by Jan Burke
“So,” she went on, “Arthur’s uncle is registered without party affiliation. Lives in Los Alamitos. I’ll give you the address.”
“Does your husband know that you’re going around—”
“Don’t be an imbecile!” she said. “Of course not.”
“Of course not.”
“You and Frank, your jobs don’t always put you on the same side of the fence, right?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. Same with me and Pete.”
It wasn’t really the same, but I decided not to press the matter.
“No luck trying to find the housekeeper, Ann Coughlin,” she said. “But like I told you last night, I did find the DeMonts.”
“Gwendolyn’s family?”
“Yes, the ones who tried to keep Travis’s father from getting a penny of his dead wife’s estate.”
“There was an uncle, right? But he must be—”
“No, he’s alive. He’s still collecting his Social Security.”
“I’m almost positive I don’t want to know how you found that out,” I said.
She laughed. “It wasn’t that hard. I looked him up in an old phone directory—he has an unlisted number now, but he wasn’t as private about it ten years ago. The old phone book didn’t list the address, but the name and number were there.”
“So you called and asked for him?”
“No, Horace DeMont’s an unusual name. Not likely that I would have mistakenly found some other Horace DeMont living in Huntington Beach. So first I did a reverse check on this number and found out it’s currently the number for a Leda Rose. That’s his daughter. ”Rose‘ turns out to be her married name. I think she’s a widow—I’m checking on that. Anyway, I called and asked for Horace, since he wasn’t listed in the current directory.“
“But you figured he might be living with his daughter?”
“A guess. Leda answered the phone. She said he was asleep. I told her I was with a unit investigating Social Security fraud—”
“Oh, my God—”
“—and that some checks had recently been stolen through a mail diversion scam. Told her I needed to know that Horace was receiving his checks. She said yes, and of course I had to make sure the checks were going to the correct address, which she happily gave me.”
“Rachel—”
“Yeah, yeah, not your style. Your journalistic ethics and all that. That’s why it’s good you hired me.”
“Not hired, exactly—”
“So you owe me a buck. Anyway, Horace may not be of much use to you; he’s in his nineties.” She paused, frowning as if trying to calculate something, then said, “Ninety-three.”
“You’ve learned a lot about them.”
“Just getting started. I also looked at county records and did a little snooping around at the family cemetery. Douglas, Horace’s oldest son, died in the 1980s. But Robert is still alive. He also lives in Huntington Beach, on the same street. Judging by the addresses, I’d say they can look out their kitchen windows and wave to one another.”
She stopped talking long enough to negotiate the ramp to the northbound Golden State Freeway. As if the change of freeway signaled a change of subject, she said, “So, your society columnist ever show up again?
“No, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything to be alarmed over.” Even as I said it, I thought of the man in the baseball cap. The green sedan. Was it the same man? Or did the cap just register with my memory of Geoff’s security tapes? I glanced behind us, but all I could see were two big trucks. I couldn’t see the Olds.
“Who’s alarmed?” Rachel was saying. “I just wondered if you ever talked to her to find out what that guy wanted.”
“Margot doesn’t work full-time for the paper,” I said. “She writes a weekly column, sends it in by modem. She stops by to make sure photo captions are correct and to pick up her mail. When she’s in the building, she’s over in features, I’m over in news. I rarely see her in person.”
“Why don’t you call her, find out who was asking for you?”
“I could do that, I suppose.”
She laughed. “You don’t like her or her column, do you?”
I didn’t commit myself by more than a shrug. I went back to studying cars and passengers. Traffic was still moving, but it had slowed to about forty miles an hour. For an LA freeway, that’s about half-speed. In the side mirror, I saw the green Olds again.
It was farther behind us now. I told myself that all of the cars in at least two lanes of the San Gabriel River Freeway had also made that same transition to the northbound Golden State Freeway, but I was still uneasy.
“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked.
“I’m being paranoid.”
“Oh yeah? That’s much more fun as a group activity. Tell me what’s making you nervous.”
“There’s a green Olds, two cars back in the lane to our right—see it?”
“Yes. You think we’re being followed?”
“I don’t know. He was behind us on the other freeway, too.”
“An American-made sedan,” she said. “An unmarked cop car?”
“Maybe. Makes me wonder. Well, whoever he is, if he gets on the Ventura Freeway with us, we’ll ditch him.”
But when we hit downtown LA, traffic slowed to a crawl, and short of getting off the freeway all together or driving on the shoulders, there was no real opportunity to lose the green Olds. It was two cars behind us now, and in our lane. I still wasn’t entirely convinced that we were being followed. The Olds had moved to the Ventura Freeway, but so did most of the other cars in our lanes. Tens of thousands of drivers would make this same set of lane changes on these same freeways every day.
We had two concerns by then: ditching the Olds and arriving at the library before Travis left. But traffic finally eased up and Rachel began to weave her way along, watching to see if the Olds followed. When it did, I heard her laugh. It was the kind of laugh you hear the mad scientist make in monster movies. I checked my seat belt and scrunched down.
We were approaching the Hollywood Freeway, the last one we needed to take to get to the library, but Rachel seemed determined to stay on the Ventura. She stayed on it beyond what a reasonable person would call the last minute, crossing two lanes and that wedge-shaped separation point between freeways known as the gore point. “Gore point” was an old term that had nothing to do with what you’d make of yourself if you didn’t get across this dividing point in time, but seeing concrete and steel suddenly loom up in front of us made me wonder if we’d be hosed off of this one.
The Olds stayed on the Ventura. Rachel didn’t take anything for granted, though, and made the trip up the Hollywood Freeway to the Victory Boulevard off-ramp at a speed that made me wonder if Travis’s family was about to become even thinner of company.
She slowed on the surface streets, but my heart didn’t.
“What time is it?” Rachel asked, turning at Whitsett.
“Ten-thirty,” I said.
She sped up a little and made a quick right on Vanowen, and we soon saw Valley Plaza Park, which surrounds the library. We passed back under the freeway. The left she made onto Laurel Grove took out the last of my adrenaline but she slowed the car once she was through the intersection, and pulled cautiously into the parking lot behind the library.
Our fears of missing Travis were immediately relieved. Parked in a space along the back wall of the library was a purple pickup truck with an equally purple camper attached, both covered with yellow stars. On the sides of the camper, the words “Cosmo the Storyteller” and “Cosmo el Narrador” were painted in big yellow letters. Rachel, who didn’t hide her amusement over my cousin’s lack of subtlety, took a page out of McCain’s book and pulled up behind the pickup, blocking it in.
“Just in case he walks out of the library while we walk in,” she said.
The Valley Plaza Branch Library is not an imposing structure, and there isn’t anything fancy about its architecture, but t
here is also nothing lacking in its warmth or friendliness. A librarian, whose name tag identified her as “I. Galvan,” saw us looking around anxiously, and asked if she could be of help.
“Cosmo the Storyteller?” I asked, seeing that the children’s section was all but empty.
“Oh, he’s outside, in the park!” She led us back out to the parking lot and pointed to a cluster of people sitting on the grass a little distance away. We could see a brightly clad figure standing before them. Travis, I thought, although we weren’t close enough to make out his features.
We thanked her and walked quietly toward the group, slowing as we neared a cluster of young mothers seated on the lawn near their preschoolers. One of the women held a sleeping baby on her lap. The attention of both parents and children was riveted on a tall man wearing black booties and tights, white gloves, a colorful tunic and a comically large red beret.
Travis? Yes. Dramatic clothing or no, I recognized his face from Briana’s collection of photographs.
He was moving with an exaggerated tiptoeing step. “Shhhh,” he said, gesturing with his gloved finger to his lips, although his wide-eyed audience wasn’t making a sound.
We came nearer, and sat on the grass a few yards behind the mothers. A couple of them glanced back at us. Neither Travis nor the enthralled children seemed to notice us.
He crept forward, eyes wide, saying, “Wally was very scared. He didn’t know if the dragon was really asleep. But then he heard the dragon snore.”
He held his hand to his ear. The children began making loud snoring sounds. Travis smiled. “Ah, yes, that dragon is sound asleep!”
Stepping quietly around the invisible dragon, he moved to a big steamer trunk and gingerly removed a pair of square, papier-mache boxes—one red, one yellow. He held the yellow one out to the audience with a questioning look.
“No!” they said, nearly in unison.
“What color is this box?” he asked, scratching his head.
“Yellow!” they chorused.
“Oh, isn’t this the box I want?”
“No! The red one!”
“That’s right, that’s right!” he said, as if remembering, while the children laughed.
He put the yellow one back inside the trunk again. From time to time, he peered cautiously over his shoulder at the place on the lawn where the audience knew the beast still lay sleeping. Taking the red box closer to the children, he asked, “What did Wally find in the box?”
“The key!” A boy shouted. “The key!”
“Yes!” Travis said, bestowing a smile on the boy as he took a large gold key from the box. “He found the golden key. Now what did Wally do? Did he run home?”
“No!” A resounding chorus.
“But he’s afraid of the dragon!”
There was a jumble of answers, which Travis seemed to understand perfectly. “Oh, he rescues the knight?”
“Yes!” The chorus again.
“You’re absolutely right!” Acting out the story, he said, “Wally sneaked past the dragon and out of the dragon’s fine hall. Then, carefully tucking the golden key in his pocket, Wally ran down the long staircase to…” He paused, scratching his head again. “Now where did that dragon put that knight?”
“The dungeon!” the children shouted.
“Oh, yes, that’s where he went.” More running. “And when he got to the door of the dungeon—uh-oh!” He began patting the tunic. “Where did I put that golden key?”
“Your pocket!” a girl yelled.
“Oh, yes! Thank you,” he said with a bow.
“You’re welcome!” the girl said in a quieter voice.
As the rest of the story unfolded, Wally freed the knight; Wally and the knight went safely back to their home; the sleeping dragon awoke and, seeing his meal missing, decided to become a vegetarian—a term which one of the children already knew. The same one who asked, “Was he a vegan?”
“I believe he was,” Travis said. When the story ended the children and parents cheered him. He bowed humbly, sat on the grass with them, and began asking them about their favorite stories and books. To their delight, he gave away stickers of dragons. “Let’s go back inside the library,” he said at last.
He picked up one end of the trunk, which I could now see had wheels on the other end. He rolled it along as the children and their mothers followed him.
Rachel and I looked at one another, then tagged after him and his troops at a distance.
“Is that him?” Rachel asked, and I could see a look of unholy glee on her face.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Love the outfit,” she whispered. “Do you suppose he makes his own booties?”
I didn’t answer.
“And the panty hose. You think he has to wear queen-sized?”
“Tights. I’m sure he has many costumes—” I began.
“Oh, I’m sure he does, too!” she said, laughing.
“What’s your problem?” I asked, losing patience. “Didn’t you see how those kids looked at him?”
“They loved him, of course,” she said, but kept grinning.
I walked a little faster, pulling ahead of her, then stopped and threw back over my shoulder, “You’ve forgotten why we’re here.”
Somehow, watching her face fall wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be.
Inside, Travis sat at a small round table that had several plastic dinosaurs on it. He was perched on the edge of one of the sturdy wooden children’s chairs that surrounded the table, being smothered in hugs as his pint-sized admirers took their leave. I could see that more than one of the mothers were eyeing him with something that went beyond gratitude for entertaining their children. We stayed back, but from time to time he glanced up at us, a little uneasy, more aware now that we were there without children. Once or twice I caught him briefly studying me.
Before he was entirely free of the group of mothers and children, he excused himself and went into the library office.
“Think he’s taking off?” Rachel asked, folding her arms.
“No,” I said. “He’ll be back out. The trunk is still here. And I don’t think he knows who we are.”
Ms. Galvan came over to stand by the trunk, apparently keeping an eye on it for him. Seeing that we were waiting for him, she asked, “Did you enjoy the performance?”
We agreed that we had.
“Is this the first time you’ve seen him tell stories?”
“Yes,” Rachel answered, and continued small talk while I found myself growing more and more uneasy over the task at hand.
When he emerged from the office he was carrying his costume in a bundle. He was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a green T-shirt, wearing a pair of running shoes. The beret off, I could see that his dark hair was cut short. He seemed serious and distracted, but as he looked toward us his face broke into a smile, making him look quite handsome.
“Think he’s got a girlfriend?” Rachel whispered.
“For all I know, he’s got a wife,” I said.
“Or two,” she said, not repenting in the least when I turned to scowl at her.
In the next moment, I was shocked to hear my cousin say, “Irene, I can’t thank you enough!”
Rachel and I turned to him, mouths agape, but he was extending a scar-thatched right hand to the librarian.
“I should be thanking you,” she said.
“Irene?” I said weakly.
She looked over at me. “Yes?”
“Oh. That’s my name, too. I’m Irene Kelly.”
She smiled. “I guess those of us whose mothers liked that song—”
But Travis interrupted her, saying in utter disbelief, “Irene Kelly?”
“Yes,” I said, not hiding my relief at his recognition of my name. “Your cousin.”
He stared at my outstretched hand as if he didn’t know what to do with it, then suddenly turned and picked up the handle of the trunk. When he turned back to me, the charming smile was gone. His face was
flushed, his eyes were blazing, and his mouth was drawn tight in a look of undisguised fury.
“Frankly,” he said as he began to move away from us with long strides, “I expected more of you.”
Stunned, it took me a moment to find my voice, and then all I could manage was “Travis?”
But he was almost out of the room by then.
“Travis!” I called out.
He stopped and said, “Forget it. And don’t try to follow me.”