lesson the hard way.
“What happened?” he said sharply.
Oh, damn. “Who said anything happened?” I tried, but even to me it sounded feeble.
“ ‘I can promise you’? You think I just met you yesterday?”
So I ended up explaining.
After a long silence, I heard him let out a deep sigh. “You’re sure you’re okay? I mean, I know you weren’t hurt, but-”
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
“You’re still willing to make that promise? I don’t have to have Reed show you a pile of photos of stabbing- wound victims?”
“Not necessary-I promise. I believe absolutely that Robert DeMont is capable of stabbing someone in a fit of rage. I don’t want to be next.”
“You might also think about the fact that one of the easiest places in the world to buy a wetsuit is Huntington Beach.”
I didn’t say anything. I was picturing self-involved Robert DeMont- walking past a surf shop, looking in the windows, suddenly inspired; later, pleased with his plan to use the wetsuit, reveling in his invention of a special torture device, eager to try it out.
Frank’s voice brought me back from horrific visions. He had changed the subject-apparently he didn’t want to end on that note of fear and argument. I didn’t either. We talked for a while longer. I thanked him again for the research help, and we agreed to talk again later that night. In the end, I was glad not to be hiding anything from him, and knew that talking about it with him had helped me shake off the worst of my gloominess.
Mary, seeing I wasn’t going to take a nap, made a strong cup of coffee for me. I asked to borrow a magnifying glass, and after locating one for me, she went out to work in her garden. One of the things I like about Mary is that she puts a limit on her hovering.
I sat at the kitchen table and took another look through the envelope I had taken from Robert DeMont. This time, I pulled out the note. It read:
Robert-Rushed these per your request, no time to sort them. I have my own copies, these are yours to keep.
Have already spoken to you re: photos I took of subject’s mother prior to locating him. Of interest is Irene Kelly, subject’s cousin, who appears with subject and unknown woman in some shots. Believe Kelly may have possession of item we seek.
It was signed by Harold Richmond.
The anger kicked in again. I was feeling better and better about breaking that window. If I hadn’t made that promise to Frank, I would have considered going back and breaking a few more. But what, I wondered, was this “item” they were looking for? The murder weapon? But why would they look for that if Robert DeMont had killed her?
I thought about this. If Robert DeMont had killed Gwendolyn in a fit of anger, then left the knife at the scene, who found it? Arthur or the housekeeper, Mrs. Coughlin. If Richmond believed I had it, he must also believe that Arthur took it from the scene.
But Richmond thought Arthur, not Robert DeMont, was guilty. He’d never work for DeMont if he thought Robert had killed Gwendolyn. Maybe that suited DeMont just fine; let Richmond pursue it for his own reasons and-and what? It made no sense. DeMont would not want Richmond to find the knife-not if the knife could somehow link him to the crime.
Perhaps the “item” had nothing to do with the crime scene. I quickly dropped that idea-Richmond’s obsession, his connection to the DeMonts and Arthur and my cousin, was one event: Gwendolyn’s murder.
I set that problem aside and went back to the photos, started looking through them more slowly.
At the top of the pile were the ones of Briana in San Pedro. I pulled out my notebook, flipped to my conversation with Mr. Reyes. According to the store owner, Briana had been wearing a blue sweater on the day she was killed. I sorted through the photos, found the ones taken of Briana when she was walking near the market. A red sweater. Little chance of mistaking one for the other. The photo had not been taken on the day she was killed.
Still, she had been stalked.
I went on to the ones taken at my house-of Rachel, Travis and me getting out of the camper; of the house, street and camper from other angles. The photos were taken during the day; the only daylight hours during which the camper had been at the curb in front of my house were that same afternoon. By later that evening, it had been destroyed.
If Richmond had been taking photographs before he-or Robert De-Mont-had rigged a bomb, perhaps one of the people on the street had seen him near the camper, witnessed him fooling around with it.
It was while I was looking at a group of people walking on the sidewalk, slightly down the street from the camper, that I inadvertently made a discovery. The group included a young woman with two small boys. I didn’t recognize them, and although they appeared to be giving their mother a hard time, I doubted the kids were young urban terrorists, out to rig bombs in campers. As I idly moved the glass to focus on one boy’s impish expression, I saw something odd in the car nearest the group-gradually, I realized that it was a shoulder.
The car was a gray El Camino with dark upholstery. The shoulder, in a white T-shirt, stood out against the dark seat. It belonged to someone who was sitting in the car, ducking out of view from the camera.
In three or four other shots, varying portions of the car and the shoulder appeared, but there was no closer shot of it. It became apparent that Harold Richmond, master detective, had no idea that someone was trying to hide in a car not half a block away from where he was spying on us. A large man with muscular shoulders.
One shot accidentally caught a portion of the man’s head, taken as he was either starting to peek up or duck down again. Dark hair, silver on the sides.
Robert DeMont’s hair was white. Harold Richmond’s hair color was very similar to that of the man in the photo, but Richmond was the camera man. Gerald Spanning’s was also dark, going to silver on the sides.
I told myself that from the little that was visible of the man in these photos, there was no way to tell if it was Gerald Spanning in the El Camino. I couldn’t convince myself that it wasn’t.
That raised other questions. If it was Gerald, how did he learn where I lived? How did he manage to be there on the same day I found Travis, at the same time as Richmond? Had he followed Richmond? How would he even know what Richmond was up to, who he was watching?
There was also the problem of the car. At Gerald’s mobile home, he had pulled up in a pickup truck. Parking was limited near his trailer; I hadn’t seen an El Camino.
I kept looking at photos. At the end of the stack, I came to one that made my blood run cold.
Mary Kelly’s house.
Richmond-and Robert DeMont-knew where to find us.
29
“Mary!” I called, running into the backyard.
“For heaven’s sake-”
“Do you have friends you could stay with, someone else you could spend a few nights with?”
She looked puzzled, but said, “Yes, why?”
“It isn’t safe here for you, or for us.” I found myself looking toward Travis’s room, worrying that I would be too late to take him out of harm’s way. Hastily, I tried to explain, all the while distracted by my fears, wondering if even now the killer was watching this house, setting new plans in motion.
“What can I do to help?” she asked calmly, after I had told my disjointed tale.
She wasn’t going to challenge me, question me at length. Some of the panic lifted. “Help me wake Travis. Pack whatever you’ll need. Most of my own things are ready. You have Travis’s cell phone number?”
“Yes.”
“Take it with you. If you need to reach us, use that number.”
