He hadn’t come out yet by the time I finished, so I sat on the couch and waited for him. Cody took advantage of this time to lie on my lap, splaying paws and purring loudly as I scratched the particular place under his chin that cannot receive enough attention.
Eventually Travis came into the living room. He seated himself on the couch, but as far away from me as possible. Staring at the empty fireplace, he said, “Tell me what you know.”
“About the accident?”
“Whatever you know about-what happened to my parents.”
I began by talking about his father’s death, because he seemed to have known of Arthur’s illness. “I don’t know much,” I said, “only what was on the death certificate.”
“He had cancer,” Travis said quietly.
“Yes, that was listed as the cause of death.”
After a moment, he said, “I guess you know something about that. Mom told me about your mother.”
“My father, too,” I said.
“Really? Patrick died of cancer?” he said, with a kind of mild curiosity, as if I had just told him that we had graduated from the same high school.
“Yes. In fact, the doctor who treated your dad was my dad’s doctor.”
He didn’t react to that. He seemed to be caught up in some distant memory. After a long silence, he said, “Mom used to tell me this story about you. That you held me when I was a baby.”
“Yes,” I said, hoping to God he wouldn’t ask me to talk about it just then.
He seemed to sense that, though, and said, “What happened to my mother?”
I tried to be gentle in the telling, but the facts of the matter were like axes, and couldn’t be used for fine work. After a time he again grew very pale, held up a hand, then murmured, “Excuse me.”
He hurried into the bathroom; I could hear him getting sick.
When Rachel came over a few hours later, exhaustion had led to a truce on both grief and bickering.
“Where is he?” Rachel asked, as she walked into my kitchen bearing a large, foil-covered baking dish.
“Taking a nap out in the Cosmobile,” I said.
“His camper?”
“Yep. He turned down the guest room.”
“You told him about his parents?” she asked.
“Yes. He took it pretty hard. Anyone would.”
“You didn’t have such an easy job, did you? You okay?”
I nodded. She didn’t say anything for a moment, then asked, “Aren’t you afraid he’ll just drive off?”
“He might, but I don’t think he will. He wants to see Aunt Mary and to visit Briana’s grave. But he said he’d like to wait until tomorrow- wasn’t ready for either one today. I don’t blame him. And as for driving off, I suppose he’ll probably bring my cat in first.”
“Cody?”
“Yes. Cody was fascinated by the camper. Full of interesting scents and all kinds of nooks and crannies. Travis seemed to like having his company, and even left a window screen open so that Cody could get in and out if he wanted to. But I think Cody’s there for the duration.”
“So that’s why Cody isn’t in here begging. I brought lasagna,” she said, putting the dish in the refrigerator.
“Sounds great, but Travis might not have much of an appetite.”
“You two getting along any better?”
I shrugged. “Hard to say, under the circumstances.”
There was a soft knock on the front door. I opened it to find Travis standing on the front steps, sleep-tousled and pale. His fists were shoved into his pockets and he was staring at a point somewhere near my shoes. “I don’t think I can sleep any longer,” he said. “Mind if I come in for a while?”
“Of course not. Did you lose the key I gave you?”
He shook his head. “No. But your privacy…”
“Next time just use the key. You won’t disturb me. You’re here as my guest.”
He saw Rachel as she walked up behind me. She took one look at him and said, “Mi displace molto…,” stepping forward to embrace him. He didn’t refuse the embrace, but it seemed nearly to undo his struggle to maintain his composure. He looked over her shoulder at me, and I decided to see it as a request.
“Where’s my cat?” I asked brusquely.
“He didn’t want to leave the camper,” he said, stepping away from her, visibly relaxing. “He found a spot he likes at the foot of the bed.”
As he continued to babble on about the cat, Rachel picked up her cue, and made no more sympathetic comments. She told him that she had made something for our dinner, a lasagna from an old family recipe, and proceeded to try to distract him with stories about her grandmother’s skills in the kitchen.
Dinner passed without much comment, and we probably could have served just about anything to Travis with much the same result-he didn’t even bother toying with Rachel’s culinary masterpiece. He was silent during the meal, not responding when we asked questions. We weren’t ignored, really-to say he ignored us would be to suggest a choice I’m not sure he made. He was obviously too lost in his own thoughts to hear us.
When we stood up to clear our plates, he suddenly said, “Rachel, you’re a private detective?”
“Yes.”
“I want to hire you.”
“To find out who killed your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t do it.”
We both looked at her in surprise.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I’d need the permission of my current client. I’m already working for Irene.”
He was openly dismayed.
“I don’t mind working together,” I said. “I’d prefer it.”
He didn’t respond.
“We better tell McCain we’ve found him,” Rachel said, then explained to Travis, “He’s with LAPD Homicide. Lots of people have been looking for you lately.”
“I’m sure they have,” he said, his voice full of sarcasm. “Slay the fatted calf, the bastard has returned! And he’s a rich bastard!”
“Why do you insist on using that term?” I snapped. “I’ve never referred to you in that way.”
“I insist on it because for several miserable years, I lived with being called a bastard-and worse. And the truth, Irene, is that the term is accurate. My parents were not legally married when I was born.”
“Well, maybe that changed,” I shot back without thinking. “According to your father’s death certificate, they were married.”
For a moment, he was completely silent, then he shook his head and said, “Impossible. He lied or the doctor lied.” He smiled. “Or you’re lying now.”
14
Rachel held up a hand and said, “Basta!”
“That’s Italian for ‘Enough!”“ I said quickly, and Travis, realizing exactly what had caused me to be anxious over her choice of that particular word, started laughing at me.
I marched over to the phone, pulled out the directory and started thumbing through it.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Looking up Brad Curtis’s number. I’m going to leave a message on his service. He can call me back and tell me why he’s falsifying information on death certificates.”
“The man is probably busy helping cancer patients. You want to disturb him with this nonsense?”
“Hold on,” Rachel said, “hold on. Travis, humor me, and assume for a moment that your parents did marry.”
“I’m telling you, she wasn’t even speaking to him. She wasn’t speaking to me because I dared to make contact with him.”
“But-”
“Why would they marry?” he asked. “It wasn’t to give me his name before he died, if that’s what you think. He openly acknowledged me as his son, even during the years I didn’t want him to.”