Rogue Wave (29 page)

“Nothing particular. It’s a city jacket, too nice for down here.”

Kiernan put the jacket back on the hook. “Did Garrett wear it the day of the accident?”

“He took it. He didn’t have it on. It was in the back of the car. What he was wearing was the hooded sweatshirt he liked to drive in.”

“But now something has unnerved him and he connects it with that jacket,” Kiernan said, trying to control her excitement. “This new stimulus would have to have touched some memory of an incident that occurred before the accident for him to react to it. Is that right? Who did you know before the accident who knows where you are now?”

“No one”—Maureen shook her head—“I told you how insistent Garrett was. It was like he expected to be robbed. Or worse.”

“But—”

The door opened and Garrett wandered in. He glanced from Maureen to Kiernan. “What an odd place for you ladies to have a chat, here in my studio,” he said. Then, extending a hand to Kiernan, he said, “I’m Garrett Brant. Now where is it we’ve met before?”

Forcing a smile, forcing down her frustration at the interruption, Kiernan took his hand. “Good to meet you.”

Garrett unfolded another director’s chair. Maureen wandered to the front window and stood looking out, her back to Garrett. He smiled at Kiernan. “I hope you didn’t come far. This place is a whole lot less accessible than my house in Alaska.”

Kiernan glanced toward the jacket. But it would be too abrupt to ask about that. Better to ease in. “I wanted to ask you about Alaska. Garrett, do you remember the California Tavern?”

He smiled and flopped into the chair, one leg sprawled over the wooden armrest. For the first time she had a sense of the real person behind that pale façade of skin and yellow hair. “You been there? The old C. T? Great place. Only spot in Alaska where you could get a glass of white zinfandel.” He threw back his head and laughed. The motion brought color to his face. His hair, which had looked merely unkempt, now gave him the intriguingly unruly look of one too involved to worry about trifles. Sailor’s hair, artist-at-the-end-of-the-day hair. This had to be the Garrett Brant Maureen had married. The man who had worn the brown plaid jacket. “Only place where you could drink zin and not be mocked to death.”

“They say every Californian in the area goes there at some time.”

“Diego, the guy who owns it—Diego’s not his real name, I’m sure, I think it comes from San Diego, and obviously, that’s not his name. But no one asks—anyway, Diego runs videos of the beach in Santa Barbara, the sun setting behind the San Francisco skyline, the sailboats tooling across San Diego harbor. Those are the biggies. He’s got a great one of the cliffs here at Big Sur. But he’s got home videos of, oh, it must be half the towns in California. He brags that no Californian leaves without seeing someplace he’s lived.”

“So you met a lot of people there?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you remember a guy named Carl Hartoonian?”

“Hartoonian?”

“Average height, short brown hair that lies flat on his head, bony face, black-rimmed glasses. He reads atmospheric printouts to predict where the fish will be.”

“Oh, Harpoon,” he said, grinning. “Sure I know Harpoon. The guy’s crazy about all his machines. I mean the guy can be a real drag if you get stuck alone with him. He talks about computers the way a normal guy discusses”—he shot a glance at Maureen—“sex.”

Kiernan wondered just how he would have phrased the comment in her absence. “So you must have known Robin Matucci, too.”

His animation disappeared. “No.”

“Tall woman with long red hair. She was working as a deckhand,” Kiernan prompted.

“No. That doesn’t ring a bell. But there were plenty of people I didn’t know. They came and went. No one was there every night. It was easy to miss people.” He smiled uneasily.

No wonder Maureen knew when Garrett was hiding something, Kiernan thought. He was one of the most transparent liars she had ever seen. Was deception one of the skills that had faded with his memory? She stood up and fingered Garrett’s plaid jacket. “You sure you don’t remember Robin?”

“No!” He grabbed the jacket. “Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to be gone tomorrow and I need to get some things in order before I leave.”

“Thanks for your help.” She stepped outside. A damp breeze chilled her neck. Near the trees beyond the house a wild rabbit stood quivering, instinctively avoiding eye contact with her, the threat.

It was a moment before Maureen followed. “I need to talk to him alone,” Kiernan said.

“But—”

“No buts. Too much is riding on this. I’ll see you after. In the meantime you might be thinking about what to do with your car.”

Without waiting for a reply, Kiernan walked back into the studio. Garrett was standing by the window, staring out at the redwoods. The sunlight between the branches had grown paler. Without it to brighten the dark walls, the whole room seemed more like a forgotten garage than an artist’s studio. She put a hand on Garrett’s shoulder.

He turned, smiled and took her hand in his. “Hello, there. Now where is it we know each other from?” The stubborn set of his jaw had relaxed. In this smile there was no residue of his earlier uneasiness.

“We met in Alaska,” she said. “The California Tavern, remember? I’m a friend of Robin’s.”

He shot a glance behind him so quickly that it seemed less a decision than a muscular reaction.

Kiernan sat in the director’s chair next to the jacket. “Robin said to look you up.”

His eyes widened slightly.

Kiernan hesitated. The tack wasn’t quite right. Don’t lead with Robin, ease in. She said, “Remember those nights in the California Tavern? What time was it you used to get there?”

He smiled now and settled into the chair opposite her. A lock of blond hair dangled over his forehead. “Late, at least late for most people. I was on maintenance crew then. The California was just across the street from the AlaskOil building. I’ll tell you on those January nights it was all I could do to get across that street without freezing my balls off.”

“Yeah, but it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

Hitching one ankle on the other knee, he smiled. “Yeah. The C. T.’s a little cutesy, but then so what, right?”

“And the videos were such a kick. Do you remember the one about San Francisco?”

“Oh yeah. I must have seen it a dozen times. You know Diego,” he said, catching her eye and smiling, “every time a new customer comes in, he asks where he’s from—”

“And whips out the video.”

“Yeah, San Diego, Eureka, Monte Rio. Monte Rio was the best, with the old tin hangar for a movie theater like it was still summer nineteen fifty and everyone had vacation houses by the river, and hope. The others were fine for what they were, but Monte Rio, once you saw that tape you knew the town, the people’s communal soul.” Impulsively, he reached for her hand, and she felt his skin quivering with the excitement of his vision.

He was so alive, so seductive in that focused passion, she hated to break the spell. “Remember Robin Matucci, the red-haired deckhand?”

His animation vanished. Dropping Kiernan’s hand, he shot a glance around the room.

Kiernan forced a smile, and made herself lean back, let a moment pass, and waited till his expression more nearly mirrored her own. “Who was it Robin came with? You remember, don’t you?”

“Sure. It was the oil guys. The engineers sometimes, but mostly the corporate types.”

“Just like Robin, huh? Never did let any grass grow under her feet, did she?”

“Sharp cookie. One helluva a looker. Nice, too.”

“Of course you knew her pretty well, didn’t you?”

His open-palmed motion said yes and no. His expression suggested more, but more
what
Kiernan couldn’t decide. “Robin knew everyone.”

Kiernan screwed up her face as if searching her memory. “But the guy she was with most of the time? You remember … Who was he?”

Garrett shook his head. His face was losing its color. Was this what happened to him before a thought faded out?

Struggling to keep the smile on her face, the atmosphere of camaraderie she’d created, Kiernan said, “Robin told me about the memo you’ve got for her. The one you ‘liberated’ from Dwyer Cummings’s office.” She was holding her breath, waiting for him to validate her assumption. “You’re not going to take it to the city when you see her, are you?”

Garrett’s blond eyebrows drew down over his eyes. He looked assessingly at Kiernan. Then a sly grin flashed and was gone.

“Clever of you to spot it in Cummings’s office,” she said. “Was it just sitting there in his Out box, or maybe in the trash? One of the perks of maintenance crew?”

He didn’t comment, but his face colored and the corners of his mouth twitched.

“Garrett, Robin told me that that memo would make a real difference in whether the Energy Producers’ Group could get an okay for offshore drilling here.”

The intensity of his gaze faded. Had she led him too far from fact with her speculations?

But there was no turning back—she was sure she was right. “You’ve decided to give the memo to the environmentalists, haven’t you? You’ve decided to do the right thing?”

A watery smile crossed his face.

“But, Garrett, I don’t understand how the memo you took from Dwyer Cummings’s office in Anchorage will effect things here in California.”

He leaned forward and let his fingers brush her hand. “I guess I can tell
you.”

“Of course, you can, Gar.”

“Well, the oil companies aren’t quite as entrenched here in the lower forty-eight as they are up there. Half the people in Anchorage work for oil companies. Big money doesn’t change hands without it coming from or going to them, or to some subsidiary, some builder building for them, some restaurateur leasing a place so he can get their trade. They’ve got Alaska by the balls. But here it’s not too late. They can’t buy California.”

“Dwyer Cummings was in Probability Analysis. What was he analyzing in that memo?”

Garrett squeezed her hand. “Well, now this memo wouldn’t be of much use to anyone if I spilled the beans first, would it? Wait a couple days and you’ll see it in the papers.”

In a teasing tone that mimicked his, Kiernan said, “Oh, Garrett, you can give me a little hint.”

Smiling, he fingered the cuff of her sleeve. Kiernan wondered how often he’d played out this type of game. “Well,” he said, slowly, “okay. Blow-out protectors.”

“What did it say about them?”

“No, no. You said a hint, and that’s it.”

“Garrett, let me see the memo. This memo is going to affect the history of the state. It’s an historic document.”

“No, no.”

“Just a peek?” God, she hated wheedling.

Outside, behind him, a branch broke. He whipped around, looking out the window. Kiernan rushed toward it and looked as far to the right as she could, then to the left. No one was visible now. She thought she’d seen a tuft of brown, possibly an animal. Possibly not.

Garrett followed her to the window and stared out.

From behind him, she said, “The memo you took from Dwyer Cummings’s office, Garrett, where is it?”

He stiffened, then turned “Memo? What kind of memo?”

He was lying. Obviously lying. His expression shifted from apprehension to confusion. “Who are you?”

She let out a great sigh of sheer frustration. “I’m a friend of Maureen’s. I’ll go get her.” She stepped outside, shut the door and stood in the dark, thinking of Maureen living with Garrett, one frustrating, disappointing day leading nowhere but to the next.

But the memo wasn’t what motivated Maureen. Neither was finding out whether Delaney had been murdered. These weren’t the reasons for this investigation at all.

Kiernan strode across the yard and pushed open the door to the main house.

M
AUREEN WAS STANDING BY
the kitchen door, her face still flushed, her hands clasped tightly together. “I just hate leaving Garrett alone. He’s so helpless. It’s like leaving a child.”

“Leaving him alone with me? Were you afraid he’d tell me something that wasn’t in your plan?” Kiernan slammed the door. She moved into the dining room and stood by the window, from which she could see the studio in the failing light of evening. “Garrett knew Robin Matucci in Alaska. He had no problem telling me that once you were out of the room.”

Maureen stared at the window. The dusky light carved angry furrows in her forehead and hollows in her cheeks.

“That’s what was bugging you, wasn’t it, Maureen? Whether Garrett was having an affair with Robin? Whether he drove to San Francisco to see her? Whether he was screwing around behind your back and now, because of that, you’re stuck with him the way he is. Right?”

Maureen slammed her fist on the table. “Well, goddamn it, wouldn’t you want to know? I’m here twenty-four hours a day, alone, with a man who gets more and more distant all the time. I loved him. I put up with his being away for months, with picturing him in a bar in whatever city he happened to be in, chatting up a new woman each time. Garrett Brant, the friendly artist. I knew he wasn’t taking all of them to bed, but I suspected there were a few he did sleep with. I accepted that. I figured at least he’d be careful.” She glared out the window. “But goddamn it to hell, after he’d been gone for nearly six months, if he came home and then took off the first week he was here to go and screw some lady in the city, then he can damn well spend the rest of his days in an asylum.”

“That’s what this whole investigation is about, isn’t it? You don’t care if Robin Matucci killed her deckhand or even if she hit Garrett. You hired me to find out if Garrett was sleeping with her.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Maureen demanded.

Kiernan took a deep breath. Bracing both hands on the edge of the table, she said, “You didn’t tell me about Delaney, a man who was killed investigating for you. And you didn’t even level with me about the goal of this search.”

“But Kiernan, you wouldn’t have taken the case if you’d known the truth,” Maureen pleaded.

Kiernan shook her head in disgust. “The truth is not one of several options.”

“But—”

“There’s nothing you could say now that I would believe. And there are plenty of other investigators who can look into your questions about Garrett.”