A Death In Beverly Hills (6 page)

"So, you never gave him any names of guys who'd do the Big Job?"

"No fucking way!"

"When his wife went missing, did you think he did it?"

"Two plus two still makes four, right?"

"You think that's what he wanted the hit man for?"

"What do you think?"

Katz and Furley glanced at each other then slid back their chairs. Katz extended his hand. "Thanks for your help, Mr. Berdue. We'll give you a call if we have any other questions."

"Yeah, sure," Bobby said, taking a second or two before he was able to connect with Simon's hand. He let go and reached for his beer, accidently knocked it over and frowned. The detectives had just reached the door when they halted at a shout from behind.

"Hey, can you guys call the San Diego D.A. for me? They've got some hummer beef they're after me on. Maybe you could tell them I've been cooperating with you guys?"

"One hand washes the other," Katz said.

"Huh?"

"If the LA D.A. asks you, are you going to testify about Travis looking for a hit man?"

"What? Oh, yeah, sure. No problem."

"You've got my card. Leave the San Diego deputy D.A.'s name on my voice mail. I'll give him a jingle."

Behind them, Katz heard the tab snap on another can of beer. Furley beeped the remote and they jogged to the Crown Vic through the growing rain. Katz's knee throbbed harder with every step.

Chapter Twelve

Steve was just putting his dinner plate into the dishwasher when the phone rang. He peered at the receiver as if it were a coiled snake. Had Cynthia told anyone he was working for Tom Travis? The phone trilled a second time. Jesus, if the media found out about him being involved, all the crap about Lynn would come up again. His own voice filled the room: "Hi, this is Steve. Leave a message."

"Steve, it's Greg. Pick up."

For a second Steve froze, then, reluctantly, grabbed the phone.

"You got any plans for nine tomorrow morning?" Markham asked.

"I'm still going through the files."

"Meet me at the main jail. Tom wants to talk to you."

Steve frowned. "I don't know enough to know what questions to ask him."

"I didn't say you needed to talk to him. I said he wants to talk to you."

"Look, I've got a million things to do here . . . ." Steve stared at the stacks of boxes he not yet opened.

"We're in the service business. This is part of the service."

"Okay," Steve reluctantly agreed.

* * *

As a VIP defendant, Tom Travis had his own cell, isolated from the rest of the prison population. Freshly showered and shaved, his thinning hair neatly combed, Travis was escorted into the jail's tiny conference room. A square stainless table was bolted to the floor. Four metal stools like steel petals extending from an oversize metallic flower sprang from the central post. Steve took the seat opposite Travis.

"Steve," Tom gave Janson a weak smile and extended his hand to limit of the chain securing it to his waist. "Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances." A grimace marked his glance around the barren room. "A little different from La Paloma, I guess."

"Yeah, " Steve agreed, "a little bit."

"Listen, guy, I didn't get the chance to say it before, but I'm really sorry about--"

"Sure, I know. I'm trying to put that behind me."

"She was special lady."

"Yes, she was." Travis seemed genuinely sad, both for Lynn and for his own situation. Tom had lost weight since their dinner together. Now, clothed in a baggy orange jumpsuit, he seemed only a shadow of the man he once had been. In spite of his personal dislike for the actor, Steve felt the beginning of a small sympathetic ache.

"Hell of a thing for us to have in common," Tom said. Markham's face paled. "Both of us, I mean, having our wives murdered by lunatics."

Steve thought about leaping over the table and burying his fist in Travis's face, but found he couldn't move, as if rage and pain battled each other for dominance and only succeeded in locking his muscles in place. Travis seemed to sense he had said something wrong and pulled back but he didn't seem to know quite what or why.
People have been smiling and kissing his ass so long
, Steve decided,
the guy no longer has a clue how he pisses people off.

"Hell of a thing," Markham said and glanced at his watch. That was one gesture Travis understood.

"Well, anyway, thanks for coming. I was really pleased when Greg told me you were going to help me. God knows I can use all the help I can get. Nothing against the last detective, McGarrey, but the guy never believed me. I could tell his heart wasn't in it. But I know you won't let me down, Steve. We go way back, this guy and me," Tom said to Markham.

"Tom, you know I've only started going through the files, but since we're here, maybe I can ask you a few questions?"

"Why not? Everybody else has had their shot at me."

Steve paused while a passing guard peered through the Plexiglas window, then opened his yellow pad. "Kaitlen Berdue's brother, Bobby, told the police that you asked him for a referral to a hit man. Something about a movie you were going to do. According to your interview with the police a few weeks after Marian disappeared the movie you were shooting was a horror film called
The Boneyard
, which doesn't sound like it has any hit men in it. Was Berdue making that up?"

"Not exactly, I mean I said something about needing to research role as a hit man, but just as, you know, casual dinner conversation." Steve pretended that was the most reasonable answer in the world and after a brief pause, Travis continued. "There was this book,
Hard Contract
, that was really hot. Eastwood, Ridley Scott, and some other guys, all of them were bidding on it. The main character is this aging hit man hired by a rich guy to find and kill the person who murdered his wife. The twist is that the killer was a woman and the deeper the hit man gets into it, the more it looks like the rich guy hired her to kill the wife and now he wants the hit man to kill her to clean up the loose ends. Of course, my character starts to fall in love with the target. Hell of role."

"So, you were negotiating for this part when you talked to Berdue? Will the director and the producer back you up?" Steve stared at Travis expectantly and was met with a blank stare.

"Fuck!" Travis finally said, banging his fist on the table and turning away. "I gotta say it? You want me to spell it out?" Puzzled, Steve looked at Greg to see if he had a clue what Travis was talking about. "This town," Travis hissed, "this town has no heart, it's like a fucking robot monster. It doesn't care what you've done, who you were, only who you
are
. I was the number one box office star for four years in a row. Four years. Now, half the time they hear 'Tom Travis' they won't even let me read for the part. This was a big book with real talent behind the movie. I could have played this guy, played the hell out of him. A-Class director, A-Class production, best seller, this role would have put me back on top, like Frank Sinatra after
From Here To Eternity
.

"Yeah, sure I wanted to talk to a hit man. I wanted any edge I could fucking get! I figured that if I could get some coaching, pick out a good scene from the book and get them to give me a chance, just let me read for it, I could get the part. So, yeah, I asked Bobby Berdue if he could help me. I knew he'd been in the joint. I figured maybe he could turn me on to somebody who could, you know, coach me."

"But he didn't."

"Didn't even return my call. Can you believe that? This fucking small time, ex-con loser won't return
my
call. Unbelievable."

"Okay, it's not that bad. Even if you didn't get the part, the director--"

Travis waved his hand and scowled when his wrist snapped to a halt at the end of the chain. "See, that's the thing. I never got the chance to read for the part. By the time I figured out I wasn't getting any help from Bobby Berdue there was a story in the Trades that Eastwood was taking the part for himself. Well, fuck, if Clint Eastwood is going to star and direct nobody wants to hear from Tom Travis. If I'd have called them after that, they'd have laughed me right out of town. God damn Leno would have put it in his opening monolog."

"So you took the horror movie."

"Yeah, I took the horror movie. A million bucks! Christ, there was a time when I wouldn't cross the street in this town for a million bucks. Hell, if you offered me a million bucks a few years back and I'd have punched your lights out for insulting me with chump change." Travis gazed sadly around the cell. "And I thought things couldn't get any worse than doing some screamer for a million flat, then I end up in here." Travis shook his head.

Have you forgotten that your wife and baby are dead
? Steve wondered. He sat perfectly still, offended into silence and realizing for the first time the immense gulf between Tom Travis's view of the world and that of normal people, that everything Travis heard and saw was distorted through the prism of his own celebrity. Steve turned back to his notes.

"Tom, you told Kaitlen Berdue that you had had an argument with your wife the day she disappeared. How big an argument was it, I mean was it the typical husband-wife stuff or was there screaming and shouting?"

"Where I come from screaming and shouting
is
a normal husband and wife stuff," Travis said, smiling. Steve just stared at him. "Yeah, okay," Travis continued, "no flying plates, nothing physical. Look, it was a constant thing with her the last couple of months. I put it down to hormones and her being fat. She'd get on my case and I'd tell her to get off. She'd say something and I'd tell her to go to hell. She'd call me names--"

"What kind of names?"

"Jeeze, we gotta get into that?"

"Think of me like your doctor."

"What kind of names?" Tom muttered. "Okay, 'fool', 'jerk', 'lazy self-centered bastard', 'narcissistic, lazy, self-centered, bastard'. I thought that last one was just plain redundant," Travis said with a thin smile.

"Then what?"

Travis scowled. "Then I'd say some things." Steve stared and finally Travis continued. "I'd remind her that it was my house and my money that paid for it and if I wanted to sit on my butt in my own easy chair that was my right. I'd remind her that I started out with nothing, moving furniture, pumping gas, that I'd gotten into the business risking my neck doing stunts and that I'd earned every dollar she was spending. Then she'd scream some more, and I'd want to punch her lights out but I wouldn't. I learned that in anger management. When I started to feel like that, like hitting her, I'd just got out. Went to the weight room or hit the pool or, like that day, I took off to pound the dune buggy against the desert.

"So, yeah, okay, we argued, but I never touched her. I just left. I didn't put her in the back of the Hummer. I didn't take a shovel with me. I didn't bury her in the desert. I was pissed off, sure. But, like I said, I put her behavior down to her hormones being out of whack because of the pregnancy. I figured once she had the baby, she'd go back to normal."

How many women are there on the jury?
Steve wondered.

"Tom, I know you've been asked this a hundred times, but I've got to go back to it. Who could have done this? It wasn't a robbery. It wasn't a sex crime. The odds of this being a random serial killer are like billions to one. Someone wanted Marian, or you, dead. Who could it have been?" Travis sat immobile, staring at his distorted image in the steel table top. "How about Kaitlen Berdue?" Steve asked a moment later.

"Kaitlen couldn't swat a fly. She doesn't have it in her."

"She sure did a number on you. Have you heard the tapes she made for the cops?"

"Yeah, I've heard them. They took advantage of her."

"Tom, the main reason you're on trial" Greg broke in, "is those tapes. They inflamed the public and turned everybody against you. If we don't find some evidence pointing to someone else, they're going to get you convicted. If she could set you up that way, is it that long a jump to thinking that maybe she had something to do with your wife's death?"

Travis kept his head down, slowly shaking it from side to side. "I lied to her," he said finally in almost a whisper.

"What?"

"It's my own fault. I lied to her, all that shit about Marian being a lesbo." Suddenly, Travis looked up. "This is all confidential, right, attorney-client privilege?"

Greg and Steve gave each other a quick look and Markham nodded.

"Okay, well, the truth is that I was in love with her, Katey. I figured I'd wait until the baby was born and when Marian was back on her feet, emotionally I mean, we'd have a nice quiet divorce. We had a pre-nup so it wasn't going to be any problem, financially. Flat payment of a million bucks, $10,000 a month alimony for two years and child support. My divorce lawyer told me that child support would be another $5,000 a month until the alimony ran out then it would go up to $10K. I had no problem with those numbers. Anyway, right after the divorce I was going to ask Katey to marry me. Then everything went out of control. I don't blame her. How was she to know I was going to marry her? As far as she knew, I just flat out lied to her to get her into the sack. I don't blame her. Hell, I can't even blame the cops. They took advantage of her sweet nature but I guess they were just doing their jobs."

Steve shook his head in amazement. "Tom, you do remember telling Kaitlen on one of the tapes that you and she could get married as soon as the publicity over Marian's disappearance died down? And she didn't believe you."

"Well, given everything that happened, who would? I guess I'll never get her back now, will I?"

Steve wanted to grab Travis's shoulders and just shake him.
You're about to be convicted of first degree murder and maybe get sentenced to death and you're still thinking that the woman who betrayed you to the cops is going to take you back and you'll both live happily ever after? What fucking planet are you living on?

"Okay, Tom," Steve said more calmly than he felt, "if Kaitlen wasn't involved, who else is there?"

"My money's on her brother."

"Why him?"

"One," Travis raised his index finger, "he's a low life punk. He could put the hammer down on somebody, or find a guy who could. Two, he wanted a piece of me. I could see it in his eyes. He looked at me like some big lotto ticket that was about to pay off. If Katey and me got hitched, you can bet Bobby planned on being right there with his hand out. But as far as he knew, that wasn't going to happen, at least as long as Marian was in the picture. I figure he hired some scumbag ex-con friend to do it and they screwed it up and dumped her in the desert."