Page 77 of The Happy Month

The first thing he said was, “I’ve got a meeting in fifteen. Will this take long?”

“Five minutes, tops.”

“Great. Go ahead.”

“You didn’t tell me that your father was a suspect in Vera’s murder.”

“Okay, well…” He was obviously not expecting that. “It’s only in that stupid book. The police never thought he was a suspect.”

“What did your father think about that?”

“He thought it was funny. What else could he think of it?”

“He let Philburn have the last word,” I said, implying that was very unlawyerly.

“That’s not how he looked at it. Philburn was deliberately trying to provoke him. Hewantedto get sued. The publicity would have sold thousands of copies of his book. Not to mention, the suit would have failed. Defamation cases are hard enough to win without having to prove it’s you the author is talking about.”

Not bad points. I moved on to the next big question, “Did your father know your uncle was gay?”

“That’s a tough one. I didn’t know. So I don’t really know what anyone else knew. I will say that one of my dad’s favorite sayings was ‘Don’t know what you don’t want to know.’”

“That sounds like lawyer speak.”

“Definitely. Given the circumstanceshe would have considered my uncle’s sexuality a legal problem, so he wouldn’t have asked. In fact, he’d probably have discouraged Uncle Patrick from telling him.”

Through the window, I watched as two new guests arrived at the pool. Both were young and attractive. Both were impressively naked.

“Is that it?” Edwin asked.

“Ah, yeah, I think so…” my attention was elsewhere.

Edwin said goodbye and hung up. I put the phone back where it belonged and went out to the pool. Ronnie was already talking to the new guests. Seeing me, he swam over.

“Hey,” he said.

“I’m thinking we should drive over to Riverside and try to catch Andrea Grubber. We’ll be back by lunch.”

“Okay, soundsveryinteresting,” he said. Then climbed out of the pool.

I followed him back to the room, appreciating his ass every step of the way. Before I went in, I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that I had not been alone in my appreciation.

By the time we got to Riverside it was after ten. The temperature was a frigid hundred and ten. When we found Andrea Grubber’s house for the second time, there was a minivan in the driveway. She was home. I pulled the Legend up behind the minivan, Ronnie and I got out.

Normally, I wouldn’t involve him in a case I was working on for The Freedom Agenda. Those cases were likely to go to court and no one wanted to explain what my real estate boyfriend was doing at an interview. It didn’t matter much with the Patrick Gill thing because that would never go to court, and even it were to spawn a trial for some reason I’m not under any professional strictures and couldn’t be criticized.

For obvious reasons, I shouldn’t have let him come with me to talk to Andrea Grubber, but I wasn’t going to leave him in Palm Springs in a pool full of naked men, and I certainly wasn’t going to leave him in a hot car.

We knocked on the front door and a moment later it was opened by a frazzled looking woman of about forty-five.

“I work for The Freedom Agenda. You wrote an article about Pete Michaels about twenty years ago?—”

“For God’s sake come inside. I can’t afford to refrigerate my entire front yard.”

We stepped into the house. There were two toddlers in the living room. Andrea had constructed a kind of corral out of the furniture and a couple of gates. It looked kind of clever.

“So, as you were saying…”

“Yes. We represent Larry Wilkes. We feel that he’s innocent. I’d like to ask you a few questions about an article you wrote forThe Downey Ledger.”