Gold Hill (32 page)

“
Mmm,” Jeraine expressed
his doubt.

“
You ever notice how
Tanesha glows?”

Jeraine looked away from
Bumpy.

“
Oh come on,” Bumpy said.
“You have to have noticed.”

“
Noticed?” Jeraine smiled.
“Every man in a mile notices her when she lights up. Those movie
guys are smitten.”

“
You ever think she might
light up because of you?”

“
No, not even I’m that
vain,” Jeraine laughed. Bumpy glanced at him and laughed with
him.

“
Get some rest, Jer,”
Bumpy said. “We have another hour or so. You want to be refreshed
for your shining girl when she gets home from school.”

“
Thanks Dad.”

“
For what?”

“
For telling me,” Jeraine
said.

Jeraine curled up against
the passenger door and fell asleep. They’d gone another fifty miles
when Bumpy laughed at his memory of Rodney and Yvonne at that rest
stop all those years ago. He reached over and turned on the
radio.

“
You’re listening to
Colorado Public Radio,” the cool voiced announcer said. “Four
women’s bodies were found in State Attorney General Alvin’s rental
property where Westword reports the State Attorney General ran a
prostitution ring for more than a decade. Mr. Alvin went on the
defensive at this afternoon’s press conference:

“
Do I own the four-plex?
Yes,”
State Attorney General Alvin’s voice
had the practiced echo of a seasoned politician.
“Have I owned it for a long time? Yes. But
running some kind of whore house? Decades of profiting from the
sale of sexual favors? I have three daughters for God’s sake! These
ridiculous claims can only be the fictional work of a bitter man
who was incapable of solving the Saint Jude serial murders. If I
hadn’t stepped in to resolve that situation, the vicious serial
killer would still be killing Denver’s sons and
daughter . . . ”

Bumpy switched off the
radio.

“
What is it, Dad?” Jeraine
asked.

“
Nothing,” Bumpy said.
“Just an evil spider spinning his web of lies to cover his own
ass.”

“
Hmm . . . ” Not asleep, but not quite
awake, Jeraine looked over at Bumpy. Seeing how angry his father
was, he sat up and repeated, “What is it, Dad?”

“
Nothing,” Bumpy said.
Feeling his son’s eyes on his face, Bumpy glanced at Jeraine. “It’s
just that there’s a bunch of us who know the truth. All of us,
everyone who loves Yvonne, we’ve busted our asses to support her
where she is because lord knows, he’d kill her rather than let her
go.”

“
Dad?” Jeraine shook his
head. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about.”

“
May you never be in the
position to support someone who is forced to live her life as a
slave,” Bumpy said. “You think, ‘As long as she’s alive, there’s a
chance she could get away, to live again, come home.’ And she’s a
young woman. But she has to live that life day in, day out while
you sit on your hands. It’s not a good place for a man like me. Did
you know Tanesha fights with her keeper every single
month?”

“
She doesn’t talk about
her mom,” Jeraine said.

“
Every month he tells her
she’s lucky Yvonne’s not dead. He never fails to add, ‘Next time
you come, she just might be dead.” Bumpy shook his head. “Your wife
is tougher than I am. Rodney says she tells him she’ll skin him
alive if she comes and her mother is dead. And you know what? I
believe her.”

“
Me too.”

Bumpy shook his
head.

“
What?” Jeraine
asked.

“
Seth’s going to be
furious,” Bumpy said.

Jeraine laughed.

“
Have you seen him mad?”
Bumpy asked.

“
More than once,” Jeraine
said.

“
Well, God bless Aaron
Alvin,” Bumpy said. “Maybe he’s gonna finally get what’s coming to
him.”

“
Why’d you speed up?”
Jeraine asked.

“
We’d better get back,”
Bumpy nodded. “There’s going to be a firestorm and we’d better be
there to make sure it doesn’t plant any burning crosses on your
Mom’s front lawn.”

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday afternoon — 4:25
p.m. P.T./ 5:25 p.m. MT

“
Sorry, it’s taken so
long,” Seth said as he came out onto the porch at the Malibu house.
Lying in a chaise lounge with her toes pointed at the ocean, Ava
looked up from her magazine. He sat in the chaise lounge next to
her.

“
What’s going on, Seth?”
Ava asked.

“
Jeraine picked up a sound
in our recording,” Seth said. “It’s a long story, but it looks like
Jer spotted a faulty recording device. None of the men can hear the
sound, but the women can. It’s subtle at best and easy to miss, but
the sound may be responsible for tanking more than a few good
movies.”

“
Sounds like lawyers will
get involved,” Ava said.

“
Probably,” Seth smiled.
“What it means to me is that we need to re-record everything we’ve
done so far. That’s not such a huge deal since the orchestra knows
their parts and the whole machine is working well. It’s just
that . . . ”

He reached a hand out to
her which she caught midair. She smiled at him.

“
I want to go
home.”

“
I bet,” Ava said. “How
long do you think it will take to re-record everything?”

“
Couple weeks, tops,” Seth
said. “Especially since Jeraine’s on board. I guess they set up
everything at his apartment. We can get him the sound every night,
they’ll mix it and add the sound track to the movie. We’ll know
what we need to redo in the morning.”

“
Is that different from
other times?” Ava asked.

“
That kind of turn around
is unusual,” Seth said. “It can take months or years even, but
since they’ve been through it and Jeraine is there, it should be
pretty straight forward.”

Ava smiled.

“
Schmidty said you were
upset about something,” Seth said.

“
Did you tell Westword
that my Dad had prostitutes at apartments he owns on Fourteenth?”
Ava asked.

“
Of course not,” Seth
said. “That would be really bad for Yvonne. Why?”

Stunned by his words, Ava’s
mouth dropped open and her eyes flooded with tears.

“
Wha . . .
What are you saying?” She rocked herself back and forth.

Seth jumped over to her.
She let him pull her to him and cried into his chest. He held her
as her tears became sobs and her sobs slowed to tears. He continued
to hold her after the storm had passed and she clutched onto him
like a life raft. When the words came, he shifted back to let her
breathe.

“
It’s like an answer to a
question I didn’t know I had,” Ava said. “Where did all the money
come from? Why did we have such a big house? Private schools?
Plastic surgery? It’s like I’ve always known and never known at the
same time.”

Her face was a wash of
sorrow.

“
What happened?” Seth
asked.

“
Barton wrote a story
about Dad that says he . . . did that
and . . . ”

“
Did?”

“
The building caught on
fire,” Ava said. “There was a construction crew nearby, Jammy says
it was one of Jake’s, they sprayed the building with water so the
fire never got too hot so they found . . .
bodies.”

“
How many?”

“
Four,” Ava said. “Ferg
said the women were killed before the fire. If that construction
crew hadn’t been there, no one would have ever known.”

Seth’s face showed so much
concern that Ava leaned back to look at him.

“
What?” Ava
asked.

“
Nothing,” Seth
said.

“
Dad had a press
conference saying you told Westword because you’re mad that he
solved the Saint Jude thing,” Ava said.

“
Politicians,” Seth said.
“They will and do say anything.”

“
You know all about this?”
Ava asked.

Seth nodded.

“
Will you tell me
everything? Not leave anything out?”

“
Are you sure?” Seth
asked.

“
I need to know,” Ava
said.

“
I’ll tell you
everything,” Seth had the sinking feeling that when he was
finished, their relationship would be finished too. She was too
young to understand the dark side of love. It would take her
decades to understand what he was telling her. “Let’s go inside
where we can talk in private.”

Ava got up from the lounger
and went inside.

For a moment, his heart
constricted with pain and sorrow. Looking out over the ocean, every
cell in his body longed to go back to this morning when they’d made
love in the shower and laughed through breakfast. He closed his
eyes to hold onto the memory for just a moment longer.

Seth had never backed down
from anything in his life. The woman he loved completely needed him
to be that man today. He followed her inside.

Chapter Two Hundred and
Seven
Dark Creatures

Wednesday afternoon — 4:47
p.m. P.T./ 5:47 p.m. MT

Ava was sitting on the
couch in the living area just inside the sliding windows. Seth held
out a hand to her. She looked at his hand for a moment, and then
took it. He led her back to their bedroom.

“
I don’t know when Lizzie
will be home from therapy,” Seth said. “They usually get dinner,
but I know Schmidty wants to know what the producers decided. They
should be here any minute.”

She took a seat on the bed
and he sat down next to her. When he turned, she got up and sat in
one of the chairs at the small table near the windows.

“
Do you mind?” Ava asked.
“I don’t want to talk about sex and my Dad and . . .
whatever . . . there where
we . . . ”

Seth got up and went to sit
across from her.

“
I’m not sure where to
start,” Seth said.

“
Was my
father . . . I mean . . . ” Ava
said.

“
Your father owns rentals
around town, mostly in that neighborhood, the Mayfair. Have you
been there?”

Ava shook her
head.

“
They were built by the
Air Force for housing near the end of World War II,” Seth said.
“They . . . oh whatever. Last I checked, he owns
three or four in that neighborhood.”

“
And the
prostitutes?”

Seth nodded.

“
How . . .
I mean . . . ”

Seth sighed. She looked up
at him. She reached out her hand and he took it.

“
I don’t know what you
want to know,” Seth said. “I don’t know if I have the answers
you’re looking for.”

“
I want to know what you
know.”

“
What I
know . . . okay,” Seth said. “When I met your
father, he was a young prosecutor hoping to become a DA. He wasn’t
big or tough or . . . I’d been touring, writing
music, making money . . . I’d already been to war
and back. And Mitch was alive.”

Feeling her eyes on his
face, he glanced at her.

“
I always had the sense
that your father was going places,” Seth said. “And that he didn’t
mind doing what had to be done to get there.”

“
You didn’t like him,” Ava
said.

“
I wish you’d met Mitch,”
Seth said. “From the moment I met Mitch, he was my best friend.
There I was, this weird kid that had lived on my own in New York
City since the time I was ten. I bought my own clothes, cars,
whatever – and I did what I wanted to do. Until Mitch got his
driver’s license, I had a driver. And Mitch was my
friend.”

“
Oh, I see what you’re
saying,” Ava said. “You had all this life experience, money, fame,
went to Vietnam, and were best friends with the super popular
Mitch. Even though my Dad was just starting out, he acted
like
he
was
something special.”

Seth nodded.

“
I can see that,” Ava
said.

“
He worked his way up at
the DA’s office while Mitch and I were working our way into
becoming detectives,” Seth said. “Then we’d see him here or there.
This case, that case.”

“
You didn’t like
him.”

“
I didn’t think about
him,” Seth said. “Think about it. How many prosecutors can you
identify by name?”

“
Two? Maybe three?” Ava
shrugged.

“
That’s what I mean,” Seth
said. “He was just there. We were just there. The first time I
really noticed your Dad was . . . and maybe this is
what you want to know . . . I don’t
know.”

Seth sighed.

“
You know Tanesha right?”
Seth asked.

Ava nodded.

“
Her mother took a job as
a secretary for the District Attorney,” Seth said. “The
first
black
District Attorney in Denver. He was appointed in 1983. He
hired Yvonne as his secretary. I think that’s where your Dad met
her.”