Liar (17 page)

He hurried into the bathroom; I could hear him getting sick.

When Rachel came over a few hours later, exhaustion had led to a truce on both grief and bickering.

“Where is he?” Rachel asked, as she walked into my kitchen bearing a large, foil-covered baking dish.

“Taking a nap out in the Cosmobile,” I said.

“His camper?”

“Yep. He turned down the guest room.”

“You told him about his parents?” she asked.

“Yes. He took it pretty hard. Anyone would.”

“You didn’t have such an easy job, did you? You okay?”

I nodded. She didn’t say anything for a moment, then asked, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll just drive off?”

“He might, but I don’t think he will. He wants to see Aunt Mary and to visit Briana’s grave. But he said he’d like to wait until tomorrow- wasn’t ready for either one today. I don’t blame him. And as for driving off, I suppose he’ll probably bring my cat in first.”

“Cody?”

“Yes. Cody was fascinated by the camper. Full of interesting scents and all kinds of nooks and crannies. Travis seemed to like having his company, and even left a window screen open so that Cody could get in and out if he wanted to. But I think Cody’s there for the duration.”

“So that’s why Cody isn’t in here begging. I brought lasagna,” she said, putting the dish in the refrigerator.

“Sounds great, but Travis might not have much of an appetite.”

“You two getting along any better?”

I shrugged. “Hard to say, under the circumstances.”

There was a soft knock on the front door. I opened it to find Travis standing on the front steps, sleep-tousled and pale. His fists were shoved into his pockets and he was staring at a point somewhere near my shoes. “I don’t think I can sleep any longer,” he said. “Mind if I come in for a while?”

“Of course not. Did you lose the key I gave you?”

He shook his head. “No. But your privacy…”

“Next time just use the key. You won’t disturb me. You’re here as my guest.”

He saw Rachel as she walked up behind me. She took one look at him and said,
“Mi displace molto…
,” stepping forward to embrace him. He didn’t refuse the embrace, but it seemed nearly to undo his struggle to maintain his composure. He looked over her shoulder at me, and I decided to see it as a request.

“Where’s my cat?” I asked brusquely.

“He didn’t want to leave the camper,” he said, stepping away from her, visibly relaxing. “He found a spot he likes at the foot of the bed.”

As he continued to babble on about the cat, Rachel picked up her cue, and made no more sympathetic comments. She told him that she had made something for our dinner, a lasagna from an old family recipe, and proceeded to try to distract him with stories about her grandmother’s skills in the kitchen.

Dinner passed without much comment, and we probably could have served just about anything to Travis with much the same result-he didn’t even bother toying with Rachel’s culinary masterpiece. He was silent during the meal, not responding when we asked questions. We weren’t ignored, really-to say he ignored us would be to suggest a choice I’m not sure he made. He was obviously too lost in his own thoughts to hear us.

When we stood up to clear our plates, he suddenly said, “Rachel, you’re a private detective?”

“Yes.”

“I want to hire you.”

“To find out who killed your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t do it.”

We both looked at her in surprise.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I’d need the permission of my current client. I’m already working for Irene.”

He was openly dismayed.

“I don’t mind working together,” I said. “I’d prefer it.”

He didn’t respond.

“We better tell McCain we’ve found him,” Rachel said, then explained to Travis, “He’s with LAPD Homicide. Lots of people have been looking for you lately.”

“I’m sure they have,” he said, his voice full of sarcasm. “Slay the fatted calf, the bastard has returned! And he’s a rich bastard!”

“Why do you insist on using that term?” I snapped. “I’ve never referred to you in that way.”

“I insist on it because for several miserable years, I lived with being called a bastard-and worse. And the truth, Irene, is that the term is accurate. My parents were not legally married when I was born.”

“Well, maybe that changed,” I shot back without thinking. “According to your father’s death certificate, they were married.”

For a moment, he was completely silent, then he shook his head and said, “Impossible. He lied or the doctor lied.” He smiled. “Or you’re lying now.”

Rachel held up a hand and said,
“Basta!”

“That’s Italian for ‘Enough!”“ I said quickly, and Travis, realizing exactly what had caused me to be anxious over her choice of that particular word, started laughing at me.

I marched over to the phone, pulled out the directory and started thumbing through it.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking up Brad Curtis’s number. I’m going to leave a message on his service. He can call me back and tell me why he’s falsifying information on death certificates.”

“The man is probably busy helping cancer patients. You want to disturb him with this nonsense?”

“Hold on,” Rachel said, “hold on. Travis, humor me, and assume for a moment that your parents did marry.”

“I’m telling you, she wasn’t even speaking to him. She wasn’t speaking to me because I dared to make contact with him.”

“But-”

“Why would they marry?” he asked. “It wasn’t to give me his name before he died, if that’s what you think. He openly acknowledged me as his son, even during the years I didn’t want him to.”

“Why didn’t you want him to?” Rachel asked.

He didn’t answer.

“What would have happened to the estate if your father died unmarried?” I asked.

“Unless he changed his will, what’s left of his estate passes on entirely to me,” Travis said. “He had no other children; I’m his sole heir. Oh, God-I should try to reach W, and Mr. Brennan.”

“W?” I asked. “Who is W?”

“Ulysses Ulkins. Double U. My father’s assistant. Mr. Brennan is my father’s lawyer. I’ll call-maybe on Monday. W will probably be in the office tomorrow, but-I can’t. Not yet,” he said, struggling to keep his composure.

We were all quiet for a moment.

“You said something about ‘what’s left of the estate,”“ I said. ”What did you mean?“

“Most of my father’s money has already been given to me. He set up trusts.”

I glanced over at Rachel; she gave me a look that said she was going to leave everything up to me.

“Travis,” I said, “I think you’re in danger.”

“Of course I am.”

That took both of us by surprise. He seemed amused by our reaction.

“Remember when you caught up with me today? I thought you wanted money. Some of the DeMonts, the family of my father’s wife-I mean
Gwendolyn,”
he said, looking at me. “Some of them believe my father robbed them of their inheritance.”

“They think your father murdered Gwendolyn DeMont,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” he answered. “They believe my father murdered her for her money and so that he could be free to live with his other family-my mother and me.”

“Did he?” I asked.

With a small smile, he said, “You should have asked years ago.”

“Did he?” I repeated.

“Kill her? I honestly don’t know.”

As I sat trying to absorb the implications of that statement, he added, “If he was the one who killed her, he didn’t kill her to be with us. My mother and I had discovered his marriage to Gwendolyn, you see, and that caused-a certain number of changes in our happy little family.”

“Start from the beginning,” I said. “Tell me what you know about Arthur and Gwendolyn.”

“You’ve already forgotten the story of the princess in the garden?”

“No, but maybe you could tell the sequel to that story in a little more straightforward style.”

“I liked the way he told it,” Rachel said.

“Thank you,” Travis said. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”

I held my tongue.

We waited. He sat quietly, looking as if he were mentally composing another tale. He stared down at his scarred hand; his expression changed to one of profound sorrow. Suddenly he stood up. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” he said. “Not tonight. It’s too soon. Excuse me.”

He murmured thanks to Rachel for the meal, said good night, and walked to the front door. I followed him.

“Travis, wait,” I said, as he opened it.

“What do you want?” he asked.

I stepped outside with him on the front porch, closing the door behind us. It was dark there, and somehow that made it easier to talk to him. The porch lamp wasn’t on, and there was no moon. A street lamp down the block provided the only light.

“You’re a member of my family. No ifs, ands or buts. And if you need my help, I don’t want you to feel-what happened between our parents-that was-that had nothing to do with you.”

I saw him smile a little in the darkness. I heard him pull his keys out of his pocket. “If you’re talking about the infamous pass my father supposedly made at your mother, I probably know more about it than you do.”

There was that word “supposedly.” Mary had used it, too. “I was there,” I said. “You weren’t even born yet.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. It was a warm night, and the scent of salt air on a light ocean breeze was mixed with wood smoke from fires on the beach. A couple of cars drove past the house. Finally he said, “Close your eyes and picture that day. You were what, about ten years old?”

“Eleven.”

“Ah, yes. Eleven. An age when girls are thinking much more often about what goes on between men and women. Are your eyes closed?”

Reluctantly, I went along with the program. “Yes, now they are.”

“My mother was out of town, visiting our grandmother in Kansas, right?”

“Right.”

“My father was injured while working on a tree.”

“Yes. He fell from a ladder. He hurt his shoulder, I think.”

“Yes, his right shoulder and elbow. He fell on his right side. He had been treated at the hospital, but he needed a ride home. You and your sister were with your parents when they met him at the hospital.”

I nodded. “He had a cast on his arm, but they were going to let him go home. We were going to drive him home.”

“Right. But on the way home, you stopped at a pharmacy, so that he could fill a prescription.”

I opened my eyes. “How do you know so much about this?”

“Close your eyes. My father told me, of course. No, don’t look. Just try to go back to that day. I think you’ll be able to see it a little differently.”

“Okay, so we’re in the drugstore,” I said.

“Yes. You stay with my father and your mother, your sister Barbara goes off with your father, trying to talk him into buying something for her.”

“Yes. I don’t remember what it was, though.”

“My dad said she wanted some sort of curlers that could be preheated?”

I laughed. “Yes!”

“Now think of my father and your mother standing at the counter, and you, nearby.”

“Just on the other side of my mother, a little behind them.”

“And what happens?”

I frowned. “Your father reaches over with his good arm-beneath the counter, out of sight of the clerk-and takes my mother’s hand and squeezes it in his own. My father is just walking up the aisle behind them. He’s seen your father take her hand, and he has a fit.” I opened my eyes. “Or did your father tell it differently?”

“No. He told me all of that. But you’re forgetting part of the story.”

I frowned.

“Close your eyes again, think of what happened.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell me?” I said.

He shook his head. “Better if you remember it on your own. It’s funny-whenever I dared to ask my father questions about the night of the murder, he said the same thing-if he just gave me the answers to my questions, I’d never know whether or not he was telling the truth. I’d either come to trust him for other reasons, or learn the truth for myself. So think about that moment in the pharmacy just before you go to sleep tonight. Maybe you’ll dream the answer.”

“Dream it? You’re kidding.”

He shook his head in resignation, pointed the plastic alarm remote on his keychain toward the camper and pressed a button.

The explosion blasted out the windows of the cab and sent the hood of the truck rocketing up into the air, making it into a strange, careening metal kite. We were both knocked back through the doorway into the entry. I sat up, dazed, and saw that both truck and camper were on fire. “Cody!” I cried.

We ran toward the camper, but by now smoke was pouring out of it, and the heat was too fierce to get close to it. Travis tried, but I pulled him back, afraid that he would be burned.

“Get the hose!” I said. “Near the front steps!” As he ran for the garden hose, I bolted over to the Karmann Ghia, opening the trunk to get the small fire extinguisher I carried there. Rachel charged out of the house just as Jack came out of his. Seeing the fire, he hurried to his van to get another extinguisher. Rachel ran back inside to call 911.

I aimed at the door of the camper shell, as did Travis; I felt a hard lump in my throat and tears stinging my eyes, but tried to hold on to a slim hope that Cody was alive. Despite the heat, Travis reached for the door handle, but the instant he opened it flames and smoke roared out, pushing him back.

“Get away from it!” Rachel shouted at us. “Let the fire department take care of it!”

“Cody!” I said. “Cody was sleeping inside!”

Jack’s extinguisher was empty; he was pulling Travis back. Soon mine was empty as well. I tried to reach for the hose, but Rachel grabbed my arms from behind. Horrifying images of Cody burning alive in that camper drove me into a frenzied struggle against her. She quickly maneuvered me down to the lawn and pinned me there. My face in the grass, my breath coming hard, I heard sirens howling their way closer. The sound somehow got through to me in a way all my discomfort did not; I realized that if Cody was in that camper, there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was alive. I heard myself groan as the fight drained out of me and an agonizing ache replaced it. Rachel let up a little. I wasn’t going anywhere.