“It’s almost one o’clock. We have to get over there by two, and I don’t want McCain coming along for the ride.”
“I don’t think Mac’s going to be a problem,” she said. “He’s pissed off that we ditched him on the beach, but he knows he brought some of that on himself. And I don’t know what Reed said to him, but he’s backed way off.”
“So let’s get going. I need to go home, change clothes.”
“You sure you’re up to this?”
“He’s not going to talk to the two of you-he’s probably only talking to me because he’s worried I’ll cause problems for him with Margot.” “That didn’t exactly answer my question.” I didn’t say anything.
“I’ll call him and tell him we’ll see him at two-thirty, how’s that?” She talked me into it.
Harold Richmond’s office was on the second story of a strip mall not far from the Los Alamitos Race Course. There was a convenience market and a doughnut shop on the first floor of the small shopping center, so the basic qualifications for a strip mall were met. We had decided to take two cars; Rachel had reasoned that Richmond might need time to copy or retrieve the file we were after if he agreed to supply it. “And one look at you,” she said, “tells me you should be back home as soon as possible.”
I didn’t like to admit it, but she was right. The hot shower had helped, but as I climbed the stairs to Richmond’s office, I realized that my bruises were starting to make me feel a little stiff. We walked down the single, exterior hallway, passed a tax accountant’s office and a nail parlor before we reached Richmond amp; Associates. The words were lettered in black on a glass door; the door had a silver glaze on it that reflected an image of our weary faces back at us, but didn’t allow us to see in. I had already had a rather disheartening look at my face during my brief visit to my house. I avoided looking at Richmond’s door.
“All set?” I asked the others. They nodded. “Remember, Travis-”
“Let you handle it,” he said.
“Right.”
I pulled at the door; it rattled but didn’t open.
“I called him and he said he’d be here at two-thirty,” Rachel said. She took out her keys and used one to rap on the glass. A muffled voiced answered something none of us could make out, but after a couple of minutes a rumpled version of Harold Richmond opened the door. He looked hung over. It didn’t look as if that was a new experience for him.
“Sorry, I fell asleep,” he said.
In the next moment, his eyes widened in surprise as he saw Travis.
“Thought you had killed me?” Travis said, breaking his promise right off the bat.
Richmond scowled and said, “No. I had nothing to do with that.” He tapped his chest with his thumb and added, “If I had been trying, I would have succeeded.”
Rachel made a show of looking him up and down and said, “We should believe that because you’ve made such a success out of the rest of your life?”
“Hold on, hold on,” I said. “Let’s call a truce for now, all right?”
Richmond didn’t lose the scowl, but he didn’t try for a snappy comeback. I had the feeling I had saved him the trouble of thinking one up. Rachel shrugged and we followed him inside. I was moving a little slower than usual, and let the other two go in first.
“What happened to you?” Richmond asked me, as he got a closer look at my face.
“Diving accident,” I said.
He led the way through a small waiting room. Its walls were covered with dark wood paneling of the type popular in the late 1960s. Thumb-tacked to one wall was a yellowing bullfight poster. The rest of the decor consisted of worn gold shag carpeting, a couple of sagging chairs and a dusty end table-which held a single torn copy of
Travis grinned, Richmond ignored her, and at my pleading look she said only, “Lighten up.”
Richmond led us through a second door and into his office. The room was plain; a metal desk with a computer on it, a bank of old filing cabinets, a safe and a bookshelf. A small metal table held a copier and a fax machine.
There was one chair that looked as if it didn’t bring business to orthopedic surgeons, and Richmond plopped down in it as he sat behind his desk. The other three must have been made by the same people who make desks for parochial school students. Travis and I each took one of these, while Rachel stayed on her feet. She’s tall, so this made her tower above us. Richmond didn’t look too happy as he watched her stalk around his office, but he said nothing.
Travis was also being quiet, giving me hope that he was remembering his end of the bargain.
“Who hired you?” I asked Richmond.
“You know I can’t answer that,” he said.
“Professional ethics? If you’re helping someone who’s trying to kill my cousin, you know you’ll lose more than your license over it.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “I know my client isn’t involved in anything like that.”
“You don’t sound too sure,” Rachel said.
“I’m sure,” he said, a little more forcefully. “If they wanted that type of work, they wouldn’t have come to me. They know I wouldn’t go for it.”
“But maybe they handled the rough end of things themselves,” she said, “once you located Travis.”
“Or hired someone who wasn’t so upstanding to complete their plans,” I said.
“I don’t believe-” he began.
“Before you tell us what you do and don’t believe about your clients,” I said, “think about Briana Maguire. You put her apartment under surveillance, even tried a little breaking and entering-”
“I didn’t-”
“We talked to the neighbors,” Rachel said. “Those old women have excellent memories. You made quite an impression on them. We wouldn’t need more than that little bit of B-and-E to get your license yanked.”
He picked up a pencil and started stabbing it into his desk blotter. He didn’t look up at us, just frowned at the little indentations he was making.
“I know a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department who would be interested in hearing what we have to say about your surveillance of her,” I said, “especially when we tell him what happened after you started keeping an eye on her son. He might not believe that the Maguires could get so unlucky all of a sudden, or that someone who was watching them so closely had no idea who tried to harm them.”
“When I went over to her place, I didn’t know she was dead,” he said, still not looking up at us. “I just figured she had gone off to try to wheedle a few bucks off Spanning before he kicked.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Travis start to get up out of his chair. I was going to reach over, but Rachel had moved behind him, and gently but firmly put her hands on his shoulders. He sat back down, but Rachel kept her hands on him.
“You’re not in any position to be antagonizing us,” I said. It wasn’t as easy as it usually is, but I stood up. “Sorry, Travis, I guess our next call is to-”
“Hold on!” Richmond said, then, more quietly, added, “Sit down, sit down.”
I stayed on my feet.
“Please sit down.” It was killing him.
“He owes Travis an apology,” Rachel said.
His mouth became a tight line, but he finally said, “Sorry.”
Rachel turned to me. “You hear anything?”
“Nope.”
“I’m sorry, kid,” he said to Travis.
“Let’s get on with this,” Travis said to me.
“I’ll stay to listen to you,” I said, “but don’t make me sit back down in that chair.”
Richmond didn’t say anything. I decided to let the silence stretch a little, but Travis broke it first.
“For the record,” he said tightly, “throughout the time they were separated, my mother never took a dime from my father.”
“He already knows that,” Rachel said quietly.
Richmond went back to jabbing his blotter.
