Self-Defense (46 page)

“When Karen didn’t show up and I told her
the same story I told the others.”

“What was that?”

“That she hated her father and he was
coming out to bring her back home, so she was going to split town.”

“The others believed it, but Doris
didn’t?”

“She said Karen had told her she liked her
father.”

“Did Doris tell the others that?”

Headshake. “Lenny was into plants, real
stupid; he’d believe anything. Mary and Sue were hippies; they hated their
folks.”

“So Doris kept her story to herself.”

Shrug.

“Why didn’t you tell them Lowell’s story
about the fight?”

“I told you, he didn’t want any of that
getting out. Nothing that could connect Karen to him. Actually, he made up the
other story as a replacement. At first he said to say her father abused her. I
didn’t make it that strong.”

“Why not?”

“It just wasn’t right—too much.”

Looking at me, as if for praise.

“So the others bought it,” I said, “but
Doris didn’t. And she started to wonder if the little kid had seen something
happen to Karen.”

“She didn’t know anything for sure, but
she came to me and told me about finding the kid. Kind of thinking out loud.”

“Wanting more than two fifty.”

Silence.

“How much did you give her?”

“Seven fifty more.”

“One thousand total. How much did she
think Lowell gave you?”

Hesitation.

“It’s just a matter of time before we find
her and ask her, Gwen.”

“Two and a half thousand,” she said very
softly.

“So she thought she was getting more than
you. When did she realize you’d held back on her?”

“She didn’t.”

“Then why are you still paying her off?”

“Who says we are?”

“The police. And Tom was there to pick her
up and take her to the airport. There’s obviously some relationship there. Do
she and Tom have something going?”

She laughed. “No, he hates her.”

“Because she’s got a hook in you?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Not like what?”

“Blackmail or anything like that. She just
comes to us when she’s broke—it’s like charity. She’s got... a problem.”

“Compulsive gambling.”

Her head snapped up. “If you know
everything, why do you need
me
?”

“How long have you been financing her
addiction?”

“Off and on. Most of the time she’s okay,
but then she goes off drinking and gambling and wipes herself out. So we help
her—it’s a sickness.”

Remembering the boys on the lawn, I said,
“Does she ever win?”

“Play enough, you’re bound to. One time
she won big. Fifteen thousand at craps in Tahoe—fifteen
thousand.
Next
day she blew it all at the same table. We feel sorry for her. She’s Tom’s first
cousin, used to baby-sit him. After she got married, she started drinking and
gambling.”

“How much have you given her over the
years?”

“Never added it up, but plenty. She
probably could have bought a house, but she doesn’t care about normal
things—that’s why her husband left her. We help her ’cause she’s family.”

The room was cool but she was sweating,
and her mascara started to run. She grabbed a tissue from a box on the desk and
took a long time to wipe her eyes.

I understood Doris’s hostility to her and
Tom, now. The rage of the charity receiver.

“Okay?” she said. “Is that enough for
you?”

“Where did Tom take her?”

“To the airport.”

“Where did she fly?”

“I don’t know. And that’s the truth. She
just said she wanted to get out of town for a while. You spooked her. She was
worried you’d rake things up.”

“Did she feel guilty about never telling
anyone what she’d seen?”

“How would I know?”

“Did she start drinking and gambling after
the party or before?”

“Before. I told you, it was right after
she got married. She was only seventeen, then she had her kids.”

“Two boys,” I said. “One in Germany, one
in Seattle.”

She looked away.

“What’s the name of the son in Seattle?”

“Kevin.”

“Kevin Reingold?”

Nod.

“At what army base is he stationed?”

“I don’t know, somewhere up there.”

“She’s your cousin and you don’t know?”

“She’s Tom’s cousin. They’re not a close
kind of family.”

Glancing at Travis, trying to open the
box. But the plastic wrap was tight and his fingers struck at it uselessly.

I peeled some plastic back. He laughed and
tossed the box in the air. Again, I retrieved it.

Gwen was staring at the shelves.

“So Tom dropped her off,” I said, “then
caught a plane to Mexico City.”

The box dropped again. This time, Travis
rejected it, shaking his head and arching his back. I gave him a can of surf
wax and he began rolling it between his palms.

Gwen burst into tears and tried to stop
them by pinching her nose.

Travis held up the can and shouted,
“Aa-ngul!”

She looked at him, first with anger, then
defeat. “This is stupid. You’ve got me feeling like a criminal and I didn’t do
anything.”

“How much more money did you get from
Lowell?”

“Nothing!”

“One-shot deal?”

“Yes!”

“How often have you seen him since?”

“Never.”

“He lives in Topanga, you’re five miles
away in La Costa, and you’ve never seen him?”

“Never. That’s the truth. We never go up
there; he never comes down.”

“Just one five-thousand-dollar payment and
that was it?”

“That’s the truth. We didn’t want anything
more to do with it.”

“Because after hearing Doris’s story you
wondered if Karen had been hurt or worse?”

“We just didn’t want anything to do with
him—he was weird. The whole scene was weird.”

“But didn’t you wonder at all about Karen?
Five thousand dollars in a paper bag, and then he asks you to keep mum? Gives
you a phony story? And she never shows up again?”

“I—it made sense, his not wanting the
publicity. He was rich and famous. I figured to him five thousand was
nothing—okay, I was naive. Twenty-five years old, working since I was sixteen,
what was I supposed to do, give the money back and go to the sheriffs saying
something was fishy? Like they would have listened to
me
?
Right.
When that deputy came to the Dollar it
was wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, coffee black and a glazed donut. He wasn’t taking
it seriously. Told us she’d probably left town with some guy, or maybe she’d
gone hiking and was up in the hills. They sent helicopters up looking for her;
for all I knew she
was
up there!”

“What about what Doris saw?”

“Doris is weird. She drinks, she blacks
out. She blows fifteen thousand dollars in one day. Why should I pay attention
to some little kid freaking out?”

“Okay,” I said. “Seven fifty to Lenny,
Mary, and Sue, another thousand to Doris. That left thirty-two fifty for you
and Tom. How’d you parlay that into a business and a beach house?”

“We had more—savings. Five years’ worth.
We worked hard. Some people do that.”

Pulling at the dress some more. The linen
had wrinkled. Her face was flushed and moist.

“So who told Felix Barnard about the
party?”

“No one.”

“Then how’d he find out?”

“I don’t know. He probably figured it out.
Talking to Marvin—the owner—about Karen’s work habits. Marvin told him she was
gone a lot; he’d been planning to fire her, he suspected her of cutting work to
moonlight.”

“Did Marvin tell you this?”

Nod. “As a warning. Barnard came in to the
Dollar like he was a customer. He was my table and I served him; then he handed
me his card and started asking questions about Karen. I told him I didn’t know
where she was—which was true. Marvin hated us fraternizing with the customers,
so he came over and sent me to another table. Then I saw
him
sit down
with Barnard and I thought, Great, he’s going to find out about the party. Then
Barnard left and Marvin came up to me, asking me if I knew where Karen was. I
said no. He said, That idiot thinks something’s happened to her, but in my
opinion she’s off somewhere having fun or working another job. Then he tells me
he doesn’t approve of the moonlighting we’ve all been doing. He’ll put up with
it from me ’cause my work’s good, but Karen was an amateur, couldn’t even do
one job right. So I figure he told Barnard he suspected a catering moonlight
and Barnard kept snooping around till he found out which party it was.”

No great feat of detection. The Sanctum
party had been in the papers.

“Did Barnard ever try to talk to you
again?”

“Never.”

And he’d never recorded his talk with
Marvin D’Amato.

“Did you warn Lowell that Barnard might be
snooping around?”

“No! I told you, I had nothing to do with
him after he gave me the... bag.”

“Did Barnard’s showing up make you suspect
anything about Lowell’s story?”

“Why should it? I figured her cheap father
had finally decided to spend some money on her.”

Her arms were across her chest like
bandoliers.

“Five thousand dollars, Gwen. Just to
avoid bad publicity?”

She tried not to look at me. I waited her
out.

“Okay,” she said, “I thought it was
possible she’d OD’d or something. What was I supposed to do? Whatever happened
to her, she was
gone.
Nothing I did would bring her back.”

“Was Karen into drugs?”

“She smoked a little pot.”

“What kind of dope was floating around the
party?”

“Pot, hash, mushrooms, acid, you name it.
People were tripping out, taking off their clothes, going off together into the
woods.”

Meaning if there’d been a burial it would
have had to be far enough away....

“Was Karen the type of girl who’d get into
that kind of thing?”

“Who knows? She wasn’t wild, but she
wasn’t any nuclear scientist either. Being at that party was the biggest thrill
of her life. There were movie people all over the place.”

“But you never saw her go off with anyone
specific.”

“Nope.”

“Not with Lowell?”

“No one. I wasn’t looking at who was with
who. I was spooning out designer slop and trying to keep it off people’s
cuffs.”

“What about Tom?”

“Working the bar. People were putting it
away; he never even stopped for a break.”

“Why’d you go to Aspen?”

She frowned, as if thinking. “ ’Cause of
Best. He was driving us crazy, showing up every day on our doorstep. And we
were tired of seeing Marvin’s sour puss.”

“Why Aspen?”

“Tom had a buddy who spent the winters
there, teaching skiing. He’d inherited a house just outside of Starwood. He got
Tom a job tending bar at one of the lodges. I found a position at a fur shop.
It was good to be away from food.”

“I still don’t see how you got from there
to here.”

“Hard work and luck. Tom’s buddy needed
some cash fast. The house was all he owned. It wasn’t much, just a little
place—”

“Why’d he need cash fast?”

Tugging. “He got busted.”

“For what?”

“Drugs,” she said, reluctantly.

“Are drugs what drew you to Aspen?”

“No!
He
was busted, not us! Check
the police records there: Greg Fowler. Gregory Duncan Fowler III. He got busted
for selling cocaine and needed bail money, so he signed over the house to us.”

“For how much?”

“Thirteen thousand. He kicked in two of
his own and put down bond on a hundred and fifty thousand bail.”

“Lowell’s three and ten of your own?”

“That’s right.”

“Not bad for a house in Aspen.”

“The house wasn’t as big a deal as it
sounds. It was a shack, really. A hunting shack. Tom and I didn’t even want it,
the plumbing and electric was all shot. But Greg begged us. He said real estate
was starting to take off and we’d be doing each other a favor. We lived in it
while Tom fixed it up—he’s good with his hands. The real estate did go crazy,
all these Hollywood types flying in, buying up land.