by Jan Burke
He turned to Travis. “Mr. Maguire, did Ms. Kelly ever tell you how it was possible for her to know that your mother was at your father’s funeral?”
“Out,” Rachel said.
“A holy card,” I answered, causing McCain to laugh out loud.
“Forgive me, Ms. Kelly,” he said, “but that’s a new one on me.”
Rachel started to speak but Travis held a hand up and asked, “You think a holy card from my father’s funeral Mass is something funny, Detective McCain?”
McCain gave Rachel a look of utter frustration, but there was nothing disrespectful in his tone when he said, “No, Mr. Maguire. No, I don’t. You happen to have this holy card, Ms. Kelly?”
“It’s in your room,” I said to Travis. “Mind if I get it from there?”
“Of course not.”
McCain started to follow me, but Rachel blocked his way. “Oh, no, Mac. You stay here and keep me company.”
Travis went with me. I found the holy card and let him take a look at it. He ran his fingers over it, but didn’t speak.
“It was in her coat pocket,” I said.
“She always got cold easily,” he said, and swallowed hard. “Do we have to give this to him?”
“Yes,” I said.
When Travis handed it to him, McCain asked, “Anybody see you find this, Ms. Kelly?”
“Rachel. And my aunt Mary.”
He scowled. I felt a little bit of sympathy for him. Sometimes my leads don’t go anywhere, either. But Rachel was the one who hit him where it hurt.
“Face it, Mac,” she said. “Two things are sticking in your craw right now. One, you did a lousy search of the apartment and missed some important items. Two, Irene found her cousin before you could. You keep wanting to believe she had something to do with her aunt’s death, but you don’t have shit to prove it. Not even a motive. Well, better luck next time.”
He tucked the holy card away, smiled and walked to the front door. He stopped, turned back and said, “Don’t be too sure about what I do and don’t have, Rach.”
He closed the door softly behind him.
“Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” Rachel said quietly.
“Jack call you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“That reminds me—” Travis said. “I’ll be at Jack’s place for a few minutes.”
“We need to get going soon,” I said.
“This won’t take long,” he said.
When he came back, he was carrying a small cellular phone. “It’s supposed to be activated,” he said. “What’s the phone number here?”
I told him and he dialed it. The phone rang.
“Great!”
“You had Jack buy a cell phone for you?” Rachel asked.
“I bought it, but Jack agreed to put it in his name for a while.”
“How did you talk him into that?” I asked.
“I gave him the money for it. And I think he knows you won’t let me rip him off.”
“You’ve hardly known him for a day. How do you know he won’t take your money and run?”
“Same reason—I know you won’t let him rip me off. Besides, I could see you trust him. Jack’s great.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said, “Jack’s great, but don’t do too much more business this way, kid. My heart can’t take it.” I laughed. “Better not tell her about the van.”
After quickly explaining that purchase to her, he turned to me and asked, “Do you think you could drive it?” “Sure, but don’t you want to?”
He held up his injured hand. “Maybe in a day or two. By the way, Rachel, your friend is still sitting out there, watching the house.” “Oh, he is, is he?” she stood up.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I think I’ve got a better idea. Travis, give Rachel your cellular phone number, okay?” He smiled. “I was planning to. I think we’re on the same wavelength.” While she wrote the number down, I called Jack. “One more favor, Jack.” I explained what I needed—and got his usual willingness to help out.
A minute or two after I hung up the phone, we saw Jack drive off in his van. We waited another minute or two, then the three of us walked out the front door. McCain watched us, but didn’t say anything. When we started going down the steps, Rachel said, “He’ll watch for us, don’t worry.”
There were more people on the beach now, though not as many as there’d be in another hour or so. We walked all the way to the pier, and crossed under it. We took the stairs on the far side, passed the landing leading to a parking lot and continued up to the pier itself. We walked out to the end of the pier, where Rachel said, “He’s out of the car, but he stayed at the end of the street. Watching us with field glasses. He’s bound to know something’s up, especially since you two were just out on the beach, so no need to make too big a show out of being out here.”
After a minute or two we walked back down the pier. But when we reached the stairs, we stopped at the landing. Travis and I moved toward the parking lot, Rachel waited.
Jack had already pulled around to the end of the landing. He quickly got out of the van, wished us luck, and hurried over to Rachel.
We drove out of the lot and headed toward downtown along a route of surface streets I doubted McCain—not being a local—would think to try.
“I wish I could have seen his face when he realized who was walking next to Rachel,” Travis said.
But I wasn’t in such a triumphant mood about McCain. I kept wondering what it was he thought he had on me, and if it would amount to enough for an arrest. I was innocent, but I’m not so naive as to believe that only the guilty get brought to trial—let alone convicted. And defending one’s innocence can be expensive.
Charges alone would make my job as a political reporter extremely difficult—even if the charges were dropped, I could see my sources drying up, people hesitating to open up to someone accused of murdering her aunt. For a reporter—perhaps especially on that beat—if you aren’t trusted, you aren’t talked to, and you soon have nothing to write.
I didn’t want to think about how it might affect Frank’s work if his wife faced that sort of accusation.
I tried to look at things as McCain might. My alibi was a solid one, but maybe he thought I had hired someone to kill Briana. He often mentioned the will, but why would I pay someone to kill a woman who had nothing? Nothing other than that will tied me to her though, so… so she had to have some money somewhere, or something so valuable, McCain thought I’d kill her to gain possession of it.
I could think of only one way that Briana could suddenly have come into a lot of money. It meant that Dr. Curtis hadn’t made a mistake on the death certificate; that Arthur hadn’t lied to him. Maybe Briana had married—or remarried—into money.
“Travis, you said a priest helped you move furniture into your mom’s apartment?”
“Yes. Father Chris, at St. Anthony’s.”
“St. Anthony’s, here in Las Piernas?”
“Yes. My mom liked him, even though she didn’t follow much of his advice.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept telling her to forgive me and my father.”
“He knew your father?”
“Yes, they both kept going to St. Anthony’s, although never to the same Mass. She always went to the ten o’clock Mass on Sunday. My dad said he never wanted her to feel uneasy about going to church there, so he’d always go to an earlier or later Mass—never the ten o’clock.”
“I think she finally listened to her priest.”
He just shook his head. “You’re still on that kick about the death certificate?”
“Yes. Mind if we try to see the priest before we visit Mr. Ulkins?”
He shrugged, took out the cell phone and called information. He asked for the number for St. Anthony’s rectory and pressed a couple of buttons to put the call through from information. He spoke to the housekeeper, who was apparently someone he had met before.
“Thank you, Mrs. Havens,” I heard him s
ay. “Yes, I’m glad I had some time with him, too… No, I didn’t know you had known him that long. Listen, Mrs. Havens, I need to speak with Father Chris. Is he in?”
There was a wait, then Travis said, “Hi, Chris? Can my cousin and I come by to talk with you for a few minutes? Thanks—you’re sure this is an okay time?”
An elderly woman greeted us at the rectory door. She exclaimed and fussed over Travis, asking several times if she could bring him anything, until a handsome, dark-haired man of about thirty came into the room. He was wearing jeans, work boots and a flannel shirt, and said, “Thank you, Annie.” She left with some reluctance, and only after Travis assured her he would visit again soon. The man in the jeans turned to us as the door closed behind her, and said to Travis, “She used to work for your father, you know.”
“So she’s been telling me. How are you, Chris?”
This was Father Chris?
“I’m all right, Travis,” he was answering. “Doing better now that I know you’re back.” He turned to me. “You must be the cousin?”
Travis apologized and introduced me to Father Christopher Karis, who, we learned, had climbed down off a roof to talk to us.
“Happy to be called away from roof repairs,” he said, extending a hand. “Which side of the family are Kellys?”
“His mother’s,” I said.
He smiled. “So she did contact her nieces. At a time like this, it must be such a comfort to Briana to have Travis back, and to be seeing her sister’s children again. Travis, what happened to your hand?”
Travis looked as if he had been punched. “Chris…” He couldn’t manage more.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the priest. “Briana was killed three weeks ago, in a hit-and-run accident.”
We didn’t rush things after that. We gave Father Chris what few details we had regarding Briana’s death. His shock and grief kept either of us from asking him any questions for a time, but he quickly became more concerned with Travis.
“But—then you don’t know! Travis, they married!”
Travis looked at me, then back at Father Chris. “Why?”
“Why? The best reason in the world. They loved each other.”
“But she was so bitter—”
“She let go of that, Travis.”
“She forgave him?”
“Yes. Yes, and asked his forgiveness. And I know she sought yours, too. She saw that all of this had been hardest on you, who hadn’t done a thing to deserve it. She came to regret those years—”
“I understood!” Travis said. “Didn’t she know that?”
“I think she did. She told me that after you started traveling, she started thinking. You brought them back together, you know.”
“No, you know she just finally listened to you. But there was so much wasted time!” Travis said.
“Yes, I suppose there was. But does that matter now? Both of your parents found some happiness together. Both were good and generous people—human and imperfect, yes, but good at heart. I sincerely believe they’re together now, in a life without pain or suffering, without separation or loneliness.”
“Yes,” Travis said after a while, “I guess I believe that, too. I just wish— I wish we could have all been together, a family again, even for a little while.”
“I know, Travis. And I’m sorry that you weren’t able to have that. But you aren’t without family—” He glanced toward me. “You have your cousins; perhaps other members of your family will be reconciled. And you have a family here—this parish will always welcome you.”
They agreed to meet again soon, and Father Chris told Travis to call him anytime—day or night—if Travis needed to talk or if he could be of help to him in any way.
Travis didn’t talk much as we left, other than to give directions to his father’s office—his office, too, I reminded myself. The office was in a beautiful old brick building, one that had once belonged to an insurance company. It stood with dignity between two taller, newer and less lovely structures, separated from them by more than the narrow alleys on each side. Travis told me that his father had bought it for a song, made a few repairs and brought it up to earthquake code. The offices took up the entire top story—the ninth floor, he said. Most of the rest of the building was rented out to other businesses.
There were a few people walking around on the downtown street that Saturday morning, but far less than the usual crowd. It wasn’t hard to find a van-sized parking space.
“I know what’s bothering me,” Travis said as I turned off the engine. “But what’s bothering you?”
“Beyond seeing how hard all of this is on you?”
He nodded.
“McCain. If your mother received anything—community property, anything—after your dad died, and that holographic will was the last one she made, I’m going to be suspect number one.”
“Ulkins will probably know what the situation is,” he said. “Mr. Brennan can help us with any legal hassles.”
I was out of the van when I realized that although he had opened his door, he was having trouble unfastening the seat belt using one hand. I had just stepped around to his side of the van when we heard glass shatter.
Pebbles of it pelted hard down on us, blue-green gravel from the sky. We hardly noticed the glass, though, for as we turned toward the building an object hurtled onto the sidewalk next to us, spraying us with blood and God knows what else, making a horrible sound, a sort of crackling thunk, as if someone had smashed a carton of eggs by hurling a watermelon at it.
This helpless missile had been a man, a frail old man.
I looked away, looked up to see where he had fallen from, and saw a sight so incongruous, I wondered if my mind had finally snapped. Above us, leaning out through a broken ninth-story window, was a man in a black wetsuit, wearing a ski mask and gloves.
Someone a few feet away started screaming, and soon several people were screaming, shouting, running toward us. I looked to see Travis, bending over the awful mess on the sidewalk, shouting, “No!” He took a breath, filled his lungs, and let it out in a long, loud “No!” again and again and again.
I shoved through the flow of people who came toward us, moved away from my cousin and the remains of a man I already knew must have been Ulkins, ran out of the crowd and into the building, hell-bent to catch the son of a bitch who was seriously screwing up the Maguire family reunion.
20
I got lucky—the lobby was empty, an elevator car was open and waiting. I was in it and on my way up to the ninth floor before my temper cooled off enough to allow me to ask myself what the hell I thought I was going to do when I caught up with Mr. Death in a Wetsuit. I quickly pressed eight, got out on that floor, pulled the stop button, then the “down” call button to bring the other car. When it arrived, I did the same thing— pulled the stop button. If he hadn’t escaped already, he wasn’t going to take an elevator. That left the stairwell. He might have plans for using the roof, but he’d be obvious—people on the street would be looking up at the ninth floor, the top of the building.
A man running around downtown in a wetsuit would be equally obvious. Anyone who was wearing a wetsuit inside an office building didn’t just happen to walk in off the street that way; he planned to wear it, and must have plans for getting out of it and into less attention-grabbing attire. I was counting on that to give me some time to limit his escape options.
I hurried toward the stairwell, to my right. I would just keep an eye on him, I told myself. From a safe distance. I’d stay low until I heard him pass by, then step into the stairwell and get a look at him. Tell the police where he had gone, give as good a description of his street clothes as I could manage. Nothing more. No revenge—yet.
This darkened floor of the building seemed deserted; all the office doors along the long, L-shaped hallway were closed. All was quiet. At the top of the L, far behind me, a tall window at the other end of the hall provided soft low light. The end I was approaching, near the stairwell d
oor, was brighter. As I reached that part of the hall, I saw that the light came from a larger, second window—an old fire escape. I wondered briefly if he would make use of it, but decided he would not—too much exposure, and unlike the stairwell, it made access to other floors more difficult.
As I neared the stairwell door, I heard a soft clicking sound behind me and whirled, but saw nothing. I felt myself break out in a cold sweat. Suddenly, the hallway was filled with a loud ringing, a giant’s brass alarm clock, echoing off the walls—the elevators. The stop buttons must have had a timer on them—and now the alarm bells were heralding my presence to anyone one floor above. I ran back down the hallway, got into one of the cars and slammed my palm against the stop button, then hit the “close doors” button. Nothing happened. The ringing was so loud in this enclosed space, it made me clench my teeth. I wasn’t going to stay in that elevator car.