Her mouth opened and her arm dropped slowly, the hand settling on her left breast, as if pledging allegiance.

"You're as crazy as your father," she said.

"My father?"

"Don't fool with me, Mr. Best." Putting weight on the last word, as if her knowledge would throw me off.

"You think I'm his son?"

"I know you are. I saw you with him when he tried to break in. Now you're asking questions all around town, pretending to be someone else."

"Pretending?"

"Pretending to be a customer, buying those Big Dogs. We don't want your business, mister. You get the hell out of here and tell your father he's going to get both of you in big trouble. People know us in Malibu. You get lost, or I'm calling the police."

"Please do," I said, pulling out my wallet. I had an out-of-date card that said I'd once consulted to the police, along with one of Milo's. I hoped the word Homicide would impress her. Hoped her panic would stop her from remembering that LAPD had no jurisdiction here.

Confusion clogged her face.

Travis said something incoherent. He was still smiling at me.

"I don't…" She inspected the cards again. "You're a psychologist?"

"It's complicated, Mrs. Shea. But go ahead and call the police, they'll clear it up for you. Karen Best's death is back under investigation because of new facts, a new witness. I'm involved in helping the police question that witness. They know, now, that something happened to Karen at the Sanctum party and that you and your husband and Doris Reingold got paid off to keep quiet about it."

Throwing out wild cards. The way she fought to stay still told me I had a winning hand.

Her right eye twitched. She said, "Easy, honey," to Travis, even though he looked happy.

"This is absolutely crazy."

"At the very least, we're talking obstruction of justice. Even if the plane tickets had been there, you'd never have been allowed to board. I think it's pretty obvious you were being watched. If I were you, I'd start making arrangements for Travis. Somewhere clean and trustworthy where he can stay while you're tied up in the legal system. 'Bye, have a nice day."

I started to leave. She made a grab for my arm, but I moved away.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"I'm not doing anything. To be honest, I'm not even here, officially. If the police knew I'd followed you, they'd probably be upset. They think I'm a bleeding heart. Maybe I am, but I've treated kids with CP and I know it's not easy under the best of circumstances. What you've got ahead of you is far from the best."

Watching the boy contort and remembering how I'd lied to Dr. Mullins, justice seemed very abstract. Thinking about Karen's buried corpse, Sherrel Best and his grief, brought it a little closer to home.

"What do you want?"

"The truth about Karen."

"Why don't the police come themselves?"

"Oh, they will," I said, turning to go again.

"I don't understand," she said. "You work with the police, but you're not working with them now?"

"Right now I'm here because Karen's important to me."

"You knew her?"

"I'm not going to say more, Mrs. Shea. But I will give you some advice. Some people think you and Tom were involved in her murder. If you were, we have nothing to talk about and I really need to get out of here. If you've done nothing but obstruct, I might be able to run interference for you. Lying about it won't help, because the evidence is piling up; it's just a matter of time. And if you do make it to Mexico, the police will impound your house and this place."

A group of teenagers went into the sandwich shop. Happy, shouting. Travis's age.

She said, "I don't know about any murder, and that's the God's truth."

"Why did you try to leave town tonight?"

"Vacation."

"No luggage? Or was Tom supposed to handle that, too, along with the tickets?"

She remained wooden. I shrugged and walked toward my car.

"What if I don't know anything?" she called after me. "What if I can't help anyone with what I know?"

"Then you won't be able to help yourself."

"But I don't! That's the truth! Karen- she-"

She broke down and hid her eyes with her fingers. Travis looked at her, then at me.

I smiled at him. His return grin was quick- more of a grimace, his eyes clouded and dull. Most people with cerebral palsy are intellectually normal. The eyes told me he wasn't. Despite the contortions he was almost handsome, and I could see traces of the young man he might have been. A faint, almost holographic image of a golden Malibu kid.

His mother kept her face concealed.

I walked up to the chair. "Hey, pal."

He started to laugh, gulping and whooping. Did it louder and tried to clap his hands.

"Shut up!" Gwen screamed.

A crestfallen look wormed its way among the boy's involuntary facial movements. He began stabbing with his arms and kicking his feet. His lips twisted like an out-of-hand garden hose, and a deep, foggy noise issued from his mouth.

"Aa-nglm!"

Gwen embraced him. "Oh, I'm so sorry, honey! Oh, honey, honey!"

I felt like surrendering my license.

Gwen said, "He needs me. No one knows how to take care of him properly. Have you seen the kind of places they put kids like him?"

"Lots of them," I said.

"But you'll put him in one without thinking twice."

"I won't put him anywhere. I have no official power, other than the fact that the police sometimes ask my advice. Sometimes they even listen. I got involved in Karen's case, and I'm going to see it through."

"But I don't know about any murder. That's the truth."

"What do you know?"

She turned away, facing PCH.

"You know something valuable enough to get paid off for your silence," I said.

"Why do you keep saying I've been paid off?"

I looked at her.

Travis rolled his head out from under her embrace.

She said, "That was twenty years ago."

"Twenty-one this August."

She looked ill. "All I know is she went off with some guys at that party and I never saw her again, okay? Why's that worth anything?"

"You tell me."

She looked at the asphalt.

I said, "Other people were paid off, too. Some of them were murdered. Now that the net's tightening, what makes you think you're safe? Or Tom, for that matter, wherever he is in Mexico?"

A new fear pierced her eyes. She'd been beautiful a long time ago, one of those lithe, laughing beach girls for whom bikinis were invented. Life had glazed her like pottery, and I'd added a few new cracks.

"Oh, God."

A car pulled into the shopping center. As its headlights washed over us, she jumped. The car was going to the sandwich place. An old Chrysler four-door. Two pony-tailed, tank-topped men in their thirties got out. Surfboard clamps were attached to the roof, but no boards.

One of the men cupped his hands and lit a cigarette. Gwen turned her back on them. Not afraid, embarrassed.

"Old customers?" I said.

She stared at me, then at her keys in the lock.

"Inside," she said.