Jan Burke - Liar

“So he kept pursuing your dad.”

“Right. He added to my mother’s misery. He would corner her when she was, say, out shopping. During hours I was in school. He’d start out cajoling, then he’d get frustrated and angry with her-sometimes he was drunk. He’d tell her that he knew she had been paid off to lie for my dad, or tell her that he knew my folks had plotted to kill Gwendolyn, and that my mom had better not try to get back together with my dad.”

“Why didn’t she want her name on that restraining order?”

He shook his head. “She said Richmond was part of her penance. No priest ever assigned it, of course. It was her own idea. She spent a lot of years punishing herself.”

“For what?”

He looked down at his hand and shrugged.

I waited.

“For sleeping with a married man.”

“She didn’t know he was married!” I protested.

“Then for still wanting him, I suppose. For having brought shame to her family. For having a bastard child.”

“I don’t believe that she was ever ashamed of you.”

“How would you know?” he asked.

“Are we back to that again? All right, because I saw how much she wanted you before you were born. Because-”

He held up a hand. “Okay, you’re right. Maybe she wasn’t ashamed of me. Not of me, personally, but she was ashamed that I wasn’t legitimate. She blamed herself for my being a bastard. Every time I got in trouble at school for fighting someone over it, it was her fault-all her fault, she would say.”

“But Richmond wasn’t really a part of that. Why did she decide he was her punishment?”

He stared at his bandaged hand again. When he looked over at me again, he seemed to be studying my face.

“What?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The night of Gwendolyn’s murder. Do you really want to know the answers to all your questions? What if it means your aunt Briana helped Gwendolyn’s murderer to escape? Or that your newly rediscovered cousin is also an accessory after the fact?”

I didn’t answer right away. “Maybe you did something wrong when you were very young. Maybe you didn’t. I don’t know. I do know someone tried to kill you last night, and I’m also certain that the hit-and-run accident that killed your mother was no accident at all. That’s what concerns me now. And yes, it all seems to have something to do with Gwendolyn DeMont’s murder.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and went on. “I don’t have much family left, Travis. You’re my cousin. That’s true whether or not you’ve done something wrong. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything you can about anything that has a bearing on the DeMont case.”

He stopped walking, studied me again, and said, “All right, Irene Kelly. I’ll tell you the truth.” He held up his bandaged right hand, and at first I thought he was going to mimic a courtroom oath. But he said, “I saved my father with this hand. That wasn’t my idea at the time. In fact, I was enraged with him.”

“I don’t understand-”

“On the night of Gwendolyn’s murder, when he came to our house, my father touched the pane of glass, the one I broke with my fist. He touched it before I broke it. He left a bloody handprint on it.”

“A bloody… was he hurt?”

He smiled and dropped his hand to his side. “Kind of you to ask that first. No. He wasn’t hurt.”

“Gwendolyn’s blood.”

“Yes. For years, I thought perhaps he had murdered her, despite his denials. But one day, he got me to listen to him long enough to ask me a question. And that question made me change my mind.”

I waited.

“Let me back up a little-that night, I was watching my father through a window before he tried to come in the house. I watched him for some time. I saw him close up, and after I was hurt-when he came into the house-he held me in his arms.” Again he looked out over the water. “My father’s question was, ”Before I touched you, did you see blood on me anywhere other than the palm of that one hand?“”

Travis looked back at me. “The answer was no.”

Before I could respond, he said, “Just think about it for a while. I’m not saying it proves anything, and it may raise as many questions as it answers. When I started thinking about it, I realized I had to set aside a lot of assumptions I had been holding on to for a long time.”

We had reached the foot of the stairway leading up to the street. I turned to him and said, “Everything I’ve learned about Harold Richmond makes me believe he has a copy of the DeMont murder file. I’m going to try to get a look at it this afternoon. With what you’ve had to deal with lately, are you sure you want to come along?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said.

“There are some other people we need to talk to as soon as we can. This ‘W’ guy and your lawyer, for starters.”

“Mr. Ulkins and Mr. Brennan,” he said.

“Yes. Can you get in touch with them?”

“Sure. Mr. Brennan often spends time away from the city on weekends, but I can leave a message on his service. W-Ulkins-should be in the office today.”

“But with your father’s death-”

“He works for me as well. If he’s gone for the day, I’d still like to stop by the office and check for messages. The office is downtown.”

“You have a key?”

“Yes, so that’s no problem.”

The dogs were getting impatient, starting to stray back down the beach, so I called to them and we began climbing the stairs.

“Who else will we be trying to see?” Travis asked.

We. That was what I wanted, right? “I want to talk to Dr. Curtis and a priest at St. Anthony’s.”

“Which priest?”

“The one who said your father’s funeral Mass.”

He stopped climbing. “How could you possibly be sure his funeral Mass was at St. Anthony’s?”

“Your mother went to it.”

“And how could you possibly know that?” a voice called from above us.

We looked up to see Jim McCain leaning over the railing near the top of the stairs.

“Shit,” I said. How long had he been listening?

Travis looked between us.

“Travis Maguire,” I said, “meet Detective Jim McCain, LAPD Homicide. He’s investigating your mother’s death.”

McCain smiled and said, “Glad to see you’re all right, Mr. Maguire.” He looked at the bandaged hand and added, “Or are you?”

“Have you found the driver of the car?” Travis asked.

“No, I’m sorry, not yet. We’re working on it, though,” he said. “Even on the weekend.”

“At the beach?” Travis replied.

McCain stopped smiling. “Wherever it takes me. Perhaps Ms. Kelly would be so kind as to let us continue this discussion in a more private place?”

“Sure,” I said. “You never know who might be eavesdropping around here.”

“People with nothing to hide-” McCain began.

“-still enjoy their constitutional rights,” I finished.

We walked in silence most of the way to the house, but just before we got to the front door, Jack came roaring down the street on his Harley, back from whatever errand he had taken care of for Travis. He stopped in front of the house and called, “Everything okay?”

I nodded, and he watched as we went inside.

The first few minutes were spent with McCain telling Travis almost as little about the accident as he had told me; when Travis complained, McCain looked over at me and said, “Perhaps some other time.”

“You suspect Irene?” Travis asked in disbelief.

“This investigation is still in its early stages,” he said, and before Travis could say more, asked him if he was aware that his mother had willed her entire estate to me.