Past 6 A.M., as dawn was brightening her window, she found a way to sleep. She expected bad dreams, but there were none. Her mind had shut down at last, and she drifted weightless in the humming dark.
And woke to see Travis gazing down at her.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Did I wake you?”
She sat up quickly, noting in a detached way that she experienced no vertigo after the change of position, and that her headache was entirely gone.
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I guess you did, but it’s all right. What time is it?”
“Eight thirty.”
“In the morning?” she asked stupidly.
Travis smiled. “Saturday morning, March twenty-six. How are you feeling?”
“Not so bad, just drowsy. Didn’t get much sleep last night. How about you?”
“No sleep. Spent all night at the sheriff’s station. The captain in charge of the Malibu-Lost Hills station was extremely interested in what I had to say, as were two of his detectives.”
“You sure it’s not too soon to make an accusation? We don’t have any hard evidence—”
“We do now. Our computer techs found a link between Western Regional Resources and the company that owns the bungalow in Culver City. However, I didn’t approach the subject that way with the captain. I left the bungalow out of it for now. Didn’t want to raise any questions about unauthorized activities.”
“You mean, like the fact that I illegally entered the place and searched it?”
“Exactly. All I said was that we’d learned Howard Barwood has at least one dummy corporation, Western Regional Resources, and we have reason to believe he may own a cell phone registered to that company. I suggested that if in fact Howard is Hickle’s informant, then Howard might have used that phone to talk with him or arrange a rendezvous. I suggested they check the cellular carrier’s records.”
“Did they?”
“Yes. They found the Thursday night call made to Hickle’s apartment. That was when they started taking a serious interest in Mr. Barwood, though he doesn’t know it yet.”
“Where’s Howard now?”
“Scheduled for a talk with those two detectives I mentioned. They’ll be handling him with kid gloves, giving him the OJ treatment. He’s well-connected, and they don’t want to do anything rash until they know what’s going on.”
“Just be sure they keep an eye on him. If they give him too long a leash, he may take off. Then you’ll have to tell them about the bungalow.”
“Why? You think he’d go there?”
“It’s possible. He keeps a gun in his nightstand. He might want to pick it up, especially if he has any plans to rendezvous with Hickle.”
“A gun? You never mentioned that.”
“It didn’t seem too important at the time. A little Colt forty-five, like the malt liquor.”
One of the nurses appeared in the doorway, telling Travis he’d been allowed only five minutes with the patient, and his time was up.
“I was just leaving,” Travis said with a smile.
The nurse was not charmed. “See that you do. Miss Sinclair suffered a nasty concussion in a racquetball game.” She squinted at Travis suspiciously. “You wouldn’t happen to be the one she was playing with?”
“Abby and I never play games,” Travis said. “At least not with each other.”
The nurse frowned, aware that some sort of veiled joke had been told but unable to see the punch line. “Well, say your goodbyes, and let the patient sleep.”
When the nurse was gone, Abby smiled at Travis. “See how well protected I am?”
“I should hire her for TPS. She’d make a good bodyguard. As for Howard, you don’t have to worry about him. Men of his social standing seldom run. They stick around and hire smart lawyers. They always think they can beat the system. Half the time they’re right.”
“I guess so.”
“But I’ll keep the bungalow in mind. If he runs, I’ll tell the police.” He touched her hand lightly, then pulled away. “Better get going before Nurse Ratched returns. Besides, there’s another stop I have to make on this floor. Kris is here.”
“Kris? Right down the hall?”
He nodded. “She showed symptoms of neurogenic shock. The paramedics brought her in.”
“Saint John’s would have been closer, or UCLA Medical.”
“Her regular physician is on call at Cedars, so this is where she wanted to come. And you don’t say no to Kris Barwood, especially now. If you thought she was big before, you should see the coverage of this case.”
She understood what he was thinking. “Then maybe TPS will make a comeback?”
“Here’s hoping.”
“And maybe…maybe I can let it go.” She said the words softly, half to herself.
“Corbal?” Travis asked.
She nodded. “I know I told you I wasn’t trying to prove anything or redeem myself. I lied. It’s all I’ve thought about for the past four months. The way I screwed up…and what I could do to try to make it right.”
“You did everything you could,” Travis said gently, “and then some. Now get some sleep. You’ve earned a good long rest.”
“I will. Thanks, Paul.”
She let her head fall back on the pillow, drowsiness washing over her. She was closing her eyes when Travis leaned down and kissed her forehead, a tender act, unusual for him.
“A good long rest,” he repeated softly.
She was asleep before he left the room.
42
Their names were Giacomo and Heller, and they greeted Howard Barwood at the sheriff’s station with smiles and handshakes, saying how much they appreciated his taking the time to clear up a few minor details about the case. He scarcely listened. He’d slept little, having spent most of the night at Cedars-Sinai with Kris. He was tired and hungry; Courtney had fixed him breakfast, but he’d had no appetite. Above all, he was burdened with guilt.
He regretted his every hour with Amanda. He regretted every thought of leaving Kris. He regretted being a bad husband. What made it worse was that he knew this was only a mood that would pass, and before long he would be sneaking out for more liaisons with Amanda or some new young thing. His good intentions never lasted.
Preoccupied with these thoughts, he let Giacomo and Heller usher him into a small office, where they offered him a seat at a battered wooden table. They sat opposite him. Heller took out a notepad and a pen. Giacomo placed a cassette recorder on the table and said something about a need to record the interview to ensure an accurate transcript. “Fine,” Howard said indifferently.
Giacomo did most of the talking. He began by speaking into the recorder, giving the location, date and time of the interview. Howard noticed he used military time—oh-nine-hundred thirty-five hours. “We’re here with Mr. Howard Barwood,” Giacomo said, asking for Howard’s birthdate. Howard rattled it off without thinking, his voice alien to him, coming from far away.
“Now, Mr. Barwood, I’m going to give you your constitutional rights. It would be good if you would listen carefully—”
For the first time Howard roused himself. “My rights?”
Giacomo said yes, and Heller nodded, both men smiling in a way that seemed too friendly.
Howard blinked. “Am I a suspect or something?” The idea seemed bizarre, incomprehensible.
“Actually, Mr. Barwood, we’re mainly interested in eliminating you as a suspect.”
“But…a suspect in what? Hickle attacked Kris. People saw him. I was in the house—”
“Of course you were. There are witnesses who support everything you just said. And nobody doubts that Raymond Hickle ambushed that car.”
“Then what…?” He couldn’t finish the question. Nothing was making sense.
“There are always a lot of angles in a case like this,” Giacomo said. “We need to tie up some loose ends, that’s all.”
Angles, loose ends…Howard was baffled. “You never said anything about viewing me
as a suspect.”
Heller spoke. “We don’t view you that way. Truth is, we hate to even waste your time with this. What we’d like is to get it over with so we can all go home.”
“It’s been a long night for everybody,” Giacomo said.
“I’m beat,” Heller added.
Vaguely Howard understood that something was taking place that was not necessarily to his benefit. But the two detectives were right about one thing. It had indeed been a long night. He was reluctant to walk out of the interview now, only to return later and go through all this rigmarole again. And if he did walk out, he’d have to contact Martin Greenfeld, his attorney. Martin would never let him talk to any detectives or waive any rights. Martin believed in handling every situation as if it were an adversarial contest played for the highest stake.
Howard imagined the consequences of refusing to talk. The story would leak to the media. People would suspect him of complicity in the attempted murder of his wife. And if his relationship with Amanda came out…
On the other hand, if he simply kept Martin and all other lawyers out of it and did as the detectives asked, he could be done with this interview in thirty minutes. No suspicions, no rumors, no damaging publicity, no journalists digging up dirt.
“Fine,” he said evenly. “Let’s proceed.”
Giacomo recited Howard’s rights. Howard said he understood them. Yes, he wished to give up his right to remain silent. Yes, he gave up his right to have an attorney present. Yes, yes, yes.
Then there were questions about his activities last night. He told his story about taking the Lexus for a long drive up the coast. The detectives didn’t interrupt or challenge him. He began to think this really was a routine interview. By the time he narrated the climax of the story—the moment when, standing on his beachfront deck, he’d heard gunshots—he was relaxed and confident. He didn’t need Martin to hold his hand. He could take care of himself. “So that’s the way it happened,” he finished.
“Great, Mr. Barwood.” Giacomo spoke in the tone of a man adjourning a meeting. “I guess you drove that Lexus of yours here today, didn’t you?”
“I drive it everywhere. I love that car.”
“Maybe when we’re done here, Kevin and I could take a look at the odometer.”
This froze Howard. “The odometer?”
“Just to note the number for our records. If you’ve been driving up to Santa Barbara on a regular basis, you must have logged some serious miles.”
“Well…I may have exaggerated the number of trips I took. And it’s a new car, quite new. There aren’t a lot of miles on it yet.” He was starting to babble. He shut up.
Heller wrote something in his pad.
“Okay, well, we’ll talk about that later,” Giacomo said blandly. “Now I wonder if you could tell us anything about this company of yours, Western Regional Resources.”
Western Regional. How the hell could they know about that? How was it possible? Why would it even come up? “I don’t think my business holdings are relevant,” he said stiffly, playing for time.
“Oh, you’re probably right, Mr. Barwood.” Giacomo would not stop smiling. “It’s another of those loose ends we told you about. You do own a company called Western Regional Resources, don’t you? Or are we wrong about that?”
By all logic Howard knew he should stop the interview and get Martin Greenfeld on the phone, but stubbornly he still believed he could talk his way out. He was a good talker. He had developed parcel after parcel of prime Westside real estate on the strength of his facility with words, his charm, his self-possession. He called on those faculties to rescue him now.
“I own it,” he said slowly, punctuating the admission with an insouciant shrug. “Western Regional Resources is a corporation I established in the Netherlands Antilles. All perfectly legal. There are sound reasons—tax-liability reasons—for setting up such an entity. As I say, it’s all within the bounds of the law.”
Giacomo said he was sure it was. “And in the course of setting up this offshore, uh, entity, you presumably set up a few other things? Like a bank account?”
“Yes.”
“And you arranged for someone to oversee the account and handle any legal issues for the company, right?”
“A bank officer in the Antilles does that for me, yes.”
“And I suppose you might have acquired, say, a residence in the Antilles for business purposes.”
“No residence. I used a hotel the one time I went there.”
“How about other acquisitions? A car, a phone, a club membership?”
“Nothing like that. Western Regional Resources is—well, it’s a legitimate corporation—I mean, it’s legal in every way, but—but it has no tangible assets, it’s not a going concern, it’s—”
“A dummy corporation?” Giacomo asked.
Heller was writing in his pad again.
“It could be described that way,” Howard said.
“A tax haven?”
“It’s all legal,” he repeated for what felt like the fiftieth time. The hell of it was, the goddamned arrangement really was legal. But he wouldn’t expect these two ruffians to understand that. They could hardly relate to his problems, his priorities. If he claimed he was hiding money from the IRS, they wouldn’t sympathize. And if he admitted the truth—that he was executing an end run around California’s community property laws to smooth his way through an upcoming divorce—well, they would think he had a motive for getting rid of Kris…
And in fact, he did have such a motive, didn’t he?
Didn’t he?
“Do you have any other business entities offshore, Mr. Barwood?” Giacomo asked. He put a slight, disdainful emphasis on the word entities.
“I don’t think I’m under any obligation to discuss the details of my financial situation with you,” Howard said.
Heller’s pen scratched again.
“Okay, that’s fine.” Giacomo was still smiling. He must smile in his sleep. “We’re trying to tidy things up here, that’s all. I guess you were over at KPTI the other night.”
The change of subject startled Howard, but he was happy to drop the issue of his business dealings. “That’s right.”
“What night was that? Tuesday, wasn’t it? March twenty-second?”
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“Some people who work there mentioned that you were around. It’s nice to share an evening with your wife at her place of work, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Howard said warily.
“Though I understand you weren’t with her the whole time. You spent a good part of the night with the producer. Miss Gilbert—isn’t that her name?”
Howard focused all his willpower on the task of holding his face expressionless. “Amanda Gilbert,” he said.
“Amanda, yeah. She a friend of yours?”
“Why would you say that? She works there, that’s all. She works there—”
“Hey, hey.” Giacomo held up both hands. “Take it easy. It’s just that some folks at the TV station seemed to think you and Amanda were pretty friendly with each other. Maybe a little less friendly when your wife was around.”
“What are you implying?” Howard breathed, as if the question needed to be asked.
“Not implying anything, Mr. Barwood. How does Amanda feel about those offshore accounts? She like the idea?”
“I never told—” He caught himself. “She doesn’t know anything about my private affairs.” Damn, affairs—the wrong word to use. “She’s Kris’s business associate, that’s all. We have no personal relationship—”
“Funny.” That was Heller, finding his voice for the first time in a long while. “She told us something different when we talked to her a couple of hours ago.”
There was silence. The detectives stared at him. Howard stared back, his gaze ticking from one interrogator to the other. He had no way of knowing if they had actually talked to Amanda or were merely hoping to elicit some incriminating response
. But if they hadn’t interviewed Amanda yet, they soon would. And she would break. She was weak. Any woman who needed to assert her individuality by having a tattoo stamped onto her butt, for God’s sake, was weak by definition. And what had he ever found alluring about that ridiculous tattoo anyway?
“Mr. Barwood?” Giacomo ventured.
Howard looked at him, then widened his field of view to take in the table, the fluorescent light panel overhead, the bare walls, the short-nap carpet, the metal wastebasket in the corner. It was real to him finally—where he was, whom he was facing, what was happening here. This was a sheriff’s station, and these men were cops, and they thought he was mixed up in the attack on Kris. They thought he had a motive. They thought they had the goods on him.
“Mr. Barwood,” Giacomo said again, not making an inquiry.
“I have nothing more to say,” Howard whispered. “I want to consult with my attorney.”
Heller closed his notepad.
“Okay.” Giacomo shrugged. “That’s your right, as we informed you.” He placed a hand on the tape recorder. “We’re terminating this at ten-hundred forty-six.”
He shut off the recorder. He and Heller stood up. Howard noticed they weren’t smiling anymore.
“You’re in trouble, Howard,” Giacomo said, not bothering to call him Mr. Barwood any longer. “You conspired with that psycho Hickle to ice your wife. You know it. We know it. And we’re going to prove it.”
They left him alone in the room to think about that.
43
Although Travis hadn’t had any sleep in more than twenty-four hours, he was curiously alert. An uninterrupted adrenaline rush from midnight onward had supercharged his nervous system, replenishing his energy whenever his strength began to flag. He had not felt this good in years.
Part of it was the excitement of the final round. His strategy, conceived months ago, had reached its climax. In a day or two, everything would be settled. The game would be over. And he could sense that it would end in his favor. Despite unanticipated setbacks, despite twists of fate that had required creative improvisation on his part, he had persevered and won.
The Shadow Hunter Page 27
