by Jan Burke
“I didn’t like him either,” I said.
“Do you even remember him?”
“Yes. Arthur Sperry was almost fifteen years—”
“Twelve at most,” she corrected.
“Somewhere between twelve and fifteen years younger than Aunt Briana,” I continued. “He was handsome and charming and still managed to give me the creeps.”
“You liked him at first,” she said.
“Everyone liked him at first. But not after he made a pass at my mother.”
“Hmm. You always did have big ears,” Mary said. “A child shouldn’t have heard such talk.”
“It wasn’t just talk—”
“Never mind that,” Mary said. She turned to Frank. “The upshot of this alleged pass—”
“Alleged!” I protested.
“Of this alleged pass,” Mary went on determinedly, “is that the two sisters saw less and less of each other.”
“It wasn’t just that,” I said, turning to Frank. “My mother died not long after they were married.”
“So you were twelve when Travis was born?” he asked.
“Yes. He was born the year my mother died. I never got to know him, really.”
My thoughts drifted to memories of those last weeks of my mother’s life. At that time, hospital rules were different than they are today, and children—defined by the hospital as anyone under sixteen—were not allowed in the patients’ rooms. Barbara was seventeen, but I was only twelve, so I waited alone in the hospital lobby downstairs, while Barbara and my father went up to my mother’s room. I would write notes for my father to bring upstairs, to read to my mother as she lay dying of cancer, to let her know that I was there, too.
As it became clearer to everyone that she would not be coming home from the hospital, family differences were set aside. Still, Aunt Briana did not bring Arthur with her. The first time she came to visit my mother, the nuns wouldn’t let her take the baby up to the room, so she asked me if I would hold Travis until she came back downstairs. I was a little afraid, because I hadn’t spent much time around babies, but Travis made it easy for me. He watched me with that intense, studying stare we allow only babies to make of us. Apparently deciding I was trustworthy, he yawned and fell asleep in my arms.
Briana came back downstairs and thanked me for watching him, and said she would find a sitter next time. But I begged her to bring him back, and whether out of pity or gratitude, she told me she would. And so for three weeks, Travis and I consoled one another, his childhood beginning as mine ended. The last time I held him was the day of the funeral. Aunt Briana took my little talisman against grief away from me that day, and I had not seen him since.
I looked up to find Mary studying me, and saw that she was challenging me to tell the rest of Aunt Briana’s story.
“What is it?” Frank asked, looking between us.
“As it turned out, my father wasn’t such a bad judge of character,” I said.
“But far too much of a judge!” Mary snapped.
“Arthur and Briana weren’t legally married,” I said.
“Now don’t make it sound as if—” Mary began to interrupt.
“Arthur already had a wife,” I said. “He was a bigamist.”
One good thing about marrying a cop is that announcements like these are received with a great deal more equanimity than they might be otherwise. He merely raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Briana had separated from him before anyone else learned that he was already married,” Mary said.
“Not long before. But that’s not the worst of it. No one else learned that he was a bigamist until he was wanted for questioning in connection with a murder in Los Alamitos. His first wife—his legal spouse— was found dead. He was suspected of killing her, but it took awhile to link Arthur Spanning‘—which was his real name—with Arthur Sperry’ Once the connection was made, guess who supplied his alibi?”
“Briana,” Frank said.
“Yes, and Travis backed her up. They said Arthur had been at their home. It wasn’t hard to back up his story, because on the night in question, Travis had cut his hand and was treated at a local hospital. Arthur had carried him into the emergency room. Briana was with them.”
“Anyone else ever accused of the murder?” Frank asked.
“No,” I said. “Everyone always thought Arthur did it, and that Briana just lied for him.”
“Your father thought so, anyway,” Mary said.
“He wasn’t alone. He thought Briana was afraid of Arthur.”
“Well, it hardly matters. They separated. As far as I know, Briana never saw him after that.”
“I wish I had known about Briana’s funeral,” I said.
“There was no funeral to speak of,” Mary said.
“What?”
“She was a Jane Doe.”
“A Jane Doe? Briana?”
“In Las Piernas?” Frank asked.
“No,” Mary said, answering his question first. “She was the victim of a hit-and-run accident in San Pedro. Well, perhaps ‘accident’ isn’t the right word for it. She was walking home from the neighborhood market one morning, didn’t have any identification on her. It took almost two weeks for them to figure out who she was.”
“San Pedro?” I asked. “What was she doing there?”
“She moved there after all the notoriety of the murder case drove her to leave Las Piernas. She stayed here for a time, found a fairly good job as a secretary, but sooner or later she would encounter someone who knew her story. It was very painful for her—for Travis, too, I’m sure.
“So she moved. It took her awhile to find work, but she eventually got a job as a file clerk in a health clinic. Never did have a lot of money. She kept to herself. Life just kept getting harder and harder for her. She had been having health problems lately—something wrong with one of her knees, I think. A couple of months ago, it got so bad it forced her to leave her job. She was living on a small disability check. She hadn’t lived in this last apartment for very long.”
“Travis told you all of this?”
She shook her head sadly. “No, but I suspect Travis hasn’t been in touch with her for some time. And no one over there at this new place really got to know her before she died. Oh, she’d met a couple of her more curious neighbors, but I don’t think they ever learned much about her. I learned a few things from them, but they didn’t even know she had a son. When the police finally figured out which apartment she lived in, they found an Easter card I sent to her a few weeks ago, and that’s how they got in touch with me. I told them I would bury her.”
I tried, but could not reconcile this image of a lonely recluse with that of my aunt Briana. I thought of the last time I had seen her, at my mother’s funeral.
“Travis—” I said.
“That’s what I need you to do, Irene. I want you to find him. A child should be told when his mother is dead. And even if he’s like you, and doesn’t want to visit the grave, at least he should know where she’s buried. But I also need your help—yours and Frank’s—to find out who killed her.”
“The LAPD is calling this a homicide?” Frank asked.
“Yes,” she said, as her phone rang. Even though it was now after ten-thirty, most of Mary’s friends would know that she’s up late. But this wasn’t a social call.
“Yes, Detective McCain,” she said to her caller. “… No, no, this isn’t too late! Not at all! As I told you, I don’t usually go to sleep until just before dawn. But I promise you, you don’t need to bring a wooden stake or garlic when you visit. I’m not a vampire.”
She listened, then suddenly looked over at us, frowning. “Yes, I know Irene Kelly,” she said into the phone. “She’s my grandniece. She’s sitting here right now, with her husband—did I tell you he’s a homicide detective, too? Oh, I did. Yes, he’s the one. Well, let me ask them.”
She covered the mouthpiece. “Detective McCain is a homicide detective with the LAPD. He wants to know if he
can come over to talk with you.”
4
People who got their ideas about detectives from television probably would have been disappointed in Detective Jim McCain. He was gray-haired, plain-faced, a little thick in the waist, but—we quickly realized— not between the ears. He was of medium height and stood up straight, his posture neither ramrod nor slouched. He didn’t smoke, didn’t wear a fedora or a crumpled raincoat. His shoes had seen better days, but had leather soles, and while his suit wasn’t an Armani, it was still neat and clean. He didn’t look as if he had punched or shot anyone lately. He smiled warmly when Mary opened her door, thanked her politely when she let him in. I decided his voice, soft and low, was one of his assets. It was a voice that invited confidences.
He was still smiling when his dark blue eyes rested on Frank and me, but they widened slightly when Mary introduced Frank.
“Harriman?” he said, with a note of recognition.
“Yes,” Frank answered. I could see him tensing, waiting for the inevitable questions: Were you the hostage? Just how did that go down? How did they manage to get the drop on you? Questions he had been asked just about a billion times.
But instead, McCain extended a hand and said, “An honor to meet you. Glad you came out of that okay.”
“Thanks,” Frank said, obviously relieved.
McCain turned to me and shook hands as we were introduced—smiling, polite and sizing me up. What the verdict was, I’m not sure.
Once he was seated and had resisted all of Mary’s offers of food and beverage, he took out a little notebook, turned to me and said, “Ms. Kelly, I assume your aunt Mary has told you that I’m investigating the death of Briana Maguire?”
“Yes.”
“She was your mother’s sister?”
I nodded.
“And when was the last time you saw her?”
“Over twenty years ago. At my mother’s funeral, when I was twelve.”
“Not since then?”
“No.”
“Any other type of contact with your aunt since then?”
“No.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Frank sit forward.
“No phone calls?” McCain asked.
“No. No phone calls, no letters, no contact at all.”
He said nothing, just watched me. I didn’t try to fill the silence, but Mary did. “I explained all that to you,” she said.
He smiled. “Is there a room where I could talk to Ms. Kelly alone?”
“Perhaps she should talk to you another time,” Frank said. “In the presence of an attorney.”
McCain’s smile didn’t waver. “She is, of course, absolutely free to do so, but right now, I’m just asking questions. You know how this goes, Harriman. Lawyers cause unnecessary complications, just to make their clients think they’ve earned their fee. I don’t need that kind of grief, and neither do you. Better this way. None of us would ever get a thing done in this line of work without a little cooperation.”
I knew this last didn’t necessarily refer only to my cooperation with him; I could see from Frank’s face that he got the hint as well—McCain was saying, You want cooperation from LAPD on any of your cases, don’t screw with our cases.
“I’ll talk to him, Frank,” I said.
“What brings my wife into this?” Frank asked, ignoring me.
“I’ll be happy to tell you in a moment,” he said. “Just a few more questions, Ms. Kelly? In fact, if your husband wants to be present—”
“I get the picture,” Mary said. “I’ll go into the kitchen.”
He thanked her and stood as she rose to leave the room. She laughed and made some remark about courtly manners, then shut the door between the two rooms.
Frank, I could see, was still wary.
“Now, where were we?” McCain said, flipping though his notes. “Oh, yes. Well, let’s skip the family history for the moment.”
He flipped back a few pages in his notebook and said, “You drive a Karmann Ghia convertible?”
So he had run a DMV check on me. And Briana was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Didn’t take a genius to figure out where this was headed. “Yes, I drive a Karmann Ghia. It’s at home in our driveway, without any damage to the front end.”
He smiled again. Now Frank was smiling, too.
“He’s probably got someone over at the house, taking a look at it right now,” Frank said.
He nodded. “And I had a look at the Volvo on the way in. But neither of your cars matches the description witnesses gave of the vehicle that struck your aunt, Ms. Kelly.”
“Which was?”
“Sorry, I’d prefer not to say. It’s an open case, Ms. Kelly, and for the moment we have all the detectives we need on it.”
Polite or no, the guy was starting to irritate me.
“Do you remember what you were doing the morning of Wednesday the eighteenth?” he asked. “That’s two weeks ago.”
“Working. I work for the Las Piernas News-Express.”
“You were in the office?”
“Yes. Most weeks, on Tuesday nights, I cover the city council meetings. I turn in what I can on Tuesday night, but if the meeting goes later than my final deadline or some item needs a follow-up, I write about it on Wednesday.”
“And you’re certain you were writing about the city council meeting on that Wednesday morning?”
“Yes. Two weeks ago they took the final vote on the sale of some park land. It was hotly debated. The meeting ran late.”
“You don’t get to sleep in on Wednesdays after covering evening meetings?”
“Sometimes. I’ve worked at the paper for a number of years, so I’m not punching a clock. In general, I get to decide how I use my time— provided I meet my deadlines. As long as I continue to produce my stories on time, no one will hassle me much. But that day I needed to contact some sources I can only reach during business hours, so I showed up at about eight that morning. Lots of people can verify that.”
“What brings Irene into this?” Frank asked again. “For more than twenty years, she’s had no contact with this aunt. She didn’t even learn that Briana Maguire had died until a little more than an hour ago.”
McCain seemed surprised. “Your aunt Mary didn’t tell you before today?”
“No.”
“Ms. Kelly, what are your expectations of Ms. Maguire’s estate?”
“Expectations?” I asked, taken aback. “From Briana? Why, absolutely none.”
“But you were a favorite niece, weren’t you?”
“Look, about two dozen years have gone by since I last saw her. There was a family quarrel, even before her other troubles started.”
“Other troubles?”
“You undoubtedly know which ones I mean.”
He paused, then said, “Yes, your aunt Mary has been very helpful. Ms. Kelly, several times your husband has asked me what brings you into this matter. Are you aware that your aunt left a will?”
“No. As I said—”
“Yes, yes. But she did leave a will, Ms. Kelly. A holographic will. You know what that means?”
“A will written entirely in her handwriting,” I said.
“Yes. We found it today, among the papers in her apartment.”
“She died two weeks ago and you just searched her apartment today?”
“Keep in mind that we didn’t know who she was until a few days ago, Ms. Kelly. Our first concern was to find someone who could provide positive identification of the victim and claim her body, someone who could arrange for her burial. Given our caseloads in this division, I don’t think we’ve done too badly.”
“No, no, I’m sorry. So you found a handwritten will leaving everything to her son—”
“Oh, no, Ms. Kelly. Nothing was left to her son.”
“What?”
“Briana Maguire’s will leaves everything to you.”
5
“It doesn’t appear to be much of an estate, I’ll grant you,” he went on. “But we hav
en’t really had time to check for assets. You know, sometimes you read about these hermits who live very simply, but end up having a million bucks stashed away in a savings account somewhere.”
“Brilliant,” Frank said angrily. “You think this single mother who worked as a file clerk was a millionaire? A woman who was living on disability checks?”
McCain shrugged.