A Death In Beverly Hills, page 7
"So, you were negotiating for this part when you talked to Berdue? Will the director and the producer back you up?" Steve stared at Travis expectantly and was met with a blank stare.
"Fuck!" Travis finally said, banging his fist on the table and turning away. "I gotta say it? You want me to spell it out?" Puzzled, Steve looked at Greg to see if he had a clue what Travis was talking about. "This town," Travis hissed, "this town has no heart, it's like a fucking robot monster. It doesn't care what you've done, who you were, only who you are. I was the number one box office star for four years in a row. Four years. Now, half the time they hear 'Tom Travis' they won't even let me read for the part. This was a big book with real talent behind the movie. I could have played this guy, played the hell out of him. A-Class director, A-Class production, best seller, this role would have put me back on top, like Frank Sinatra after From Here To Eternity.
"Yeah, sure I wanted to talk to a hit man. I wanted any edge I could fucking get! I figured that if I could get some coaching, pick out a good scene from the book and get them to give me a chance, just let me read for it, I could get the part. So, yeah, I asked Bobby Berdue if he could help me. I knew he'd been in the joint. I figured maybe he could turn me on to somebody who could, you know, coach me."
"But he didn't."
"Didn't even return my call. Can you believe that? This fucking small time, ex-con loser won't return my call. Unbelievable."
"Okay, it's not that bad. Even if you didn't get the part, the director--"
Travis waved his hand and scowled when his wrist snapped to a halt at the end of the chain. "See, that's the thing. I never got the chance to read for the part. By the time I figured out I wasn't getting any help from Bobby Berdue there was a story in the Trades that Eastwood was taking the part for himself. Well, fuck, if Clint Eastwood is going to star and direct nobody wants to hear from Tom Travis. If I'd have called them after that, they'd have laughed me right out of town. God damn Leno would have put it in his opening monolog."
"So you took the horror movie."
"Yeah, I took the horror movie. A million bucks! Christ, there was a time when I wouldn't cross the street in this town for a million bucks. Hell, if you offered me a million bucks a few years back and I'd have punched your lights out for insulting me with chump change." Travis gazed sadly around the cell. "And I thought things couldn't get any worse than doing some screamer for a million flat, then I end up in here." Travis shook his head.
Have you forgotten that your wife and baby are dead? Steve wondered. He sat perfectly still, offended into silence and realizing for the first time the immense gulf between Tom Travis's view of the world and that of normal people, that everything Travis heard and saw was distorted through the prism of his own celebrity. Steve turned back to his notes.
"Tom, you told Kaitlen Berdue that you had had an argument with your wife the day she disappeared. How big an argument was it, I mean was it the typical husband-wife stuff or was there screaming and shouting?"
"Where I come from screaming and shouting isa normal husband and wife stuff," Travis said, smiling. Steve just stared at him. "Yeah, okay," Travis continued, "no flying plates, nothing physical. Look, it was a constant thing with her the last couple of months. I put it down to hormones and her being fat. She'd get on my case and I'd tell her to get off. She'd say something and I'd tell her to go to hell. She'd call me names--"
"What kind of names?"
"Jeeze, we gotta get into that?"
"Think of me like your doctor."
"What kind of names?" Tom muttered. "Okay, 'fool', 'jerk', 'lazy self-centered bastard', 'narcissistic, lazy, self-centered, bastard'. I thought that last one was just plain redundant," Travis said with a thin smile.
"Then what?"
Travis scowled. "Then I'd say some things." Steve stared and finally Travis continued. "I'd remind her that it was my house and my money that paid for it and if I wanted to sit on my butt in my own easy chair that was my right. I'd remind her that I started out with nothing, moving furniture, pumping gas, that I'd gotten into the business risking my neck doing stunts and that I'd earned every dollar she was spending. Then she'd scream some more, and I'd want to punch her lights out but I wouldn't. I learned that in anger management. When I started to feel like that, like hitting her, I'd just got out. Went to the weight room or hit the pool or, like that day, I took off to pound the dune buggy against the desert.
"So, yeah, okay, we argued, but I never touched her. I just left. I didn't put her in the back of the Hummer. I didn't take a shovel with me. I didn't bury her in the desert. I was pissed off, sure. But, like I said, I put her behavior down to her hormones being out of whack because of the pregnancy. I figured once she had the baby, she'd go back to normal."
How many women are there on the jury? Steve wondered.
"Tom, I know you've been asked this a hundred times, but I've got to go back to it. Who could have done this? It wasn't a robbery. It wasn't a sex crime. The odds of this being a random serial killer are like billions to one. Someone wanted Marian, or you, dead. Who could it have been?" Travis sat immobile, staring at his distorted image in the steel table top. "How about Kaitlen Berdue?" Steve asked a moment later.
"Kaitlen couldn't swat a fly. She doesn't have it in her."
"She sure did a number on you. Have you heard the tapes she made for the cops?"
"Yeah, I've heard them. They took advantage of her."
"Tom, the main reason you're on trial" Greg broke in, "is those tapes. They inflamed the public and turned everybody against you. If we don't find some evidence pointing to someone else, they're going to get you convicted. If she could set you up that way, is it that long a jump to thinking that maybe she had something to do with your wife's death?"
Travis kept his head down, slowly shaking it from side to side. "I lied to her," he said finally in almost a whisper.
"What?"
"It's my own fault. I lied to her, all that shit about Marian being a lesbo." Suddenly, Travis looked up. "This is all confidential, right, attorney-client privilege?"
Greg and Steve gave each other a quick look and Markham nodded.
"Okay, well, the truth is that I was in love with her, Katey. I figured I'd wait until the baby was born and when Marian was back on her feet, emotionally I mean, we'd have a nice quiet divorce. We had a pre-nup so it wasn't going to be any problem, financially. Flat payment of a million bucks, $10,000 a month alimony for two years and child support. My divorce lawyer told me that child support would be another $5,000 a month until the alimony ran out then it would go up to $10K. I had no problem with those numbers. Anyway, right after the divorce I was going to ask Katey to marry me. Then everything went out of control. I don't blame her. How was she to know I was going to marry her? As far as she knew, I just flat out lied to her to get her into the sack. I don't blame her. Hell, I can't even blame the cops. They took advantage of her sweet nature but I guess they were just doing their jobs."
Steve shook his head in amazement. "Tom, you do remember telling Kaitlen on one of the tapes that you and she could get married as soon as the publicity over Marian's disappearance died down? And she didn't believe you."
"Well, given everything that happened, who would? I guess I'll never get her back now, will I?"
Steve wanted to grab Travis's shoulders and just shake him. You're about to be convicted of first degree murder and maybe get sentenced to death and you're still thinking that the woman who betrayed you to the cops is going to take you back and you'll both live happily ever after? What fucking planet are you living on?
"Okay, Tom," Steve said more calmly than he felt, "if Kaitlen wasn't involved, who else is there?"
"My money's on her brother."
"Why him?"
"One," Travis raised his index finger, "he's a low life punk. He could put the hammer down on somebody, or find a guy who could. Two, he wanted a piece of me. I could see it in his eyes. He looked at me like some big lotto ticket that was about to pay off. If Katey and me got hitched, you can bet Bobby planned on being right there with his hand out. But as far as he knew, that wasn't going to happen, at least as long as Marian was in the picture. I figure he hired some scumbag ex-con friend to do it and they screwed it up and dumped her in the desert."
"It was just coincidence they buried her within two miles of where you were driving your dune buggy?"
"Okay, maybe they kept her body someplace and when everything hit the fan and Katey turned against me, they figured the marriage was never gonna happen and they put Marian there to implicate me and take the heat off themselves."
Steve and Greg exchanged a brief look of disbelief.
"Is there anybody else who might have wanted to hurt Marian or get her out of the way?"
Travis shook his head and sighed. "Like I said, we weren't getting along so good but there's nobody who'd be angry enough with her to want her dead."
Except you, Steve said to himself. "How about someone who might want to hurt you?"
"You think somebody murdered Marian to make me look bad? Why not just kill me in the first place?"
"Tom," Greg said very quietly, "if we can't convince the jury either that someone had a motive to kill Marian or that they killed her to get even with you, then they're going to go with Plan A and figure you did it. So, who might have wanted to cause you trouble?"
Travis stared at the wall for a long three seconds, then, reluctantly, gave his head a little shake. "I've got nothing. What about all those leads that came into the Tip Line? Are you sure there's nothing there? What about those other pregnant women who went missing? Why are you so sure this wasn't a serial killer or a cult murder or something?"
"We'll check them again," Steve said wearily.
"And the brother. . . ."
"He's my next stop. I'll have a long talk with him, check out his known associates, get his credit card receipts and phone calls for the day of the disappearance. Greg, you'll handle the subpoenas?"
"I've already done it. I'm just waiting for the docs to come in from AT&T and VISA. It should only be a couple of more days."
"Okay, then." Steve stood and offered Travis his hand. The gleam of perspiration under the cell's harsh lights made the star's face seem sunken, his hair sparse, his pallid skin clear beneath the fine hairs.
"I really am sorry, about Lynn," Tom said as he grasped Steve's hand. "I mean, she was so . . . special. All the phonies I've known in this town, and I meet two real women, Lynn and Katey, and lose them both. Shit, what a jerk. If I only . . . but Hell, we don't get do-overs in life, do we, Steve?"
No, we don't, Janson mumbled to himself as the jailer led Tom Travis back to his cell.
Chapter Thirteen
It was late afternoon when Steve reached Bobby Berdue's cottage. The old Airstream, sagging and weathered, still crouched behind the structure, but Bobby's F150 was nowhere to be seen. Steve parked at the end of the gravel drive and, cupping his hands, peered through the window. The front door soaked up his knocks without response. Stepping off the porch, tufts of ankle high grass tugged at his feet. Around him the air was full of sounds. A raven the size of a small hawk cawed from the top of an oak tree. The breeze, funneling in through the far end of the canyon, carried scents of spring grass, eucalyptus, manzanita, camphor and dust as it rustled the oak's fleshy leaves. At the edge of the valley the highway was as deserted as if man had disappeared from the world leaving all his works behind. Steve turned at a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye.
Across the meadow a red tailed hawk skimmed low, his claws darting into a clump of fennel stalks and emerging with a flailing black squirrel. Involuntarily, Steve glanced over his shoulder as if fearing that some predator was swooping in behind him, but there was only the sky tinted in the palest of fading blues and smeared at the edges with streaks of white and gray. A brief gust ruffled Steve's hair, then died leaving behind the scent of mold and dead leaves. Steve took one more look at the forlorn landscape then paced back to Lynn's Mercedes which, together with an oil painting she had bought on their honeymoon in the south of France, were the last tangible pieces of their life together he still possessed.
The nearest town was Coulton, barely more than a clump of buildings housing a general store, a church, a bar, and a gas station. The church was closed but the other three establishments announced their availability with smears of neon tubing in red, blue and green. A scatter of haphazardly parked pickup trucks and motorcycles filled the asphalt lot in front of Pilgrim's Bar & Grill. A blue neon blunderbuss spitting red neon sparks flickered on the roof. The license number on one of the trucks was a match to Bobby Berdue's.
Inside, the air glowed Marlboro blue in the shafts of late afternoon light. The two guys playing pool, the bartender, and a pony-tailed thug in the back booth all gave Steve a suspicious once-over then turned away. Dressed in worn jeans, black t-shirt and a denim jacket he seemed to have passed muster. Steve wondered how long Greg Markham wearing his usual button-down collar shirt, $100 slacks and black wing-tips would have lasted before someone would have accidently spilled a pitcher of beer over his head. Ninety seconds, Steve decided, barely long enough to use the pay phone to call the Auto Club.
The bartender had a gut that sagged four inches over his belt buckle and a frizzy beard that almost covered the swastikas tattooed beneath each ear, prison tats done with a pin and ball point pen ink, as permanent as death itself.
"Beer," Steve ordered, slapping two singles on the bar. It arrived sloshing over the lip of the glass. Steve downed it in four long gulps. Wordlessly he put down another two dollars and pushed back the empty glass. The barman refilled it and wandered away. Steve took a long swallow, then looked around. Berdue's DMV picture depicted a hollow-cheeked young man with pale skin, black hair and blue-green eyes. At five feet eleven and a hundred forty pounds Berdue was either anorexic or a chronic consumer of crystal meth.
At the back of the bar a shadowed booth crouched between a vandalized jukebox and the hallway leading to the bathrooms. The booth held two men were engaged in a whispered conversation. By his profile one of them was Bobby Berdue. The other was the pony-tailed tough who had glared at Steve when he first entered. Janson turned away from the booth, his eyes vacant. Propping his feet up on the edge of a rickety chair, his shoulders angled just enough to see anyone entering or leaving, Steve let himself drift into a state as close to suspended animation as he could manage. He spoke to no one, looked at nothing, just gazed vaguely at the hazy mirror behind the bar.
Half an hour later Berdue's companion scuttled through Steve's field of vision and out into the gathering night. Steve tossed the bartender two more singles and carried the fresh beer into the booth. Berdue gave Steve a cross-eyed glare.
"You look like you could use a beer," Steve said, pushing the glass over the scarred table.
"Who're you?"
"I'm the guy buying you a beer."
Bobby squinted in the dim light and gauged Steve's two hundred pounds and six foot three inch frame, his meaty fingers and big hands and decided that a shove and a punch were not a wise response.
"What do you want?" Bobby asked suspiciously, but he still took the beer.
"Just a few minutes of your valuable time. Is that a problem?"
"Maybe I don't like guys butting into my life."
"You got something better to do? What's the matter, you don't like beer?"
Bobby sneered and chugged the glass without taking a breath. Steve smiled and gestured to the barman to bring a pitcher. Nothing further was said until both had refilled their glasses.
"Okay," Bobby said, two swallows later, "you bought us a pitcher. What do you want?"
"I was talking to Tom Travis and your name came up. I thought I'd stop by and say hello."
"You're not a cop and you don't look like a lawyer."
"I'm not, any more. Got disbarred."
"They catch you with your fingers in the cookie jar?"
"No, they thought I had stuck a .45 in a guy's mouth and he didn't pay attention when I told him to say 'Ahhh'."
"Yeah, I heard they disbar lawyers for that all the time." Berdue laughed at his own joke.
"The LA D.A. doesn't like me very much but when he couldn't lock me up he did the only thing he could and had them pull my ticket."
"You're breaking my heart."
"I'll get by. It all worked out though. You know why?"
"Why?"
"Because the guy they think I killed is still dead." Berdue gave Steve an uneasy glance. "So, let's talk about Tom Travis."
"World class jerk," Berdue said, sticking out his chin as if inviting an argument.
"Yeah, that's the general opinion. He ever hit your sister?"
"He's still got all his parts, don't he?"
"Is that a no?"
"Yeah, it's a 'no'. Anybody hurts Katey has to answer to me."
Steve let the boast pass. "Know anybody who disliked Travis enough to kill his wife and pin the job on him?"
"Nope," Berdue said instantly and refilled his glass.
"You didn't think about that answer very long. How about we increase the incentive? Five hundred bucks for the name of anybody who might want to hurt Travis or his wife."
"And if I don't know anybody?"
"Then you don't get the money. Come on, its easy work. Nobody's got to know. Like you said, I'm not a cop."
"Why should I trust you?"
"Trust? Who said anything about trust? You're selling me your opinion for cash. Where's the trust in that?"
"Why should I help Tom Travis?"
"Hey, am I speaking Martian here? For-the-money." Steve gave him an 'Am I talking to an idiot?' stare.
Berdue fiddled with his glass as if five hundred dollars for some hot air was a hard decision for a guy who risked five years in prison for every packet of Meth he sold out of the back of his truck.
