Liar (18 page)

“I’m sorry about Cody,” I heard her say as she moved off of me, “but keep in mind that it could have been Travis.”

“Small consolation,” I heard Travis say as he sat down next to me.

I found myself wishing that they would both go away. Or shut up. Just shut up.

Or better, maybe I could just disappear, be somewhere where I didn’t have to smell smoke and didn’t have to think about what was burning in that camper. Where I could get sick or scream or sob or smash something to pieces, or follow any of the other impulses warring within me. Perhaps, I thought, it would be nice to faint. Unfortunately, I have some idea of what it takes to make me do that, and-damn it all to hell-I knew I wasn’t even close.

Cody. Poor Cody. I should have never-but I stopped myself from taking that road.

I started wishing that Frank were home, because I knew he would know what not to say, but then I was glad that he didn’t have this addition to the list of things he was trying to cope with.

“I left a window open,” Travis reminded me. “Maybe Cody got out before the camper caught fire.”

I pushed myself up.

Travis had already started looking in the bushes near the house, calling, “Co-dy… kit-kit-kit…” I checked under the Karmann Ghia and the Volvo. Jack started investigating hiding places in his yard.

The fire truck pulled up, its occupants perhaps a little baffled to find three adults ignoring a vehicle fire, stooped down and talking in coaxing voices to plants and bushes. Rachel was cautiously using the hose to keep the lawn wet, trying to prevent the fire from spreading. She was the reason some of my other neighbors were at a distance; she had warned one of them off in an authoritative voice when he ventured too near- when he approached again, she squirted him in the crotch with the hose. He swore at her, but retreated. The others were now murmuring to one another in a rubbernecking huddle.

The firefighters made quick work of putting out the blaze, and began talking to Rachel.

I looked over at Travis, and saw that he was cradling his right hand, wincing. I moved closer to him and saw that his palm and fingers were red and swollen, covered with blisters-in a peculiar pattern. “You burned it on the door handle…”

“Yeah, pretty stupid, huh?”

I shook my head. “It must hurt like hell. Let’s ask one of the paramedics to take a look at it.”

We both turned then to take our first real look at the camper. It was a charred hulk. I heard Travis moan softly. That small sound made me realize how wrapped up in my own concerns I had been.

“Pretty lousy day for you, isn’t it?” I said.

He choked out a laugh.

“Sorry,” I said. “Irene Kelly, master of understatement.”

The police arrived while a paramedic was placing Travis’s hand in a saline soak. More law enforcement soon showed up; investigators interested in everything from bombs to arson to attempted murder.

They left a long time later, towing the remains of the camper off with them, saying they needed it for further study. The fire had left little for Travis to salvage from it. The detectives were frustrated. The only names Travis could supply for potential enemies were those of the DeMonts.

“But they had no way of knowing I’d be here in Las Piernas,” he said. “I didn’t know I’d be here myself.”

They asked for information on them all the same. He told them the DeMonts lived in Huntington Beach, then said, with a glance at the place where the camper had been parked, “I’d give you their addresses, but-”

Rachel gave me a warning look, then said, “Don’t worry about it, Travis, these guys will be able to find them.”

The detectives reassured him on that point, and left soon after. Two uniformed officers in a cruiser were left behind, to keep an eye on the house. Things began to settle down.

The paramedics had wrapped the hand lightly in a gauze bandage, but said that as soon as Travis was done talking to the police, we should take him to an emergency room, to have the hand treated.

I went into the house to get my keys and to quickly change my blouse, which, after my time facedown on a wet lawn, made me look like the loser in an outdoor mud-wrestling competition. On my way back out, I passed by the kitchen, glanced in and saw a sight that stopped me in my tracks.

“Cody!”

Peering up from the kitchen counter, where he had evidently been having a grand old time demolishing the leftover lasagna, Cody mistook my shout of relief and figured he was in trouble. He streaked out past me into the front yard.

Apparently the others saw him, for by the time I got out to the front yard, Jack, Rachel and Travis were all surrounding the Karmann Ghia, bent low and talking sweetly to him. I joined them, and saw that he was twitching his tail, watching me warily.

“Come here, you big oaf,” I said, but I was crying.

Cody, all orneriness aside, is usually attuned to my moods. Demonstrating this, he came closer and peered up at me-his gray face covered with lasagna sauce-and then ventured out from under the car.

I picked him up carefully, still worried that he might be hurt. He was impatient with my attempts to fuss over him, twisting and clawing, but when Travis began petting him, he sniffed delicately at Travis’s lightly bandaged hand, and settled down. Soon I realized that other than a messy face, the cat was fine.

“Sorry for the delay,” I said to Travis. “I’ll take you to the hospital now.”

“Which one?” he asked.

“Las Piernas General. It’s closest.”

He seemed relieved. Seeing that I had noticed, he said, “St. Anne’s is a good hospital, but since my dad-well, I don’t think I can go over there yet.” He quickly changed the subject. “Will eating lasagna make Cody sick?”

“It’s not good for him, but God knows he’s eaten worse things.”

The cat, who was sauntering back into the house, flipped his tail at me in a manner reminiscent of an obscene gesture.

“I see Cody speaks Italian, too,” Travis said.

By the time the emergency department doctor finished working on his hand, Travis’s ability to hide the pain of his injury was failing. The doctor offered to give him an injection of morphine, but Travis said the prescriptions he’d been given would be enough and he’d wait until he got home.

It was about two in the morning when we got to the pharmacy, but it was a busy night. Throughout the time we waited for the prescriptions, Travis was silent. He sat with his head resting against the wall, his eyes closed, his brows drawn together in pain or concentration, I wasn’t sure which. His face was pale.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be told both of your parents were dead, then on the same day, see all your possessions-everything but a trunkful of costumes-destroyed by someone trying to kill you with a bomb. This on the same day you had been involved in a car accident, infuriated because a cousin-from a branch of the family that had disowned yours-showed up unexpectedly and hounded you. The same day you had suffered a second-degree burn on your hand because you thought a cat was being burned alive in your camper.

All things considered, I had to admire how well he was holding up- but he wasn’t looking so great at the moment.

“Do you want to go back for that injection?” I asked.

He opened his eyes. “No, I can wait. Listen, I’m sorry you’ve had to pay for all of this. I have some cash in the trunk. When we get back to your house, I’ll pay you back.”

“Forget it. I would have paid for it anyway,” I said to him. “You were wounded trying to rescue my cat.”

He looked as if he might argue, but seemed to change his mind and lapsed back into silence.

I returned to thinking about what an awful day he’d had, kept trying to think of comforting things to say, but none seemed adequate.

When the harassed pharmacy clerk finally called Travis’s name, we walked up to the counter together. It was then, as we were standing at the counter, that-with his help-the memory came back to me.

I was standing to his left. The weary clerk shoved two plastic bottles of pills and a tube of ointment toward us.

“Which of the pills are for the infection?” Travis asked.

She tapped the top of one of the bottles, then started to ring up the charges.

“Can I take that on an empty stomach?” he asked.

“Directions are right on the label,” she said.

“Do I need to eat something before I take it?” he asked again.

She sighed with long-suffering, picked up the bottle and glanced at it. “Yes. Take it with meals.” She rapped it down on the counter as if it were a gavel.

She had just finished entering a second set of numbers on the cash register when he said, “If I take the pain medication, will it make me drowsy?”

“Read the label!” she snapped.

“Can I operate machinery?” he persisted.

Wondering what was wrong with him, I picked up the bottle and said, “No, Travis. You shouldn’t take these and drive.”

“How many times a day do I take them?”

“As needed for pain, but not more than two every twelve hours.”

I set the bottle down. He reached over with his left hand, and squeezed mine-quickly, quietly and as if in gratitude. Nothing flirtatious about it.

I looked into his face. Suddenly remembered his father asking similar questions twenty-some years before. Remembered the clerk growing more and more angry with Arthur’s persistent refusal to read the label. But why? Why hadn’t he just picked up the bottle and read it himself?

Something had happened just before Arthur squeezed my mother’s hand. She had picked up the bottles and read the labels aloud.

Comprehension finally dawned.

“He couldn’t read,” I said softly. Travis nodded and smiled a little.

Mistaking my meaning, the woman behind the counter first looked shocked, then turned red. “I’m so sorry, sir,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Nor I you,” Travis said.

He took the first pain pill at a water fountain before we left the building. I held my questions until we were in the car.

“Your father-” I began.

“As you guessed.”

“Arthur was illiterate?” I said, still not believing it.

“Yes,” he said.

“But he had his own business!”

“Yes. Landscaping-that was how he began, anyway. He had a wonderful sense of color and placement, loved making things grow, loved the outdoors. Even when he no longer earned most of his money that way, few things made him happier.”

“But not being able to read! I just can’t imagine how he managed to get by!”

“It wasn’t easy,” he said, closing his eyes, leaning his head back.

“I’m sorry, you probably aren’t up to talking about this right now.”

“To be honest, no, I’m not.” He yawned. “But I’ll talk more about it with you tomorrow-if you want to.” He yawned again. “You’ve got a lot to think about now, anyway,” he said drowsily.

I started the car, pulled out of the parking lot.

“Did my mother know?” I asked, unable to let this one question keep overnight.

He opened his eyes, looked over at me, then watched the road for a little while before he closed them again. I thought he wasn’t going to answer. But then he said, “According to my father, yes, she did-but only after that day in the pharmacy.” He smiled sleepily. “He always spoke highly of your mother. She kept his secret.”

“But he could have explained to my father-”

He looked over at me again. “He was ashamed that he couldn’t read. Can’t you imagine what that was like for him? My dad knew that Patrick would blame him, not your mother, for that little squeeze of her hand. That’s exactly what happened-your father assumed he made a pass at your mother. He worried at first that she would tell Patrick the truth, and his secret would be exposed to a man who already disliked him. But your mother must have seen how painful that would have been to him, because she let my father decide whether Patrick would know or not know.” He smothered another yawn, closed his eyes again. “She never told Patrick. Never told anyone. My father admired her for that.” I thought he had fallen asleep, but then he murmured, “I wish I had known her.”

As I drove home I thought about Arthur Spanning-my uncle, not my uncle, perhaps my uncle again. A man who preferred having my father think of him as an unprincipled sleazeball rather than as someone who was unable to read. Did he have a learning disability-something like dyslexia? Or had he simply never learned to read? I remembered the “six years” of education on the death certificate.

I thought of my mother, keeping secrets from the rest of us, letting us think Arthur was a womanizer, letting the rift grow between our family and her sister’s husband.

But he
was
a womanizer, I reminded myself. A bigamist. His illiteracy had nothing to do with that. Travis was probably right; it was impossible to imagine his parents were remarried-or whatever it would be called in this case. Why would Briana ever take him back? Because she pitied a dying man? Because of Travis?

I looked over at my sleeping cousin, his bandaged hand lying palm up in his lap.

That unexpectedly strong sense of protectiveness I had been feeling toward him all day resurfaced. The idea that someone had tried to harm him while he was staying at my home made me furious. I decided that if Rachel were awake when I got back to the house, I wanted to have a talk with her about the DeMonts.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t a smart idea to bring him home. Whoever had tried to kill him knew exactly where he was staying.

How? I wondered. How did anyone find out?

No one other than a librarian in Mission Viejo knew that Travis was the storyteller, and she knew very little of his background. And even if she had revealed to the world that Travis was Cosmo the Storyteller, she didn’t know where I lived. For that matter, she couldn’t have been certain we were going up to the Valley Plaza Branch Library; for all she knew, I would just make a phone call to that library. Certainly no one knew he’d be coming back with us. Rachel and I hadn’t known it ourselves.