Self-Defense (43 page)

Remembering what Eddy Sylvester had said
about Mullins claiming a doctor father, I called New Jersey information and
asked for any Mullinses with M.D.’s in Teaneck.

“The only one I have,” said the operator,
“is a Dr. Winston Mullins, but that’s in Englewood.”

At that number, a man with an elderly,
cultured voice said, “Hello?”

“Dr. Mullins?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

I gave him the biography story.

No reply.

“Dr. Mullins?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. Darnel’s
been dead for a long time.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” he said. “A little over twenty
years. I guess I never called Columbia to notify them.”

“Was he ill?”

“No, he was murdered.”

“Oh, no!”

“Out where you are, matter of fact. He had
an apartment in Hollywood. Surprised a burglar, and the burglar shot him. They
never caught the man. I’m sure Darnel would have liked to talk to you. He
always wanted to be a writer.”

“Yes, I know, I’ve got one of his articles
here with me.”

“Really?”

“Something from the
Manhattan Book
Review.
He used a pen name. Denton—”

“Mellors,” he said. “After a character in
a dirty book. He did that because I didn’t approve of that paper—too left-wing.
After that, he kept using it, maybe to prove something to me, though I don’t
know what.”

He sounded very sad.

“It says here he was working on a novel,”
I said.

“
The Bride.
He never finished it,
I’ve got the manuscript. I tried to read it. Not my type of thing but not bad
at all. Maybe he could have gotten it published... sorry I couldn’t help you.”

“What kind of a book is it?”

“Well,” he said, “that’s hard to say.
There’s some romance in it—a young man’s book, I guess. Learning the ropes,
falling in love. A coming-of-age novel, I suppose you’d call it.”

Feeling like dirt, I said, “Would it be
possible to send me a copy? Maybe I can quote from it in my book.”

“Don’t see why not. It’s just sitting in a
drawer here.”

I gave him my address.

“Malibu,” he said. “You must be a
successful writer. Darnel said that’s where the successful people live.”

Literary critic to aspiring novelist to
motel manager.

Working for some guys from Reno.

The Advent Group. Why was that name
familiar?

Even while managing the motel, he’d held
on to his ambition.

Kicking Sylvester out of the office to use
the typewriter from time to time.

From the way Sylvester had reacted to my
questions, I was sure one of those times had been the night of the Barnard hit.

Mullins setting up the hit, maybe even
pulling the trigger.

Finished off, himself, a few months later.

A light-skinned black man. Blond, blue
eyes.

Light, fuzzy mustache, not the dark
scimitar Lucy remembered, but as I’d told Lucy, dreams play fast and loose with
reality.

Something else didn’t fit. Dr. Mullins’s
description of
The Bride
bore no similarity to the trash App had given
me. Had Mullins used the same title for two disparate works?

Or had App given me the script summary as
a diversion? Directing my attention to Mullins because
he
had something
to hide?

I remembered my initial scenario of
Karen’s disappearance: a man in a fancy car picking her up on the road to
Topanga. It didn’t get much fancier than a red Ferrari.

Still, there was nothing connecting App to
Karen, and Mullins wasn’t coming across like some innocent shill.

I thought of the way his career had dived
after Karen’s disappearance.

Lowell distancing himself from
co-conspirators?

Eliminating the undependable ones?

Karen, Felix Barnard, Mullins. And where
was Trafficant?

But the Sheas still lived on the beach.

I left a note for Robin and hit the
highway once more. Gwen’s van was parked in front of her house. Cars were lined
up all along the beach side. No space for the Seville, but the land side was
nearly empty. I pulled over and was about to chance a run across the highway as
soon as northbound traffic thinned when I saw the van’s headlights go on. It
sat there idling, then pulled out.

It took a minute or so to get into the
center turn lane, another few to pull off a three-point and head south. I put
on as much speed as the traffic could bear and finally saw the van, eight or
nine lengths up. It stopped at the light at the bottom of the ramp up to Ocean Front
Avenue. By the time it was heading east on Colorado, I was three lengths behind
and maintaining that distance.

I followed it to Lincoln Boulevard, where
it headed south again, through Santa Monica and Venice, then over to Sepulveda,
where it continued at a steady pace, making more lights than it missed.

We crossed into Inglewood, a mixture of
Eisenhower-era suburbs and new Asian businesses. Fifteen minutes later, we were
approaching Century Boulevard.

The airport.

The van entered the Departure lanes and
continued to the parking lot opposite the Bradley International Terminal. It
rode around a while, trying to find a ground-floor space, though the upper
levels were less crowded. I parked on the third level, took the stairs down,
and was waiting behind a hedge when Gwen emerged, ten minutes later, pushing
Travis in his wheelchair, her purse over her shoulder.

No baggage.

Jets thundered overhead. Cars sped along
the road, which snaked through the airport like a freeway.

Gwen walked to an intersection. A red light
stopped her before she could cross the street to the terminal. Travis twisted
his head, moved his mouth, and rolled his eyes. Gwen looked around nervously. I
hung back and kept my head down.

She wore an expensive-looking white linen
dress and white flats. A string of pearls glimmered around her neck. Her short
dark hair shone, but even at this distance her eyes were old.

Short hair. Somber look. The grumpy
baby-sitter Ken remembered?

Abandoning her post, then returning to
discover Lucy gone?

Going to look for her and finding her
sleepwalking?

Seeing and hearing what Lucy had would
have been grounds for a payoff.

The light turned green and she entered the
terminal’s big, bright, green-glassed atrium. A dozen airlines flew out of
here. She headed for the Aeromexico desk. Waiting in the First Class line, she
moved up quickly to the clerk. He smiled at her, then listened to what she had
to say. Travis was twisting and turning in the chair. People stared. The
terminal was crowded. Phony nuns panhandled. I picked up an abandoned newspaper
and pretended to read it, looking, instead, at a TV screen filled with flight
information.

Aeromexico 546, leaving in one hour for
Mexico City.

The clerk was shaking his head.

Gwen looked at her watch, then turned and
pointed at Travis.

The clerk got on the phone, spoke, got
off, shook his head again.

Gwen leaned toward him, standing taller,
her calf muscles swelling.

The clerk kept shaking his head. Then he
called another man over. The second man listened to Gwen, got on the phone.
Shook his head. Half a dozen people had lined up behind her. The second clerk
pointed to them. Gwen turned around. Her face blazed with anger and her hands
were clenched.

No one in the queue said anything or
moved, but some of the travelers were staring at Travis.

Gwen took hold of the chair’s handlebars
and wheeled him away.

I followed as she pushed her way through
the crowd to a row of phone booths. All were occupied and she waited, twisting
her hair and tapping a handlebar. When a booth opened, she dashed in and stayed
on the phone for fifteen minutes, feeding coins and punching numbers. When she
emerged, she looked crushed and even jumpier, rubbing her fingers together very
fast, biting her lip, eyes darting up and down the terminal.

I stuck with her, back to the parking lot.
Running up the three flights and timing my exit from the lot to hers was
tricky, but I managed to get two vehicles behind her as she paid at the kiosk.
I stayed with her out of the airport and onto the 405 North. She took it to the
10 West, got off at Route 1.

Back to Malibu.

But instead of pulling over at La Costa,
she continued on another few miles.

Shopping center across from the pier.

The parking lot was nearly empty. The only
business still open was a submarine sandwich store, bright and yellow. I put
the Seville in a dark corner and stayed in the car as Gwen got Travis out of
the van.

She pushed him up the ramp to the surf
shop, then stopped. Opening her purse, she took out her wallet and pulled out a
gold credit card. Staring at it blankly, she replaced it and knitted her
fingers some more. Travis moved constantly. Gwen took out a key. She was
opening the shop’s front door when I stepped up and said, “Hi.”

She threw up her hands defensively,
letting go of the chair. It started to slide back and I held it in place. The
boy had to weigh a hundred and twenty pounds.

Gwen’s eyes were huge and the hand that
held the keys was drawn back, ready to strike.

“Get the hell out of here or I’ll scream!”

“Scream away.”

Travis had positioned his head at an
impossible angle, trying to get a look at me. His smile was innocent and empty.

“I mean it,” she said.

“So do I. What was the problem at the
airport? Tickets not there as planned?”

Her mouth opened and her arm dropped
slowly, the hand settling on her left breast, as if pledging allegiance.

“You’re as crazy as your father,” she
said.

“My father?”

“Don’t fool with me, Mr.
Best.
”
Putting weight on the last word, as if her knowledge would throw me off.

“You think I’m his son?”

“I
know
you are. I saw you with him
when he tried to break in. Now you’re asking questions all around town,
pretending to be someone else.”

“Pretending?”

“Pretending to be a customer, buying those
Big Dogs. We don’t want your business, mister. You get the hell out of here and
tell your father he’s going to get both of you in big trouble. People know us
in Malibu. You get lost, or I’m calling the police.”

“Please do,” I said, pulling out my
wallet. I had an out-of-date card that said I’d once consulted to the police,
along with one of Milo’s. I hoped the word
Homicide
would impress her.
Hoped her panic would stop her from remembering that LAPD had no jurisdiction
here.

Confusion clogged her face.

Travis said something incoherent. He was
still smiling at me.

“I don’t...” She inspected the cards
again. “You’re a
psychologist
?”

“It’s complicated, Mrs. Shea. But go ahead
and call the police, they’ll clear it up for you. Karen Best’s death is back
under investigation because of new facts, a new witness. I’m involved in
helping the police question that witness. They know, now, that something
happened to Karen at the Sanctum party and that you and your husband and Doris
Reingold got paid off to keep quiet about it.”

Throwing out wild cards. The way she
fought to stay still told me I had a winning hand.

Her right eye twitched. She said, “Easy,
honey,” to Travis, even though he looked happy.

“This is absolutely crazy.”

“At the very least, we’re talking
obstruction of justice. Even if the plane tickets had been there, you’d never
have been allowed to board. I think it’s pretty obvious you were being watched.
If I were you, I’d start making arrangements for Travis. Somewhere clean and
trustworthy where he can stay while you’re tied up in the legal system. ’Bye,
have a nice day.”

I started to leave. She made a grab for my
arm, but I moved away.

“Why are you
doing
this to me?”

“I’m not doing anything. To be honest, I’m
not even here, officially. If the police knew I’d followed you, they’d probably
be upset. They think I’m a bleeding heart. Maybe I am, but I’ve treated kids
with CP and I know it’s not easy under the best of circumstances. What you’ve
got ahead of you is far from the best.”

Watching the boy contort and remembering
how I’d lied to Dr. Mullins, justice seemed very abstract. Thinking about
Karen’s buried corpse, Sherrel Best and his grief, brought it a little closer
to home.

“What do you
want
?”

“The truth about Karen.”

“Why don’t the police come themselves?”