Liar

Perhaps the “item” had nothing to do with the crime scene. I quickly dropped that idea-Richmond’s obsession, his co

I set that problem aside and went back to the photos, started looking through them more slowly.

At the top of the pile were the ones of Briana in San Pedro. I pulled out my notebook, flipped to my conversation with Mr. Reyes. According to the store owner, Briana had been wearing a blue sweater on the day she was killed. I sorted through the photos, found the ones taken of Briana when she was walking near the market. A red sweater. Little chance of mistaking one for the other. The photo had not been taken on the day she was killed.

Still, she had been stalked.

I went on to the ones taken at my house-of Rachel, Travis and me getting out of the camper; of the house, street and camper from other angles. The photos were taken during the day; the only daylight hours during which the camper had been at the curb in front of my house were that same afternoon. By later that evening, it had been destroyed.

If Richmond had been taking photographs before he-or Robert De-Mont-had rigged a bomb, perhaps one of the people on the street had seen him near the camper, witnessed him fooling around with it.

It was while I was looking at a group of people walking on the sidewalk, slightly down the street from the camper, that I inadvertently made a discovery. The group included a young woman with two small boys. I didn’t recognize them, and although they appeared to be giving their mother a hard time, I doubted the kids were young urban terrorists, out to rig bombs in campers. As I idly moved the glass to focus on one boy’s impish expression, I saw something odd in the car nearest the group-gradually, I realized that it was a shoulder.

The car was a gray El Camino with dark upholstery. The shoulder, in a white T-shirt, stood out against the dark seat. It belonged to someone who was sitting in the car, ducking out of view from the camera.

In three or four other shots, varying portions of the car and the shoulder appeared, but there was no closer shot of it. It became apparent that Harold Richmond, master detective, had no idea that someone was trying to hide in a car not half a block away from where he was spying on us. A large man with muscular shoulders.

One shot accidentally caught a portion of the man’s head, taken as he was either starting to peek up or duck down again. Dark hair, silver on the sides.

Robert DeMont’s hair was white. Harold Richmond’s hair color was very similar to that of the man in the photo, but Richmond was the camera man. Gerald Spa

I told myself that from the little that was visible of the man in these photos, there was no way to tell if it was Gerald Spa

That raised other questions. If it was Gerald, how did he learn where I lived? How did he manage to be there on the same day I found Travis, at the same time as Richmond? Had he followed Richmond? How would he even know what Richmond was up to, who he was watching?

There was also the problem of the car. At Gerald’s mobile home, he had pulled up in a pickup truck. Parking was limited near his trailer; I hadn’t seen an El Camino.

I kept looking at photos. At the end of the stack, I came to one that made my blood run cold.

Mary Kelly’s house.

Richmond-and Robert DeMont-knew where to find us.

29

“Mary!” I called, ru

“For heaven’s sake-”

“Do you have friends you could stay with, someone else you could spend a few nights with?”

She looked puzzled, but said, “Yes, why?”

“It isn’t safe here for you, or for us.” I found myself looking toward Travis’s room, worrying that I would be too late to take him out of harm’s way. Hastily, I tried to explain, all the while distracted by my fears, wondering if even now the killer was watching this house, setting new plans in motion.

“What can I do to help?” she asked calmly, after I had told my disjointed tale.

She wasn’t going to challenge me, question me at length. Some of the panic lifted. “Help me wake Travis. Pack whatever you’ll need. Most of my own things are ready. You have Travis’s cell phone number?”

“Yes.”

“Take it with you. If you need to reach us, use that number.”

“Where will you be?”

“In the van. I’ll stay on the move. Safer for us, safer for our friends.”

I knocked on Travis’s door; he didn’t answer. I knocked louder, still no answer. “The pain pills,” Mary said, and opened the door.

He slept peacefully on his back, on top of the covers; except for stockinged feet, he was fully clothed. His hands lay palm up at his sides, his mouth slightly open, his face relaxed-but it was not the face of the puckish storyteller in the park. The young man before me had been marked by too much sudden grief, its signs apparent even as he slept.

Reluctantly, I tried to wake him; he opened his eyes, murmured something, fell asleep.

“Let him sleep until we’re ready to leave, then,” I whispered to Mary. I put his few items of new clothing in his trunk, packed up my own belongings and the cell phone, then took all of it out to the van. I made up the bed in the back.

When I came back in, Mary was ready to go. She gave me a slip of paper on which she had written information about where she would be staying. “Met her in my t’ai chi ch’uan class,” she said.

We managed to rouse Travis enough to get him into the van; he promptly fell asleep on the bed.

I hugged Mary, and she pulled me back into a second embrace, giving me a kiss on the cheek and telling me, “Be careful. I will never forgive you if you don’t outlive me.”

“I feel exactly the same way about you,” I said, making her laugh. I watched her walk over to the Mustang and called out, “Will you be able to park that thing in your friend’s garage?”

“That,” she called back, “was the first consideration in deciding where to stay!”

I watched to make sure no one followed her, then drove off, sparing one last, worried look at my Karma

For a while I drove aimlessly, checking the rearview mirror often. I stopped at a gas station, filled up the tank. Travis slept through it all.

I picked up the cell phone and called Rachel. I asked her to meet me in the parking lot of a grocery store on the east side of town.

I got there first. I opened some windows and the roof vent, so that Travis wouldn’t suffocate in the afternoon heat, and stepped outside. I stayed next to the van, even after Rachel parked several spaces away.

She walked over and I explained what was happening. I told her she could look through the photos while I picked up a few things in the store.

I wasn’t gone long; I had no idea how many days we’d spend on the road, but being an optimist, I guessed on the low side. Besides, there wasn’t much room in the van’s little refrigerator.

We stepped outside to talk.

“What are your plans for these photos?” she asked in a low voice.

“I’m going to have a talk with your friend McCain.”

She didn’t comment on that, or shrug or gesture. That made me uneasy. “You’ve seen him lately?” I asked.

“Had lunch with him today.” After a moment she added, “Talked over old times.”

“No kidding.”

“Listen, you have something on your mind, say it.”

“And get my ass kicked? No thank you.”

“I won’t touch you, and you know it. So speak up.”

I didn’t say anything.

“All right, then,” she said.

After a long silence, during which neither one of us would look at the other, she said, “You need anything?”