Liar

I shrugged. “You haven’t always complimented your boss’s judgment. But you didn’t call me in here because I’m making nasty remarks about Wrigley. What have I done to make you accuse me of trying to butt in on Mark Baker’s territory?”

“I got a call this morning,” he said. “A Los Angeles homicide cop. Guy named McCain. Said he just needed to verify your whereabouts on Wednesday the eighteenth. Wouldn’t tell me anything more.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“John!”

“I told him that without more information from him, I wasn’t ready to talk to the LAPD about what my reporters were up to. I don’t make a habit of telling the police everything I know-unlike some people around here.”

“You have no right to imply that I talk to Frank about what goes on here at the paper.”

He scowled down at his desk, but eventually said, “No, no, I don’t. I’ll give you that.”

But I had already started thinking of the more important implications of what he had said. “God, I wish you had just talked to McCain! Now you’ve probably made things worse.”

“You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“He suspects me…” I discovered it wasn’t so easy to say. “It sounds ridiculous, I know, but he suspects me of murdering my aunt. Or arranging her murder.”

“What?!”

I explained as best I could.

He was silent for a long time, then said, “You have a lawyer?”

“If you had let McCain know I was here that Wednesday morning, I wouldn’t need a lawyer.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Feeling I get about this guy. He isn’t going to give up easily. Seems like he’s not short on dogged determination.”

“Then he’ll learn that I didn’t have anything to do with Briana’s death. Besides, I can’t afford to hire an attorney just because McCain’s asking questions.”

“Frank aware of this situation?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I suppose he’ll be able to tell when this guy McCain represents a threat to you. Anyway, I’ll tell Morey to be more cooperative with McCain than I was.”

Until John’s former position could be filled, Morey was our acting news editor. I wasn’t sure that Morey, with his far from forceful personality, would be able to convince McCain of the truth after John had been so evasive.

John and I talked a little longer, then I went back to my desk. I tried to concentrate on finding people who would talk to me about the campaign funding story. I didn’t have much luck, even though I was carrying the holy card of St. Anthony (who’s supposed to help one find that which is lost) in my pocket. The few out-of-area contributors I did locate were either former Las Piernas residents or relatives of the candidate. A few questions to the latter group made it clear that they were completely uninterested in Las Piernas politics. Four hours of phone calls and I had nothing worth putting into print.

But my sense of frustration wasn’t just a result of my problems with the story, or because of John’s reticence to talk to McCain. It increased not long after I left John’s office, during a phone call from Pete.

“Looks like your cousin goes by Maguire,” Pete said.

“You found him!” I said.

“Got an address, anyway.” He read it off-and the balloon popped.

When I didn’t respond right away, he said, “That help?”

“Thanks for trying, Pete, but it’s Briana’s apartment address. As far as I know, Travis never really lived there.”

“Oh.”

“At least I know he’s going by Maguire.”

There was a short silence, then Pete said, “Maybe. If the address checked out, I would have felt a little more certain about that. Better not assume anything yet.”

A couple of friends on the staff asked me to join them for lunch, but I had the feeling they were curious about why (according to a newsroom rumor that quickly made the rounds) an LAPD homicide cop was asking if I had been in on a certain Wednesday morning. So I begged off- told them, quite truthfully, that I was waiting for return calls.

My stomach growled, so I went from desk to desk glancing at take-out menus (more standard on newsroom desks than dictionaries) and found a good one on Stuart Angert’s-a deli that delivers to the Express. I called it and ordered a turkey sandwich.

While I waited for the delivery, I logged on to the computer and went to a program that has replaced our old reverse phone directories. I typed in Briana’s old address, the one she lived at before moving to the apartment, and within seconds the computer came up with a list of names, addresses and phone numbers for some of the residences on the same block. I printed this list, but decided I’d wait until later in the day to actually start phoning. I’d make the calls when people were more likely to be home from work.

I logged off, opened a desk drawer and pulled out McCain’s manila envelope. That morning, before leaving the house, I had added to it, stuffing the envelope full of papers from Briana’s desk; I opened it now and began sorting through them. In a few moments, the papers were stacked in four piles: church bulletins, grocery lists, bills and-the biggest category-flyers and advertisements.

The two grocery lists were short, and only included a few everyday items-they didn’t reveal anything the tour of her kitchen hadn’t already told me. I put them back in the envelope.

Next I looked through her bills. There weren’t many of these either- her lifestyle didn’t include flashing a lot of gold cards all over town. In fact, there were no bills from any kind of plastic. No yuppie necessities such as cellular phones, dry cleaning or cable television. Like her grocery lists, her bills were for the basics: electricity, gas, water and the telephone. Among the older bills, there was a large amount due to an orthopedic surgeon, but as I studied it, it was clear that her medical insurance company was being billed for the full amount.

But there would be other expenses, of course. Her food, rent, taxes and probably some bus or cab fares. Donations to the church. Postage, laundry-all the other little things that might cause her to feel anxious about the ways she must divide a dollar. Living on disability checks, it would have been difficult to make ends meet.

“Where was your strong young son?” I wondered aloud. Where the hell was your niece? an i

I forced myself to focus my attention on the phone bills. Most were for little more than the basic service rate, but the most recent telephone bill was extravagant by comparison-it included over sixty dollars’ worth of long-distance calls, all to numbers in California cities.

The calls were made within a three-day period-and when I saw which three days, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I pulled out the holy card just to make sure I had correctly remembered the date of Arthur Spa

Geoff, the Express’s security guard, called to tell me my sandwich was waiting for me at the front desk. I went downstairs to get it, thinking about the phone bill all the while. When Briana had learned of Arthur’s death, she would have called Travis. Even if he had been the one to inform her of his father’s death, it was likely that they had spoken. His number must have been one of the first ones she called. But who were all the other people she had phoned?

Back at my desk, I ate the sandwich without really tasting it as I studied the bill more closely. The cities called ranged across the state-from Crescent City in the far north to El Cajon in the south, from Eureka on the coast to Blythe at the Arizona border. Most were very brief calls, but three lasted longer-the ones to El Cajon, Mission Viejo and Lake Arrowhead. I wrote these numbers down.

Did Arthur have friends all over California? And why would Briana be the one to contact them?