Liar

17

Since the nearest pay phones on Rivo Alto were on the single nonresidential street on the small island, I decided to drive a couple of miles farther, to an all-night supermarket on Pacific Coast Highway. The supermarket would be well-lighted and I could phone from indoors; better, for my purposes, than standing out in the open on a street Margot’s new boyfriend would be taking to get to her house. I was fairly certain she had invited him to come over.

The phone was near the front entrance of the market. I took a quick look around; at the checkout stand, there was an old man buying a bag of potato chips and a can of dog food, and one young couple with an infant buying baby formula. Otherwise, everyone I saw was an employee. The aisles of the store were crowded with pallets of shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes. Stocking hours.

I went back to the phone and, playing a hunch, rubbed a pencil over the paper I had taken off the notepad. The results were good enough to reveal a third and different number. I dropped a couple of coins in the phone and tried this number first. After two rings, a recorded voice said, “The subscriber on the LA Cellular System that you have called is unavailable, or has left the coverage area. Please try your call again later.”

So much for hunches. I tried one of the numbers from the caller-ID display.

It rang for a long time, no answer.

I got lucky with the third number.

“You’ve reached the voice mail of Richmond amp; Associates. We’re not in the office right now, but you can leave a message of any length, or enter your phone number and then press the pound key, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

I hung up. The name Richmond seemed familiar, but then again, it wasn’t a rare name.

I had decided to use a pay phone instead of my home phone because my initial plan was to page Margot’s friend from a number he wouldn’t recognize, and which couldn’t be traced back to me. But telling him off over the phone wouldn’t get me anywhere, and now a better plan occurred to me. I dropped another round of change into the phone and called the computer room at the News-Express.

Jerry Chase answered on the sixteenth ring. The newsroom of the Express is usually empty between one and six-thirty in the morning, but those are the hours the computer staff works on repair, maintenance and on freeing up computer memory. Usually there are two computer staffers working those hours, Jerry Chase, who does most of his work in the computer room, and Olivia Sledzik, his recently hired assistant, who is often working in other parts of the building. I had helped Livy get the job, so I had been hoping she’d be the one to answer. Those are the breaks.

Given the time it took Jerry to pick up the phone, I figured I had caught him at one of his three favorite pastimes: going up on the roof for a smoke, talking to his girlfriend on the phone or playing around on the Internet.

“Computer room,” he said, a little breathlessly. Rooftop.

“Jerry? It’s Irene.”

“Oh…” It was a sound of relief. I was sorry not to hear the excuse he would have given one of the bosses about the time it took to answer the phone.

“Nice night out. How was the view?”

He laughed. “Terrific. It’s their own damned fault for making it a smoke-free building. What can I do for you?”

“I need to find out who owns a phone number. Can you look it up for me?”

“Sure. What are you doing up at this time of day?”

“Long story.”

He sighed. “Aren’t they all?”

“Yes. Listen, I just need to have you find out who owns a number for me. Actually, I know who owns it, but I need the address and type of business.”

“Sure. Local?” I could hear him typing on his keyboard, accessing the database program he’d need to use.

“Yes, within our area code.”

“Okay, let me have it.”

I read it off to him.

“I love it,” he said, almost immediately. “An easy one. It’s a business- Richmond and Associates. Licensed private investigators.”

“Investigators?” I repeated blankly.

“Yes. By the way-Olivia is great. Thanks for letting us know about her.”

Of course she’s great, I thought. Livy probably knew more about programming when she was in ninth grade than you did when you got out of college. And she does ten times as much work as you do and… and I reminded myself that he was doing me a favor.

“Glad it worked out, Jer.”

“Yeah, me, too. I’m learning from her. She’s bringing me up to date.”

That made me feel a little better about him. “Livy’s sharp,” I agreed. “You have the address for Richmond and Associates?”

“Yes, in Los Alamitos. Owner is one Harold Richmond.”

Suddenly I remembered where I had heard the name “Richmond”- it was in the articles about Gwendolyn DeMont’s murder. Harold Richmond had worked for the police then; he had been the detective assigned to the case.

“Still there?” Jerry asked.

“Yes-sorry.”

He read the address to me. I wrote it down, then said, “As long as you’re in that program, Jer, could you look up one more number for me? Probably a residence.” Sure.

I read off the second number, and again he got a quick hit. “Not a residence, though,” he said. “The Wharf.”

“Someplace down in the harbor?”

“No, it’s in Los Alamitos, too. The Wharf is just its name. It’s a bar.”

“A bar? You’re sure?”

“Well, I’m not sitting in it, having a drink and a much-needed smoke, but unless the database is wrong, the place is a bar.”

“Sorry, Jerry, I didn’t mean to doubt you-just not what I expected. Thanks again for the help.”

I stood in the store for a moment after I hung up, thinking about the implications of Richmond and Associates being private investigators, and Margot getting late-night calls from a bar in their town.

I hauled the phone book up from beneath the metal shelf at the booth and flipped back to the Yellow Pages. I looked up investigators, and sure enough, there at the bottom-right-hand corner of the page was an ad for Richmond and Associates:

Harold Richmond and Associates

Confidential Private Investigations-24-Hour Service

SurveillanceBackground Investigations

Electronic De-BuggingMissing PersonsAsset Searches

Free ConsultationFully Bonded and Insured

Owned and Operated by Former Law Enforcement Officers

A state private investigator’s license number was listed at the bottom of the ad.

If he had been the bomber, what did he have against Travis? I could think of only one reason for Harold Richmond to personally dislike my cousin-if he thought Travis had lied to provide an alibi for Arthur Spanning.

But that was years ago. Why this fresh pursuit? And even if he still harbored animosity toward Travis over the alibi, it didn’t seem to be something that would drive a former cop to try to kill someone else. If Travis had lied, he wasn’t the first person to do so to protect a member of his family. And he had only been a child. Who would have held such a grudge against an eleven-year-old boy?

The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Richmond had placed the bomb in Travis’s truck. But I did want to talk to him. I wanted to know why a private investigator-especially one with a connection to the old murder case-had been asking for me at the newspaper.

I drove back to Rivo Alto. Just before I turned onto Margot’s street, I noticed that a car was blocking it-a green Olds.

If he had taken a job to investigate me or Travis, it was perfectly understandable that he would try to follow me-understandable, if unnerving. But somehow the sight of that Olds made me hesitate to confront Richmond.

I decided I didn’t need that conversation with him after all. At least not now, not alone and at four in the morning. I’d have it when Rachel was with me. But I was also concerned about Margot-maybe I should stick around, just in case she needed help.

Instead of turning down Margot’s street, I crossed the short bridge over the canal. I parked in an alley that ran parallel to the canal, behind the houses across the canal from her own. I got out of the car and stretched.

The air was cool, and the sky was just beginning to lighten. I walked back to the bridge. Near the foot of the bridge, staying on the side of the canal opposite Margot’s home, I peered down the waterway toward her house, which was about three houses down from where I crouched.

Water lapped at pilings, ropes creaked and there was the ping-ping sound of sail lines tapping against masts as all along the canal boats bobbed at their moorings. Otherwise all was quiet. No sound of Margot’s dogs barking.

I didn’t have to watch Margot’s place for very long to realize there was something odd going on.

Lights. Lights turning on and off in different rooms, as if someone were searching through the house. I kept watching.

A man. Now I could see his tall, athletic figure every now and then as he moved from room to room. He came back to the first floor, opened the sliding-glass door that led to a small patio between the house and the dock. He turned on the patio light and stepped outside.

He was too far away for me to make out most of his features, but he definitely resembled the man on the tape. And his height, his close-cropped black-and-silver hair, his clean-shaven face-all made me decide that this was very likely the man Briana’s neighbors had seen at the apartment building in San Pedro. The man who had been using lock picks, trying to enter her home.

He was looking up and down the canal, and I stayed very still, hoping it was too dark for him to see me, certain that any movement on my part would give me away. He rubbed a hand over his hair, then turned and walked inside. I stayed still.

He closed the glass door, turned out the light. He also turned out the few lights that were still on inside the house. But I saw him standing at the glass door again, staring out. The sky continued to lighten.

I had already seen what he had just figured out-Margot’s boat was no longer at the dock. I prayed that she had taken the Yorkies aboard and gone for an early-morning sail, just in case all my bad feelings about this guy proved to be right.

He moved away from the window. I heard a car start, heard it drive down the street. I waited. It was cool and damp out, and my legs were starting to cramp. I waited a little longer, then walked back to my car, now covered with a layer of dew. The Karmann Ghia made its usual noisy start; I got the windshield wipers and the heater going and put it in gear.

I didn’t get far. As I drove around the curve of the narrow alley, I slammed on my brakes. The other end was blocked-by a green Olds. There was no one in the car. I didn’t wait to see where the driver was-I threw the Karmann Ghia in reverse. The plastic back window of the rag-top was still covered with dew, so I couldn’t back up with any great speed, especially not around the curve. That was just as well-in the side mirror I saw Richmond step out from between two houses behind me, and into the path of the car.

For about half a second I considered running him over, but I stopped. He stood with arms held out to his sides, palms open. I didn’t see a weapon, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

“What have you done with her?” he called out, moving toward my door.

I have to admit the question surprised me. I rolled my window down about half an inch. “Warned her about you,” I said, just loud enough to be heard over the motor. “Thanks for shouting. The neighbors will be wide awake when I start screaming for them to call the police.”

“Where have you been lately?” he asked sarcastically. “Nobody gets involved any more.” He glanced at the houses along the alley. “They’d probably never make the call.”

I could smell booze on his breath, but his speech wasn’t slurred and his eyes seemed to be focusing just fine. Just now they were boring into mine.

“Wrong neighborhood for that assumption, Mr. Richmond.”

He curled his fingers over the top of the window. That bullying gesture annoyed me, and my annoyance began to take the place of my fear.

“So Margot told you my name,” he said.

“No, she didn’t. Not even when I told her about the bomb.”

“Bomb? What bomb?”

It was convincing, I’ll admit. Not convincing enough to make me lower the window. “Let go of my car,” I said.

“Did someone try to hurt her?” he asked angrily.

Maybe the events of that day had taken the last of my patience, maybe I was just finally feeling exhausted. For whatever reason, that remark sent me over the edge. “No,” I said, “no one tried to hurt her-no one except you, you shameless user.”

“Now just a minute-”

“Not just any lowlife would pimp himself just to get my address. You’re a piece of work, Richmond.”

His fingers tightened on the window. “You have no right to-”

“I thought all that business about private eyes sleeping with somebody for information only happened in pulp fiction and second-rate movies.”

He turned red, made a visible attempt to control his temper. “It wasn’t-”

“It wasn’t like that? Spare me.” I leaned closer to the window. “I saw the videotape from the security camera at the Express, Harold. If the cops saw that and talked to Margot and a couple of other people, I wonder if they would connect you up to some of the bad luck we’ve been having in the Maguire family.”

All that color drained right back out of his face.

I almost asked him if he’d had a good time at the Wharf, but no use playing all my cards at once. Instead, I simply repeated, “Let go of my car.

His fingers eased open.

“I’ll be at your office at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” I said, putting the Karmann Ghia in reverse again. “If you don’t want to lose your license, you’ll be there.”

“Wait-”

“For what? Don’t say another word. This way you have another eight or nine hours to perfect the bullshit excuse you were about to give me.” I eased the clutch out.

Just before I headed back over the bridge, I glanced back down the alley. He was standing in the middle of it, watching me, looking lost.

Too damn bad.

I drove home.