glanced over at Travis, who was listening to Mary tell another story. I walked out of the kitchen. Rachel watched me, but didn’t say anything.
“I understand you’ve had a rotten day,” McCain said.
“I understand you have, too.”
He laughed. “Well, nobody’s giving me half a million to cheer me up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your inheritance, Ms. Kelly. Arthur Spanning remarried your aunt.”
“I know,” I said. “I just talked to their priest today. He can tell you that neither Travis nor I knew that, by the way.”
“He can tell me that you acted like you didn’t know.”
“Ask Rachel to give you Harold Richmond’s number-he can tell you what happens to people who don’t let go of one idea. Maybe you’ve only ever had one in your lifetime, and this is it. But trust me, it’s a bad one.”
“Why should I doubt that the sole beneficiary of Briana Maguire’s estate should be interested in five hundred thousand dollars?”
“She didn’t have five hundred thousand. I doubt she had five hundred.”
“You should talk to your buddy Reed Collins about the
I sighed. “That can only mean something came to her through Arthur. Travis should have it. Travis already has most of Arthur’s money, and Arthur wouldn’t have wanted me to take anything from his estate. I’ll talk to his lawyer, if it will make you lay off.”
“Where is that lawyer, by the way? No one seems to be able to locate him. And you’re keeping your cousin damned close to you, aren’t you?”
“Look,” I said, “I was going to offer to help you out here, but maybe I’ll just have you talk to my own lawyer.”
“We’ll talk again, Ms. Kelly. By then, you’ll need that lawyer.”
I walked back toward the kitchen just in time to hear Travis say, “These stories are funny, but they must be embarrassing to Irene. Don’t you have any positive stories to tell about her?”
As I stepped into the room, I said, “She’s too old to change her habits, Travis.”
“I’ve got all kinds of stories about her,” Mary said. “But I don’t want her head to swell. She knows I’m proud of her.”
“Do you?” Travis asked me.
It was the look of worried uncertainty on Mary’s face that made me say, “Of course I do. And the reverse is true as well. She knows I’m proud of her.”
“This stew is about to burn,” Mary said, suddenly turning away to stir the pot.
I was assigned to the smaller of the two small guest rooms, to sleep on a bed that I had slept in before, and had always found to be comfortable. But on those previous occasions, I hadn’t been thrown against a wall a few hours before bedtime.
At about three in the morning, I decided to break down and take half of one of the pain pills I had brought with me, prescribed for an older injury. I rarely took them, but I needed sleep. I got back into bed and was trying to find a tolerable position, trying not to think of Ulkins, when there was a slight tapping at the door.
27
“Come in,” I called.
It was Mary, and by the hall light I could see she had a rather festively colored, comfy-looking robe on. She sat next to the bed, and took my hand. “You poor thing,” she said. “Anything I can get you?”
“I’ll be all right,” I said.
She sat next me, reminiscing for a little while about the numerous childhood injuries I had sustained, recalling some scrapes and bumps and a rather spectacular fall from a tree. All the while she softly stroked my hair the way my father used to do when I was little, whenever I had had a particularly bad day, and I wondered drowsily if she had comforted him in this same way when he was a boy. I don’t remember falling asleep or hearing her leave the room.
She didn’t wake me the next morning to go to Mass, but she took Travis to St. Matthew’s with her while I slept in. Later they dropped me off at my house, where I got into the Karmann Ghia, put the top down and headed for Huntington Beach. They were going shopping-in the Mustang-while I went to talk to the DeMonts.
I took the coast route, even though Pacific Coast Highway was bound to have heavy summer traffic. As it turned out, I didn’t have to pay too high a price for choosing it over the inland route; PCH was crowded, but the traffic moved. No local would think of expecting more.
I crossed the bridge over Anaheim Bay, passed the wildlife refuge and took my last good look at nature until I reached Warner Avenue. For the next few miles, the highway is dominated by a motley assortment of buildings: houses, bars, surf shops and restaurants.
Technically, Huntington Beach begins on the left side of the highway just over the bridge, the right side belonging to Surfside and Sunset Beach. But growing up in an area where there are now high school classes that will teach you how to hang ten, I had long ago developed other ideas about true local geography. For me, the real Huntington Beach begins when you get within sight of the pier. The two beaches on either side of that pier boast some of the most well-known surfing territory on the coast.
Before long, I was at the edge of the oil fields that brought on the first boom years in Huntington Beach, back in the 1920s. There were still big platforms just off the coast, but fewer and fewer signs of drilling on shore. Most of the oil fields had given way to developments packed with large, imitation villas in pastel stucco on streets with names like “Sea-point” and “Princeville” and “Castlewood.”
I took a last look at the water before turning left on Golden West, still thinking about my surfing days, wondering if I d ever work up the nerve to paddle out again.
The DeMonts lived in a section of the city that was older that the ones I had just passed; their homes were on one of the numbered streets between Main and Golden West. Although the neighborhood was older, that didn’t mean the homes were-it soon became apparent that most of the original structures on these streets had given way to new buildings. The result was a mixture of housing: many of the lots had condos and apartment buildings on them; others, large single-family dwellings; a few were smaller, older homes. There was even a strip of colorful faux Victorians.
I turned right on Acacia, found the street I was looking for and slowed when I came to the address for Leda DeMont Rose and her father, Horace-a corner lot. I got lucky with parking and found a space not far away, then walked back to the corner.
It was a large house, though not among the very newest on the street. Judging by its design, I thought it probably had been built in the 1970s. I studied the addresses and realized that Robert’s home was on the same side of the street, at the beginning of the next block, on the opposite corner of the intersection. His was a single- story crackerbox that was probably built in the 1940s. My guess was that a similar house had originally occupied Leda’s lot.
While Leda’s property was neatly kept, her brother’s was a little less so. Robert’s place could have used a coat of paint, and looking at the brown, patchy grass in his yard, I saw that no one could accuse him of wasting water on a lawn. The place wasn’t so far gone that you’d call it an eyesore, but it didn’t look like the owner had a lot of domestic enthusiasm.
I stood debating which household I should upset first, and decided that even in my current condition, I could take on a guy who was almost a hundred and live to fight another day. I wasn’t sure how old Robert was, but Gerald’s story about Robert’s arrest was enough to make me decide to save Robert for round two.
There was a low wooden fence around the front yard of Leda De-Mont’s home; I lifted the latch on the gate and made my way along a set of long, flat platforms set at right angles to one another. The platforms served as steps. On either side of each platform were carefully pruned bushes and shrubs that added privacy as well as
