Liar Read online

  “Come inside,” he said.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Please.”

  “For most of the weekend,” I said, “I’ve been doing whatever someone else wanted me to do. The results have not been great. Childish though it undoubtedly is, right now I just want to have a really terrific pout.”

  He moved a short distance away, but didn’t go inside the house. He played with the dogs until they lay panting in the grass. Then he came over to the car again, but stood a few feet away. He squatted down, resting his elbows on his thighs. He plucked a piece of grass from the lawn, fiddled with it.

  “Cassidy said something strange to me today,” he said.

  “No kidding.”

  He ignored that and said, “Yeah. He asked me if you and I had been fighting lately.”

  I looked over at him.

  “I told him, no, we hadn’t. He said he was sorry to hear that.”

  “What did he mean by… oh,” I said.

  “Right. All this peace and harmony—not exactly natural for us, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Not one fight. Not once since… not since the morning I was taken hostage.”

  I opened the car door, rolled up the window and stepped out. He stood up and I moved closer to him.

  “Put up your dukes,” I said, and he pulled me into an embrace.

  We stood there together for a while, then he glanced at his watch. “There are about four hours of Saturday left,” he said. “What would you like to do?”

  I told him. In detail.

  I got everything I wanted, my way, and still had no reason to feel selfish.

  8

  I didn’t have much time to sort through Briana’s belongings on Sunday; there were household chores that couldn’t be put off, and just after one o’clock I was called into work to help write a memorial piece on a civic leader. The man had had the discourtesy to die of a heart attack after deadline on Saturday night. Having no suspicion of his health problems, the paper didn’t have one of its instant obits ready to go.

  If I had only needed to write a history of his generosity to the community, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had to get comments. As a result, several times I was placed in the unpleasant position of being the first person to tell one of his friends that he had died. I would wait for the stunned silence or shout of disbelief to pass, express condolences, tell the friend that I knew he or she had worked closely with him, and coax comments. I did get one break—another reporter was sent to talk to the widow.

  By the time I got home, I was emotionally drained. Frank was making dinner. I was changing into more casual clothes when Aunt Mary called.

  “Did you go to Mass today?” she asked.

  “You’ve been hounding me about my sense of duty to my family,” I said, ready to tell her straight out that I was in no mood to talk about the dead. “Are you going to start pestering me on the subject of religion, too?”

  “Hmm. I probably should. But here I’ve started out all wrong again. I called to apologize. Realized I needed to when I went to Mass this morning.”

  “You don’t owe me any apologies,” I said.

  “Yes, I do. Don’t interrupt. I went to Mass this morning, and afterwards, I spoke with Mr. Grady—the gentleman you met at the cemetery?”

  “Yes, the one who is redesigning the grounds there for your personal comfort.”

  “Now, don’t get smart with me or I’ll lose sight of my purpose. Sean—er, Mr. Grady—told me that I was cruel, and he’s right. He told me—well, I didn’t realize you had been so upset. You should have said something. Better yet, I never should have let things come to such a pass. I should have just called and asked for your help. That’s all.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m all right,” I said. “You weren’t trying to hurt me.

  “No, but I did, and I wouldn’t for the world. You know that, don’t you?

  “Yes, Aunt Mary.”

  Frank, who was only hearing my half of the conversation, said, “Invite her over for dinner. There’s plenty.”

  I made a face, but issued the invitation.

  “Well, thank you,” she said, “but I’m already engaged for the evening.”

  “Mr. Grady?” I asked.

  “None of your beeswax. But you listen to me. Just enjoy your time with Frank this evening. Forget about all your horrible relatives and take care of him.”

  I was happy to obey this directive.

  I hadn’t been in the office long on Monday when the intercom line buzzed. John Walters, now the managing editor of the News-Express, commanded me to come into his office. The workload ahead of me was routine stuff—I knew I would be spending most of the day on the phone, trying to track down some out-of-town contributors to a local campaign fund—so I answered his summons with a sense of anticipation. Maybe he had a more exciting story in mind.

  He answered my knock with a scowl and waved me in. He now had a slightly bigger office and a bigger desk and chair, but he’s a large man who seems to crowd any room he’s in.

  “Shut the door,” he growled, and used his meaty fist to jab his ballpoint pen into his desk blotter.

  He was pissed off. Didn’t look like I was in for anything good after all. But his usual level of sweetness is nearly that of a lemon, so the mood itself didn’t faze me. His next words did.

  “I thought we agreed that since you insist on bedding a cop, Mark Baker covers crime stories around here.”

  “Right,” I snapped, “whom you bed makes a difference around here— although if it’s Wrigley, you still get to write about jackasses. And did anyone question the guy who wrote about the wool—”

  “Enough!” He looked away, and if I hadn’t known him for so long, I might not have understood that he was calming himself down. “One of these days, Wrigley’s going to hear what kind of remarks you make about him, and he’ll can your ass.”

  I shrugged. “You haven’t always complimented your boss’s judgment. But you didn’t call me in here because I’m making nasty remarks about Wrigley. What have I done to make you accuse me of trying to butt in on Mark Baker’s territory?”

  “I got a call this morning,” he said. “A Los Angeles homicide cop. Guy named McCain. Said he just needed to verify your whereabouts on Wednesday the eighteenth. Wouldn’t tell me anything more.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “John!”

  “I told him that without more information from him, I wasn’t ready to talk to the LAPD about what my reporters were up to. I don’t make a habit of telling the police everything I know—unlike some people around here.”

  “You have no right to imply that I talk to Frank about what goes on here at the paper.”

  He scowled down at his desk, but eventually said, “No, no, I don’t. I’ll give you that.”

  But I had already started thinking of the more important implications of what he had said. “God, I wish you had just talked to McCain! Now you’ve probably made things worse.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “He suspects me…” I discovered it wasn’t so easy to say. “It sounds ridiculous, I know, but he suspects me of murdering my aunt. Or arranging her murder.”

  “What?!”

  I explained as best I could.

  He was silent for a long time, then said, “You have a lawyer?”

  “If you had let McCain know I was here that Wednesday morning, I wouldn’t need a lawyer.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Feeling I get about this guy. He isn’t going to give up easily. Seems like he’s not short on dogged determination.”

  “Then he’ll learn that I didn’t have anything to do with Briana’s death. Besides, I can’t afford to hire an attorney just because McCain’s asking questions.”

  “Frank aware of this situation?”

  “Yes.
”

  “Hmm. I suppose he’ll be able to tell when this guy McCain represents a threat to you. Anyway, I’ll tell Morey to be more cooperative with McCain than I was.”

  Until John’s former position could be filled, Morey was our acting news editor. I wasn’t sure that Morey, with his far from forceful personality, would be able to convince McCain of the truth after John had been so evasive.

  John and I talked a little longer, then I went back to my desk. I tried to concentrate on finding people who would talk to me about the campaign funding story. I didn’t have much luck, even though I was carrying the holy card of St. Anthony (who’s supposed to help one find that which is lost) in my pocket. The few out-of-area contributors I did locate were either former Las Piernas residents or relatives of the candidate. A few questions to the latter group made it clear that they were completely uninterested in Las Piernas politics. Four hours of phone calls and I had nothing worth putting into print.

  But my sense of frustration wasn’t just a result of my problems with the story, or because of John’s reticence to talk to McCain. It increased not long after I left John’s office, during a phone call from Pete.

  “Looks like your cousin goes by Maguire,” Pete said.

  “You found him!” I said.

  “Got an address, anyway.” He read it off—and the balloon popped.

  When I didn’t respond right away, he said, “That help?”

  “Thanks for trying, Pete, but it’s Briana’s apartment address. As far as I know, Travis never really lived there.”

  “Oh.”

  “At least I know he’s going by Maguire.”

  There was a short silence, then Pete said, “Maybe. If the address checked out, I would have felt a little more certain about that. Better not assume anything yet.”

  A couple of friends on the staff asked me to join them for lunch, but I had the feeling they were curious about why (according to a newsroom rumor that quickly made the rounds) an LAPD homicide cop was asking if I had been in on a certain Wednesday morning. So I begged off— told them, quite truthfully, that I was waiting for return calls.

  My stomach growled, so I went from desk to desk glancing at take-out menus (more standard on newsroom desks than dictionaries) and found a good one on Stuart Angert’s—a deli that delivers to the Express. I called it and ordered a turkey sandwich.

  While I waited for the delivery, I logged on to the computer and went to a program that has replaced our old reverse phone directories. I typed in Briana’s old address, the one she lived at before moving to the apartment, and within seconds the computer came up with a list of names, addresses and phone numbers for some of the residences on the same block. I printed this list, but decided I’d wait until later in the day to actually start phoning. I’d make the calls when people were more likely to be home from work.

  I logged off, opened a desk drawer and pulled out McCain’s manila envelope. That morning, before leaving the house, I had added to it, stuffing the envelope full of papers from Briana’s desk; I opened it now and began sorting through them. In a few moments, the papers were stacked in four piles: church bulletins, grocery lists, bills and—the biggest category—flyers and advertisements.

  The two grocery lists were short, and only included a few everyday items—they didn’t reveal anything the tour of her kitchen hadn’t already told me. I put them back in the envelope.

  Next I looked through her bills. There weren’t many of these either— her lifestyle didn’t include flashing a lot of gold cards all over town. In fact, there were no bills from any kind of plastic. No yuppie necessities such as cellular phones, dry cleaning or cable television. Like her grocery lists, her bills were for the basics: electricity, gas, water and the telephone. Among the older bills, there was a large amount due to an orthopedic surgeon, but as I studied it, it was clear that her medical insurance company was being billed for the full amount.

  But there would be other expenses, of course. Her food, rent, taxes and probably some bus or cab fares. Donations to the church. Postage, laundry—all the other little things that might cause her to feel anxious about the ways she must divide a dollar. Living on disability checks, it would have been difficult to make ends meet.

  “Where was your strong young son?” I wondered aloud. Where the hell was your niece? an inner voice quickly answered.

  I forced myself to focus my attention on the phone bills. Most were for little more than the basic service rate, but the most recent telephone bill was extravagant by comparison—it included over sixty dollars’ worth of long-distance calls, all to numbers in California cities.

  The calls were made within a three-day period—and when I saw which three days, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I pulled out the holy card just to make sure I had correctly remembered the date of Arthur Spanning’s death. Yes—and the calls were made in the three days following his demise.

  Geoff, the Express’s security guard, called to tell me my sandwich was waiting for me at the front desk. I went downstairs to get it, thinking about the phone bill all the while. When Briana had learned of Arthur’s death, she would have called Travis. Even if he had been the one to inform her of his father’s death, it was likely that they had spoken. His number must have been one of the first ones she called. But who were all the other people she had phoned?

  Back at my desk, I ate the sandwich without really tasting it as I studied the bill more closely. The cities called ranged across the state—from Crescent City in the far north to El Cajon in the south, from Eureka on the coast to Blythe at the Arizona border. Most were very brief calls, but three lasted longer—the ones to El Cajon, Mission Viejo and Lake Arrowhead. I wrote these numbers down.

  Did Arthur have friends all over California? And why would Briana be the one to contact them?

  The more I studied the bill, the more I became aware of a pattern to the calls. They began to follow a kind of geographical order: the call after Crescent City was to Eureka, then Leggett, Santa Rosa and San Francisco. A straight line down the Northern California coast. Following San Francisco, she called Vallejo, then Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno and Visalia.

  I pulled an atlas off a reference shelf in the newsroom and opened it to a map of California. As I had thought, this group of calls followed a line inland from San Francisco to Sacramento, and then down the San Joaquin Valley along Highway 99. The other calls were the same, as if the caller—Briana—had also looked at a map, using the course of major highways to decide where to call next. There were some leaps (as I began to think of them) here and there—places where the pattern jumped to another area, a separate highway. But after each leap, the pattern continued.

  With this pattern in mind, I logged back on to the computer and accessed the same database. The program can also search by phone number—enter the phone number, and it produces the name and address of the listed party. I decided to try the numbers for the three longer calls and entered the Mission Viejo phone number.

  When the listing appeared on the screen, I double-checked the number on the phone bill, thinking I must have made a mistake. I hadn’t.

  The number was that of the Mission Viejo Public Library. I tried Lake Arrowhead and El Cajon. Both were public libraries. Puzzled, I tried a few of the others. More libraries. I looked up every phone number; almost all were public libraries. The only exceptions were four elementary schools and two children’s bookstores.

  I tried running the name “Travis Maguire” through the program and came up with zilch, but found thirty-eight listings for T. Maguire and about a thousand other Maguires. There were forty-two T. Sperry listings and nothing for T. Spanning. There were very few Spannings; Arthur Spanning wasn’t listed. I printed out the T. Sperry and T. Maguire listings.

  I was about to try running the name DeMont when the phone rang. “Kelly,” I answered, somewhat distracted.

  It was Rachel. “You hear the news?”

  “What news?”

  “Our boys a
re going to Idaho.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, they’re trying to find a witness for one of their cases—guess it’s about to come to trial.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Don’t worry about Frank,” she said, guessing the direction of my thoughts. “He’ll be fine, except that Pete will probably make him crazy. Might do him some good to get out of town for a few days.”

  “Yes,” I said, “you’re probably right.”

  “You don’t sound convinced. I guess I should have let Frank tell you.”