Liar

9

The story was told in a straightforward fashion. The previous morning, a Monday, Gwendolyn DeMont Spa

Police were trying to locate her husband, Arthur Spa

The Spa

I glanced at my watch. I needed to leave soon to get home in time to walk the dogs before dark. I raced through the issues that followed, seeing the stories about the murder getting more and more play. I made copy after copy of articles I told myself I could read at home, and tried not to be lured by lurid headlines:

Murder of Reclusive Heiress Stuns Quiet Community

Spa

Bigamist Not Charged with Wife’s Slaying

DeMont Family Brings Suit: Seek to Prevent Bigamist from Inheriting

I thought of shy Briana, suddenly the object of this type of scrutiny. Of Travis, at eleven, certainly old enough to read these headlines. I rewound the reel of microfilm and shut the machine off.

Later that night, I sat on the living room floor, surrounded by the boxes from Briana’s house. Cody, my cat, was eyeing the piles of paper with twitching tail; I tensed as he tensed, and saw him ready to pounce. As on all his previous forays, I was able to shoo him off before he did much damage, but the scuffle woke the dogs. Worn out from a long run on the beach, Deke, a big black Lab, quickly went back to sleep, but Dunk, the shepherd, decided to gently sniff at all of the boxes again. Apparently satisfied, he lay down with a paw across my ankle and went back to sleep. This show of possessiveness was oddly comforting. Technically, he’s Frank’s dog, and like his master, he was soon snoring.

I stretched a little, then went back to work. The phone calls to Briana’s former neighbors hadn’t been of much use; only two of the neighbors remembered her, and neither knew what had become of “Mrs.” Maguire or her son. They told me that she and her son had kept to themselves, had been polite but very private. After reading the headlines, it was easy to understand why Briana and Travis had sought privacy.

I made notes based on the articles I had copied, recapping what I had learned, putting the information in chronological order.

As Mary had remembered, Gwendolyn DeMont was raised by her grandfather after her mother’s death. Gwendolyn’s father, who died a hero’s death in World War I, was one of two sons, but apparently her grandfather had quarreled bitterly with his surviving boy, Horace DeMont. When the old patriarch died, this son was left only a small monetary bequest; the bulk of the estate, including all the DeMont lands, was left to Gwendolyn.

At the time of her grandfather’s death, Gwendolyn was forty-five years old. Within a month of his death, and to her uncle Horace De-Mont’s shock, she married one of the few men who had ever made her acquaintance: the estate’s sixteen-year-old gardener, Arthur Spa

In the articles, her uncle made much of the fact that throughout her life, Gwendolyn seldom ventured outside the family home. She was shy of strangers, especially male strangers. It was Horace DeMont’s contention that Arthur Spa

This was vigorously denied by Arthur’s older brother, a man named Gerald Spa

However set Arthur’s heart had been at sixteen, it roved by the time he was twenty-two. Briana, who was then working in a nursery and landscaping supply company, was courted by and married the charming young man she knew as Arthur Sperry. His landscaping business required frequent absences.

The articles in the Express supplied few details about this business, but apparently Gwendolyn had indulged her young husband’s whim to have his own business, to earn his own money. If this business required him to travel, she did not seem upset by her days alone.

The cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Coughlin, was interviewed. She had worked for the Spa

Police said that Mr. Spa

Not much was revealed about Arthur Spa

Arthur Spa