of The Century."

"What is this, the fourth or fifth Trial of The Century in the last fifteen years?"

"That depends on where you rank Michael Jackson." Cynthia glanced quickly from Janson to the building and back. "Some new development in your case?"

"No comment."

"Don't tell me you're helping Markham with the Travis case?"

"Deal," Steve said with a thin smile and turned to leave.

"Steve, come on, your working on the Travis case is major news."

"Do you have any proof that I am?"

Cynthia gave him a weak smile.

"It's been swell. Now, I'm going to lunch."

"Can I come along, for old times sake?" Steve looked up and down the tree-shrouded street. "It's just me, no cameras."

"Will I be having lunch with Cynthia Allard, old friend from the D.A.'s office or Cynthia Allard, Girl Reporter?"

"I'll keep my microphone in my purse."

"Everything that's said between us today is completely off the record, not background, not deep background. It never happened, right?"

"Fine," Cynthia agreed after a slight hesitation, "you drive."

* * *

Kenny's was still as Steve remembered it, huge laminated menus and vinyl booths, each table holding a bowl of sour pickles.

"So, how are you doing?" Cynthia asked once the waitress had shambled away.

"Okay. I'm mostly consulting for insurance defense firms, summarizing depositions, doing pre-trial motion research, interviewing witnesses, nothing that crosses the line into the actual practice of law."

"I don't work for the State Bar, Steve."

"Sorry. Defense mechanism. I know Ted Hamilton's just praying for me to do something he can prosecute me for."

"He had it bad for Lynn."

"If he had had it bad for Lynn," Steve said with a harsh edge creeping into his voice, "he wouldn't have tried to have me disbarred."

"I didn't--"

"No, I'm just a little wound up when it comes to Ted Hamilton. Territorial."

"Excuse me?"

"Someone . . . , somebody once told me that I was territorial." Janson took a swallow of iced tea then carefully set down the glass if it were woven from gossamer threads. "I'm going to say this very calmly and not lose my temper. Ted Hamilton is a toadying jerk. He went after Lynn mostly because she was Lynn Burris, daughter of the Honorable Malcolm Burris, scion of the Burris Family Conglomerate. No fragrance is as sweet to Ted Hamilton as the scent of old money. The fact that Lynn was beautiful and smart and fun was just icing on the cake. Ted Hamilton hates my guts because I took Daddy's family away from him. Lynn was just incidental. Then, in his eyes at least, I got her killed. He and Daddy finally found something they could agree on, that Steve Janson is a complete jerk.

"Now Ted's doing his wet dream of a murder case, on TV every day, a million dollar book deal waiting in the wings, and I'm practically disbarred, living in some crummy apartment in Studio City, and it's still not enough for him! Hamilton still wakes up every day asking himself, 'Is this the day I'll get to put Steve Janson in prison?' So, you want to know why I'm a little on edge whenever anyone mentions Ted Hamilton to me?" Steve took a bite of a fat pickle as if it were Hamilton's neck.

"You're telling me you're not working for Greg Markham?"

Steve gave Cynthia a sharp glance and she dipped her chin as if slapped. "Sorry."

"Do you like being a reporter?" he asked her a moment later in a transparent attempt to re-start the conversation.

"It has its moments. I like it more than prosecuting coked-up car thieves. And the pay is a lot better."

"It hardly seems like there's enough going on in the Travis case to keep you busy full time. What else are you doing?"

Cynthia fiddled with her sandwich, adding brown mustard in precise dabs. "It's like an assembly line, cops are investigating one case, the defendant's just been arrested in a second, the third one is about to go to trial, you know the drill."

"And Tom Travis is just a hop, skip, and a jump from a verdict."

"Until the judge got sick. How is he, by the way?"

"Daddy and I aren't close. You might say I'm off the mailing list for the family newsletter."

"You said he blamed you for Lynn's death. I would have thought that once he calmed down he would have realized that it wasn't your fault."

Steve nervously rubbed his nose and turned away. "That's just his cover story," he began, as if talking to himself. "Daddy was never happy about Lynn and me. Ted Hamilton went to Stanford. I went to City College. Ted graduated from Boalt Hall Law School. I took night classes at the UCLA extension. Ted's father was an executive Vice President for Excell Development Corporation. My dad was a carpenter. You see where this is going?"

"The Judge didn't think you were good enough for Lynn."

"He thought Lynn had committed the disgraceful sin of letting a mongrel into the thoroughbred's pasture. Deep in his heart I suspect he thinks her murder was just karma, life punishing her for having the bad taste to marry below her class." Steve took a swallow of tea and banged down his glass. "There was one Christmas . . . ." Scowling, he paused in mid-sentence and gave his head a little shake. "Never mind. That's all in the past now. How about you? Any new romance in your life these days?"

"No romance at all."

"What about, who was it, Larry Baldwin, the litigator from Crowell and Jones?"

Cynthia grimaced. "That was ages ago. I saw him a couple of months ago," she said, and suddenly grinned.

"What?"

"Oh, just thinking, one of those 'what if' things. I barely recognized him. He looked like he weighed three hundred pounds. His head was puffed up so much I thought it was going to explode."

"Dodged a bullet on that one."

"You bet. How about you? You seeing anyone?"

Now it was Steve's turn to frown. "Too many ghosts."

Cynthia hurried to change the subject.

"So, off the record, what do you think about the Travis case?"

"He's a prick, excuse my French, and he probably did it, but the evidence is pretty thin."

"If he didn't kill her, who did? Surely you don't buy Greg's serial killer/Satanic Cult theory?" Cynthia cut the second half of her sandwich into three precise, ladylike sections.

"I must have missed the day in law school where they covered the doctrine of Guilty By The Process Of Elimination. How does that work? "Once you have eliminated all other logical motives for a crime, the sole remaining person with a strong motive is presumed guilty"?

"You have to admit that the girl friend's testimony is pretty compelling."

"I've heard the sound bites on the news, but all they tell me is what I already said, the guy's a prick. He cheated on his wife and he lied to his mistress about his wife. That doesn't make him a killer."

"So you think somebody else did it and framed Travis by burying Marian's body in the same place where he was driving his dune buggy?"

Steve took a bite of pastrami, his eyes darting around the room, drawing out the silence until Cynthia decided that it was his way of telling her that he wasn't going to discuss the case. She picked up the last wedge of her own sandwich.

"Nobody cares what a semi-disbarred attorney thinks," Steve said half a minute later.

"I care."

"Okay, then in that case, I think he probably did it."

"But you're not convinced."

"I'm not on the jury. I don't have to be convinced."

"If you found out something that proved Travis didn't do it, would you turn it in?" Cynthia's asked in a nonchalant tone.

"You think I'd let an innocent man go to prison?"

"He's a prick, you said it yourself. He lied to his girlfriend. Probably hit his wife. Cheated on her at least. And . . . ." Cynthia let the sentence drop.

"And what?"

"Well, you know the rumors."

"What rumors?"

"Nothing," Cynthia said quickly, "just malicious gossip."

"Gossip about what?"

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"But you did. Now finish it," Steve demanded.

"I'm sure it isn't true," Cynthia began after a long pause, "but there were rumors that Tom and Lynn went out a few times after he met her at one of her family's charity functions. She never mentioned him to you?"

"It looks like Cynthia Allard, Girl Reporter, is back in town," Steve said, his voice flat, harsh. Standing, he dropped a twenty on the table.

"Steve, I'm sorry." Cynthia grabbed his hand. "It's this job, sometimes things just slip out. I really do want to be your friend." Steve jerked his hand away. "Let me make it up to you. If you ever need anything, even if it's just a friend you can talk to, call me, please."

"I'll have the waitress call you a cab," Steve said in a tone as dead as clay and turned toward the door.

Chapter Nine

Steve barely noticed the drive home, his arms and legs operating on automatic pilot like so many pistons and gears while his mind replayed the last time he had seen Tom Travis. It had been at the La Paloma Grill up in Malibu Canyon. Two miles east of the Pacific Coast Highway the villagers liked to think of themselves as residents of another world, someplace rural and organic and as remote from the grit of Los Angeles as Catalina island is from the mainland shore.

They had driven up in Lynn's crimson Mercedes SL. Steve remembered tossing the keys to the all-American kid at the valet parking stand. At his age Steve would have been thrilled to get behind the wheel of an eighty thousand dollar car. Jaded by Ferraris, Bentleys and quarter million dollar Aston Martins, the boy looked at the Merc with no more interest than he would have given his grandma's Toyota.

Behind La Paloma's main building lay a patio sheltered by pale stucco walls which in turn were almost hidden beneath bougainvillea, wisteria, and climbing roses in sprays of purple, white and butter gold. Steve remembered everything about that night in exaggerated colors. Lynn's dress floated in his memory, a lustrous cobalt that matched the glimmering blue of her eyes.

The patio seemed a fairy garden sunken beneath the bowl of the night. Candles flickered within crystal lamps and here and there in the shadows twenty dollar cigars pulsed like oversized lightning bugs. Tom Travis had reserved a table two-thirds of the way across the glazed brick patio, directly opposite the restaurant's rear doors. Muted strains of a string quartet drifted on the breeze, a counterpoint to cricket chirps and distorted voices which all twisted together like the babble of a small stream. When they reached the table Travis gave Lynn a dazzling smile, stood, and kissed her cheek. Steve glanced at the empty fourth chair.

"Great to see you guys. Steve, right? Tom Travis." Travis's palm was firm and dry. "How do you like this place? One of my little hideaways where the tourists can't find me." Travis swept his arm in an expansive gesture as if proclaiming the La Paloma part of his personal domain. "It's just the three of us tonight, Elena had a thing," Travis said referring to his current girlfriend. Travis paused, then broke into a sour grin. "Actually, she's pissed at me. She doesn't have Lynn's sunny personality. Everything's a freaking drama. I guess that's what I get for dating an actress." Tom spotted a white-coated bus boy and waved him over. "Bring me a nice red, French. Champagne for you Lynn? Steve, what's your poison."

"I'll have whatever you're having."

"Great choice! You got that son?" Travis pressed a twenty in the kid's palm and turned away.

"Lynn, you look terrific, as always. You hit a home run with this lady, Steve. If I had had any sense I'd have dumped Sally Sizemore the instant I laid eyes on Lynn, but timing is everything, right? My loss is your gain." A waiter brought their drinks.

"I couldn't agree with you more, Tom." Steve let his words hang in the air like a toast and clinked Travis's glass.

"Happy days," Lynn said when Tom's goblet kissed hers.

For a man having girlfriend trouble, Travis seemed in high spirits, regaling them with celebrity anecdotes and inside jokes. A few times he slipped into reminiscences with Lynn about some society family or charitable function and Steve used the void to order another drink.

"So, Steve," Travis said shortly after their meals arrived, "I understand that you were a cop before you joined the D.A.'s office. You ever in any hairy situations while you were on the street?"

"I was shot at a couple of times. Luckily, they missed." Steve smiled and cut a piece of veal.

"You get the chance to shoot back?"

"They frowned on us letting the bad guys get away with that sort of stuff."

"So, did they?"

"What?"

"Get away."

Steve paused and glanced at Travis's glistening face above the candle flame. His teeth were so white that he seemed like the Cheshire Cat, slowly disappearing until only his smile was left behind. "No," Steve said, putting down his fork. "They didn't get away."

"So you took care of business, both times?"

"Yeah." Steve finished his last swallow of wine.

"See, Steve, that's how you're different from the phonies in my business. If any of them had put a guy down, that's all they'd talk about and every time they told the story there'd be another bad guy in the mix. See, that's why I wanted to meet you.--"

"Excuse me?"

"Lynn told me a little about you, the kind of stand-up guy you are." Steve gave Lynn a quick glance that seemed to bounce off unnoticed. "I'm doing a new film,
In The Dead Of Night
. I play a lawyer who used to be a cop who's defending this beautiful woman who's accused of killing her cheating husband. We need to hire somebody as the technical advisor."

"If you're going to play a defense attorney--"

"There are going to be some flashbacks to when the hero was a beat cop. And here's the twist, when he was a cop he was involved with the defendant, crazy about her, but she dumped him for the husband. Now, years later, she begs him to defend her, and he's still crazy in love with her and he keeps remembering being with her during his days as a cop. So, we'll have to get an advisor for the cop stuff and one for the lawyer stuff." Travis pointed his finger at Steve like a cocked gun. "Bam, two birds with one stone. We'd only need you for a few days of actual shooting, maybe you could schedule some vacation time, and you'd have to look over the script and give the director your notes."

"I--"

"There's a ten grand payday in it. Not like you guys need the money, but, hey, that would cover a nice little getaway for you two down to Saint Barts. Am I right?"

Steve glanced at Lynn who was working so hard at not showing any emotion that in the dim light her face looked like a marble mask.

"Maybe somebody from the studio could email me the dates when you'd need me and I could talk with my boss and make sure I can get the time off."

"Sounds like a plan. Hey, we'll have a great time. Who knows. This could develop into a nice little sideline for you. I know some cops who do two, three movies a year." Tom raised his glass and Steve, smiling, followed suit. After that, by imperceptible degrees, his memory of the evening slowly dissolved. At some point Travis switched to brandy. His stories became louder, his gestures more expansive. Finally, around eleven Lynn said something about work and scraped her chair back across the bricks. For an instant Travis's attention seemed to freeze then he gave them a sloppy smile, rose and engulfed Lynn in a long hug and short kiss on the lips. Steve got a hug too, but, mercifully, no kiss.

Once on the street, the air seemed sharper and Steve felt a subtle wobble tilt his brain.

"Sweetie, you mind driving? I'm not sure I could pass a Breathalyzer test right now."

Instead of answering, Lynn gave him a long kiss. "Ummm, you don't taste drunk to me."

"I guess we'll have to put that to the test when we get home."

Lynn gave him a slow smile and slipped behind the wheel. "You're not going to work on the movie, are you?"

"Without the actual shooting schedule . . . ." Steve let the sentence die.

"You don't like Tom, do you?"

"Was I that obvious?"

"In his world he deals with professional phonies. You're nowhere near their league."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"I meant it as one." Periodically in the distance below them white dots flickered on the PCH. "He's not that bad, you know."

"I didn't say he was."

"No, I mean he comes off like this self-centered, egoistical person, but underneath, he's really very sweet." Steve slightly reclined his seat and closed his eyes. "Some people in this town are very good at making themselves seem a lot better than they really are. Tom's just the opposite. The harder he tries to play the good guy, the worse he looks. It's sad, really."

"That's a penetrating analysis. I thought you didn't know him that well."

"Are you jealous?"

"Of a Hollywood star and the most desirable woman in the world? You bet I'm jealous."

"Good, then my plan has worked."

"So, how well did you know him?"

"He's ancient history. I wouldn't trade you for two Tom Travises."

"But what about three Tom Travises?"

"Hmmm, three Tom Travises? I'll have to think about that one."

They made love through half night until Steve wondered if La Paloma's wines had been enchanted or drugged. It was only halfway through the following afternoon that he realized that Lynn never did explain how well she had known Tom Travis, and by then, he didn't want to find out.

A Porsche Cayenne ran the yellow at Dover and, in a squeal of brakes, Steve snapped back to the present. That dinner was when? Like an American transplanted to Paris converting feet to centimeters, Fahrenheit to Celsius, Steve converted time to and from normal calendar dates as so many days and months BLD and ALD - Before Lynn Died and After Lynn Died. Dinner at the La Paloma. That was not long after they were married, about two and a half years, BLD. The intersection cleared and Steve accelerated on through.