“You don’t sound convinced. I guess I should have let Frank tell you.”
“No, it’s all right. Glad to have some warning. It will help me to not overreact when Frank tells me. I mean, it really isn’t a big deal, is it?”
“Unless maybe you were recently forcibly separated from someone, and spent time worrying about whether he was alive or dead. Then you might be forgiven for being a little worried the next time he says he’s going out of town to find a witness.”
“Thanks,” I said, vowing to keep silent on the issue of her connection with McCain. Which was not an issue, I reminded myself.
“Look, I’m between cases here. I know you and your aunt were just yanking McCain’s chain when you told him I was working with you, but I’d be happy to help you out. You want some help locating this cousin of yours?”
“Sure. But don’t call in any favors at the DMV or the voter registrar’s offices just yet. I think her phone bills may lead us to him.”
“Found a number for him?”
“Not exactly,” I said, and told her what I had learned so far.
“Libraries, bookstores and elementary schools?”
“Maybe he sells children’s books,” I said. “All of this is assuming it was Travis she was trying to reach.”
“Were the calls made during the day?”
I looked at the bill again. “Most were. Some of the library calls were made in the early evening. But more interesting are the dates; I think she was trying to tell him that his father had died. Maybe she wanted him to go to Arthur Spanning’s funeral.”
“It must have been Travis. You want to fax me that list of Maguires and Sperrys? I could start checking them out for you.”
“You sure you have time for this?”
“One day I’m going to convince you that I don’t make offers just to hear the sound of my own voice.”
“Okay, okay. Thanks. Give me your fax number.”
I wrote it down, then said, “I’ll call these last three numbers-the ones for the longest calls. If I get a little time, I’m going to try to look up the story of the DeMont murder. If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Same here.”
I went back to work on my story, getting interrupted only when Frank called to break the news of the Idaho trip to me. When I reacted calmly, he said, “Rachel already told you, didn’t she?” I confessed. He laughed, then told me he’d be home late.
If he was going to be home late, I wasn’t going to have the luxury of staying late at the paper; two dogs and a big cat can only be kept waiting for so long. Jack, the best of neighbors, was always more than willing to help out with pet care, but I didn’t like to abuse his generosity.
I called the Lake Arrowhead Library and asked if anyone there recalled speaking to a Briana Maguire within the last month. I was politely told that the library received many phone inquiries in a given month, but the librarian was kind enough to ask other staff members anyway. No one recalled speaking to her. I asked if someone named Travis had visited the library recently. That got a laugh. I mentioned that he might have been selling children’s books; no, the library did not buy children’s books from traveling salesmen.
She transferred me to someone in acquisitions, who went on to give me a brief explanation of the library’s acquisitions procedures. They involved a complex decision-making process that made me feel a new respect for children’s librarians, but left me no wiser about Travis or Briana’s call.
I drew a blank with the other libraries as well.
I decided to look up the DeMont murder. I knew the year, but couldn’t recall the month. I called Mary and asked her if she remembered.
“Of course I do. It was summer. July or August. Hotter than Hades. Are you making any progress?”
I told her what I had learned so far.
“Hmm. I expected more by now, I’ll admit.”
“Your faith in me is inspirational. Do you know what Travis does for a living?” I asked.
“No idea.”
The DeMont story was too old to be indexed on the computer, which meant I’d have to look it up on microfilm in the library-the place formerly known as the morgue. This type of search was much slower, but it would have the benefit of letting me see the story in a context, next to other stories.
I asked for the appropriate roll of film and threaded it through a reader. Context. Gwendolyn DeMont had been murdered a month before Elvis died, in one of the years I had spent in Bakersfield as a green reporter, years away from Las Piernas by much more than a fixed distance. I hit the forward switch and stopped the reel on an early July issue. I adjusted a few knobs and the images of old news came into focus. The late seventies.
Nostalgia wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I ruthlessly hit the forward switch again. Eventually, I found the headline I was looking for. It was an Orange County story, so the
“Heiress Found Slain.” About a twenty-four-point headline. Beneath it, in slightly smaller type, “Husband Missing.”
Husband missing. Not, I supposed, for the first time.
9
The story was told in a straightforward fashion. The previous morning, a Monday, Gwendolyn DeMont Spanning had been found dead of multiple-stab wounds. The body of the sixty-two-year-old heiress to the De-Mont sugar beet fortune was discovered in her bed by her housekeeper, Mrs. Ann Coughlin. No weapon was found at the scene. Time of death was uncertain, but Detective Harold Richmond of the Los Alamitos Police Department told the reporter that police estimated Mrs. Spanning died late Friday night or early Saturday morning. The home, which was surrounded by strawberry fields-the only crop now raised by the family-was somewhat isolated. Nothing appeared to have been stolen and the motive for the murder was unknown.
Police were trying to locate her husband, Arthur Spanning, who was apparently out of town on business. According to the housekeeper, Mr. Spanning had been home when she left the house on Friday. However, she told police, he traveled frequently. She was unable to say where he might have gone on his most recent trip.
The Spannings had no children; Mrs. Spanning was survived by an uncle, Horace DeMont, and three cousins, Leda DeMont Rose, Douglas DeMont and Robert DeMont, all of Huntington Beach.
I glanced at my watch. I needed to leave soon to get home in time to walk the dogs before dark. I raced through the issues that followed, seeing the stories about the murder getting more and more play. I made copy after copy of articles I told myself I could read at home, and tried not to be lured by lurid headlines:
Murder of Reclusive Heiress Stuns Quiet Community
Spanning Alibi Is Bigamy: Husband of Slain Heiress Admits He Led Double Life
Bigamist Not Charged with Wife’s Slaying
DeMont Family Brings Suit: Seek to Prevent Bigamist from Inheriting
I thought of shy Briana, suddenly the object of this type of scrutiny. Of Travis, at eleven, certainly old enough to read these headlines. I rewound the reel of microfilm and shut the machine off.
Later that night, I sat on the living room floor, surrounded by the boxes from Briana’s house. Cody, my cat, was eyeing the piles of paper with twitching tail; I tensed as he tensed, and saw him ready to pounce. As on all his previous forays, I was able to shoo him off before he did much damage, but the scuffle woke the dogs. Worn out from a long run on the beach, Deke, a big black Lab, quickly went back to sleep, but Dunk, the shepherd, decided to gently sniff at all of the boxes again. Apparently satisfied, he lay down with a paw across my ankle and went back to sleep. This show of possessiveness was oddly comforting. Technically, he’s Frank’s dog, and like his master, he was soon snoring.
I stretched a little, then went back to work. The phone calls to Briana’s former neighbors hadn’t been of much use; only two of the neighbors remembered her, and neither knew what had become of “Mrs.” Maguire or her son. They told me that she and her son had kept to themselves, had been polite but very private. After reading the
