Jan Burke - Liar

“For the record,” he said tightly, “throughout the time they were separated, my mother never took a dime from my father.”

“He already knows that,” Rachel said quietly.

Richmond went back to jabbing his blotter.

“I can’t give you my client’s name,” he said again. “Report me if you want to.”

“There’s something else you can give us,” Rachel said, moving from behind Travis, strolling a little closer to the desk.

He looked up at her. “What?”

“Your files on the murder of Gwendolyn DeMont.”

He shook his head, went back to his attack on the blotter. “Open case. You’ll have to contact the Los Alamitos Police Department for that information.”

She moved so fast, I didn’t see exactly how it happened, but within the next few seconds she managed to reach across the desk, snatch the pencil from Richmond’s hand and snap it in two.

Richmond looked up at her, slack-jawed.

“Don’t push your lousy luck,” she said. “Get the files!”

“I’m not turning them over to somebody who stands to gain from that woman’s murder!” he shouted.

“You’ve had over a decade to prove your point,” she shot back, “and you haven’t come up with jack shit.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“Oh, really?”

“It’s his fault,” he said, pointing at Travis. “His and his mother’s.”

“And all the people in the emergency room that night,” I said quietly.

He sat back in his chair.

“You’re not going to let go of it,” I said. “No one expects you to. But we want to find out who killed her-even if it turns out to be Arthur.”

He gave a snort of disbelief.

“If you won’t give us the files,” Rachel said, “make copies.”

“That would take all day!”

“You and I will work on it together,” she said. “Irene and Travis have other things to do.”

“So do I.”

“No, you don’t,” she said flatly.

He looked among the three of us. He didn’t find anyone in sympathy with him.

“Go on, Irene,” she said. “I’ll drop them off at your house later.”

Travis stood up. Richmond looked at his bandaged hand and said, “I didn’t plant that bomb. I’d never do something like that, especially not right outside a cop’s house.”

“So you’ve checked out our backgrounds,” I said.

“Yours,” he acknowledged.

“Then I should tell you that not only is Rachel a licensed PI, she’s-”

“An ex-cop,” he finished. “I could guess that much.”

“A former homicide detective,” I said.

He looked surprised.

“Phoenix,” she said. “Retired.”

“You’re too young!”

She smiled. “Save your flattery for your society columnist.”

He looked at me and said, “You’ll tell her, won’t you? Margot, I mean?”

“Tell her what?”

“That she doesn’t have any reason to be afraid of me.”

“I don’t know that for a fact, do I?” I said, and left with Travis.

“You need to take a pain pill?” I asked Travis, who was looking down at his hand as it rested in his lap.

“No. Maybe later.” He glanced over his shoulder as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Maybe we shouldn’t leave Rachel alone with that guy.”

“She can take care of herself. Or are you worried about his safety?”

He smiled a little, then lapsed back into silence.

“What’s on your mind, Travis?”

“My uncle lives here in Los Alamitos. He raised my dad, but I’ve never met him. I guess I was just thinking about what Father Chris said.”

“You’ve never met Gerald?”

“No. I’m not even sure where he lives. I just know it’s somewhere in Los Alamitos.”

Knowing I was going to hate myself for not going straight home and crawling into bed, I said, “Reach into my purse, and hand me the little notebook you find in there.”

He did as I asked, and at the next stoplight, I flipped to the page where I had written the addresses Rachel gave me for the DeMonts and Gerald Spanning. We hadn’t reached Spanning’s street yet.

“I can take you there right now if you want to go,” I said.

“But-you need to rest-”

“A short visit to your uncle won’t do me in. Just call Rachel at Richmond’s office and let her know what’s up.”

He hesitated, then made the call.

When he finished, he said, “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

“Nervous?”

“Yes,” he admitted, then added, “I’ll be all right.”

But a few minutes later he said, “Maybe we should call first.”

“The only time I called him, I got the number off the computer, so I don’t have it with me.”

“You’ve talked to him?”

“Only very briefly, when I was looking for you.”

“Oh.”

“He said to ask you to give him a call someday.”

“He did?”

There was so much hope in those two words, I wondered if I had set him up for disappointment.

He saw my hesitation and said, “Maybe he was just being polite.”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying for a little more honesty, although polite was hardly the word I would use for my brief conversation with Gerald Spanning. “I hope he’s home. I want to talk to him before I talk to the DeMonts.”

“Why?”

“Several reasons. Your uncle was around the DeMont family for many years. He must know something about what your father’s life with Gwendolyn was like, and that may be of help to us.”

He seemed lost in his own thoughts.

As I slowed to search for Spanning’s street, Travis said, “You haven’t asked me many questions about the money.”

“What money?”

“My father’s money.”

I made a right onto a street lined with a mixture of small wood-frame homes and two-story apartment buildings. “What about it?”

“Aren’t you curious about what’s going to become of his millions?”

“Millions?” I pulled over to the curb. We were nowhere near the address I was looking for, but this called for some discussion. I turned off the engine and said, “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.”

“Of course, millionaires are fairly common these days-”

“Oh, sure. Thick on the ground.”

“You’re sitting next to one,” he said.

We eyed one another for a moment. I blinked first. “Don’t you need to talk to your father’s lawyer before you start calling yourself a millionaire? See a will or something?”

“No. Like I said, he gave most of it to me before he died, through trusts. That was one reason my mother and I had a falling out. She told me it was blood money.”

He fell silent, brooding for a moment.

“She must have changed her mind about that,” I said. “I can’t believe she married him if she thought he was a killer.”

“Maybe. It wasn’t for his money. Mr. Brennan said I had almost everything. When my father became…” He faltered, then said, “unable to care for himself because of the illness, he sold his properties, even his home. He kept enough to pay off his obligations. He-he died sooner than expected, so perhaps there was some small amount of money left in his estate.”

“So you’re this millionaire, riding around in a pickup truck, sleeping in the camper?”

He stared straight ahead, not answering.

“Jesus.” I leaned my head back against the headrest. “And here I thought you were smart.”

He looked back at me. “What I choose to do-”

“Travis,” I interrupted, “why are you wasting your time with Rachel and me?”

“What?”

“You could hire dozens of people to help you out. And a couple dozen bodyguards while you’re at it.”

For some odd reason, this seemed to amuse him. “If I did,” he asked, “would you stop looking for the person who killed my mother?”