“How long did you work there?” I asked.

“Oh, let’s see. We first came out here in 1938, when I was just about to start school. It was after the girls died; your grandmother decided she never wanted to live where it was cold again, and she found work in a cafe in the off-season, so she stayed here. Your granddad wanted me to get an education.”

“Were you able to go to school?” Travis asked.

“Oh, yes, for a time. And some of my schooling was on the road. Whenever work at the factory got a little slow, my father would take me with him and we’d go rambling, hire out wherever we could. I met some amazing fellows in those days. At the time, during the Depression, there were some highly educated men riding the rails. And the road itself will teach all kinds of lessons you won’t get in a classroom-some good, some bad. Anyway, we never left for very long at a stretch, because he didn’t like being away from your grandmother. I did go to school here pretty regular up until your grandparents died. Then it was up to me to take care of your daddy, and Papa DeMont always made sure I had work on his place after that.”

“What do you do for a living now, Uncle Gerald?”

“Oh, a long time ago, your father loaned me some money to start my own business,” he said. “I buy old houses, fix ‘em up and sell them. I’ve done well for myself, and I paid your daddy back. He wasn’t going to let me, but I did. I think he felt like I took good care of him, so…” His eyes clouded up, and he left the sentence unfinished.

He seemed to struggle with himself, then said, “I never did like the way he carried on with your mother. There, I’ve said it. I thought he was throwing his whole life away, and after Papa DeMont had been so good to us, I just figured your father had shamed our family. It was dishonest, really, and hurtful to someone who had never hurt him. Then he was mad at me, because I guess he did love you and your mother so much, and there were hard, hard words between us after Gwen was killed. We never spoke again.”

Travis slowly turned the pages of the photo album back, until the front cover was closed. “Do you think he killed her?” he asked.

“No,” Gerald answered without hesitation. “That wasn’t your daddy’s way. Never think that, not for one second.”

I looked at my watch. “We have to be going,” I said, to Gerald’s dismay and Deeny’s too-obvious relief.

“Can’t you stay a little longer?” Gerald asked.

Travis’s cellular phone rang, and he answered it, then said, “Yes, just a moment.” He handed it to me. “It’s for you, it’s Detective Collins.”

I took the phone, and said, “Hi, can I call you back in a few minutes?”

“Sure,” he said. “No privacy?”

“No.”

We hung up.

“A friend of my husband’s,” I explained to the Spannings, giving the phone back to Travis.

“We’d better go,” Travis said.

When we reached the van, Gerald gave Travis another hug, and this time, Travis returned it easily.

“Come over again,” Gerald said. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“I will,” Travis said. “Thanks for showing me the photos.”

“I’ll have some copies made for you,” he said.

“Thank you,” Travis said.

“How can I get ahold of you?” he asked.

Travis glanced over at me. “I’m staying with Irene.”

“You could stay here if you like,” Gerald said. “We’ve got plenty of room.”

Even without looking over at Deeny, who was pouting so openly she was shading her chin with her lower lip, Travis shook his head. “That’s kind of you, but I’ve got some other people to see in Las Piernas, so I might as well stay there. Maybe I’ll visit you after things settle down a little.”

“Sure,” Gerald said. “That’s fine.”

Travis gave Gerald his cell phone number. Gerald thanked him. “I’ve worked on a lot of places in Las Piernas,” he said to me. “What part of town do you live in?”

“We’re near the beach,” I said.

“You should see their garden,” Travis said.

Gerald smiled. “I’d like that. But mostly I’d like to see you again.”

Reed’s call was just a warning that Frank had already heard about today’s trouble. “But not from me,” he swore to me. “You know how it is around here; something this dramatic, the whole office is talking about it. He called in today before I could warn everybody to keep it quiet.”

I thanked him for the call and hung up.

The rest of the ride home was in silence.

“Why don’t you like him?” Travis asked as we pulled up at my house.

“Who are you talking about?”

“My uncle.”

“Your uncle appears to be a charming man. I have no reason to dislike him.”

There was a stubborn set to his jaw, but he didn’t argue.

Rachel pulled up as we were getting out of the van. She carried two big envelopes.

“Ah, just one big happy family,” she said as she reached us. I’ve never doubted her powers of observation.

“Anything interesting in the files?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’ve read through them once, but they deserve some real study.”

She quickly coaxed Travis into telling her about our adventures in the trailer park, and his mood lightened. He was a storyteller, and he told this one well.

As he went on and on about his uncle, I realized that for him, this was a vital connection-that Gerald Spanning was someone who could tell him about a group of people his father had been too young to know- grandparents and other relations. He now had a family to identify himself with, a family denied to a bastard child.

I felt the paper folded in my back pocket and found myself wishing I hadn’t seen it, wanting to be rid of it, hoping it wasn’t important.

In the end, literally, the dogs betrayed me.

23

I walked into the house first, listening to Travis say to Rachel-for perhaps the third time-“You’d really like him.” Deke and Dunk came forward to greet us but never moved on to Travis and Rachel, becoming quite fascinated with my rear pocket.

Their intense sniffing of one of my ass cheeks, even as I turned from them and tried to shoo them off, did not go unnoticed by my companions.

“They want whatever that is in your back pocket,” Travis said, laughing. “What is it?”

Since Deke showed every sign of being willing to pull the bulletin out of my pocket if I didn’t, I reached back and removed it, holding it high and snapping an irritable command at them to get down as I kept moving toward the kitchen.

They obeyed, skulking off with tails down, but casting reproachful looks back at me-making me believe the guilt trip was not, after all, a human invention.

There was a noticeable silence in their wake. Both Travis and Rachel were staring at me. I made myself unfold the coffee-stained paper enough to see that the date on it was the same as the one on the bulletin I had found among Briana’s possessions. I suddenly felt tired.

Rachel said, “Che cosa e?,” but Travis was closer and he took it from my hand.

“A church bulletin from St. Anthony’s?” he said, and I heard Rachel’s quick intake of breath.

“Where did you find it?” she asked.

“In the trash can under the Spannings’ sink.”

“What were you doing looking through their trash?” he asked sharply.

I didn’t answer. I went into the living room and tried to make peace with the dogs.

“Travis,” Rachel said, “open it up. Read through the announcements.”

He stared at her for a moment, then slowly obeyed. All the color left his face. She put an arm around his shoulders, took the bulletin from him, and led him to where I was sitting, putting him between us on the couch. He was looking at me in confusion.

“It announced my father’s funeral Mass,” he said.

“Yes. Your uncle already knew your father was dead.”

“But that means-oh, God!” he said miserably. “It means he was just putting on an act! That goddamned-” But as he said it he looked at me, and I was much handier than Gerald. “You knew!” he said angrily. “You knew that he was faking grief for my father, and you didn’t say anything to me! I asked why you didn’t like him and you said, ”Your uncle appears to be a charming man. I have no reason to dislike him!“”