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. “Calma,” she said softly.

“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.

“I can’t give you my client’s name,” he said again. “Report me if you want to.”

“There’s something else you can give us,” Rachel said, moving from behind Travis, strolling a little closer to the desk.

He looked up at her. “What?”

“Your files on the murder of Gwendolyn DeMont.”

He shook his head, went back to his attack on the blotter. “Open case. You’ll have to contact the Los Alamitos Police Department for that information.”

She moved so fast, I didn’t see exactly how it happened, but within the next few seconds she managed to reach across the desk, snatch the pencil from Richmond’s hand and snap it in two.

Richmond looked up at her, slack-jawed.

“Don’t push your lousy luck,” she said. “Get the files!”

“I’m not turning them over to somebody who stands to gain from that woman’s murder!” he shouted.

“You’ve had over a decade to prove your point,” she shot back, “and you haven’t come up with jack shit.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“Oh, really?”

“It’s his fault,” he said, pointing at Travis. “His and his mother’s.”

“And all the people in the emergency room that night,” I said quietly.

He sat back in his chair.

“You’re not going to let go of it,” I said. “No one expects you to. But we want to find out who killed her-even if it turns out to be Arthur.”

He gave a snort of disbelief.

“If you won’t give us the files,” Rachel said, “make copies.”

“That would take all day!”

“You and I will work on it together,” she said. “Irene and Travis have other things to do.”

“So do I.”

“No, you don’t,” she said flatly.

He looked among the three of us. He didn’t find anyone in sympathy with him.

“Go on, Irene,” she said. “I’ll drop them off at your house later.”

Travis stood up. Richmond looked at his bandaged hand and said, “I didn’t plant that bomb. I’d never do something like that, especially not right outside a cop’s house.”

“So you’ve checked out our backgrounds,” I said.

“Yours,” he acknowledged.

“Then I should tell you that not only is Rachel a licensed PI, she’s-”

“An ex-cop,” he finished. “I could guess that much.”

“A former homicide detective,” I said.

He looked surprised.

“Phoenix,” she said. “Retired.”

“You’re too young!”

She smiled. “Save your flattery for your society columnist.”

He looked at me and said, “You’ll tell her, won’t you? Margot, I mean?”

“Tell her what?”

“That she doesn’t have any reason to be afraid of me.”

“I don’t know that for a fact, do I?” I said, and left with Travis.

21

“You need to take a pain pill?” I asked Travis, who was looking down at his hand as it rested in his lap.

“No. Maybe later.” He glanced over his shoulder as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Maybe we shouldn’t leave Rachel alone with that guy.”

“She can take care of herself. Or are you worried about his safety?”

He smiled a little, then lapsed back into silence.

“What’s on your mind, Travis?”

“My uncle lives here in Los Alamitos. He raised my dad, but I’ve never met him. I guess I was just thinking about what Father Chris said.”

“You’ve never met Gerald?”

“No. I’m not even sure where he lives. I just know it’s somewhere in Los Alamitos.”

Knowing I was going to hate myself for not going straight home and crawling into bed, I said, “Reach into my purse, and hand me the little notebook you find in there.”

He did as I asked, and at the next stoplight, I flipped to the page where I had written the addresses Rachel gave me for the DeMonts and Gerald Spanning. We hadn’t reached Spanning’s street yet.

“I can take you there right now if you want to go,” I said.

“But-you need to rest-”

“A short visit to your uncle won’t do me in. Just call Rachel at Richmond’s office and let her know what’s up.”

He hesitated, then made the call.

When he finished, he said, “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

“Nervous?”

“Yes,” he admitted, then added, “I’ll be all right.”

But a few minutes later he said, “Maybe we should call first.”

“The only time I called him, I got the number off the computer, so I don’t have it with me.”

“You’ve talked to him?”

“Only very briefly, when I was looking for you.”

“Oh.”

“He said to ask you to give him a call someday.”

“He did?”

There was so much hope in those two words, I wondered if I had set him up for disappointment.

He saw my hesitation and said, “Maybe he was just being polite.”