Yesterday's Echo (15 page)

“Fuck!” Philby bolted toward me but stopped short of the stall. “Why did you do that?”

“Get out of my restaurant and don't come back.”

Philby glared at me and seemed to be weighing his options. Finally, he turned and slinked toward the door. I went to the sink to
wash his residue off my hands and heard the door squeak open but not shut.

“At least your old man was smart enough to know how to get ahead.” Philby stood in the doorway. “And just dumb enough to get caught.”

He let the door go and exited. Adrenaline jolted me forward and I was on him before the door swung shut. I grabbed him by the back of his collar and his pants and ran him through the dining room toward the front door. The band was on a break and some of the crowd had spilled out of the bar into the hallway. Philby squealed and waved his arms, but I kept moving forward. Surprised looks bounced off me as I sped him through the gauntlet of spectators. The door opened just as we got to it, and I slung Philby outside past a wide-eyed man who was probably looking forward to a mellow evening of jazz.

Philby tumbled along the terra-cotta tile and slammed into a planter's box that housed an elm tree. My hands buzzed from the adrenal blast and my eyes bulged. I waited for Philby to do something stupid, but he crawled to his feet and limped out of the courtyard.

When I went back inside, murmured conversation fell silent, and all eyes were on me. Kris stood at the hostess stand, her eyes wide, uncertain. She'd seen me throw people out of the bar before, but this was the first time I'd done it literally. And violently. And the first time I'd done it after being accused of murder. I walked over to her, and she inched backward, fear creeping into her questioning eyes. The look shouted at me in silence; maybe I wasn't such a good man after all.

I went back to the office without saying a word.

Ten minutes later, the office phone rang. I let Kris answer it in the dining room. The red light on line two blinked and the phone rang again. Kris had taken the call up front and forwarded it back to the office. Someone wanted to talk specifically to me. Someone who didn't have my cell number. A reporter? The police?

I'd done enough running for one day. I answered the phone.

“I knew sooner or later that evil inside you would crawl out again.” The voice was a little raspier than the last time I'd heard it, but the venom was still strong. “It looks like you may pay for your sins, yet.”

“Hello, John.” Somehow the news about my supposed involvement in the Windsor death had made it all the way up the coast, past San Francisco, into Marin County.

“She would have turned thirty-two last month.” His voice now wavered, caught in his throat. “But you took all her birthdays away, you son of a bitch!”

“I miss Colleen, too, John.”

“Don't you dare say her name! You don't have the right to say her name!” His words came out in gushes of hatred and sadness. “You lost that right when you took her away from us. When you murdered my baby girl!”

He started sobbing. The same raw wails of pain I'd heard over the phone eight years ago when I'd told him Colleen had been murdered. His only child, whose love for me had caused a rift between the two of them that had never healed. He'd always thought I wasn't good enough for Colleen.

He'd been right.

I held the phone to my ear while he sobbed, just like I had eight years ago. Only this time I didn't cry, too.

“May you rot in hell!” The line finally went dead.

I hung the phone up, feeling the same sadness, regret, and guilt I felt after every one of John Kerrigan's yearly calls. It always came around Colleen's birthday. In the past, the call had been an expletive-laden message on my home answering machine. I guessed with my recent notoriety, he wanted to deliver his hatred live. I couldn't blame him. If I was convinced someone had gotten away with murdering my daughter, I would have done the same. Or worse.

But John's hatred of me went deeper than that. He'd never liked me from the start. I was an ex-jock turned policeman, born from the loins of a disgraced cop. Too low rent for the daughter of a Marin County multimillionaire.

I met Colleen at a party early my sophomore year at UCLA. She was a freshman at UC, Santa Barbara, and was down visiting friends for the weekend. Her laugh and gravelly voice pulled me to her from across the room. Well, her blue eyes and the way she filled out her jeans and halter top might have had something to do with it, too. But there were plenty of beautiful women at the party, just like all the jock parties I went to. None of them had Colleen's wit, confidence, and charm. And she didn't throw herself at me once she learned I was a football player, like the other women at the party had.

She was a challenge. I was an athlete, I thrived on challenges. But the flutter in my belly told me it wasn't just a conquest I was after. For the first time in my young life of easy-women bachelor-hood, I wanted more.

We talked for hours by ourselves on a couch in the corner of a
dorm living room, unaware of the debauchery going on around us. Literature, philosophy, politics, anything but what a stud I was to be the starting free safety on the Bruins football team. She mentioned her boyfriend a couple times, but he was just an obstacle to overcome, like a blocker between me and the ball carrier.

Colleen went back up to Santa Barbara the next day. We traded e-mail addresses and kept up an intermittent correspondence, but I wouldn't see her again for almost a year. It took a career-ending knee injury, a school transfer, and nine months of trading barbs and finally punches with her high school sweetheart and his posse to finally win Colleen's heart.

It took five years to break it. And one night to get her killed.

Line two on the office phone rang again. John Kerrigan calling back to fire more shards of his broken heart at me? He'd earned the right. And I'd forfeited the right not to hear him out.

I picked up.

“Rick?”

It wasn't John, but the caller's voice sounded so much like his daughter's it would have sent a chill down his spine, just as it did mine.

Melody.

“I want to see you.” The sexy gravel.

“It's a long drive from San Francisco.”

“I'm in San Diego.” The words came out fast and ran together.

I hadn't heard from Melody since she left two days ago. I'd written her off as a two-night stand. One that had caused me a lot of grief, and one that I should have been glad was over. But Melody was back in San Diego, the woman who'd lied to me at least once, whose association had gotten me a front-row seat under a police spotlight and a front page perp picture in the morning paper.

“Where?”

“At the airport. I'm getting a car.” She paused and I thought she was done speaking. Then, “I was hoping I could come by your house later.”

I wanted to see her, but under my conditions. My house, my bed, her advantage.

“Things have gotten a bit hot around here since you left. The press already staked out my house once today. Why don't I meet you at your hotel? Where are you staying?”

“I don't have one, yet.” Disappointment. “I guess I was hoping we could pick up where we left off.”

“Do you know where Mount Soledad is?”

“You mean where the cross is?”

“Yeah. Meet me there in a half hour.”

Another pause. “Okay.”

I grabbed my coat and headed back into the dining room. Kris saw me as I approached the hostess stand and suddenly didn't know what to do with her hands.

“Kris, I need you to stay till closing and help Pat shut everything down.” My natural inclination was to put my hand on her shoulder, but I kept it at my side. “Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” she said, but without a “Boss” on the end of it. She couldn't make her eyes meet mine. Another supporter lost to the other side, just like so many back in Santa Barbara. I didn't have time to win her back tonight. I hoped she'd give me the chance to do so in the future.

I went into the bar, leaned toward Pat, and shouted over Leron's sax solo of The Crusaders' “Spiral.” “I need you to shut the restaurant down tonight. Kris will help. I have my cell if something comes up.”

“No problem.”

I pulled away from the bar, but Pat wasn't done.

“Before you go.” He took a business card from his pocket and handed it to me. “This guy wants to talk to you. I think he's still in the bar.”

I looked down at the embossed card: “Ellison Krandel Fenton III, Attorney-at-Law.”

A lawyer. Great. The vultures were already starting to circle.
Something about the name seemed familiar, but I guessed I'd probably seen it on the side of a bus or something. I scanned the bar and caught a few startled glances from people who were probably eyeballing me because of Eddie Philby's grand exit a half hour ago. Or maybe because of the article in the paper. Or maybe both. Time to go. I turned and headed for the liquor room door to make my escape out the back of the bar.

“Rick!” A voice I didn't recognize competed with the band.

My hand was on the doorknob. A short reprieve from what was sure to be my life back under the floodlights just a twist of the wrist away. But I still owned a piece of Muldoon's, and while I was there, I was its face. Guilty or innocent.

“Rick, wait!”

I turned and saw a man who looked vaguely familiar under the dim bar lights. He wove his way toward me through tables of customers. I made him for my age, give or take. He wore a smile that was too big for someone I didn't know late on a Sunday night. No doubt the illustrious Ellison Krandel Fenton III. I felt sorry for his firstborn son.

He finally made it over to me.

“Rick!” Slightly goofy smile, now even bigger, showing perfect teeth. He put out a hand. “It's me, Ellison.”

That much, I'd figured out. Why that should mean something to me, I hadn't yet. I shook his hand.

“Sorry, I'm in kind of a hurry.” I pulled my hand away just before he could start the fourth pump. “Why don't you call me here tomorrow morning? We can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about then.”

“Oh. Okay.” Hurt look of a grade school kid who'd just found out he hadn't been invited to the slumber party.

I'd seen that look before. On that same face.

“Elk?”

“Well, I go by Ellison now.” Goofy smile back in place. “But you can still call me Elk. If you're in a hurry, I don't want to keep you.”

“I've got a minute.” I figured I owed him after fracturing his collarbone in football practice back in high school sixteen or seventeen years ago. “Let's go somewhere we can hear each other.”

I led him out of the bar and into the dining room, which was nearly empty. We took a seat next to a window in the back.

“It's been a long time, Rick. I've missed all my buddies back here in San Diego.”

I didn't remember Elk having many buddies and I didn't think I was one of them. He'd been the odd kid, the tagalong, who was tolerated because he was sometimes good for a laugh. Usually at his own expense. Back when I was young, stupid, and pissing testosterone. I thought of how I'd shown Eddie Philby the front door tonight and marveled at how much I'd grown since my high school days.

“Yeah. I haven't seen you since you moved to Colorado junior year. Life been good?”

“Mostly.” The smile dropped for an instant, then realigned. “Got two beautiful girls who live with their mother in Los Angeles. That's why I moved back to Southern California, to be near them.”

My life was in the headlines, I didn't feel the need to share. “So, you living in San Diego or L.A.?”

“I'm practicing law here in La Jolla.” He pulled a silver card case out the pocket of his tweed coat and proffered a card.

“I've got the one you gave to my bartender.” I fished the card out of my pocket. “Thanks.”

“I have to tell you, Rick.” The smile flattened out of his face. “If you don't already have an attorney, it might be time to consider one.”

That didn't take long. I was a commodity now. Melody used me for an alibi, Heather used me for headlines, and now my old buddy Elk wanted to use me to pay child support.

“And here you are for my consideration.” I let the sarcasm hang off the words. “What a coincidence. Good-old-times talk is over and now it's time to pimp for business.”

The little boy lost look came back. Elk pursed his lips, and I
thought for a second he might cry. Even if I needed a lawyer, I didn't want one this soft.

“No.” He squinted and shook his head. “I don't even practice criminal law anymore. I specialize in estate planning.”

“Oh.” Another former supporter to win back.

“I just wanted to tell you that a couple defense lawyers at my old firm owe me favors. They're good and I could probably get you a discounted fee.”

“I'm sorry, Elk. I'm a little defensive, myself, lately.” I reached over to shake his hand. “That's very nice of you. If things get any worse, I may have to take you up on that. Please forgive me.”

He gave my hand a dramatic one-shake.

“There's nothing to forgive, Rick. I still owe you.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You saved me from a severe beating.”

I racked my brain and finally pulled up what I thought he was talking about.

“You mean when we were kids at La Jolla Shores?”

“Ronald Jackson wasn't a kid and neither were his goons.”

We were fifteen and Jackson was a high school dropout who liked to hang around teenage girls and act tough. The girls were from old money and thought it was cool to hang out with a loser ten years older than they were. One day Jackson and a couple of his toughs cornered Elk in the beach parking lot. I came along just as the pushing started.