Nancy's Reading Room

Blood Vengeance 

Prologue

It’s been five years since the murder of my father, and as I stand at his grave, I can hardly believe how many changes have occurred in my life since that terrible day.  This is my first trip back to Chicago since the funeral, when he was laid to rest beside my mother, both of them taken before their time.  I could never pretend that it didn’t happen, but until now I could never quite bring myself to make the trip, as if coming here to the graves again would somehow validate the reality that both of my parents were gone.

I’ve been living another life since then, totally different than the one I had imagined for myself when I started law school, and I’ve found a new purpose to my career, another angle of law and law enforcement than was my original intent.  For the past five years, I’ve been living in Los Angeles, working for my father’s cousin in his private detective business.  It’s interesting work, and with Barnaby . . . well, not as young as he once was . . . I tend to do a lot of the legwork.  Barnaby knows something of the loneliness and emptiness that comes from such a sudden loss, for his son, Hal, had been murdered years earlier.  Which brings me back to this belated visit to Mom and Dad’s graves.

When I approached Barnaby with the idea of finally going back, he was very understanding and supportive, even offering to pay my way.  As tempted as I was, I couldn’t let him do that.  His daughter in law, Betty, Hal’s widow, was worried about me, and true to her kind nature, offered to accompany me, but of course, I declined.  This was something I had to do alone.  To help me come to terms with my emotions, she suggested I write everything down.  To get everything out that has been locked inside me all these years.

At first, I just laughed it off, but the more I thought about it, the more her suggestion made sense.  So I bought a journal and a pen at the motel gift shop, and I’ll write down everything I can remember from that day . . . .

One

            To put it mildly, my day had gotten off to a very bad start.  It was one of those days where a successive chain of events makes you wish you had merely stayed in bed and hoped for a better tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have that luxury, for I was in law school and had an important class at 11:00 that I could not miss.

            It was with that thought in mind that I glanced at my alarm clock and with a jolt saw that the time was 10:15. 

            Grabbing the alarm clock, I gave it a quick examination and discovered that I had forgotten to set it the night before.  I had been up late studying, and it somehow must have slipped my mind.  I had already missed my first class and it was too late to make any attempt to get to the second one, already in progress.  Returning it to its place on the bedside table, I rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, stopping first at the hall closet for a bath towel.  It would have to be a quick shower, but with a little luck, I could still make it on time to my 11:00 class.

            As I turned on the water and stepped into the shower, I remember thinking briefly about Dad.  He had risen well before dawn to make a 6:15 flight to Los Angeles.  I had made the dutiful offer to drive him to the airport, but he had waved away the offer, insisting that he would just drive himself and leave the car in the airport garage.  I confess to being relieved, for it allowed me to sleep a little longer.  However, having missed my first two classes, I found myself wishing he had awakened me for a lift!  I was not in the habit of missing classes, and I had an excellent attendance record, so I figured I could make up any lessons I had missed.

            The water was refreshing, and I quickly lathered up, but after only a few moments, the hot water abruptly turned cold.  It’s funny how you can remember with amazing clarity the insignificant things while forgetting the things you try the hardest to remember.  I will never forget that startling blast of ice cold water spraying in my face, and I’m quite certain I must have yelled in reaction to it as all traces of lingering drowsiness instantly vanished.

            Fumbling frantically for the faucet handles, I turned the water off and stood there for several moments, shocked and dripping, trying to decide what to do.  Obviously, something was wrong with the hot-water heater, but I didn’t have time to seek out the problem or call someone to fix it.  And worse, with shampoo in my hair and streaming into my eyes, I was going to have to rinse.  And all the while, time continued to tick away the minutes toward my next class, the one I could not afford to miss.

            Bracing myself against what I knew was coming, I turned the water back on.  Goose pimples immediately popped out on my skin, and I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering as I faced the cold spray again in the fastest rinse job I had ever done.

            Keeping a nervous eye on the clock, I got out the hair drier and went to work on my hair.  To look at me then, you would never know that I have been cursed with a mop of unruly hair that curls and waves to the degree that I have to take special pains to straighten it out.  I worked with it a lot harder back then than I do now, and when I was finished, I was satisfied that I looked like a well-kept, clean-cut law student.  Slacks, a dark jacket, and a tie rounded out the ensemble.

            I mentioned that I had an important class that day.  My class was going to be sitting in on a mock-trial conducted by students several years ahead of us.  We would be seeing various courtroom tactics that had been gleaned from real-life trials, applied into a learning environment, and of course, we would be tested on how well we had paid attention.

            It was five minutes before eleven when I entered the parking lot on squealing tires, found a parking space, and slammed the car in “park”.  I snatched my books off the passenger seat, and jogged to the classroom.  It was one minute after eleven as I pushed open the door and stepped inside -- to find a work crew laying new tile on the floor!

            I was stunned immobile for a moment before deciding that I must have entered the wrong room.  But upon checking the number on the outside of the door, I discovered the note pinned there that in my haste I had overlooked, a note which directed students to another room in the opposite wing!

            I could not suppress my groan as I started running toward the different classroom, but I was already late and about to become even later.

            My footsteps resounded on the tiled floor and echoed along the corridor as I raced past one classroom after another.  Occasionally I saw a disapproving frown directed at me from an open doorway, but mostly everything was a blur.  At the end of the hall, I skidded around the corner and rushed for the staircase, pounded down the steps to the basement, and went around another corner.

            I stopped outside the classroom door to straighten my jacket and smooth down my hair, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

            As expected, the “play” was about to get underway, the players holding transcripts of the trial they were reenacting which had been typed up in script form.  Distracted, they all turned toward the door when it opened, and I looked at the clock on the wall above them: 11:05.

            “You’re late, Jones,” said a gruff voice from the lectern, which had been moved to one side to make room for the reenactment.

            My attention was drawn from the clock to Professor Gordon, who was glaring at me beneath his bushy unibrow.

            “Sorry, Professor,” I mumbled.  I didn’t even try to explain my tardiness.  Professor Gordon wasn’t interested in excuses, and oversleeping for an 11:00 class definitely would not have earned me any points.  It didn’t matter that I had been up until well after midnight the night before trying to complete an assignment for one of my other classes.  As with most instructors, his was the only class that mattered.

            “Take your seat and we’ll begin,” he growled, impatiently.

            The room was too small for the size of our class, and instead of desks, rows of chairs were arranged in a horseshoe shape, providing sufficient room for the upper classmen to move around within the center of the horseshoe.  As I looked quickly for an empty seat I saw that the only available chair was the one directly behind Hair-Toss Helen.  As I looked at her with a sinking feeling, Helen gathered her thigh-length hair in her hands and tossed the shimmering mass behind her, hence the nickname some of the class had bestowed on her behind her back.  I have no idea if she was aware of their comments, but I did not fail to notice the amused glances and elbow-nudging among some of them at my obvious hesitation.

            I also knew that every one of them would have given their eye teeth for a date with her, including yours truly, but she was not interested in any of us.  She was only interested in the upper classmen.  Even though I was older than most of my classmates, thanks to my tour of duty in Vietnam, I was still a lowly underclassman.

            Everyone loved Helen’s beautiful long hair, especially Helen herself, but anyone sitting behind her was subjected to an almost constant frontal assault of flying red mane making strategic strikes in faces, eyes, open mouths, and anything else within reach.  As a result, in every class, the seat behind Helen was usually empty.  The distraction was enough to send you to the loony bin.

            Professor Gordon and the reenactors waited as I snaked my way through the rows of chairs toward the empty seat.   I was aware that every eye in the room was on me, making me feel dreadfully self-conscious, but at last I reached the chair and sat down, stowing my books under the seat.

            The professor watched me a moment or two longer than necessary, then said, “All right, class.  Be sure to take notes.  We’ll be discussing this trial at length.”

            As the “play” began, I withdrew my legal pad and a ball point pen from my supplies.  Resting my right ankle on my left knee, I placed the legal pad on my leg so I could write more easily, but I had barely completed my first sentence when about 15 inches of long red hair flopped on my pad.

            The person sitting next to me snickered quietly as I gently brushed the hair from my pad and resumed my notes.

            The mock trial was probably very interesting.  It had been transcribed from a local murder case, and the reenactment brought it all to life in a way that merely reading words on paper could not, but I’m afraid I remember very little of it.  Distraction, you see.  Every five minutes or so, Helen reached up with her hands to gather her hair as if forming a pony tail, and then tossed it behind her -- right on me.

            This went on for thirty minutes until finally, the inevitable happened.  When her hair cascaded across my legal pad, it snagged in the pocket clip of my pen, yanking it right out of my hand, even though I had a fairly good grip on it.

            You can imagine the reaction from Helen.  Her blood-curdling shriek made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in alarm, and everyone jumped as if the entire class had been shocked by the same live wire.

            “Ow!” she cried, trying to pull her hair around to look for what had been snagged.

            Everyone was staring now, watching as she frantically tried to untangle my pen from the strands, and when it became obvious what had happened, the entire class burst out laughing.  Even Professor Gordon seemed to be struggling to maintain a straight face.

            “It isn’t funny!” Helen wailed, her face as red as her hair, which only made them laugh harder.

            “I wondered when that would happen!” I heard one of the guys across the room say.

            “Maybe I’d better do it,” I suggested

            “Just don’t break any of my hair,” she told me, tossing the hair and the pen back over her shoulder for me to work with.  The pen, still thoroughly tangled in the hair, glanced off my cheek, inciting fresh gales of laughter.

            “I’ll try not to,” I assured her as I carefully began unwrapping the long strands from the pocket clip.  As hard as I tried, there were several strands of long red hair entangled in the clip when I finally regained possession of my pen.

            With the pen now free, Helen pulled her hair to the front, carefully inspecting it for damage.

            “All right, class,” Gordon said sternly.  “Let’s get back to the assignment.”

            Hoping to avoid a repeat of the event, I pushed my chair back against the wall behind me.  I could feel the chalk tray below the blackboard jabbing me in the back, but at least I could take my notes from a relatively safe distance.

            As the play resumed, I glanced at the clock on the wall again.  Dad should have landed in L.A. by then, and I casually wondered if he and his cousin Barnaby had gotten together yet.  It was 9:30 in L.A., two hours earlier than Chicago time.  I figured they were probably having a cup of coffee and talking about old times.  I don’t know why he kept coming into my mind that day, but looking back, I think I was more concerned about this trip than I had realized.  Cahill was, after all, an accused murderer, and my father had a singular objective to bring this guy to justice.

            Ten minutes later, the door opened, interrupting the trial-play again, and everyone turned toward it to see who had entered.

            A young man stood in the doorway looking around the room for the professor, who had by then wandered to the rear of the class.  He moved toward him and passed a note, then departed again.

            Gordon, who was clearly not pleased at yet another interruption, opened the note and read it, then, to my surprise, he looked straight at me.

            As he started walking toward me, threading his way through the maze of chairs, I felt my stomach turn over with a sickening flop.  Was I in trouble?  What had I done?
            Leaning between Helen and the student next to her, he handed me the note, and I opened it up.  J.R. JONES.  URGENT CALL, DEAN’S OFFICE.

            An uneasy feeling crept out of my stomach and wrapped itself around my heart with a sensation of dread worse than anything I had ever experienced.  Something had happened; I could feel it.

            As quickly and quietly as I could, I gathered my books and ledgers and tucked them under my arm, then I weaved my way through the chairs of students again, aware that all eyes were once again on me as I made my way to the door.  Once in the hallway, away from all those prying eyes, I paused to read the note again, hoping to glean some sort of useful information from those few vague words.

            I have few close relatives, certainly none close enough to call me at school with an urgent message.  Therefore, I decided, it must be Dad calling from Los Angeles.  But try as I might, I could think of no reason for him to make an urgent call.  I realized then that the call was probably not from him but about him, and if it was urgent enough to get me out of class, then it must be very serious.

            I was walking along the corridor toward the stairs by then, trying to fight down the swell of panic that was rising inside me with the force of a volcano.  When I reached the stairs, I ran up them two at a time, then pushed open the side door and stepped out into the brisk air.  Autumn had come to Chicago, but I barely felt the cool breeze on my face as I walked swiftly along the sidewalk that connected all the campus’s buildings together.

            The dean’s office was in the Administrative Building, only a few minutes on foot, and with my heart pounding in my chest, I began to run.  The other buildings were a blur as I sprinted past.  I cut corners wherever I could and left the sidewalk a couple of times to cut across grassy areas.

            By the time I burst through the doors of the Administrative offices only a few minutes later, although it seemed much longer, I was thoroughly winded, but I kept going, jogging along the corridor until I reached the dean’s office.  Moving to the front desk, I dropped the note in front of the person behind the counter.  I had no idea if she was a receptionist or what, but it really didn’t matter as long as she could point me to the phone.

            “My name is J. R. Jones,” I said, trying to calm the tremor in my voice.  “I was told I have an urgent phone call.”

            “Dean Hamilton’s office.“  She pointed toward an open doorway.  “Through there.”

            “Thanks.”

            Feeling rushed and apprehensive, I walked swiftly through the door and my eyes met those of the dean.

            “Jones?”

            “Yes.”

            He pointed toward the phone, and I scooped it up. 

            “J. R. Jones.”

            “Jedediah?”

            I didn’t recognize the raspy voice of the caller, but I knew right away that the caller was my father’s cousin, Barnaby.  No one else ever called me Jedediah, except my father and my grandparents.  My stomach clenched with dread.

            “Yes.  Is this Barnaby?  Is everything all right?  Did Dad make it there okay?”

            There was a long pause, long enough to confirm my fears that something terrible had happened, then he said, “Jedediah, I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Two

            I remember very little of my conversation with Barnaby, and to this day I‘ve never thought to ask him how he managed to track me down at school.  All the other problems I had encountered that day were instantly forgotten, overshadowed by the worst news imaginable.  My mind, even my whole body, had gone numb with disbelief, except my stomach, which felt as if I had been punched or kicked.  My father had been murdered, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who his killer had been.  My father had gone to Los Angeles seeking Walter Cahill, but the slime ball had found him first and had killed him just as he had killed Dad’s partner six years earlier.

            I noticed that the dean was watching me carefully as I hung up the phone in a daze.  “Are you all right, Mr. Jones?”

            I wondered if I would ever be all right again, and I realize now that I probably looked sick.  “I’m going to be out of class for a while.”

            That didn‘t satisfy his question, but he didn‘t press the issue except to ask, “A few days?”

            “I don’t know.”  My voice sounded strange, hollow.  “I just -- My father is dead, and I . . . “  My emotions were soaring, an overwhelming combination of intense sorrow, anger, hate, loss, and many others I could not put words to, all jumbled up and fighting to get out.

            He rose from his chair to place a comforting hand on my shoulder, and I felt a strange urge to shake it off.  “I’m sorry to hear that.  An accident?”

            I looked at him, resentfully.  I knew he was just being kind and I knew that most people are uncomfortable with an announcement like that and often don’t know how to respond to it, but the last thing I wanted to do was discuss this with a stranger.  All I wanted to do was get out of there to be alone and to try to make some sense of what had happened.  “Excuse me.  I have to go.”

            I didn’t wait for him to react.  I just grabbed my books from the edge of the desk and hurried into the outer offices.  Near the coffee machine, two young employees were sharing a joke, and their laughter struck me as odd, even rude.  How could they be so happy while my life as I had known it had just come to a screeching halt?

            Of course, that was an irrational response brought about by my grief.  I shouldered my way past another student who was entering the office, and started down the corridor.  I was two doors down before I realized I was going the wrong direction.

            It seemed strange to feel so totally lost.  Usually, I am in control of myself and my actions, and the only time I would be going the wrong direction in the hallway would be if I was talking to a fellow classmate and lost track of where I was.

            Turning abruptly on my heel, I strode down the corridor toward the main door, which would lead me to the parking area where I had left my car.  The corridor seemed longer than it ever had before, the door farther away than I could have imagined.  There were other people in the hallway; some students going to or from various offices in the Administration Building, others were clearly staff and faculty.  I paid no attention to any of them.

            As I finally pushed through the doors and stepped in to the open air, I felt the tears burning in my eyes.  Only last night, I had enjoyed a delivery pizza with my father, an open law book on the table beside my plate, and had listened only half-attentively as he described the informant’s message regarding Cahill, and I had groaned when he had told me of his early flight out of Chicago.  He had laughed at me in a good natured way, but I knew he was totally focused on finally closing the case file.  Last night I had a father.  Today, I was completely alone.  It did not seem possible how quickly everything had changed.

            I relied on Dad a lot more than I wanted to admit.  When I returned from my tour of duty in Nam and enrolled in college, he had urged -- no, insisted -- that I move back home until I graduated from law school and passed the bar.  If I had to take a job to pay for an apartment, it would be time lost from my studies.  Of course, living at home had put a bit of a crimp in my social life, but you learn to work around things like that.

            When I stepped off the curb and started across the parking lot, I was so lost in my thoughts that I walked right in front of a car and never knew it was there until the driver honked his horn at me.  I turned my head to look at him and saw that he was laughing at the fact that I had nearly jumped right out of my loafers.

            I gave a feeble wave of apology, and kept walking until I reached my car, a pale yellow 1965 Mustang.  Even the car was a reminder of Dad, for it had been a treasured gift from him to celebrate my college graduation, no small feat on a cop‘s salary.  But as I started to insert the key in the lock, I realized that I had forgotten to lock it again.  I have some kind of a mental block when it comes to locking my car door.  It has been to my detriment more than once in more recent years, but it’s still hard for me to remember to do.

            Frustrated with myself, I yanked the door open, threw my books on the passenger seat, and sat down behind the wheel.   It’s difficult to describe how I was feeling at that moment.  Suffice to say that the full weight of Dad’s death and the impact it would have on my life had not yet soaked in.  I inserted the key in the ignition, then sat there for a while without starting it.  I wasn’t sure where to go or what to do at that point.  My entire world had been yanked from under me, leaving me lost and confused.

            I knew there were arrangements that would have to be made, and I forced myself to think about that.  As a cop, Dad had always known that this was a very real possibility, and I remembered that he had once told me that his specific wishes for his funeral and burial were kept in a fireproof document box on the floor of his bedroom closet, along with other important things like the deed to the house and our birth certificates.  Mom had carefully maintained that box until her death, and Dad had taken over the task.  I was too young to be bothered with things like that, but I knew I would have to step up to the plate, now.

            Because Dad had been murdered, there would be an investigation before I could bring him back to Chicago.  The body would not be released until the bullet was recovered, along with any other evidence that might be on his person or among his effects.  That meant I could not set a funeral date just yet.

            I didn’t know anything about the Los Angeles detectives who would be working his case, but I wondered if Barnaby would do any investigating on his own.  He and Dad did not see one another on a regular basis, but they had liked each other, and Barnaby had a strong sense of family; kin, he had called them.  They had both grown up in the backwoods of Tennessee and had always felt the family connection.  I had not seen him since I was a child, but I had a vague remembrance of a lanky well-dressed gentleman, and I hoped he might be able to answer some of the questions that were coming to mind, like how the hell Cahill had known that Dad would be arriving that day?

            I started the engine.  I now had a focus, and I knew what I was going to do.  I had to finish the job that my father had started, the job he had died for.  I had to find Walter Cahill and make sure he was brought to justice.  Dad’s case had now become personal.

            The intense feeling of loneliness that I felt when I opened the front door and entered the house was almost overpowering.  Over the years, I had been alone in that house many times, but it had never seemed as quiet or as empty as it did that day, as if the house itself was somehow aware that Dad was never coming back.

            I forced those depressing thoughts aside, determined to focus completely on what I needed to do.  Dumping my school books in the nearest chair, I opened the phone book and started calling the airlines, seeking an immediate flight from Chicago to L.A.  I quickly discovered that this was not as easy as it looks on TV and in the movies.  You don’t just pick up the phone and get a flight on the first try, unless you’re incredibly lucky.  It took me five tries before I finally found an airline with an open seat departing that afternoon.

            With my flight arranged, I called a taxi, and while I waited, I threw a couple of changes of clothes and my shaving kit into a suitcase.  I also took all the cash I had on hand, plus my credit cards.  Then I glanced at the clock on my bedside table.  I still had some time before the taxi would arrive, so I went across the hall to Dad’s bedroom and stood in the doorway for a few minutes, just looking.

            As my eyes scanned the room, they finally settled on a tie lying on the bed.  I recognized it instantly as his favorite.  He had probably laid it out to take with him, and then inadvertently left it behind.

            Stepping into the room, I picked up the tie, fingering the smooth silk, and I knew this was the tie he would want to be buried in.

            A painful lump came up in my throat, and there, alone in the house that Dad and I had shared, I lost it completely.  Still holding Dad’s favorite tie, I sat down on the edge of his bed and let my tears flow unchecked.  I was never going to see my father alive again, and the reality of that bore down on my heart like a heavy weight.  It goes without saying that Dad and I were close.  Mom’s death, years earlier, had pulled the two of us closer than we had ever been before.  Now that I was an adult, he and I were more than father and son; we were best friends, and I never imagined that we would not have many more years together.

            When my racking sobs stopped, I rose up again and wiped the tears from my face.    I did not want to show my grief to everyone I met, so I went into the bathroom and washed my face.  As I was toweling it dry, I heard a car honk in the driveway.

            Placing the tie on the bed again, I smoothed it down with my hand, then hurried to my bedroom to grab my suitcase, then rushed for the door.  I locked it behind me, then I checked the garage door to make certain I had locked it as well.

            When I got into the backseat of the taxi, the driver half-turned to ask, “Where to, son?”

            “O’Hare,” I replied, biting back the retort I wanted to make that I was not his son.  I was the son of a man who had just been murdered, a man I was fiercely proud of, but of course I said nothing about that.

            He backed out of the driveway a little faster than necessary, and the tires squealed in protest on the pavement as he depressed the gas pedal -- also a little harder than necessary.

            I was thankful that he did not make much small talk other than the expected “Where are you headed?”  Maybe there was something in my demeanor that made me seem unapproachable.  In any case, the silence was appreciated.

            When he let me off at the terminal door, I paid him along with a modest tip, and went inside to get checked in and get my seat assignment.

            O’Hare is one of the busiest airports in the country, probably in the world, and also one of the most interesting in design, but these thoughts never entered my mind as I got my boarding pass and seat assignment and then made my way to the terminal.

            There are many gift shops, restaurants, and newsstands in the terminals, but I was not hungry, nor was I interested in browsing the shops or reading a magazine.  I found an empty chair and, with my bag sitting at my feet, I watched the airplanes landing and departing as I waited for my flight number to be called.

            It wasn’t until the plane was on the ground and taxiing toward the terminal that it dawned on me that I had just landed in a city with a high tourist volume, and I had not thought to make reservations at a hotel or with a car rental agency.  Still, I didn’t dwell on it.  I had my credit card and if I couldn’t find a car rental agency with an available vehicle, I could always give Cousin Burnaby a call.

            Even before we reached the terminal, I could heard seatbelts being released, and several passengers, hoping to get a jump on the other passengers, stood up to pull their carry-on bags from the overhead compartment.  I went ahead and released my seat belt, but I knew there was no point in retrieving my luggage yet.  No one would be going anywhere for a while yet, so I remained seated and looked out the window while the person next to me joined the hustle to collect his things.

            When I saw the line of people standing in the aisle finally begin to move toward the door, I stood up and retrieved my bag from the overhead bin, then I made my way toward the door with the others.

            Beside the open hatch, the smiling stewards and stewardesses wished me a pleasant stay in Los Angeles, and thanked me for flying on their airline.  I merely nodded as I stepped out the hatch into the jet way.

            LAX is a huge airport, and for a while I just followed the flow of people as they made their way along the concourse, but when most of the crowd began moving toward the baggage claim, I headed for the car rental area, fishing my credit card out of my wallet.

            I got lucky this time by securing a vehicle on my first attempt, a great relief, since it was now late in the afternoon and I wanted to talk to Barnaby to see what was being done on the case.  While the clerk filled out the paperwork, I asked for a map of the L.A. area, which she happily provided.

            Then, with my key in hand, I found a bank of telephones and started looking for one with a telephone book.  People have an annoying habit of walking off with public phone books, either stealing them outright or simply failing to return them to the place they picked them up.  I finally found one and flipped it open, searching the listed private investigators until I found Barnaby Jones Investigations.  I shoved my hand in my pocket seeking some change, then changed my mind, deciding I’d rather speak to him face to face.  So I jotted down the address and pinpointed the location on the map, then went to the rental car lot to retrieve my vehicle.

            Just getting out of the airport was a nightmare, but I managed to do it, and was only honked at five times in the process.  L.A. traffic was heavy, and I often spent more time stopped at traffic lights or crawling along in highly congested areas.  Eventually, I would learn to avoid to areas typically frequented by tourists, but at the time, I didn’t consider that the most direct route to Barnaby’s office might not be the fastest.

            It took a while, but finally I reached the correct address.  Finding a parking place was not easy, but eventually I found an entrance to the underground lot beneath the building that was reserved for “visitors”, found a parking place, and boarded the elevator.

            I punched in the correct floor, and felt the elevator car begin its upward ascent.   I leaned back against the wall behind me, thinking about what I would say when I got there.  I knew that Barnaby was much older than me and that he had retired from his private detective business years earlier to hand it over to his only son, Hal.  When Hal was murdered, he had used his own detective skills to track down Hal’s killer, and afterward and reopened the business.  Therefore, I had assumed my dad’s cousin would understand my desire to track down my father’s killer, and I sincerely hoped he would be hot on the trail already.

            The elevator glided to a stop on the Sixth floor, and the doors slid open.  Turning sideways, I slipped through them before they were completely apart, and I moved briskly down the corridor looking for Suite 615 on the plaques and door etchings on both sides.

            Barnaby’s office was on my left, and I did not pause or hesitate when I seized the knob and pushed the door open.

            An attractive auburn haired woman stood in the outer office in front of a desk thumbing through the contents of a small box, and she looked up when I burst through the door.

            “Where’s Barnaby?  Is he in?” I asked brusquely, then without waiting for an answer, I brushed past her, heading for the private office where I figured I would find my father‘s cousin.

            “Yes he is, but -- Hey!  Wait a minute!” she called as I opened the door that separated the two rooms.  Frustrated, she rushed after me and entered Barnaby’s office right on my heels.

            The tall, slender, silver haired gentleman seated behind the desk looked up in surprise as we entered, and I heard the woman’s apologetic voice behind me:

            “Barnaby, I’m sorry; I couldn’t stop him.”

            “That’s all right Betty,” he said in a gravelly voice with a Tennessee drawl, the same voice I had heard on the phone in the dean‘s office hours earlier.  Turning his attention to me, he continued, “Been a long time, but unless I miss my guess, this is Jedediah.  Cousin Monroe’s boy, from Chicago.  Good afternoon, Jedediah.  Kinda surprising to see you here.”

            I found his casual words annoying.  It was as if we had a chance meeting in a pleasant park on a Sunday afternoon instead of the troubled aftermath of my father’s murder.  I strode directly across the room to his desk and placed my hands on the smooth desk top, bringing my face closer to his when I replied tersely, “What did you think, I’d be home sitting on my hands while the guy who murdered my father is on the loose?”

            “No, I can see you wouldn’t be doing that,” he replied as patiently and casually as before.

            I realized suddenly that I was coming across as an angry jerk and he was using his southern gentleman demeanor in an effort to sooth my ire.  Or maybe he was always like that; I didn’t know.  In any case, I backed off a bit, removing my hands from the desk and standing up straight again.  I was aware of the woman he called Betty still standing behind and to my right, watching with more interest that would ordinarily be permitted of a receptionist, something I found rather odd, but did not dwell on it.

            I glanced alternately at her and at Barnaby as I said, “The man hasn’t had a vacation in over ten years, ever since my Mom died.  All of a sudden he gets a call on a guy who blew up his partner, and he goes off and gets himself killed.”  I had to pause at this point.  I could feel my emotions swelling inside again, threatening to break the dam that was holding them in check, so I took a deep breath to steady myself, then let it out in a heavy sigh.  “On his own time,” I finished.  I placed my hands on the desk again, but this time, instead of getting in Barnaby’s face, I bowed my head, my eyes on the smooth wooden surface, even though I really wasn’t seeing it.  I was seeing the face of my father, the dedicated cop, the loving father.

            I heard a slight movement behind me and sensed that Betty had taken a step toward me, presumably to offer comfort.  This was confirmed when my peripheral vision saw Barnaby give a slight shake of his head.  I was grateful for his intervention, because I suspect I might have broken down completely, and I think Barnaby must have understood that, having suffered a similar loss as well.

            “Are you all right?” he asked, quietly.

            I raised my head again and gave a forceful but rather ambiguous gesture with my hand, channeling my grief into anger again.  “I’ll be terrific, just great, as soon as the guy who did this gets nailed.  What are you doing about this, Cousin Barnaby?  It’s been seven hours since my father was murdered.  Seven hours, and from what I can see you’re just sitting your office not doing a damn thing about it!”

            Betty did step forward this time, visibly annoyed at my accusations.  “Now hold on!  I realize you’re upset, but that’s not fair and it’s not true either!”

            “It’s all right, Betty,” Barnaby said, calmly, apparently unfazed by my burst of temper.  “I can speak for myself.  As a matter of fact, I was just going over this file.”  He passed a file folder to me across the desk.

            “What is this?” I asked, taking the file and opening it.

            “It’s a Chicago police file on that shooting six years ago in which your father’s partner was killed.”

            I looked up in surprise.  I knew he could not have gotten the file through normal channels.  “How did you get a hold of this?”

           There was an unexpected glint in his eyes, expressing intelligence, wisdom that comes with age, and an apparent willingness to take a detour around the rules.  “Twisted a few arms and bent a few rules.”

            My gaze lingered on him a moment longer, impressed and placated that he was not only looking into the matter, but that he apparently had some high ranking connections.  Dropping my eyes to the open file again, I recognized the mug shots of the long haired bearded man in the file.  “Dad had a blowup of this on his desk at the station and at home.  Getting Cahill was really an obsession with him.”  I dropped the file on the abhorrent man back on the desk without reading it.  The very sight of that man’s face ignited a hatred inside me that made it impossible to concentrate on the words.

            “Maybe you can fill in the gaps for me between six years ago and now,” Barnaby suggested.

            This one sentence helped smooth my ruffled feathers more than anything else, for it suggested that he was not going to make an attempt to keep me on the sideline of this investigation.  “Look, I will tell you anything you want to know and what I can’t tell you I will find out for you.”

            It seemed we were about to become a team, and I suddenly felt ashamed of my stormy attitude.

          Focusing on Betty, I said, “Listen, I’m really sorry about the way I just came charging in here just now.”

            Betty smiled and nodded, indicating that I was forgiven.

            Barmaby gave a small smile.  “That’s all right:  We’re all kind of wound up about this thing.  Maybe it would calm us down if we all had a bite to eat.  Unless it’s too early for you, Jedediah.”

            I checked my watch.  I wasn’t particularly hungry, even though I had declined the lunch that was served on the plane, but sharing a meal in a pleasant setting to discuss a very unpleasant subject was an agreeable idea, so I replied, “No, I guess not.  I’m still on Chicago time.”

            “Well.”  He stood up, taking up the file folder again.  “Let’s go.”

            As we started for the door, Betty reached for a Gone to Lunch sign, and I realized that she intended to go with us. I was starting to wonder if she also acted as some sort of investigative assistant rather than just a receptionist, and Barnaby quickly cleared that up for me.

            “Jedediah, I don’t think you’ve ever met Hal’s wife, Betty.”

            Ah so that was it!  This was Barnaby’s daughter in law.  No wonder she seemed to have more latitude than an ordinary receptionist.   I’m afraid I’m guilty of the fact that I had never really kept up with the Jones side of the family.  I’m sure Dad had to some degree, but the fact remained that living in Chicago, I was out of touch with the west coast branch.  I remember as a small child, every summer Dad loaded us into the family car and drove down to Tennessee to visit “the old folks” and once or twice, Barnaby and Hal had been there as well.  Hal was older than me by at least 15 years, so we didn’t hang out together during those visits.  He was just a distant relative that I saw a few times as a child.  When the grandparents passed away, we stopped making the trip.  I hadn’t really been aware that Hal had been married, although I’m sure Dad knew about it.  He may have casually mentioned it to me at some point, but I can’t say that I remember.

            Betty was a very attractive woman, tall and slender with a charming smile and a pleasant attitude.  I knew right away that we were going to be good friends.  “Call me J.R.,” I said promptly.

            “What does the ‘R’ stand for?” she asked.

            “Romano, my mom’s maiden name.  That’s the Italian side of the family.”  Yup, I was descended from a hodgepodge of Tennessee hillbillies and Italian immigrants.  I have my father’s fair complexion and my mother’s dark hair, giving me somewhat of an ethnic look.

            Betty hung the sign on the door as we passed through it and locked it behind us.

            As we walked down the corridor to the elevator, Barnaby said, “You didn’t waste any time getting here, Jedediah.”  I gave Betty a withering glance; apparently my cousin had no intention of giving up my first name in favor of my much preferred initials.

            “I went home right after you called and started looking for a flight.  Luckily there was one available almost right away.”

            “Did you take a taxi from the airport?”

            “No, I rented a car.  It’s parked in the visitor’s part of the garage.”  I didn’t add that it was a fair walk to the elevator from there, since the building’s occupants were given the closer parking spaces.

            “I’ll see about getting you a temporary parking permit so you can park a little closer in.”

            “Thanks.  I appreciate that.”

            When we reached the elevator, he pressed the Down button.  The doors slid open immediately, and we stepped inside.

            “So, where are you staying?” Barnaby asked as the elevator began its descent.

            “To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it,” I replied.  “I came straight here from the airport, but I guess I‘d better look into something.  Can you recommend any hotels or motels?”

            “Well, your father was going to stay in my extra room at the house, so you’re welcome to use that.  Save yourself some money.”

            I hesitated.  I had not expected the offer, but looking back, it should not have surprised me.  Hospitality is very strong among Tennessee folks, and Barnaby is cut from the old stock of southerners who held “kin” near and dear, even those they barely knew.

            Before I could answer, he said, “Good.  Now that that’s settled, what kind of food do you like?”

           I had no idea what kind of restaurants they had in Los Angeles, so I just shrugged and said, “Anything will be fine.”

            The elevator stopped and we stepped into the parking garage

            I slipped my hand in my pocket for the car keys, but Barnaby waved them back in my pocket.  “I’ll drive.”

            I breathed a silent sigh of relief.  Being from Chicago, I was unfamiliar with Los Angeles, and I was very glad to let him do the driving until I got my bearings.

Three

I had never been to Los Angeles, and under ordinary circumstances, I might have been very interested in the high-energy atmosphere of the City of Angels as we drove along the busy streets toward the restaurant, but I was not in a tourist frame of mind.  Every face I saw on the sidewalk, every person who sat in a passing vehicle, could have been a person of interest with knowledge about my father’s murder.  I knew what Cahill looked like, according to the pictures in Dad’s file, but I also knew that he could have changed his appearance over time, and so, however impractical it might have been, I regarded everyone I saw with suspicion.

An uncomfortable silence rode along with us in the car, which everyone seemed reluctant to break.  Occasionally Barnaby or Betty made some random insignificant comment, but I was sullen and meditative, and did nothing to encourage a conversation.  Being around other people made it easier to hold my emotions in check, but seated in the back seat of that car, where no one could see my face, I admit to struggling a bit. In an effort to keep myself focused, I concentrated fiercely on Walter Cahill, relying on my rage to channel my sorrow into something I felt was more useful.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Barnaby parked his absurdly large vehicle in a space near the door.  Like my own father, he has always preferred the larger, more luxurious vehicles to the smaller sporty cars favored by me and others in my generation.  There is nothing wrong with personal choices, but his car was so big it nearly stretched over the white lines designating each parking spot, and I had to be careful when I opened the door to avoid bumping it against the car next to us.

The restaurant was a locally owned establishment, not one of the national chains that were making their way across the country.  It was middle range, nice without the inflated prices of the high-end restaurants, yet not quite as casual as the cheap fast food places, and even though I was not hungry in the least, it would provide us with a relaxed atmosphere to conduct our discussion, so I got out of the car and followed them inside.

The hostess smiled pleasantly when she saw my cousin and his daughter in law, and she spoke a pleasant greeting: “Good evening, Mr. Jones.”, followed by a smiling nod toward Betty.  Her eyes drifted to me, lingered there long enough to suggest that she liked what she saw, and then asked, “Three today?”

“Yes, in a quiet area, please,” he replied in his casual drawl.  “We have business to discuss.”

“Certainly, Mr. Jones.”

Her eyes found me again as she picked up three menus from the holder on the side of the podium, and then she led us through the main dining room to a smaller dining room with only a few other customers.  I brought up the rear, deferring to my much-older cousin and to Betty, both of whom were obviously regulars.

“How is this?” the hostess asked, indicating a table for four near the far wall.

“Perfect,” Barnaby replied.

We took our seats and picked up the menus she had left, but the pleasant aromas wafting from the kitchen and from meals already placed on tables did nothing to improve my appetite.  The weight of Dad’s death was heavy as a brick on my stomach, but after Barnaby and Betty had given their selections to the server, he waited expectantly for me to order something, so I sought out an old favorite when it comes to “comfort food”, one I thought I’d be able to choke down, even if I didn’t want it.

 “Just a hamburger for me,” I said, passing the menu back to the waiter without looking at him.  As he walked away to place our orders, I drew a deep breath and released it in a heavy sigh, very aware that Barnaby and Betty were looking at me, as if waiting for me to open the conversation.  I knew they would follow my lead, allowing the conversation to wherever I took it.  After a moment, I obliged them by saying, “You know, when I first heard about Dad, I felt like someone had just kicked me in the gut.”  I paused briefly, then added, “Still does.”

Their response was expected.  Their eyes were sympathetic, but sympathy was not was I was seeking.  I appreciated their concern, for it was obvious that they cared, but expressions of sympathy have a way of causing grief to flood to the surface, and to stay focused, I needed to avoid succumbing to my anguish.  I swallowed a lump that had crept into my throat.

Barnaby seemed to understand, for he said quietly, “Well, Jedediah, you just gotta give it time.” 

It was not exactly sage advice, but I knew what he meant.  Mom had always said that time heals all wounds, but I knew it would be a while before this wound would heal.  I felt certain that finding and dealing with his killer would help tremendously.

“Yeah, sure,” I muttered in a disinterested way.  I had asked Barnaby to call me J.R., but for some reason he seemed to reject the notion, so I did not bring it up again.

Changing the tone of his voice to one that was a little more cheerful, Barnaby asked, “So, you’re going to law school?”

I would learn later that Barnaby rarely takes the direct route toward anything, and that a great deal can be learned from small talk, but I did not welcome the deviation.  “Yeah,” I replied, rather impatiently.  Law school was the last thing I wanted to discuss at the moment.  I was ready to get down to business.  “Look, can we get on with this?”  I placed my forefinger on the file folder that had been placed on the table top, but did not open it up, knowing its contents would deplete my appetite even further.  “How much does this report have on Walter Cahill?”

Betty had apparently read the file, for it was she who spoke first. “Well, according to this, the last anyone saw of Cahill, he was running from an underground garage in the Chicago Loop Hotel after having shot and killed a policeman.”

“Got away with $500,000 worth of diamonds that he took from a jewelry salesman,” Barnaby added.  “You know, even after fencing those gems, he could have wound up with enough of a stake to disappear somewhere and start a new life for himself.”

“You think he did that?” Betty asked.

“That’s what I would do if I’d burned a cop,” I told her, then averted my eyes and heaved another deep sigh as my thoughts drifted to Dad’s obsession with finding and arresting Cahill, and his own guilt that he had not been there to save his partner’s life.  “Oh, Dad,” I breathed, sadly.  “You know, he never really forgave himself for not sticking with his partner that night.”

“But it says in here that he went back to the car and radioed for backup units because he knew Cahill was still in the hotel.”

That was standard operating procedure, and I understood Betty’s reminder of that.  I had made the same argument to Dad many times, but there is a unique bond that exists between partners, men who cover each other’s backs on a day to day basis, and he would not be consoled by words of logic.  He had failed his partner that night, and his partner had died.  That was the only logic Dad had accepted.

“I know, I know, but he still blamed himself,” I told her.  “That’s why he kept looking for Cahill.  It’s like a crusade with him.  I used to think he was bananas on the subject.  But . . .”  I paused, almost dramatically, then added with resolve, “Better believe it’s MY crusade now.”

“What was the lead that brought Monroe out here?”

“Some small time hood named Tony Ridder.  Jumped bail back in Chicago.  Dad got a call from him last night.  Ridder knew Cahill from the old days.  Anyway, Ridder said he spotted Cahill in L.A. and he would finger him if Dad would square things with the parole authorities.”  Such a simple solution, a promising resolution right out of the blue, and Dad had jumped on it like a duck on a June bug.

“What do you know about Tony Ridder?” Barnaby asked.

“What do I have to know?” I retorted.  “All I have to do is find him, and he’ll lead us to Cahill.  It’s simple.”

It seemed both simple and reasonable to me, but I knew from the way Betty glanced at Barnaby that she disagreed.

“Yeah,” Barnaby said in his quiet drawl.  “We could probably find Tony Ridder all right, but after that, Jedediah, it may not be all that simple.”

Those were not the words I wanted to hear, and I felt my scalp prickle with annoyance.  How could it not be that simple.

~

            Before leaving the office, Barnaby had given me no chance to argue about rooming arrangements, and it was the same once we got back.  He was very hospitable with kin, and refused to accept my protests that I should rent a motel room.  I did not tell him that I really wanted to be alone that night, because I knew he would just tell me that being alone was the last thing I needed.  I knew I would not be comfortable staying in the home of a man I did not even know, but in the end, I finally gave up and, in my rental car, I followed Barnaby home that night to the rustic ranch-style house in which he had retired when he had turned his investigative business over to Hal. 

Although we had met at family reunions in Tennessee, I had very few memories of Hal.  He was older than I was, and during those large, often raucous get-togethers with extended family, he had spent his time with older cousins and second cousins of whom I have equally few memories.  I do remember him pitching a baseball to me once when I was about nine.  He was a grown man at the time, helping to keep us “youngins” entertained during my grandfather’s wake.

            The Jones family no longer has those reunions of my childhood.  For such a large family, there are few of us left, and those who are still around are scattered to the wind.

            I mention Hal, because it was obviously to his room that I had been assigned.  I don’t know the age of the house or when Barnaby had moved his family into it, but Hal had obviously lived there during his college years, for there were UCLA pendants tacked to the bedroom walls, along with other treasured mementos: even a favorite tennis racquet and a few trophies from various successful competitions.

            Barnaby made sure I was comfortable and had everything I needed before leaving me alone.  As exhausted as I was, and as long as I was in his company, I wanted to continue the investigation for as long as possible, but he understood even more than I did, the need to wind down, to let it soak in, and to have some private time to grieve.  He was very insistent, and in his quiet but persistent way, made it clear that we would resume the work on the case the following morning.

            It was a bit exasperating at the time.  I knew that every second lost could mean my father’s murderer was that much farther away from capture and punishment, and I must confess that I was having some very impure thoughts for someone who aspired toward a career in law.  I wanted revenge against Cahill for stealing from me the last vestige of my immediate family: my father, my friend, my champion.  Yes, it sounds corny to say so, but he was my hero, the man I aspired to be like, and to live up to the things he expected of me.  At the time, I didn’t even consider that my vengeful thoughts were contradictory to those very same expectations.  I only knew that I wanted to pain to stop, and seeing Cahill suffer seemed the best way to achieve that unattainable relief.

            I understood later that Barnaby was trying to give me a “cooling down” period.  He must surely have had similar thoughts when Hal was murdered, but at the time, my level of comprehension was very low, and I was filled with unreasonable rage as I unpacked and prepared for bed, but to his credit, if he heard me slamming my luggage and stomping around the room, he never mentioned it.

Four

I awakened after what had seemed only minutes after lying down between the sheets, and even before I opened my eyes, I knew that the sun was up and shining brightly into my room.  One of my windows faces east, and since it is my nightly habit to make sure the shade is down and the drapes drawn tightly, my sleep hazed mind assumed that I had forgotten to see to those tasks the night before.  As awareness slowly returned, I realized it was not the sunshine that had awakened me; it was the delicious aroma of coffee that wafted through the house.

Looking back, it was strange that my father’s murder did not come to me immediately.  Instead, I lay quietly in the comfortable bed, reluctant as always to get up and greet the morning, and assuming that I needed to get moving to make it to class on time.  I was often awakened by Dad’s morning cup of coffee, and my barely conscious mind held onto that comforting image, assuming it was fact. 

But as I turned over onto my back and opened my eyes, I was confronted by the strange room with its UCLA memorabilia, and for a brief moment, I felt disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings.  When I lifted my head off the pillow, pondering the unexpected experience of waking in a room other than my own, the weight of the previous day came crashing down on me with enough force that I felt that now all too familiar punch to my stomach and the sinking of my heart.  I was in the home of my Dad’s cousin Barnaby, and instead of gathering my books for my usual drive to law school, I would spend my day pounding the hard streets of Los Angeles trying to track down a killer.

My head fell back on the pillow in despair, and I felt my heart constrict in unspeakable sorrow.  At that time, I did not want to think about how my life was going to change with Dad’s death.  I always knew that once I was out of law school and had a good job, hopefully with a fine law firm, that I would get my own place and live on my own.  But this tragedy had thrust me without warning into the reality that I was now completely alone.  No longer would I be able to rely on Dad in a pinch.

I also found myself with the unpleasant responsibility of taking my father’s body back to Chicago, something I was not looking forward to, and for several minutes, I lay quietly, thinking about the things I knew I must do.  At some point today, we would receive word that the bullet had been recovered and the body would be released to the family.  By then, I hoped that Cahill would be dealt with, and I could see to carrying out my father’s funeral instructions without the burden of knowing his killer was still on the street.

When I had gone to bed, I had not believed I would be able to sleep at all that first night after my father’s murder, but it had literally been a long day, the time difference having added an extra two hours to my day.  As I lay there, I could hear Barnaby moving around the house, and at one point I thought I heard him stop outside the bedroom door, presumably wondering if I was awake.  He did not rush me, though, and had not knocked on my door or otherwise attempted to wake me, but instead allowed my body the rest it had craved, apparently understanding that I would be exhausted.

The good night’s sleep had been beneficial to me.  My mind felt clearer, surprisingly refreshed and ready to get to the business of tracking down Dad’s killer, so I got up and selected the clothes I wanted to wear that day, and went into the bathroom to shower.  Unlike the small house I shared with Dad, which only had one full bath, the bedrooms in Barnaby’s house each had its own bathroom, so it was unnecessary to carry my clothes down the hall.  After my shower, I carefully dried my hair with my hairdryer, using the corner to corner mirror over the vanity and sink to make sure my unruly mop was suitably tamed.

Then, satisfied with my appearance, I made the bed, then opened the bedroom door and went in search of my host.

He was not in the cozy ranch style living room, so I proceeded into the kitchen, expecting nothing more for breakfast than a bowl of cold cereal.  Instead, I found him at the preparation counter with a box of pancake mix, mixing the ingredients in a bowl.  It was almost startling to see him there, dressed in a fine suit and wearing what I assumed was an apron belonging to his late wife.  Even though there was no tangible physical resemblance between him and my father, something about him standing there reminded me of Dad.  We had pancakes every Sunday morning, continuing the tradition started by Mom when I was a boy because she knew I loved them so much, and I can still see him standing in our old kitchen, wearing one of Mom’s aprons and stirring the liquid into the mix with a wire whisk.  It was the one meal we always had together, no matter how busy our individual lives had become. 

            That memory reignited that fire inside me, that powerful emotion that demands justice for a wrongdoing, and I immediately felt impatient.  Instead of fixing a pancake breakfast on a weekday, we needed to get out there on the streets searching for my father’s killer.

            I would come to realize later that Barnaby doesn’t work at a snail’s pace for the sake of being slow.  His mind is always thinking, pondering clues, putting ideas together, even when it appears to the casual observer that he’s thinking of everything except the matter at hand.  And that was how he struck me that morning.

            “Good morning, Jedediah,” he said in greeting.  (WHY did my parents bestow that name on me?  And why did Barnaby continue to disregard my request that I be referred to as J.R.?).  “I hope you like flapjacks.”

            “Sure,” I replied.

            He picked up the box and glanced at the cover before dropping it into his trash bin.  “Never could understand why folks out here insist on callin’ ‘em pancakes.”

Under different circumstances, I might have found amusement in that statement.  Dad also called them flapjacks, but I’m sure Barnaby knew that, so I did not respond.

“Pour yourself a cup of coffee and fetch a couple of plates out of that cupboard over there.”  He nodded toward a corner overhead cupboard.

            I think he was trying to make me feel at home, telling me without words that I was free to rummage around in his kitchen for anything I might want, but at the time I stood there for a moment looking at his back, thinking about how I was being put to work at a meaningless task while out on the street somewhere, my father’s killer was on the loose.  I didn’t protest, however.  I had set the Sunday table for Dad, so it was not an issue.  It was the pointlessness of it.  We could have picked up a sausage biscuit at a fast food chain instead of wasting time preparing a pancake breakfast at Barnaby’s house.

            Biting back the impatient remark that had popped into my mind, I opened the cupboard he had indicated and removed two plates while he ladled the batter onto the sizzling hot griddle, but when I started to carry them to the table, he stopped me.

            “Set them over here, please,” he said in that very polite drawl of his.

            With increasing agitation, I took the plates to him, and he placed them on the countertop beside the griddle.  For several moments, we watched the circles of batter bubble, then he flipped them over with surprising deftness.  They were golden brown and perfect, and I must admit, they smelled wonderful enough to cause my stomach to rumble in anticipation.  I had eaten nothing except half a hamburger since breakfast the previous morning.

            When they were done, he transferred them to the plates and turned off the griddle.  One of the plates was handed to me, and once again I was stopped before reaching the table.

            “Let’s go out on the terrace,” he suggested as he removed the bottle of syrup from one of the cupboards.  “I’ve always enjoyed taking my breakfast outside.  The air isn’t as fresh as it is back home, of course, but it’s still pleasant in the mornings.”

            I was beginning to despair that we might never resume the search for Cahill. Still, it would be a shame to waste a plate of perfectly good pancakes, so I allowed Barnaby to lead me out on his terrace, where we set our plates on the round bistro table and sat down.

            After generously drowning them in maple syrup, I dove into my pancakes with the gusto of a law student accustomed to wolfing his breakfast each morning before rushing out the door to class.  Dad used to smile and shake his head, reminding me that I could slow down if I simply got up 15 minutes earlier, to which I had reacted in horror at the mere thought of giving up 15 minutes of sleep.

            Funny, on that warm sunny morning at Barnaby’s house, how everything reminded me of Dad, and how I could already recall the good things, memories I would carry with me for the rest of my life.  But lying just under the surface like a crouching panther was the anger and impatience; that hunger for revenge that would not be extinguished until I had dealt with Walter Cahill.  It was an unhealthy thirst for vengeance that would have disappointed Dad.  I can recognize those differences now, but at the time I didn’t see all that much difference in our fixation on finding our targets.  He had been obsessed with finding Cahill, but only to bring him to justice for the law to handle.  Although I never really gave much actual thought to what I would do when I found him, I may have allowed a few other possibilities to creep into my mind, possibilities that were foolish and dangerous. I knew Dad carried a weapon “just in case”, but he never went looking for that kind of resolution.  I was admittedly impetuous, reckless in my grief.  My entire focus at that point was just to find him.  I would worry about the conclusion when it happened.

            I was scraping the last of the pancakes from my plate when I noticed that Barnaby was only halfway through his stack of pancakes, but I was uncertain if it was to aid his digestion, or if he was just a slow eater, or perhaps a combination of both.  In any case, it was clear that he was in no hurry.

            “Did you sleep well, Jedediah?” he asked, conversationally.

            “Yes, I slept very well,” I replied, pointedly pushing back my plate so he would notice I was finished.

            He noticed, all right, but it did not speed him up any.  “There’s a little batter left, if you’d like another flapjack,” he said in a conversational tone.

            “No, I’m fine,” I said, my voice a little too sharp.  I quickly added, “Thank you.”

            “You’re welcome,” he replied, completely unruffled by my obvious impatience.

            As I watched him, I found myself wondering if he and his late wife had taken their meals on the terrace, and he continued the tradition to retain a portion of their time together.  I realized after several moments that I was staring, unconsciously hoping that I could pressure him with my eyes into moving a little faster, but they did not have the desired effect.  In fact, I could swear he actually slowed down, and it finally occurred to me that it was deliberate, to cool my heels a bit before setting out.

            Well, okay, two could play at that game.  Pushing back the chair, I stood up and wandered to the edge of the terrace.  He actually had a fairly nice view of the desert landscape, and I detected the faint scent of salt air blowing inland from the ocean.  I had never seen the Pacific Ocean, and thought perhaps I could find time for a quick trip to the beach before returning to Chicago.

            “You have a great view here,” I said as casually as I could.

            “I’ve always enjoyed it,” he replied.  “Sometimes I’ll see jackrabbits out there below the terrace, and once I saw a coyote trotting across that ridge over there.  They’re pretty common in these parts.  Sometimes, hummingbirds will visit the feeder.”

            It was only then that I noticed the inverted glass cylinder with plastic flowers positioned around it, which served as feeding stations for the desirable little birds.

            “My wife hung it years ago, and I’ve kept up the habit.  Interesting little birds.”

            “Mom liked them too,” I said.  “She kept a feeder on one end of the clothesline.”  I fell silent for several moments, remembering her smile and her gentle touch, and the realization that I was completely alone now worked its way back into my heart, bringing with it a sort of crushing sorrow that was channeled into anger again, anger that, for the moment, I kept to myself.

            Unaware of my thoughts, Barnaby finally placed his fork on his empty plate and drained the last of his coffee.  I turned to face him just in time to see him glance at his watch.

            “Well, Jedediah, if you’re about ready, let’s put these in the sink.  I think it’s time for us to head out.”

            Finally!

            I scooped up my plate and coffee cup, and crowded close on his heels as he led the way back inside.  He paused briefly to lock the door behind us before proceeding to the kitchen, where we placed our dishes in the sink, then finally we were in the car and I hoped on our way to track down Walter Cahil.

A short time later, instead of pounding the pavement in an active search of Cahill, I found myself on a street corner in a questionable part of town, pacing restlessly up and down the sidewalk.  By contrast, Barnaby sat patiently on a bench reading a newspaper that had been left behind, presumably by someone who had been waiting for a bus.  Two city buses had already come and gone during our wait, and my agitation increased as I watched passengers board and de-board, some rushed, others not, most of them blissfully unaware of the personal turmoil in my life.  The drivers had waited with the door open to see if Barnaby would board, but he had politely waved them on.

Looking back, I can appreciate my cousin’s calm demeanor.  Rarely have I seen him angry or rushed, and I have since come to understand that a thoughtful, rational mind can not only solve crimes, but other situations as well, with more ease than rushing headlong into a situation that might yield negative results.  However, at the time I was admittedly young and brash, and I had no idea why we were there or what we were waiting for.  Barnaby had not bothered to share that bit of information with me, and his silence was starting to rankle me a bit. 

Finally, I turned to face him, chafing to be doing something more physical in our investigation.  “Barnaby, what are we going to do, wait around all morning?”

“I hope not,” he replied, leisurely, completely unfazed by my impatience, his eyes still riveted on that newspaper as if held the utmost interest for him, even though I suspected that he had read the paper at home before I had risen.  “That depends.”

“On what?” I asked, exasperated by his vague answers.

“On when my informant comes by.”

The realization soaked in, then, and it was not what I had expected.  If indeed I had actually expected anything at all to come out of that excursion, waiting for a stool pigeon was certainly not it.  “You mean that’s what we’re doing here; we’re waiting for a pigeon?” I asked incredulously, my voice rising in pitch from my frustration at our inactivity. 

So that was it.  He obviously had contacts on the street as well as in the police department, but I couldn’t see what information an informant could possibly provide that we didn’t already know.  What I did know was that we weren’t going to find Dad’s killer by sitting around on a bus stop bench. 

“Oh, come on, Barnaby!  Why don’t we go out and look for him instead of just sitting around here?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start looking this time of day,” Barnaby replied in his unhurried way.  “My informant is in and out of a lot of bars along here.”

Again, I felt a surge of impatient annoyance.  “In and out of bars?  Sounds like a lush.”  There was a note of disgust in my voice.  How could a drunk be trusted to provide us with usable information?

But Barnaby remained unruffled.  “As far as I know, seldom takes a drink.”

I barely heard his comment.  My mind had pushed ahead, thinking of other things we might be doing that would be more productive.  “Either that, or . . . .” 

At that moment as I turned toward him again in my pacing, I spotted a young blonde woman in hot pants and high boots walking toward us, and I immediately lost my train of thought.  Barnaby turned to see what I was looking at.  When she saw me looking at her, she raised her hand over her head and waved with a big smile on her face, as if she had known me all her life! 

“Hi, there, Mr. Jones.”

My heart did a somersault, rebounded off my stomach, and lodged in my throat.  How did she know my name?

Barnaby casually set aside the newspaper and stood up, indicating that he was the Mr. Jones that she had referred to in her greeting, and I realized then that she was his informant, the one on whom we’d been waiting for the past hour.

“Morning, Sue Ellen,” he said, pleasantly.  When she glanced at me for an introduction, he added, “Oh, this is my cousin’s son, Jedediah.”

She thrust her hand forward, enthusiastically, although I knew even at the time that it wasn’t so much pleasure in making my acquaintance as it was her normal, cheerful attitude.  Most likely, she greeted everyone with similar eagerness.  “Pleased to meet you, Jedediah.”

“Just call me J.R.,” I requested.  I tossed a meaningful look over my shoulder at Barnaby, which he, of course, ignored.  “Almost everyone does.”

“Sure.  J.R. it is.”  She turned to Barnaby again.  “Something I can help you with, Mr. Jones?”

“We’re looking for a man, Sue Ellen.”

She grinned, brightly.  “Well, that’s what I do best, they tell me.”  I had no doubt of that!  “Any particular man?”

“You know a fella named Tony Ridder?  Just got here from Chicago recently?”

“Small world,” she replied, cheerfully.   “Yeah, but I haven’t seen him around lately.  I’ve seen his brother, though,” she added, hopefully.

“Tony had a brother?”

The question was directed at me.  “Yeah, Ritchie, but I didn’t know he was out here too.”

“Any idea where Tony lives, Sue Ellen?  Or Ritchie?” he added, apparently thinking if we found one, we could trace the other through him.

“Oh, gosh, honey, I wouldn’t know that.”

“What about jobs?” Barnaby suggested.  “They must work.”

Her brow puckered, as if thinking about such a difficult subject was more than she could easily manage.  “Well, Ritchie works, I guess.”  A blind man could have seen the light bulb suddenly switch on.  “Yeah, you know, he must be a working man, ‘cause sometimes he comes around wearing overalls.”

“Anything special about the overalls?  Name sewed on or anything like that?”

“No . . .” she began, thoughtfully, then added, “Yeah!  There’s this picture on the back, and it’s one of the things that you turn on the handle and the water comes out.”  With her hand, she mimicked the motion of turning on a water faucet.

“Faucet?” Barnaby asked, patiently.

She was really concentrating hard now, putting the name to the object.  “Yeah, that’s it!  And underneath, it says ‘plumbing’. Yeah!  Plumbing!  Does that help any?”

“Yeah, that helps a lot.  Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”  Turning that sunny smile to me, she said, “Nice to meet you.  And remember, any friend of Mr. Jones is a friend. Know what I mean?”

I did indeed, but she didn’t wait around to talk any longer.  Fascinated, I turned and watched as she walked past us and continued on her way down the sidewalk.  On impulse, I took a step to follow her, somehow intrigued by this unusual young woman, but then I felt Barnaby’s hand on my elbow, stopping me, and bringing my mind back into the present.  When he had my attention again, he walked the other direction.

I gave a lingering glance at Sue Ellen as she went around the corner, then I turned around and followed Barnaby.

He walked directly to a phone booth that was positioned against a building, and I watched as he entered it and fumbled around in his pockets for change.  Thinking I was going to need to contribute to the cause, I watched with astonishment as he pushed his finger into the coin return and then withdrew it with the exact change needed for the call.  With a satisfied smile, he picked up the receiver, inserted the coin, and started dialing.

I was not privy to the other end of the line, but I knew he had called the office when he said, “Hello, Betty.  I got a chore for you.  Call the local plumber’s union and see if you can find out where Ritchie Ridder is working.”

He did not linger on the phone, and after he hung up, we remained near the telephone booth, waiting for Betty to get the information that Barnaby had requested, and once again the differences in our attitude and demeanor would have been obvious to anyone interested in observing us.  He stood placidly beside the booth, calmly watching the traffic and the passers-by with patience that I have never possessed and probably never will.  In contrast, I had resumed my restless pacing, thinking all manners of graphic insults that I never voiced aloud, glancing repeated at my watch, noting the slowly moving hands that represented the passage of valuable time lost in our search.

It only took about ten minutes for Betty to call back on the pay phone, but it seemed much longer in my eagerness to be doing something.  Barnaby lifted the receiving and listened for several moments, jotting something down on the small note pad he carried in his lapel pocket, then he thanked her and stepped out of the phone booth.

“Ritchie Ridder works for K & Q Plumbing,” he announced.  “They’re contracted on a job site at a local housing development.  We should be able to find him there.”

I had to concede that the delay had indeed yielded positive results.  We now had a probable location for Ritchie, and through him we should be able to find Tony.  “How far?” I asked.

“Not far,” he replied, ambiguously.

I stared after him for a moment as he started back toward the car, wondering if he was being deliberately evasive, or if I was merely working on a need-to-know basis.

Shaking my head, I jogged after him.

As I opened the passenger door and got in, I asked, “So, does Betty have a contact or friend in the Plumber’s Union?"

“Nope,” he replied.  “She’s just really good at tracking down both people and information.  Don’t know what I’d do without her.”

He did not elaborate, and as time went on, I would develop a healthy respect and admiration for Betty’s ability to find just about anyone or anything by phone, but at that moment, I could only take his word for it.  It was very clear, however, that Barnaby relied heavily on her in his business, and that his relationship with her was closer to that of a father and daughter rather than in-laws.  Perhaps mutual loss had brought them closer, but it was very obvious that they were close, and that her professional capabilities went far beyond those of a typical receptionist.

Five

Although a bit frustrated by the heavy Los Angeles traffic, I was glad to be back in the car and headed somewhere with a purpose in mind.  I was, of course, accustomed to the heavy traffic in Chicago, but the Los Angeles area is huge, with a higher volume of cars moving in and out of the city, so it took longer than I had anticipated to reach the construction site where Betty indicated we would find Ritchie Ridder.

The housing development was located on a startlingly desolate tract of previously undeveloped land that, in its not so distant past, might have been a cow pasture, barren wilderness, or perhaps just a large acreage that the owner had been holding onto for a better sale price.  In any case, it was dotted with scattered, unfinished houses in varying stages of construction, all linked together by the paved streets that provided access to each section.  Many more plots were apparently unsold, littered with occasional clumps of dry brush.

As we drove slowly along the narrow roads that would one day become residential streets, we quietly observed the vehicles parked against curbs and on the unsold plots, and examined the personnel working each site, searching for a van or overalls bearing the K & Q Plumbing logo.

“I think we’re going to have to ask someone,” Barnaby said, turning slowly down another side street.

Finally, on one of the final roads deep inside the construction site, we found a K & Q van parked against a curb near a small cluster of houses, most of them little more than stud frames, like skeletal houses, open to the elements.  Barnaby pulled alongside the van and stopped the car, and we got out to speak to a man who was near it, holding a clipboard.  The foreman, I realized.

Barnaby did the talking, and I confess to paying little attention to what was being said.  Instead, my mind and my eyes were wandering, taking in the vast expanse of the construction site, taking note of the men who were engaged in various occupations in and around the house frames, some with power tools or hand tools, all of them wearing hardhats.  One of those men was Ritchie Ridder, a link to Tony Ridder, the man who could finger Walter Cahill, and I was eager to sort him out of the crowd.

My eyes initially passed over the man about my own age who was talking on a construction phone, but something about his apparent nervousness caught my eye, and I gave him a second glance as he hung up the telephone.  At that very moment, he looked my way, and our eyes met, and an unexpected expression of panic flashed across his face an instant before he bolted.

“Ritchie!” I shouted, and the fact that I knew his name seemed to spur him faster.

            It never crossed my mind that he could not possibly have known who I was and that I was looking for him.  It also never crossed my mind that he might have thought our intentions were far more sinister than merely asking a few questions.  All I knew was that he had run when he saw me, and my response was immediate.  I gave chase.           

            I will confess that, due to my rather slight stature, I’ve always been more intellectual than physical, but I’m not totally without athletic ability, and I’m actually a fairly decent sprinter.  However, the time change, the difference in altitude and temperature, and the uneven terrain were all working against me.  Even though I was quickly winded, I was determined and motivated, and I managed to close the distance between us.

            Ritchie knew I was gaining on him, and he applied some evasive tactics in an effort to lose me, dodging around construction out-buildings, equipment, and, familiar with the half-finished houses, he darted into one of them and pounded up the stairs.  I pounded up after him and I watched with a sinking heart as he slipped between the framework and studs and jumped over the edge.

            Jumping from the second story cannot be considered a bright thing to do, and I hesitated at the edge, which was exactly what he had intended.  He landed with surprising agility and started running again, glancing up to see my indecisiveness.

            I had two choices: either jump after him, or return to the stairs and risk losing sight of him in addition to losing valuable time.  I opted for the former.  Suffice to say that my landing was not nearly as graceful or as easy has his had been.  My knee twisted painfully upon contact with the ground, and I was limping as I ran after him, a minor injury that slowed me down a bit, but did not alter my resolve.  I was going to catch that guy if it was the last thing I did!

            He disappeared briefly from my sight when he ran around the corner of a house and rushed up an embankment.  When I followed I was surprised to see Barnaby standing with Ritchie near when I assumed was Ritchie’s personal vehicle. Considering Barnaby, though, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised at all.  The foreman had probably told him which car belonged to Ritchie, and, knowing I was giving chase like a hound dog after a rabbit, he had simply decided to wait for the rabbit by his burrow, so to speak   In any case, my dander was up and I did not pause at all as I rushed headlong up the embankment toward Ritchie and grabbed him by the front of his overalls, intending to force out of him the information we needed.

            “Hold it, hold it, Jedediah,” Barnaby said in a calmly authoritative voice, raising his hands to get my attention.  “That’s no way to –“

            “You don’t think this creep is going to volunteer information, do you?” I challenged.  I was angry, and Ritchie was a convenient target on which to unleash that anger.

            Instead of responding to my confrontational question, Barnaby addressed Ridder in a pleasant, conversational manner.  “Mr. Ridder, I’m sorry about Jedediah.  He’s upset because his father was murdered yesterday.  Unless I miss my guess, the man who did the killing is the man who’s looking for your brother.  Is that the reason you took off when you saw us coming?”

            I released Ridder, worried that he might take flight again, but Barnaby’s friendly demeanor seemed to be working on him.  He stood quietly and gave a slight nod in response to Barnaby’s question.  He was still wary, but he was apparently going to be more accommodating to our questions that I had assumed he would be.

            “I’ve already been shot at once,” he said.  “With Tony, yesterday.”

            “Did you see who did the shooting?”

            He shook his head in reply.

            “Where’s your brother now?” Barnaby asked, then in response to Ritchie’s reluctant shrug, he explained, “The reason we want to know is we’d like to get to him before Cahill does, because if we don’t . . . well, your brother’s probably told you the kind of man Cahill is.”

            “That’s what’s so crazy about it,” he said.  “Tony goin’ to meet Cahill.”

            “What?” I asked, surprised.

            “Some kind of deal goin’ down.  Tony getting money from Cahill to keep quiet and to get out of town.”

            A feeling of unease crept into my stomach, and glancing at Barnaby, I knew he felt it too.  It was obviously a set-up, and I found it unfathomable that Tony had fallen for it.

            “Where?” Barnaby asked.  “Where’s the meeting?”

            There was enough urgency in Barnaby’s voice that Ritchie answered promptly.  “Bayridge Plaza.  A big shopping center.”

            “What kind of car does your brother drive?”

            “An old beat-up two-door.  White.”

Barnaby and I drove directly to the shopping plaza, but we both knew that success was dependent upon getting there ahead of Cahill, and we had no way of knowing how far away either man had been when they had made the arrangements to meet.  For all we knew, the deal might have already gone down.

            I was quiet and anxious during the drive.  If all went well and we arrived before the deal took place, I assumed I was about to meet the man who had murdered my father.  Barnaby, who typically obeyed all traffic laws with calm deliberation, was pushing the speed limit to get us there as quickly as possible.

            When we reached Bayridge Shopping Plaza, Barnaby turned in to the parking lot, but was forced to brake abruptly when two women pushing shopping carts stepped in front of the car with the leisurely attitude of people unaware that an illegal deal could be going down at that very moment somewhere nearby.

            When the two women and their groceries were out of the way, Barnaby slowly eased forward, and we began to search the lot for the beat-up white two-door that Ritchie had described.

            We both spotted it at about the same moment, and as Barnaby stopped for a better look, I pointed past him.

            “There he is,” I said.

            The car was parked well away from other vehicles, in the back-lot, and it was immediately apparent that the car was occupied by a man who was sitting in the driver’s seat.  We did not know what Tony Ridder looked like, but the car was a perfect match, so it had to be assumed that it was him, perhaps sitting there waiting for Cahill.

            He was obviously alone at that moment, so my eyes darted around the immediate vicinity, looking for anyone who might appear interested in him.  Finding none, I looked back at the white car at the very instant that it exploded in a ball of flames, smoke, and sound that I thought would scald my eyes and shatter my eardrums.  I’m sure my jaw must have dropped in shock, and an instant later, I felt the car accelerate strongly toward it.

            Barnaby stopped the car a short distance away, and we both got out and started toward the burning vehicle, hoping to see if there was life that could be saved, but we knew it was over for Tony.  Had he been alive, he would have been screaming for help, but the only sound was the roaring of the inferno that the car had become.  The heat was terrible, and the smell of burning flesh and rubber was even worse.  I had smelled that unpleasant odor in Vietnam when a military convoy had been attacked, and it was a smell I had never wanted or expected to ever encounter again, but there it was, right in front of me.

            The gas tank had apparently ignited, for both the hood and the trunk had been blown open by the force of the explosion, and flames roared hotly from both.  The interior was completely engulfed, so we shielded our faces from the searing heat and stared in horror as an important link to catching Dad’s killer literally went up in flames.

            There was no question that Tony Ridder was dead, probably killed instantly, and I remember thinking how fortunate it was that the car was well away from any other vehicles, or someone else might have been hurt or killed as well. 

            Shoppers had come to the storefront windows to look out, while others stepped outside, shading their eyes for a better look.  Some pointed, talking excitedly to friends, and the two women with shopping carts who had stopped Barnaby’s car in the crosswalk were also staring, the trunks to their cars wide open, unaware that they had probably inadvertently saved our lives, for if we had reached Tony’s car before the explosion, we probably would have been standing right there by his door, talking to him.

            Someone must have called the police and fire, for within minutes, we heard the first sirens screaming toward us.

            The fire was contained and quickly extinguished, and I stood near Barnaby’s car to watch, wondering where we would go from there in the investigation.

            There was a great deal of litter and debris scattered about the immediate vicinity, but Barnaby spotted something lying on the pavement a short distance away that attracted his interest, and he made his way across the lot toward it.  Stooping, he picked something off the asphalt and examined it.  Intrigued, I joined him and saw that the objects were the charred remains of a twenty dollar bill.

            “Well,” I said, quietly.  “Looks like Tony Ridder made his deal with Cahill.”

            “Yeah,” Barnaby agreed.  “And it blew up in his face.”

            The pun was not intended to be funny, and neither of us laughed as we looked grimly at each other for a long moment, both of us thinking the same thing.  Finding Cahill had just gotten a bit tougher.

            “I know he wasn’t much,” Ritchie Ridder said somberly after Barnaby had broken the news to him about the explosion. 

He and Barnaby were seated across from one another at an old card table that apparently substituted for Ritchie’s dinner table.  A coffee cup sat in the middle of it, presumably left over from breakfast. 

“He was in and out of trouble all his life,” he added.

Richie’s apartment was a seedy little one bedroom unit in a rundown building that probably did not meet code.  His furniture was sparse and had seen much abuse, but it occurred to me as I stood there watching that Ritchie was living on a shoestring budget, pulling his way out slowly out of poverty by being responsible and thrifty.

He didn’t say so, but I suspected Tony had always come to Ritchie to bail him out of whatever jam he had found himself in.  And Ritchie, clearly the responsible one, had helped his brother out of a sense of family duty.  I wondered idly if Tony had viewed the deal with Cahill as a misguided way of setting things right, of finally taking care of the younger brother.

“But he was my brother, you know?” Ritchie continued.  “My big brother.”

I heard the wistful tone to his voice, the younger, sensible one wishing his older brother had been more reliable, more accountable for his own actions.  Standing behind him, watching and listening, I really felt for Ritchie.  I understood the sorrow and regret he was feeling at that moment.

                “Did Tony spend the night here?” Barnaby asked.

            “After he got shot at, yeah.  He was here all night and this morning, after I went to work.  Never told me what was going on.  Trying to protect me, I guess.”

            “He probably set up with Cahill’s payoff by phone from here, since the phone company keeps a record of toll calls.”

            “Except that I haven’t got a phone,” Ritchie said.  “He’d have to have used the pay phone out in the hall.”

            “Well there goes that lead,” I said, resentfully.  It seemed that roadblocks were being thrown up at every turn in this investigation.  “No record of calls on a pay phone, right?”

            Barnaby was not discouraged.  “Well, it wouldn’t do any harm to check.  In case he made any long distance calls.”

            We filed out into the hallway and found the payphone attached to the wall.

            I picked up the handset.  “Barnaby, you got any friends at the phone company?”

            Barnaby’s attention had been diverted to a small wire waste basket in close proximity to the phone, and he moved toward it.  “Hold it,” he said, bending over to inspect the pile of wadded up and discarded paper and wrappers.  A few moments later, he withdrew a small insignificant looking piece of paper with phone numbers on it, looking at it carefully.  The last number had been circled, making it stand out from the others.

            I used my little finger to point to it.  “Whoever wrote this was awfully interested in that last number.”

            Barnaby looked at Ritchie.  “You recognize the handwriting?”

            Ritchie nodded.  “Yeah, it’s Tony’s.”

            “Thank you, Ritchie,” Barnaby said.  “You’ve been a bit help.”

            Ritchie understood that he was being politely dismissed.  He was no longer needed, so he turned and started back toward his apartment.

            “I was feeling rather guilty about my earlier treatment of him, and as he passed me, I stopped him.  “Ritchie?”

            He stopped and turned back to face me, and I noticed the discouraged look in his expression.  I knew exactly how he felt.

            “Listen, man, I’m really sorry about your brother,” I told him.  “Really.  I know how you feel.”

            He met my gaze and seemed to understand that they were not empty words.  I, too, had lost a family member to Cahill.  He gave a nod, and I gave him a friendly pat on the arm with my hand, acknowledging the common bond of loss that we both shared, then he withdrew to his apartment.

            Barnaby waited until the door to Ritchie’s apartment had closed, then he turned his attention back to the piece of paper.  “Well, maybe we’d better see what we’ve got here.”

            He lifted the handset to the payphone and inserted the proper change, then dialed the number that had been circled.  It was an old fashioned rotary phone that had probably hung in that position for decades.

            He listened for several moments as it rang, then said, “Oh, well, hello.  Who did you say this was?”  After another paused, he said, “Thank you.  Thank you very much.”  He hung up the phone and turned to face me, his expression gravely thoughtful.  “Martinson Building Supply Company.”

            I had never heard of it, and failed to comprehend the implications.  “Does that mean anything?”

            “Martinson Company has a big office building out in the Topanga area near where Tony was killed.  They do a big business in explosives for construction jobs.”

            I understood then.  Tony had called someone who worked at Martinson Company, and that someone had access to the explosives that were used to make the bomb that killed him.  That person was almost certainly Walter Cahill.

Six

            The structure that housed Martinson Building Supply Company was twelve stories high and aesthetically pleasing with sharp edges and plenty of windows, a striking contrast to Ritchie’s low-end apartment complex.  Everything about it suggested wealth and success.

According to the directory in the lobby, Martinson took up nearly half the available floor space on the eleventh story, so we boarded the elevator and rode it to the eleventh floor, then turned in the appropriate direction and entered the reception office.

            The receptionist was a very pretty young woman who greeted us with a pleasant smile that might have made my heart leap had this case not been so personal to me.

            “May I help you?”

            Barnaby withdrew his identification from his pocket and showed it to her.  “I’m Barnaby Jones with Barnaby Jones Investigations.  We’re trying to locate someone who may work here.  I’m hoping you might be able to help identify him, if I can take a few moments of your time.”  He handed her the police file photos of Walter Cahill, side by side mug shots of him as a long haired heavily bearded man.

            She took the photos and looked at them carefully.  “Well, I can’t be sure,” she said, slowly.  “Underneath all that hair, it could be any one of three or four men working here.  And no one’s named Cahill,” she added, referring to the name that was printed beside the file number.

            I was leaning my hands on her desk in anticipation of a positive response, and I think my frustration was showing a bit when I said, “Which three or four?  It’s very important.  Please.”

            She looked at the pictures again.  “Well, it looks quite a bit like Mr. Thompson.  But it could just as easily be Mr. Talbot or Mr. Brenner.”  She looked up again, apologetically.  “I’m sorry I can’t be more definite.”

            I straightened up from her desk, disappointed.

            “That’s perfectly all right,” Barnaby said, pleasantly.  “We’re much obliged.  You’ve been a big help.  Maybe your personnel department could narrow it down?”

            She pointed to an inner door behind us.  “They’re right through that door, second door on the left.”

            “Thank you,” Barnaby said.

            “Thank you,” I echoed.

            We opened the door, stepped through it, and pulled it closed behind us

            Working our way through personnel did not yield much in the way of results.  They looked at the pictures and basically said the same thing as the receptionist; that it resembled several people within the company, but beyond that, they could not be specific.

Barnaby then managed to charm our way into the company’s business offices to speak directly to the three suspects and their personal secretaries, no small feat considering the fact that the pictures were obviously police file photos.  Since the receptionist had mentioned Thompson’s name first, we started with him.

            His secretary was pleasant and accommodating, a little older than I was, and rather amused at the notion that the mug-shot could be that of her employer.  We also spoke to Thompson himself, who laughed cheerfully, but denied that the pictures were of him.  Not that we expected him to confess, but neither of us had any strong feelings either way about him.

It was the same with the next suspect, Talbot.  As with Thompson, we spoke with both him and his secretary, with the same results.  He was less amused than Thompson, but made a wry joke about wishing he had that much hair, before also denying any relation to the pictures and admonishing us for taking up his time.

            That left Brenner, and that was where things started getting interesting.

            “I’m sorry,” his secretary said pleasantly in response to Barnaby’s request to speak to him.  “Mr. Brenner called just a few minutes ago and told me to cancel all his appointments.  He said he’s going to be out of town for a few days.”

            “I glanced quickly at Barnaby, thinking it was rather suspicious that he would suddenly leave town at the precise time that we were in his offices looking for him, but my cousin maintained a carefully neutral expression, as if completely unbothered by the news.

            “Did he say where he’s going?” he asked.

            “No, I’m sorry.  It must have come up suddenly, though, because he didn’t have any trips scheduled.”

            “Does this look anything like him?” Barnaby asked, placing the picture on the desk in front of her.

            She picked it up to examine it, and I thought I saw something flicker across her face.  It may not have been outright recognition, but there was definitely interest; something familiar that seemed to trouble her.  “It’s hard to say,” she said, slowly, studying the pictures carefully.

            “I understand,” Barnaby said, his voice pleasant and non-threatening.  “He may have changed his appearance considerably since those pictures were taken.”

            “You know, there is something about the eyes,” she mused, thoughtfully.  “I wish I could see more of his face.  There is just so much hair!”  Shaking her head, she handed the pictures back to Barnaby.  “I’m sorry, I just can’t be sure.  There may be a slight resemblance, but I just can’t be certain.”

            I was dissatisfied with her indecision and wanted to question her further, but Barnaby gave her a gentlemanly smile and thanked her for her time.  He then turned and left the office.

            I followed, but as I started to pass through the door, I paused to glance back at her and noticed that she was nibbling her lip thoughtfully, her head turned slightly to one side, eyes starting at Brenner’s nameplate on his office door without seeing it.  She was worried, perhaps even fearful that her employer might be a felon who was masquerading as a businessman.  She was definitely giving it credible consideration, and that suggested to me that we were on the right path.

            A peculiar thrill surged through me, something I had never felt before, except perhaps when I found out I had been accepted into law school.  It was a strong sense of accomplishment, that we were hot on Cahill’s trail.

            I followed Barnaby through the reception area, but neither of us spoke until we were out of the Martinson offices and moving down the hall toward the elevators.

            I was utterly elated, but still puzzled about why we had not questioned the secretary further bout him; how long he had been with the company, where he had come from, his associations, and anything else we could think of.

            “Did you see her face?” I asked as we walked briskly down the hallway.

            “Mm-hmm,” he replied.

            “She’s wondering if it’s him.”

            “She isn’t sure, but you’re right; she’s wondering,” he agreed.

            “The others were amused by the pictures,” I said as we stopped to wait for the elevator.  “They laughed it off, but Brenner’s secretary was taking it very seriously.  I’d bet my future law degree that he’s Cahill!”

            “Could be,” Barnaby allowed, cautiously.

            “So why are we leaving?  Why don’t’ we question her some more, see if she can tell us something that might identify him?”

            “I want to try something else first,” he replied, ambiguously.

            “If he calls the office for some reason, do you think she’ll tell him about us and the pictures?”

            Barnaby was watching the lighted numbers over the elevator doors, and when it neared our floor, he raised one hand as a warning to withhold any further comments until the car had emptied and we were once again assured privacy.

            I fell silent and waited.  The elevator car opened before us, and two men in business suites slipped past us.  I caught the whiff of French Fries from the paper sack that one of them carried, and I glanced at my watch, curiously.  It was already almost five o’clock.  Since we were witnesses to the explosion that had killed Tony Ridder, we had lost a great deal of time talking to the police about what we had seen.

            The two men barely glanced at us as they walked down the hallway in the opposite direction from Martinson Company, talking about how they had at least three more hours of work to do before they could leave for the day.  Either they were extremely dedicated, or they had a deadline to meet.

            We entered the empty elevator car and rode it down to the lobby, arriving only seconds later, not enough time to strike up our conversation again. 

Barnaby had not yet enlightened me about what his plans were, but when we stepped off the elevator, he looked around briefly, then walked directly toward a bank of telephones that was tucked into an alcove.  Removing the huge telephone directory from its cubby, he opened it up, and his forefinger traced down the list of “B”s, stopping on the first name “Thomas”.  I wondered briefly how he had known that Brenner’s first name was Thomas, but the answer came quickly; it was on the nameplate on his office door.  I had noticed it, but the name had not lingered in my mind.  Barnaby was a skilled private detective, and it was therefore not surprising that he had not only noticed it, but remembered it.  I decided I would have to be more attentive.

            I leaned closer to look and noticed that there were no less than fifteen Thomas Brenners in Los Angeles and its suburbs.

            Barnaby stopped on one name and jotted down the address.

            “How do you know that one is him?” I asked.

            “It’s in Brentwood, which is near Topanga,” he replied

            I felt a bit chagrinned.  While there was no absolute guarantee that it was the Thomas Brenner we sought, given the proximity to the offices and the shopping center, the odds were pretty high that it was.

            It was no surprise that the Brenners lived in an upscale Brentwood neighborhood in a large sprawling white house that was clearly maintained by more wealth than I could ever have imagined, and as we parked the car and walked up to the front door, I wondered if he had actually worked for that wealth, or if he had stolen it.

            Our ring of the doorbell was answered promptly by a plump housekeeper.  “May I help you?”

            Barnaby had his identification ready, and he showed it to her.  “I hope so.  My name is Barnaby Jones, and I’m a private investigator.  I would like to speak to Mr. or Mrs. Brenner, if they are available.”

            She looked at the private investigative license, and her eyes expressed concern.  “Are you expected?” she asked.

            “No, I’m afraid not, but this is very important.  We won’t take up much of her time,” he responded.

            “Wait here,” we were instructed.  “I’ll see if Mrs. Brenner is receiving.”

            “Thank you very much,” Barnaby replied.

            The door closed, and we waited on the shaded stoop.

            I had been brought up with good manners, but to this day I have never seen anyone whose manners could come close to the southern gentleman etiquette of Barnaby Jones.  He was born a hillbilly, like Dad, and while Dad was polite to a degree, he was not above using a pair of fists if the situation warranted, and I suppose I take after him in some ways.  While I paced like a caged tiger, Barnaby was quiet and relaxed, facing the closed door with that unshakeable patience.

            After a couple of minutes, the door opened again, and the housekeeper stood back to allow us entry.  “Mrs. Brenner will see you,” she announced, then gestured toward a room off the foyer.  “She’s in the drawing room.”

            We stepped into the large room and found a well-groomed, well-dressed middle aged woman waiting for us.  She appraised us quietly for a moment with the lofty air of someone who has been raised with a lot of money, but she was not discourteous.

            “Eunice tells me you’re a private investigator,” she said.

            “Yes, I am,” Barnaby replied.  “My name is Barnaby Jones.  You’re Mrs. Brenner?”

            “Yes.”

            “Is your husband at home?”

            “Not right now.  Is it something I can help you with?”

            “Perhaps.  We’re investigating an incident that happened in Chicago six years ago, and we hoped maybe he can help us with something.”

            She gave a bewildered shrug.  “I don’t see how.  As far as I know, Tom has never been to Chicago.”

            “Did he tell you that?” I asked in a rather challenging tone.

            “Jedediah,” Barnaby cautioned.

            I glanced at him, impatient and annoyed by the rebuke, but I fell silent for the moment.

            “Tom is from Miami,” she told us.

            “You’re absolutely certain he couldn’t have lived in Chicago six years ago?” Barnaby asked.

            Mrs. Brenner was growing increasingly agitated.  “No, I told you, Tom came here from Miami; he’s not from the Chicago area at all.  Really, I wish you’d discuss this with him.”

            “Yes, we tried to do that at his office, but his secretary said that he was out of town,” Barnaby explained.

            Surprise flickered in her eyes, and we both knew she was unaware of any out of town trip.  “I don’t understand that at all.”

            Barnaby reached into his lapel pocket and withdrew the side-by-side pictures of Cahill.  “Would you mind looking at this picture?”

            "I suppose so, if it will convince you that Tom is not the man you’re looking for.”  She took the picture and looked at it carefully, noting the police identification number across the bottom.  Looking up at Barnaby again with a troubled expression, she said, “This man is a criminal.”

            “That’s right,” Barnaby said with a nod.  “Could the man in that photo be your husband?”

            She lowered her eyes to the pictures again, and her gazed seem to lock on the frontal view of the man’s face, ignoring the side shot.  She was studying his eyes, the most identifiable feature for a woman who had looked into them every day of her married life.

            “Mrs. Brenner, what do you think?” I prodded.  “Is that Thomas Brenner?”

            “No, I’ve never seen him before,” she said a little too quickly, passing the picture back as if she couldn’t get it out of her hands fast enough, lest they be tainted with whatever truth they held.

            “Are you sure of that?” I asked with a surge of impatience.

            She became offended.  “Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped.  “And I resent all of this very much.  Will you please leave?  Both of you, please!”

            “Yes, of course, Barnaby replied, promptly.  “Sorry to have troubled you, ma’am.”

            As Barnaby turned toward the door, I gave Mrs. Brenner a long hard look, but she did not notice.  She had turned away from me in obvious distress, her hands steepled in front of her mouth and nose, as if fighting a wave of utter despair.

            I caught up to Barnaby in the foyer, and the housekeeper smiled and bid us goodbye as we made our exit.  Barnaby replied in a pleasant voice, but I said nothing.  My mind was buzzing with what I had seen, but I made no comment until we were back in the car.

            “She’s covering for him,” I said as soon as the car door had closed.  “She recognized him in that picture, and she’s covering for him.”

            Barnaby nodded, slowly.  “That was the impression I had, too,” he agreed.  “That she thought it was him, or at least could be him.”

            “Then what are we doing out here?” I demanded.  “We should be in there making her admit that the man in hat picture is her husband.  Drag it out of her, if necessary!”

            “I’ve found over the years that trying to drag something out of someone is not always the best route to take when you want results.”

            “Then what do you suggest we do?” I asked.

            He glanced at his watch.  “Well, it’s getting late.  I think we should call it a day, go back to the house for a bite to eat, and then start fresh in the morning.”

            I looked automatically at my own watch, and was surprised to see that it was after six thirty.  But even so, it was still daylight, and I felt irritated that he was ready to stop for the day.  “What?” I asked, incredulously.  “Barnaby, there’s still a lot of daylight!  We have the momentum now!  We need to keep going!”

            “Slow and easy, Jedediah.  I understand that you’re anxious to wrap this up and bring Cahill to justice, but if we press too hard, we run the risk of spooking him or of doing something that will make him run.”

            “His wife is going to tell him we were looking for him!” I shot back.  “You think that won’t spook him into running?”

            “It might,” he admitted.  “But at this point I’m counting on him being arrogant and cocky enough to believe he can worm his way out of this.  He knows we’re grasping at straws, that we have no proof –“

            “No proof?” I echoed.

            “—that will stand up in a court of law,” he finished without pause.  “You’re a law student, Jedediah.  You know that to successfully prosecute a criminal, it is imperative that you present irrefutable evidence of that fact.  And right now, we just don’t have it.”

            I hate it when someone shoots me down with logic.  We didn’t have the evidence, and it was painful to admit.  All we had was a phone number from Martinson Company, written by a dead man, but that was not proof that someone at the company did the murder.  The fact that explosives were used might raise some suspicion, but it was not proof either, especially since the dead man’s brother was working on a construction site and Martinson supplied explosives for construction work.  It could be discounted as coincidental.

            I sighed.  “All right.”

            “Our minds will be fresher in the morning,” he said, soothingly.  “I have a few things that I want Betty to check out before we go any farther, but I have no intention of throwing in the towel or letting him get away.  I want you to understand that, Jedediah.  Now, what do you want for supper?”

            I shrugged, looking out the window at the late traffic.  “I’m not hungry, Barnaby.”

            “You haven’t eaten anything since that stack of flapjacks this morning.”

            “I know.”

            We spoke little during the rest of the ride.  His mention of my father lying in the morgue had temporarily knocked the wind out of my sails.  I would get it back, but at that moment, I was very discouraged and morose.

            It was nearly dark by the time we got back to the house.  Barnaby parked his car in the wide driveway beside my rental car, and we went inside the house.

            “What would you like for supper, Jedediah?” he asked pleasantly, flipping on the table lamp beside the sofa.  Light flooded the living room.

            “I’m not hungry, Barnaby,” I told him, again.

            His eyes were sympathetic as he gazed at me for a moment, and I know I must have looked for all the world like a lot pup standing there in the middle of the floor.

            “I know it probably isn’t worth much,” he said slowly, “but I know how you’re feeling about now.  I felt the same way when Hal was murdered.  It’s hard to lose someone you love, especially when you think the wheels of justice are moving too slowly.”  He waited for me to respond, and when I didn’t, he continued, “I’ll just make us a couple of sandwiches, and you can eat as much or as little as you want.  Is iced tea all right?”

            “Fine.  I’m going to get out of this jacket,” I told him, anxious to be alone for a few minutes.

            I stepped into the bedroom and slipped off the sport coat I had worn all day, and I hung it up carefully in the closet.  I felt restless and discouraged, and I silently cursed Cahill for the time we had lost at Bayridge Plaze.  After a full day of investigating some pretty solid leads, it just seemed to me that we should be farther along than we were.  I suspected that Brenner was not out of town as he had claimed, although it seemed unlikely that Brenner would go to his home for fear that we might be staking out the place, but I felt we should have been trying to find out where he was.  I didn’t understand Barnaby’s logic.

            After washing my hands and face in the bathroom sink in an attempt to refresh myself, I joined Barnaby in the kitchen and found that he had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, reminding me that although my father’s cousin could be eloquent and refined and businesslike, he was still a country boy at heart.  I wasn’t the least bit hungry, but managed to choke down half of the sandwich on Barnaby’s insistence that I eat something.

            After we finished, I offered to help clean up the kitchen, for the breakfast dishes were still soaking in the sink, but he waved me away.

            “You’re welcome to sit down and watch the television,” he suggested.  “I’ll be finished here in two shakes.”

            Two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

            I don’t know who first coined that phrase after the curious habit lambs have of twitching their tails eagerly while nursing, but it was one I was familiar with.  It had been one of Dad’s favorite sayings, and I felt the impact of it in an unexpected surge of emotion.

            “Okay,” I said.  “I’m going outside on the terrace, if that’s okay.”

            “Nice night for it,” he replied.

            While he worked on the dishes, I opened the back door and stepped out on the terrace.

            It was a beautiful night, so peaceful that it seemed contradictory to the recent events in my life.  It was completely dark now, and a large, brilliant moon hung above the ridge, providing a silvery sheen to the landscape, and millions of stars glittered overhead in the black sky.  It was so quiet that I could hear an occasional vehicle traveling along the access road, and once, I heard the distant yammer of a coyote.  Otherwise, it was unbelievably quiet.  Having spent my early life in Chicago apartment buildings and later in a neighborhood closely packed with small houses, I had never experienced the kind of silence that existed in places like Barnaby’s ranch-style house.

            Moving to the corner of the terrace, I folded my arms and leaned my shoulder against a support post, trying to reconcile the peaceful beauty of the location to the turmoil in my heart and my mind.

            My rental car still sat in the driveway, an expense that was seeing no use, and as I stood there, I decided I would drive myself the next day.  That way, if Barnaby was still determined to investigate Talbot and Thompson, I could go my own way and see what I could dig up on Brenner.

            I suppose I understood his need for caution, but I was young and impatient and more accustomed to moving faster when I wanted to get something done.  Brenner was my focus, and my cousin’s snail’s pace in dealing with the obvious did not sit well with me.

            After a while, I heard the door open, and I looked up as Barnaby stepped out on the terrace and closed the door behind him.

            “Well, Jedediah, I phoned Betty and gave her the names of our three suspects.  She’s going to go into the office early in the morning and see what she can find out about them, where they’re from, what they did in their past, any criminal records –“

            “It’s Brenner,” I said, wearily, too tired to put much force in it.  “You know that as well as I do.  So why are we wasting time with these other two?”

            “It’s probably Brenner,” he corrected.  “Remember, the receptionist first named Thompson as our possible match to the mug shots.  People’s first impressions are often the correct ones, in the long run.”

            “And Brenner’s secretary and even his wife looked extremely concerned that he was the match,” I retorted.  “Even if they didn’t say so, you could see it in their faces.”

“We have to be sure, Jedediah.  We need to proceed on the assumption that any of these three men might be Cahill.  We have to be very thorough in our investigation.  When this case goes to trial, we want to make sure everything we have against him sticks.  The burden of proof is on us, not him.

            “Innocent until proven guilty,” I recited the often repeated adage, then sighed heavily. The very fact that he was presumed innocent by law meant that we needed to concentrate on the one most likely to be our criminal.

            “That’s right,” Barnaby said.

            I turned away and looked out into the night again.  I could feel Barnaby’s presence beside me for several moments, then I felt his big hand on my shoulder, and his fingers squeezed once.

“We’re going to get him, Jedediah,” he assured me.  “We’ll prove his guilt, and he’ll be put away for a long, long time.”  Then he was gone.  I heard the terrace door open and close and I was alone again.

Seven

Barnaby and I did not linger at the house the next morning.  Breakfast was a slice of toast with jam and a quick cup of coffee, and then we were out the door.  Both of us were eager to get into the office to find out what information Betty had been able to obtain on the three suspects.  I was especially interested in Brenner, for I was still convinced that he was the only one we should be focusing our attention on, but I knew Barnaby still wanted to be thorough.

I drove the rental car to the office, a fact which surprised Barnaby a bit, but I explained to him that the car wasn’t doing me any good just sitting in the driveway.  He did suggest that I could turn it in and let him do the driving, being more familiar with the broad scope of the Los Angeles area, but I’m pretty good at finding my way around, even if I need to sometimes refer to the dreaded map that some men avoid.  He did not press me, apparently understanding that I needed a bit of freedom that my own set of wheels provided.

I merely followed him to the office parking garage, keeping close enough that I would not lose him at any of the lights.  I knew the way by now, but I sure didn’t want him getting there first and missing out on experiencing, first hand, any pertinent information Betty might acquire in her phone calls. 

When we arrived, we went directly into Barnaby’s office.  Betty had already obtained the necessary phone numbers to place the calls, and rather than placing the calls from her own desk, it was decided that she would use his phone, where we could easily discuss the results once she was finished.

She pulled one of the office chairs closer to the front of his desk and turned his telephone around to face her, and began dialing the first number.

Barnaby sat comfortably in his chair, his hands folded patiently in front of him.  Although there were enough chairs around his large office that I could have sat down, I preferred to stand behind Barnaby, one hand on the back of his chair, the other hand in my pocket, and we both listened intently to Betty’s end of the conversation.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to glean any information from the one sided exchange, and I was growing more and more agitated with every word spoken.  She was cheerful and in no hurry, offering pleasantries with each person.

Finally, at the end of the last call, she said into the phone using a flirty, smiling voice, “Well, I have enjoyed talking with you too.  Thanks so much for your help.  Right, bye-bye.”  She hung up.

I was totally wound up by now and impatient from waiting, and I made an impatient gesture with my hand, which was still on the back of his chair.  “All right, is that the last long distance phone call?”

“Settle down, J.R,” Betty said in a placating voice.  “We believe in being thorough.”

            I shifted my weight, as impatient as before, but I fell silent for the moment, waiting for her narrative.

 “Now,” she began, “those three names that you got from the receptionist at Martinson Building Supply; the two first, Thompson and Talbot, check out all the way down the line.”  She added emphasis to her words with her tone of voice.  “They are who they say they are, and they came from where they said they did.”

There were no surprises there, and I felt a surge of triumph and vindication.  Just as I had suspected, the other two were insignificant to our case, and we were wasting our time on them.

“That leaves Thomas Brenner,” Barnaby said.

The owner’s son in law,” Betty continued with a note of disdain in her voice, and which I shared. 

By virtue of his marriage to Martinson’s daughter, I knew he would be granted special privileges and a great deal of leeway within the company.  And, more than likely, he would also receive plenty of support and protection from the father in law regarding the charges we were going to be levying against him.  I did not know if the old man had sons or not, but in the absence of additional heirs, Cahill, through his wife, stood to eventually inherit the company.

“The story on him is that he came from the Miami area about five years ago, used the money that he got from the sale of a demolition business and bought into Martinson Supply.”

 “Boloney!” I said emphatically.  “He used the money from the jewel heist for that.”

She looked up at me and nodded in agreement.  “It’s very possible.  Because, according to that nice southern gentleman down at the Dade County Hall of Records, there’s nothing to show that Thomas Brenner ever owned or sold such a business in Miami.  I think Thomas Brenner is a phony.”

There was a firm note of resolve in her voice, as if her phone calls that morning had erased all her doubt about Brenner, and I knew that she was now firmly in my corner. I felt a strong wave of satisfaction, and looked to Barnaby for his reaction, but his feelings on the subject were less simple to determine.  He sat thoughtfully in his chair, a pensive frown on his face, and he was rubbing his hands together in a contemplative habit that I would see repeated many times in the following years.  His expression was unreadable, and I wondered what he was thinking, if he would continue to urge caution.  I only knew that I had all the evidence I needed. 

“Brenner is Walter Cahill, all right?” I insisted, my frustration coming through in the tone and pitch of my voice.  “There cannot be any more doubt about that.”

This time, Barnaby offered no objection.

“Seems to fit, all right,” he agreed, “especially when you delve into Cahill’s record and find out that he was once convicted for safe blowing.  That ties into the manner in which Tony Ridder was killed.”

“All we have to do is find him,” I said, then gestured toward the telephone on the corner of Barnaby’s desk.  “Betty?”

She nodded and picked up the phone, dialed the number, and listened for several moments, then looked up and said, “No answer at the Brenner household.”  She hung up.

“Well, it hardly seems likely that he’d be sitting around by the phone waiting to hear from us,” Barnaby said in a thoughtful drawl, then he rose from his desk chair.  “I think I’ll go back to the Martinson office and see if Mr. Martinson knows where to locate his son in law.  Want to come along, Jedediah?”

That seemed to me like a pointless waste of time and I didn’t see any possible good it would do.  Cahill had worked or bought his way into a prominent position within his father in law’s company, and was almost certainly well-liked by his wife’s father and his co-workers.  All indications were that, on the job at least, he was charming and personable with a convincing appearance of professionalism, and in my opinion, Martinson was unlikely to believe our assertions that his daughter’s husband and his business partner was a cold blooded killer.

“For what?” I responded.  “Martinson’s just going to cover for him like Cahill’s wife did.”

“Well, it’s worth a try,” he said, amiably.  “Sure you don’t want to come along?”

“Nah, you go ahead.”

“I’ll see you later, Jedediah,” he said in his pleasant drawl, then he turned his back and strode toward the office door.

Jedediah.

The persistent use of my hated first name was beginning to rankle me, and my exasperation was nearing the breaking point.  With a strong sensation of annoyance rising like a volcano inside me, I leaned my hand on his desk and silently willed myself not to open my mouth again until he was out the door.

As soon as the door had closed behind him, I turned to Betty.  “Why doesn’t he call me J.R.?  Doesn’t he know I don’t like Jedediah?”  I inserted sarcastic emphasis on my name when I spoke it, leaving no doubt about my feelings on the subject.

I’m uncertain what kind of response I had expected from her, but she offered no apologies on his behalf.

“We are edgy, aren’t we?” she said, using her own mild form of sarcasm in response to mine.

“Yeah, we’re edgy, we’re edgy,” I replied, bringing the eruption under control again.  “I’m sorry.  Look, would you make that Brenner call again?”

“I just did,” she protested.

“I know, make it again, please?”  In my frustration, I was talking with my hands, a testament to my mother’s Italian heritage.

            She complied by picking up the phone again, but before she started dialing, she gave me an amused smile.  “Yes, Jedediah.”

The name was as abrasive as a burr, but her smile told me that she was teasing me.  She dialed the number, and I saw an expression of surprise swept across her face.

“Mrs. Brenner?” she said, her eyes darting to mine, confirming that the phone had been answered on the other end.

Triumphantly, I rushed forward to take the phone from her, and lifted it to my ear.  “Uh, Mrs. Brenner, this is J.R. Jones.  Listen, it’s very important that I speak with your husband.  Is he home right now?”

“Well, no he isn’t,” she replied more pleasantly than I had expected after our meeting the day before.  “He said he was driving up to Santa Barbara this morning.  He had some property to look at.”

“I see.  Where exactly in Santa Barbara?” I asked, reaching for a pencil and Betty’s steno pad, which she promptly passed into my waiting hand, and I withdrew a pencil from the desk caddy.  “Do you know?”

“In the Montecito area, I think,” she replied without hesitation.  “On Hillview Drive.”

“Okay, thank you.  That’s all I need to know.”

I now had a positive location on Cahill, and he and I were about to meet face to face.  His wife’s response to my inquiries had been surprisingly prompt and informative, and I remember wondering vaguely if she had confronted him regarding our questions and if he had denied them.  She obviously had nothing to hide in regard to giving out his location, but it never occurred to me that it might be a preplanned set-up.

Slamming down the phone, I started opening and closing the drawers on Barnaby’s desk, looking for an object I knew would be there.  My dad had always kept an extra pistol, and I was pretty sure that Barnaby would as well.

Betty picked up the steno pad I had tossed down on the desk, and looked at it.  “That’s where he is?” she asked, momentarily unaware of what I was looking for.  When I found Barnaby’s spare pistol and withdrew it from the drawer, she looked up, startled.  “What are you doing?  J.R., that’s Barnaby’s!”

Having grown up with a policeman for a father, he had instilled in me a knowledge and respect for firearms. I didn’t particularly like them and I felt very uncomfortable holding it in my hand, but Dad had always told me that a gun was a tool, no better or worse than the person using it.  At that moment, I did not want to think about the fact that I was teetering dangerously on that fine line between righteous and unrighteous, and I did not want to hear objections or logic in regard to what I was about to do. 

With firm, grim resolve, I opened it to check the ammunition in the cylinder and found that it was fully loaded.  “Don’t worry,” I replied, dismissively.  “I’ll take good care of it.”

Her eyes were wide with alarm and disbelief.  “J.R., you don’t have a license to carry a gun!”

I tucked it into my waistband, determined to do what I felt I had to do.  “I have a father on a slab in the morgue.  That’s all the license I need,” I told her.

As I brushed past her, she clutched frantically at my arm, bringing me around to face her.  I didn’t like the reproachful look in her eyes, or the condemnation on her face.  She knew she could not physically stop me, but she pleaded her case with insistence.  “J.R., please!  You are going to stop and pick up Barnaby, aren’t you?”

I had no intention of stopping at Martinson to pick up my father’s cousin.  This was the scenario I had hoped for; a one-on-one encounter with the man who had murdered my father.  “Betty, this has nothing to do with Barnaby, anymore.  Just Cahill and me!”

I strode resolutely through Barnaby’s office door with Betty’s persistent pleas echoing behind me.  “J.R., please don’t go by yourself.”

Ignoring her, I passed through the lobby and went through the outer door, closing it firmly behind me, and blocking out her continued objections.

Betty did not attempt to chase me down the hallway, and as I walked away, I knew her first call would be to Martinson Company to alert Barnaby of what I was doing, but I also knew he had not yet had sufficient time to reach that business, and that would give me a suitable head start before he came after me.

True to his word, Barnaby had obtained a permit allowing me to park closer to the elevators.  I did not allow the thought to enter into my mind that I had betrayed both his hospitality and his trust by my current actions.  I had only one objective in mind, and that was to get to Santa Barbara.

My jacket concealed the weapon from the eyes of the people I passed on my way to the car, and once I was in the front seat, I took a few moments to plot my course on the map, figuring I would lose less time taking that precaution than I would if I got lost.

Los Angeles and its many suburbs encompass a vast expanse of area, but once I reached the coastal highway of Route 101, the rest of the trip was simple and pleasant.  I drove carefully, moving with the flow of traffic, and always aware of my speed.  It would have defeated my purpose to be pulled over for speeding and risk discovery of the gun that was still tucked into my waistband.  I could feel the hard steel against my skin, but I tried not to think about it, to concentrate instead on keeping to the posted speed limit.

The scenery was breathtaking in places, but I kept my attention on my driving and ignored the beauty of the landscape.  I was actually rather concerned that Betty might notify the police to be on the lookout for me, but I reached Santa Barbara without attracting any undue attention.

When I reached the Montecito area, I pulled into the parking lot of a corner bank and stopped the car in one of the spaces and picked up the map I had obtained at the airport when I had first arrived.  It contained insets of the cities and suburbs of the greater Los Angeles area and outlying communities, so I scanned them quickly, searching for Santa Barbara.  I found it on the reverse side, and using my forefinger as a guide, I traced the lines that designated the city streets of the Montecito area until I located Hillview Drive. 

Tossing the map down on the seat, I pulled out of the parking lot and drove carefully through the thoroughfares until I reached the one I sought.  I made the turn onto the street, and proceeded slowly along the curving paved road.  Hillview was a posh district consisting of relatively new and modern homes, most of them multiple stories and all of them with various styles of elegant security fencing. 

When I had spoken with Mrs. Brenner on the phone, she had provided me with a street name, but not a house number, and as I continued along the street, gazing up at the mansions that were positioned on both sides, I was concerned that I might have difficulty pinpointing the proper house.  I needn’t have worried, for I was certain of the house as soon as I saw it.  It was the only house in the neighborhood that was up for sale.

I eased the car to a stop on the curb across the street, and sat for a moment to observe the house.  It was an impressive white two-story mansion surrounded by a tall privacy screen of manicured hedging planted along a tall wrought iron fence.  An ornamental wrought iron gate blocked the entrance to the driveway, and I wondered briefly if Cahill had parked on the street, as I had done.  There were several cars parked on the curb on both sides of the narrow street, but since I hadn’t know what his car looked like, I could not be certain if any of them were his.

The neighborhood was quiet, and after several moments of contemplation, I got out of the car, crossed the street, and walked directly to the gate.  Grasping a black iron bar in each hand, I looked between them, gazing up at the house, wondering if Cahill had come with a realtor.  If he had, it would complicate a confrontation, and I could think of several possible outcomes, none of them pleasant or desirable.  He would almost surely deny my accusations, and make me out to be an aggressor making unwarranted allegations against a man many considered to be an upstanding citizen.  Worse, he might take the realtor hostage or use him or her as a shield.  Third, he might not be there at all.  The windows were dark, and there was no indication that anyone was inside.

It was possible that his reputation as Tom Brenner was strong enough that he had been trusted with the key.  It also crossed my mind that he had come on his own to view the property and the exterior before requesting a tour of the inside, or that he was meeting the realtor and had arrived ahead of him.  I felt that was the most likely scenario. 

I initially feared that the gate would deny my access to the property, but when I lifted the latch, I was pleased to see that it was unlocked, and that fact reaffirmed my belief that Cahill was likely still on the property, somewhere.  Otherwise, I was certain it would have been locked on his departure.  If he was there, I did not want a squeaky iron hinge to betray my presence, so I opened the gate carefully, just wide enough for my slender frame to slip through, and then closed it quietly behind me.

Yes, my actions were a bit clandestine, but I had to consider the probability that his wife had informed him of the visit that Barnaby and I had paid to the house the previous day, and the questions we had asked.  It was better that I approach him unaware, rather than have him waiting for me.

Now officially trespassing, I proceeded cautiously up the driveway toward the house, keeping a wary eye out for Cahill while observing the layout of the house and property.  The garage was obviously located at the rear of the house, for the driveway veered off to my left and continued along the side of the house. On my right, extending from the edge of the driveway, was the sidewalk which led to the front porch.  The porch was low, only one step above ground level, and I moved into the cool shade beneath the ceiling and reached for the doorknob.  If Cahill was in possession of the key and if he had come to look at the house as a potential buyer, he might have gone inside and left it unlocked, as he had done with the gate.

It did not budge, and I felt the twinge of disappointment as I pushed on it a couple of times to be sure.

All indications were that the house and property were empty, forcing me to consider the possibility that I might have missed him, that he might have been there and gone before I had arrived.  It would be easy to overlook the task of locking the gate, but most people remember to lock the front door when leaving. 

Leaving the front porch, I returned to the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do.  I was attentive to my surroundings, giving special consideration to areas where a man might be concealed, either intentionally or otherwise, but so far there was no indication that anyone was around.  It was starting to look like my trip to Santa Barbara had been a waste of time.

It was then that I heard a noise coming from the area where the driveway went along the side of the house.  Impulsively, I rushed after it, turned the corner, and ran the length of it toward the garage.

When I reached the disconnected garage, I stopped and looked around, trying to determine who or what had made the sound I had heard.

I noticed then that the garage door was slightly ajar at the bottom, as if something inside was too close to the door, preventing it from closing fully.  Bending over at the waist, I grasped the handle and pulled it up.

A surge of jubilation shot through me.  It was a large black Lincoln Town Car, concealed inside the garage.  No one was living in the house, so there should have been no car parked there.  However, I had to be sure.  Eagerly, I edged along the side of the car and reached in through the open window to flip down the visor, revealing the car’s registration to one Thomas Brenner of Brentwood, California.

He was there!

I can’t even describe the thrill I felt at knowing how close I was at that moment to my father’s nemesis.  Finally, after all this time, Walter Cahill was going to pay for killing Dad’s partner.  And more importantly for me, he was going to pay for killing my father.

I withdrew from the window and placed my open palm on the hood of the car, feeling the heat from the engine beneath.  He hadn’t been there long, probably arriving shortly before I had parked my rental on the curb.  I didn’t stop to wonder why he had hidden the car in the garage.  Barnaby would say that I was like a hound on the scent of a coon.  I was focused only on one thing, and that was finding Cahill.

I rushed out of the garage and quickly located the back door of the house, convinced that Cahill was in there, somewhere, but the back door was locked as tightly as the front door had been.

Backing away, I looked up at the second story windows, and cupped my hands to my mouth.  “Brenner, are you in there?” I shouted.  “I want to talk to you!”

“So turn around and talk,” commanded a smooth voice behind me.

Whirling around, I saw a man, presumably Brenner, standing among the shrubbery in which he had apparently been hiding beside the garage.  He had a pistol directed at me, and without being told to do so, I automatically lifted my hands into the universal position of surrender.

Several things became apparent at that moment, while I looked into his face; First, he had shaved and cut his hair, but as I looked into his eyes, I knew that they were the same eyes from the mug shot.  They were cold and unemotional, and I wondered if they expressed any softness or affection when they looked at his wife.

In that moment, there was no doubt in my mind; Tom Brenner and Walter Cahill were one and the same.  And second, I knew that I had been set up.  I don’t know if Mrs. Brenner knew what her husband intended to do with me, but there was no doubt in my mind that he had preplanned that encounter, and had used her and my eagerness to set it in motion.  He had been waiting for me, knowing that there was blood vengeance in my heart.  Knowing I would take the bait, just like Tony Ridder had taken the bait.  Different method, same result.  And almost certainly the same conclusion, unless I could think of a way out of it.

He stepped out of the shrubbery and moved toward me, never taking his eyes off my face, never moving the pistol that was still directed at my torso.  Cahill was obviously a capable shot, but at that range, I knew that even a blind man couldn’t miss.

“Where is the other man?” he asked.  “I thought the two of you would come together.”

Confirmation that it was a setup.  He had been watching for us, hidden from view, assuming that Barnaby and I would be coming together.  Had he come with me, I felt certain that we would have been shot from ambush, the same cowardly way he had murdered my father.

“Having a little talk with your father in law,” I told him, boldly, refusing to let him see fear in my face or hear it in my voice.  My steadiness surprised even me.  “I have a feeling you’re in for some major life changes, Brenner.  Or Cahill,” I added, bitterly.  “If you live, that is.”

He did not smile, but I could tell that he was amused by my bold talk.  “Pretty mouthy for somebody at the wrong end of a gun."

We looked at one another for a long, tense moment, and I could see that he was thinking, trying to decide what to do.  The fact that I had come alone had thrown a wrench into his carefully contrived plan.  He had clearly put this trip together with the expectation that both of us would come together, allowing him to eliminate us both at the same time.  But now, even if he killed me there, Barnaby was still a threat, and my demise at the hands of Cahill would make him doubly cautious.  Handling both of us separately was a possibility that Cahill had not counted on.

His indecision lasted only a few seconds.  His eyes darted to the decorative brick wall that extended from the corner of the house, then quickly back to me.  “Lean up against that wall,” he commanded, and when I did not react fast enough to suit him, he raised his voice, “Go on, move!”

All I had at that moment was defiance and a gun in my waistband that I dared not reach for.  I had no choice but to walk to the wall as directed, but my movements were slow, my expression haughty.  I knew that unless I could come up with a way out of the situation I walked into, I was facing certain death.  My mind was working furiously to come up with a viable plan of my own as I placed my hands on the bricks and leaned forward, staring down at the concrete between my feet.

I sensed his movements behind me as he closed the distance, and a moment later he roughly kicked my feet apart.  “Spread out!”

I submitted to his command only because of the gun that I knew would cut me down in a heartbeat if I made a wrong move.  A few seconds later, I felt his left hand begin to pat me down.

It felt strange; this murderer patting me down rather than killing me outright.  He had already murdered three people.  What was one more?  It occurred to me then that he might be considering the idea of using me as bait to lure Barnaby into a trap.  He never admitted to that, but I could think of no other reason why he did not immediately kill me.  I had no intention of allowing that to happen.

He paused briefly when he found the gun that was still tucked into my waistband at my left hip, but he did not seem surprised by it.  Obviously he had known I would not come unarmed.  He lifted my jacket and withdrew it.

Eight

I cannot even begin to convey the degree of extreme discouragement I felt when Cahill found that pistol, for it was my only defense against him, the only thing that leveled the playing field, so to speak.  However, that sensation of being totally disheartened lasted only a moment.  When I felt the hardness of the pistol withdrawn from the waistband of my trousers, it suddenly occurred to me that this was not defeat, but an opportunity.  In that instant when his attention was diverted from me to the pistol, I realized that it was a moment when I could react.

While he tossed Barnaby’s pistol away to the left, I swung around to the right and kicked his own pistol out of his hand.  I’m not a karate expert, but I’m quick and I have good coordination and had experienced my share of street fights as a youth.  Therefore, I was not surprised that my action had the desired effect:  The weapon leaped from his hand, arced through the air, and clattered onto the concrete.  I made no attempt to recover it; my attention was focused entirely on Brenner and my desire to keep him from snatching it up again.  I knew he would not hesitate to pull the trigger the next time!

At his startled expression, I experienced a strong surge of elation and satisfaction, and I kept the momentum in my favor by charging at him.  He had not expected that move either, and fell backward when our bodies connected.  We landed very hard on the brick sidewalk, but he took the brunt of the impact, being the one on the bottom.  I heard him grunt with pain and surprise, and he struggled to free himself from my grasp.  Grappling frantically, we rolled over and over several times until we reached the grassy area of the backyard behind the house.

I was younger and more nimble, driven by adrenaline and a sense of righteousness, and I quickly found my footing on the soft turf.  Scrambling to my feet, I hauled him up by the front of his shirt and drove my fist into his ribs.  He doubled over, not fully, but enough to give me tremendous gratification, and I heard the satisfying whoosh of air as the breath was forced out of him.  I followed it up by delivering a punch to his jaw, but it was less effective.  I had hoped it would knock him down, but he merely staggered a step or two backward.

I felt a minor burst of pain in my knuckles following the blow, but it lasted only a moment.  I would feel the full effects later, but at that moment the adrenaline rush made me feel invigorated and confident, and I took a step forward to keep up the pressure on him.

At that point, Cahill seemed to recover from the surprise of my attack, and he skillfully deflected my next blow, which knocked me slightly off balance.  Before I could recover, he delivered a nasty smack to middle of my face that somehow missed the rather prominent tip of my nose.  The blow caught the bridge of my nose instead, and bright lights exploded behind my eyes, rendering me dazed and unable to react or defend myself.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I would have at least one black eye as a result of that blow, a curious thing to think about, considering the fact that it was the least of my worries at that moment.

Cahill leaned to the side and delivered several hard kicks, but I could only cringe and use my upper arm to protect my body.  A final kick sent me toppling on my fact in the grass.

The events that followed immediately after my collapse onto the ground are unclear to me, and it is my belief that I must have briefly lost consciousness or I had at least been dazed to the point of losing my sense of awareness.  I have no memory of Barnaby’s arrival on the scene until I was roused by the startling report of a gun, fired at very close range to where I lay prone and defenseless.  He would supply the details later, but at that moment, it was all I could do to push away the blackness that threatened to send me back into oblivion.

Through the hazy fog that lingered in my head, I heard Barnaby say with grave concern in his gravelly drawl, “I hope for your sake, that boy’s all right.  You’ve done enough to hurt the Jones family.”

I was a little surprised to hear his voice, even though I had known from the beginning that Betty would contact him at Martinson Company to inform him that I was hot on Cahill’s trail.  He had arrived sooner than I had expected, and must have made record time, probably knowing I would end up getting myself into trouble.  I could hear Brenner’s low groans nearby, and understood that Barnaby had disabled him with one well-placed shot. 

Struggling against the variety of pains I felt in assorted places on my anatomy, I slowly lifted my head off the grass and looked up with blurry eyes, drawn to the sound of his voice.  The blue sky seemed unnaturally bright, and I blinked and squinted against the glare.

I had set out on my own to bring Cahill to justice, determined that it was both my right and my responsibility to do so, but I had failed miserably. Barnaby was like the cavalry, riding in to save my hide from my own folly, and I must admit that as his rather craggy face swam into focus, I was very happy to see him.

As our eyes met, I saw his expression soften.  “You all right, J.R.?”

I can count on one hand the number of times he has called me by my preferred name, and I would not require all five fingers to do so.  That was the first time, and his use of it then gave me some hope that he might yield to my wishes on that subject.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I replied, then added with a rather sheepish grin, “I guess.”

I had spoken it in a rather humorous way, but in truth, I wasn’t entirely certain at that moment exactly how “all right” I really was.  I felt like I had been on the receiving end of a battering ram, run over by a truck, and mowed down by a steam roller, all at the same time.  Cahill was not that big of a man, but it was apparent that he had some fighting experience that surpassed my own.

Cahill was laying on the ground several feet away, his hand clutching his upper arm.  I could see the blood seeping between his fingers, and his mouth was a tight line, but those cold eyes regarded me with open hostility.  I knew I was lucky that I had not become yet another one of his victims, and it was very sobering to think how close I had come to buying it that day.

Barnaby towered over our prisoner attentively, his pistol covering the criminal who would have murdered the two of us without batting an eye or experiencing a moment of regret.  His only regret was that he had been brought down.

Surprisingly, in spite of my physical discomfort, I was already starting to experience the lifting of my heart, the undeniable elation of knowing that my father’s killer was incapacitated and would be put away for a very long time, and a sense of pride that I had helped finish the task he had started.  There had been a few bumps in the road, but I had seen it through to the end.  That reality helped motivate me into getting myself into a seated position on the soft grass, and I scooted to my right, putting a bit more distance between myself and Cahill.  I didn’t think he posed a particular threat at that point, but I saw no reason to tempt him into trying something.  Prudence, my mother would have called it.

The movement was painful, particularly to my hands as I used them to shift position, and I noticed the redness around the knuckles, the tell-tale sign of impending bruises.  Cahill would have the corresponding bruises on his jaw.  There were also several sore spots on my face, and I gingerly touched one particularly tender spot on my forehead with my fingertips.  They came away with a smear of blood from the laceration that Cahill had given me, and I felt a kind of wry satisfaction over my first battle scar from hand to hand combat.  Most of us carry scars from childhood, be it youthful fights or some other childish event, but this was different.  I had survived a truly life or death struggle, one on one combat with a dangerous criminal.  Betty would probably say it’s a guy thing, but even though I had lost the fight, it was a new experience, one I would learn from and apply to future confrontations.

Barnaby continued to stand nearby covering Cahill, displaying no sign of where we would proceed from there, and it occurred to me as I sat there on the grass that we had no access to a telephone.  I knew for a fact that the house was locked up tight, and even if it wasn’t, there was no guarantee that it had a functioning telephone with which to notify the police.  Looking up at Barnaby, I wondered if he was aware of that fact.

Before I could ask the question, though, I heard the distant wail of sirens and saw a knowing smile forming on his face.

In answer to my unspoken question, he said, “One of the neighbors must have called the police.  I saw her standing in her yard watching when I opened the gate, and I suspect she also saw you and Mr. Brenner here also enter the property without a realtor.  She probably suspected that something might be going on that needed attention.”

“Lucky for us,” I said.

“Alert neighbors are a good thing.  Helps keep out the criminal element.”

“Should I go direct them in?” I asked.  I was uncertain at that moment that I was capable of getting up and staying up, but I did know that I didn’t trust myself to guard Cahill.  Barnaby had that under control, and I was perfectly content to let him manage that detail.

“Nah, stay put and rest, Jedediah.  They’ll find their way in.”

I couldn’t suppress my sigh.  So much for using my preferred name.

Within minutes, the police cars were screaming up the street toward the house.  I was uncertain where Barnaby had parked, but I reasoned quickly that his car must be blocking the gate, for the police cars did not enter the property.  They could easily have followed the driveway all the way around the house to where we waited in the back yard, but they did not.  The sirens were extinguished, and I heard the sound of running feet on the concrete, moving a rapid pace toward us.

When they came around the corner of the house, they approached us warily with their weapons drawn.  I knew they were arriving on the scene unaware of who were the good guys and who were the bad.  They were assessing the fact that a wounded man was lying on the ground being carefully guarded by a man with a gun, and a third man, me, was sitting on the ground, possibly injured as well.

Barnaby was prepared for the expected questions, for he already had his private detective’s license out of his pocket, holding it up for the officers to see.  “I’m a private investigator,” he said, calmly.

Police officers commonly have mixed feelings about private investigators, but they are generally tolerated because they can often focus a lot of time and attention on a particular crime or event, which takes a burden off the investigating officers, who might be sorting through a dozen different crimes at the same time.  But the officers responding that day were not detectives; they were uniformed police, the often unsung heroes of the daily grind, the first responders of the task of protecting the general populace.

The ranking officer on the scene looked at the license with careful scrutiny, matching the face on the photograph to the person who stood before him, and seemed satisfied with its legitimacy.  “What happened here?” he asked.

Still seated on the cool grass, I listened while Barnaby explained that the wounded man who lay on his side a short distance away, gripping his injured arm in his hand, was Tom Brenner, aka Walter Cahill, and he gave a summary of the crimes he had committed, including the murders of two police officers.  Having been raised by a cop, I can think of only a few crimes that incite more personal emotion among the men in blue than the killing of a fellow officer in the line of duty, and I could see their expressions harden as Barnaby described the murders.

“Is that true?” one of the officers asked.  “Is your name Cahill?”

Cahill’s face flamed with fury.  “I know my rights, and I’m not saying anything without an attorney.”

“If you’ve done all the things this man says you did, that’s probably smart,” he told him.  “Shouldn’t take much to back-track your activities, though.”  Turning back to Barnaby, he nodded toward me.  “You said this man is your nephew?”

“Cousin.  It was his father, my first cousin Monroe, who was murdered the other day out at the airport.  I was on my way to pick him up when it happened.  We’ve been tracking Cahill over the last few days, and that investigation led us here.  When he tried to murder my cousin, Jedediah –“ I cringed at the use of the name, and noticed that the cop glanced over at me “-- I ordered him to put the gun down, and when he turned it on me, I was forced to shoot.”

The officer nodded his understanding, then asked, “Where is the gun?”

“I have it,” Barnaby replied.  “He dropped it when I shot him.  I hated to pick it up because of prints, but he was trying to recover it, so I had no choice.  I was careful, though, where I touched it, so his prints should be on the handle.”

The officer took the pistol, careful not to add his own prints.  He turned his attention to Cahill.  “All right, on your stomach spread-eagled,” he commanded.

With a defiant glare, Cahill lay down on his belly.

“Spread ‘em,” the officer commanded.  I experienced a moment of satisfaction when he kicked Cahill’s legs part.  Payback.  The action must have jarred his injury, for he cried out and his face contorted with pain.

“Watch the arm,” Cahill growled, resentfully as he complied with the order, moving slowly to avoid further damage to the wound.  “I’m going to bleed to death if you don’t get someone out here to bandage it.”

“You’ll get your medical care,” the officer told him as two other officers stepped forward to search him for additional weapons and identification.

While I watched the pat-down, I felt a sudden jolt of apprehension shoot through my body in remembrance of the pistol that I had taken from Barnaby’s desk and that Cahill had taken from me and tossed onto the ground.  I had not used it at all, but if the police found it, it might bring about questions regarding my lack of a license and my intentions.  Looking back, even with the anger and the thirst for revenge I had felt, I know I could never have murdered Cahill in cold blood, but my lack of forethought in the matter was staring me right in the face, and I was uncertain how to handle it.

Apprehensively, my eyes darted to the area of the driveway and sidewalk where our struggle had begun and where I knew the pistol should be lying.  The gun, however, was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered if Cahill had picked it up.  If he had, the police would find it, and I would be faced with some serious questions.

I looked up at Barnaby, who was also watching while they patted down Cahill, and he must have felt my eyes on him, for he turned his head to look at me.  I motioned him closer.

His eyebrows lifted curiously, and he approached me.  “Are you all right, Jedediah?”

“Fine,” I replied.  I cast a surreptitious glance toward the police officers.  “Listen, Barnaby, I need to tell you something.”

He noticed the direction of my glance, and squatted down in front of me, bringing his face closer to mine, guaranteeing a private conversation.  “About my pistol, you mean?” he asked.  No one could fault his detective skills or his sense of perception.  My face must have said it all.  “Betty told me you had taken my spare gun from my desk drawer.”

He did not come right out and remind me that it was impolite to go through someone’s private desk and remove anything that might be there inside it, but I knew that was what he was getting at.  His words were not actually an accusation, but were close enough that I felt a twinge of regret about betraying his trust.

“Yeah.  Sorry about that, Barnaby.  I know I made a bad decision.”

He nodded, solemnly.  “Yes, you certainly did.  I understand something of what you were feeling and thinking, but Jedediah, lowering yourself to his level, the level of a murderer, does nothing to further your cause or the memory of your father.  It only taints you with the same ugly brush.  I’ll wager a guess and say that Monroe would be very disappointed in you right now.”

As if I hadn’t felt bad enough already, his admonishment made me feel like the lowest form of life on the face of the planet.  The only other person who had ever made me feel that way by simple choice of words was Dad.  As a teen, my typical form of punishment was extra chores, but those extra chores were nothing compared to the mere fact that I had disappointed my father.  I experienced those same sensations as I sat there on the ground in front of my much older cousin.  I knew he was right; my dad would have been very disillusioned with me.

I nodded in reluctant agreement.  “Yeah, you’re right.  He would be,” I admitted with a discouraged sigh.

He was looking at me carefully, scrutinizing me, and I knew he detected the remorse that I was genuinely feeling.  “But you’re not like Cahill,” he concluded.  “You’re a better man than that.  You didn’t use that gun, did you?”

“No.  Cahill got the drop on me, and found it when he searched me.”  I nodded my heard toward the area where he had disarmed me.  “It’s probably still over there, somewhere.”

He patted his lapel with his hand to let me know it was concealed there.  He had either taken it from Cahill, or he had picked it up off the ground.  It only mattered that he was now in possession of it.

“How is he doing?”  It was one of the police officers, and I knew he was talking about me.

Barnaby smiled and rose to his feet again.  “He’s a little battered and bruised, but I think he’ll be all right.”

“We have a paramedic squad on its way to look at that other guy.  They’ll take a look at him, too.  They should be here in a few minutes.”

“Good idea,” Barnaby said, approvingly.

“I’m all right, Barnaby,” I said in sort of a growl, uncomfortable with all the attention.  “Just feeling pretty stupid right now.”

“I know, but it’s better to be safe.  Looks like you took a few blows to the head, and you’re already getting a it of a shiner.  Best to have them looked at.”

I looked away.  That I was developing a black eye was no surprise.  I had expected it.  But I did not want the attention from the medical personnel, for I knew it would likely culminate in a trip to the hospital for X-rays and tests.

A few minutes later, I heard the sirens approaching again, presumably a paramedic squad and an ambulance. 

One paramedic bypassed me and went directly to Cahill, while the other knelt down in front of me and opened up his kit. 

“Looks like you took a bit of a beating here,” he said in a pleasant voice that suggested he was accustomed to using a calm demeanor to settle down patients who were possibly in a panic over whatever accident they had been involved in.  He withdrew a penlight from his shirt pocket and shined it in my eyes, first one then the other, checking the function of my pupils.  My irises are very dark brown, so dark that they almost blend with my pupils, but he was a professional, and was apparently satisfied that they were functioning normally, for he returned it to his shirt pocket.  That gave me hope that maybe I could escape that diversion to the emergency room.

“Yeah, a bit of one,” I mumbled in agreement.  It wasn’t pleasant to admit that I’d been bested by a man nearly 20 years older than I was!

“Do you have a headache or any dizziness?” he asked.

“No.  I have pain in localized spots where he hit me, mainly the bridge of my nose, but no overall headache,” I replied, then added with some reluctance, knowing that I was assuring myself a trip to the hospital, “I think I was unconscious for a minute or two, though.”

Concern flickered briefly in his eyes, and he withdrew the penlight again and took a second look at my pupils.  “You’re sure it was only a few minutes?” he asked.

“Yeah, positive.  I may have only been stunned,” I added, quickly.  “I just don’t remember anything that happened during those few minutes.”

His face remained calm and expressionless, offering no hint of his opinion on that, but I knew he couldn’t actually diagnose a problem.  With deft fingers, he probed the spot between my eyes, where Cahill had smacked me with his hand, and I could not help but flinch when he found a particularly tender spot.  “I don’t think it’s broken,” he announced.  “It wouldn’t hurt to get some X-Rays to be sure, though.”

In the struggle with Cahill, my hair had fallen over my forehead, and he pushed it back, having noticed a trickle of blood coming from beneath it.  “Looks like you’re bleeding a bit on your forehead.  We’ll get that patched up.”

I reached up to touch it, but he caught me by the wrist, a silent instruction to keep my hands away from it.  With a small sigh, I dropped my hand again.

He removed an antiseptic swab from his kit and used it to clean the small cut over my left eye, then applied a bandage.

 “So, is he going to live?” Barnaby asked.

The paramedic looked up and smiled.  “I think so.  Are you a relative?”

“Cousin.”

“I think he’ll be fine, but since he was unconscious for a short time, I think you should have him checked out in the emergency room, just to be safe.”

“Is that really necessary?” I asked, impatiently.

“They may want to take some X-rays, and they need to make sure there isn’t any head trauma.”

“I’ll see to it,” Barnaby replied.  “In fact, if we’re not needed here any longer, I’ll take him on over there now.”

“I’m finished with him,” the paramedic said.

Barnaby turned his attention to the policeman who was standing nearby, watching.  “Mind if I take him in?”

The cop shrugged.  “We’ll need you to stop by the police station after you finish up there.  I’m sure they’ll have some questions for you.”

“Certainly,” Barnaby responded cheerfully, but I felt a bit alarmed.  I had known I would probably be called as a witness once Cahill went on trial, but I had not figured on being questioned by police.  I suppose I should have, though.  They would want to obtain every bit of information they could to put the case against him together.  Still, I could not help but feel worried that the subject of Barnaby’s extra pistol might come up.

I stood up slowly and painfully, but managed to keep myself in an upright position as I followed Barnaby back to his car.  The neighbors were still gathered in small groups outside the gate, and although I avoided making eye contact with them, I could feel the intensity of their stares More than likely, in that quiet upper class neighborhood, things like murder and mayhem rarely, if ever, occurred.

Barnaby had parked his car in the driveway outside the gate, effectively blocking access to the police and paramedic vehicles that were parked on the street.  My rental was still parked across the street where I had left it, and I reached into my pocket for the keys, intending to drive myself.

 “No, you’re not,” he told me, firmly, clamping a surprisingly vise-like grip on my shoulder.  “Not until you’ve been checked out.  If the doctors clear you to drive, then I’ll bring you back here to pick up the car.”

I didn’t feel up to arguing with him, so I went to the passenger door of his car and got in.  A moment later, he got in and started the ignition. 

We were silent for several moments as he backed carefully out of the driveway and started back down the street toward the area hospital, then I sighed, heavily.  “Look, Barnaby, I don’t want you to get into any trouble for concealing evidence.  I’m afraid I didn’t think about anything like that when I took it.  Once I knew where Cahill was, I couldn’t think of anything else besides getting to him.”

“Well, the way I see it, the gun was not used at all in this event, and therefore cannot be considered evidence in any way, shape, or form.  The only thing they would actually have you on would be carrying a concealed weapon without a license.”

“What if Cahill tells them I had a gun?"

He was quiet for a few moments, thinking about that.  “I don’t think he’ll mention it.  First off, he doesn’t know you don’t have a license to carry, and to be honest he doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who will give up any information willingly.  I don’t think he’ll confess to any of this.  Our testimony is the only thing the police are going to have, and they’ll have to build a case around the information we give them.  We’ll just omit the part about the gun, unless they ask directly.  Then we’ll have to be honest."

I nodded.  Even if they did find out I had taken Barnaby’s gun, my lack of a license probably would result in nothing more than a fine, and I knew he would not press any charges against me for theft, so I felt pretty confident that everything would work itself out.

Nine 

The world famous Malibu Beach stretched out on both sides of me.  It was a calm morning, the day after the incident in Santa Barbara, and I would be returning to Chicago later in the day, following a celebratory lunch on Barnaby’s tab at the restaurant where we had eaten that first day.  But first, there had been one thing I wanted to see while in Southern California, and I had set out on my own after breakfast, following Barnaby’s instructions until I reached the public areas of the popular coastline.

For a Midwesterner, born and bred, it was spectacular to see.  In Chicago, I had seen the beaches along the edges of Lake Michigan several times, although it was not one of my regular hangouts, but it had an entirely different feel to it.  Farther north, the air was crisper, cooler, and the lake was fresh water.  In L.A., there was a distinctly tropical appearance, even in the early fall, and the air had a salty smell that I found pleasant.

The sun was up, and along the highway behind me, the commuters began their daily journey to jobs and school, while in front of me, the gentle waves of the Pacific Ocean rolled lazily onto the sandy shoreline.  I was seated in the warm sand, just out of reach of the waves that pushed upward along the smooth sand and stopped about three feet from my bare toes.  I could hear the soft hissing sound it made as the water surged forward, and then slid back.

The sand was damp, and I could feel it seeping through the seat of my pants.  I was casually dressed in slacks and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to my elbows, my shoes and socks sitting beside me.  There was a breeze that tousled my unruly hair, and the humidity from the water put a distinct curl into it that I would have to tame before going to the airport.  But for now, I paid little attention to it.  My eyes were riveted on the beauty all around me.

Because it was a weekday, there were few others on the beach, but I was not completely alone.  A young mother played in the sand with a pair of pre-schoolers, helping them build a lopsided sandcastle with plastic buckets and hand shovels.  A picnic basket nearby suggested that they would be eating peanut butter sandwiches for lunch before going back home.  Farther down the beach, I could see a young couple walking hand in hand in the wet sand, the waves rolling over their feet.  It appeared they did not have a care in the world, and I envied them, for I still have one task which I dreaded; the funeral of my father.

Upon returning to the office the day before, after my examination at the hospital and after our interview at the Santa Barbara police station, Betty informed us that the coroner’s office had released my father’s body.  Barnaby kindly used his resources to have him flown back to Chicago that night, and I had called the funeral home to make arrangements for them to pick him up at the airport.  He would be there when I arrived.

My battered body was terribly sore that morning, and Barnaby had insisted that I take a couple of over-the-counter pain relievers at breakfast, insisting they would help.  To be honest, I could tell no difference, but I appreciated his caring gesture.

The Jones family hunt for Walter Cahill was now officially over.  He was behind bars, and he would be for some time.  I was satisfied that, after all that time, after all of Dad’s dedication, diligence, and persistence that had eventually cost him his life, the job was now complete.

As I sat on that nearly abandoned beach that early autumn morning admiring the waves and the ocean, I was also thinking about my future.  When I had flown to California to find Cahill, I had always assumed that once the task was done, I would return to Chicago, return to my classes, become a lawyer, and go out into the Chicago workforce.  I had not expected to find a family. 

Oh, I knew Barnaby was family before I had come to Los Angeles, but having gotten the chance to become better acquainted with him, not as the child I had been before, but as a man, I found myself strangely drawn to him.  He bore no physical resemblance to my father, but I did find similarities in attitude and behavior, that hillbilly hospitality, and the unique dialogue that seemed alien in ultra-modern Los Angeles.  Both were fond of puns, and possessed the mannerisms of their Tennessee upbringing.  The thought of leaving him and Betty left me feeling oddly alone and abandoned.  I had no brothers and sisters, and no relatives left in Chicago.  I had some cousins of varying ages on the Romano side of the family that were scattered about Illinois and the rest of the country, but I rarely saw them and were close to none of them.  I did have family in Los Angeles, relatives I had not known well until then, but now wanted to know better.  It’s hard to explain, even all these years later, but I did not want to leave.

Already, I was wondering how I would manage.  There would be money in Dad’s account that would help with bills for a while, once I was granted access to it, but I knew I was going to have to find employment before I graduated.  With my tuition, the funds would not last long.  I no longer wanted to live in my father’s house.  The memories there would be unbearable, and I knew that if I sold the house, I would have additional funds at my disposal.  But I would need to find an apartment, and if I was going to move anyway, it might as well be in Los Angeles. 

A plan was starting to form in my mind, one I hoped Barnaby would help make a reality.  Like me, he had no other immediate blood relatives.  As his daughter in law, he considered Betty his next of kin, his family, and he loved her like a daughter, but if he was willing, I hoped there could be room for one more close relative in his immediate family.  Provided he agreed.

I spent more than an hour on the seaside at Malibu, just sitting in the sand and drinking in the view, or walking barefoot along the edge of the beach while the waves rolled ashore to erase my footprints. Then, feeling refreshed and energized, ready to tackle the tough tasks that were ahead of me, I returned to Barnaby’s house to shower and change clothes and dry my hair.

We drove to the restaurant in separate cars.  I still had the rental, which I would turn in at the airport when I arrived, and I had stowed my suitcase in the trunk, ready to leave as soon as we had lunch.

It was the same restaurant where we had eaten that first day in Los Angeles, but quite contrary to that first time, when nothing on the menu appealed to me, this time, pretty much everything looked good, and when my selection arrived, I ate with a famished gusto that they had not seen in me before.  In fact, as I was finishing the food on my plate, I became aware that Betty and Barnaby had finished and were watching me with rather amused smiles.

“I don’t know, Barnaby, what do you think?” Betty asked teasingly as I speared the last cut of meat and devoured it.  She had quickly picked up on the change in my demeanor that went well above and beyond the fact that I was demonstrating far more enthusiasm than she had ever seen me exhibit at mealtime.  “Think he’s found his appetite yet?”

I couldn’t help but smile.  I didn’t know her that well yet, but she already seemed like family to me, and I enjoyed her friendly ribbing.

“You’ll probably have time for a little dessert before your plane leaves, what’d ya say, Jedediah?” Barnaby said, joining in, implying that I must surely be still hungry, judging by my zeal.

“Sure do,” I replied, not even feeling annoyed by that he had yet again referred to me by the name I have always hated.  I knew by then that I would never be able to convince him to use any name except the hated “Jedediah”. “Anyway, there’s always another plane, right?” I added with a genuine smile on my face for the first time since learning of my father’s murder.  That day in class seemed a lifetime ago.  I put down my fork and dabbed at my lips with my napkin, for I still needed to offer a word of gratitude that I had not yet made.  “Um, by the way, I want to thank you for saving my neck.”

I meant every word of that, and I knew I should have said something about it sooner.  I won’t even try to make excuses about that.  It wasn’t easy admitting that I had been wrong in my determination to finish Dad’s work by catching Cahill myself.  I had learned a lot by that one incident, and I was growing intrigued by the private detective business.  There was a lot to be learned by that end of law enforcement, and I believed that understanding it might make me a better lawyer in the long run.

“Yeah, you cut it a little close for comfort there,” he said.  “I’m glad I got there in time.”

I was grateful that his words were merely an acknowledgement without being judgmental.  “Well, you were right,” I admitted, grudgingly.  “About taking it nice and slow and easy.  Guess I kind of went in there a little too eager.  Almost got myself killed.”

“Well, who would’ve known that Cahill qualified for a black belt in karate?” he quipped.  “I may have had trouble with him myself.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how to take that comment.  Barnaby had been in the private investigative business a very long time, since before I was born, and I’m sure he had pretty much seen it all.  I found myself wondering just how physical he had been in his younger days, although I felt pretty sure that the majority of his investigations were more along intellectual lines, given his slow and easy methodology.  Or maybe his current tactics were born from all those years of experience.

“Well, I certainly found out,” I said.  “Now, I’ll tell you something,” I added, leading into my sales pitch.  “Really beginning to like it out here.  I think I might want to stick around for a while.”

Betty’s reaction was instantaneous.  A broad smile spread across her face.  “That’s a great idea!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm.  I had not yet mentioned going to work at the office, but she has always been very intuitive, or perhaps she merely thought that Barnaby might be able to use a little help in the business, for she turned to him expectantly, “What about it, Barnaby?  We could always use some extra help.  Can’t we?  Hmm?”

Barnaby did not provide an immediate response, although I wonder to this day if they might have discussed the possibility of my staying among themselves, discussing the pros and cons of adding an energetic young future attorney to the business.  They had to have known that after losing my father, I would be drawn to family.  But he also knew that I had a life back in Chicago, and wanted to know how willing I would be to give it up. 

“Don’t you have to go back to Illinois and finish law school?”

“Well, I can always study California law,” I replied, lightly.  “Can’t be any tougher for a young lawyer out here than it is back home.”

Back home.  That’s how Dad always referred to Tennessee.  I suppose that is a common reference for people who move away from their home town.  I was about to become one of them.

Barnaby continued to examine me with a serious, studious expression, while next to him, Betty’s smile broadened.

“Now,” I continued.  “If you could just pay me enough to live on, uhhhh . . . .”

Barnaby was still silent on the subject, prompting Betty to jump to my defense.  “Now how can you say no?  I mean, after all, he is kin.”

That was hitting where he was most sensitive.  Kin was the most important thing to him.

“I haven’t said no, yet,” he said.  “I have to think about this.  You know, kin or no kin, you’ll have to work for every dollar of your wages.”

I expected nothing less, and I felt the excitement starting to rise to the surface along with the smile that was spreading across my face. 

“And,” he continued, “Occasionally take some advice from someone older and more experienced, because you do tend to be muley now and then.”

Grinning, Betty looked from Barnaby to me.

I was happy, but I wasn’t going to let the affront to my character pass without a rebuttal.  I drew a deep breath, knowing that I was probably stepping into unchartered territory.  “Well, that trait kind of runs in the family.”

I said it lightly, jokingly, but the horrified look that crossed Betty’s face indicated that I might have overstepped.  She looked apprehensively at Barnaby, who paused, his wine glass at his lips.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, quickly, deciding not to linger on that subject.  “You got yourself a deal!”

Still looking a bit apprehensive, Betty raised her glass.  “Uh, to the three of us?:

We all raised our glasses for a toast.

Epilogue

When I last visited my dad’s grave, it was a bare plot covered with wilting funeral flowers.  Now, as I sit on a small concrete bench beneath nearby shade tree, I observe that grass has filled in the bare dirt with a plush carpet of green.  The flat, double wide grave marker reflects the names of both of my parents on a polished bronze plaque.  Dad had picked it out many years before his death, anticipating the reality that one day, he would rest beside his wife, my mother.  A bronze flower vase is set into the marble stone, and in it, I have placed a lovely bouquet of silk flowers that will stay relatively fresh-looking for a long time.  And on the ground, I have placed a large spray of silk flowers, but I know it will be picked up eventually by the maintenance crews.

It is a peaceful place, the cemetery in which my parents await eternity.  The sounds of commuters on the main roads are muffled, the noise absorbed by the trees and shrubs that surround it.  I will be back here, in time, to again decorate their graves and reflect on their lives and their love.  I don’t know when that will be; it’s a long flight from Los Angeles and the life I have made for myself there.

Sometimes, I wonder how different my existence would have been had Walter Cahill never entered our lives.  Surely, I would now be a Chicago attorney, struggling to earn a living as I made a reputation for myself.  Perhaps I would be starting with the District Attorney’s office, or maybe I would have opened my own practice.  It is impossible to say, of course, since my life took a sharp detour from my original objective.  I am still not an attorney, and at this point I am uncertain how I will use my law degree, once I achieve it.  Some people with law degrees never go into practice, preferring other areas with which to utilize their skills.

I still work with Barnaby and Betty in that small office where he had set up his private investigative business many years ago, the business he had turned over to his son upon retirement, and which he returned to after Hal’s unexpected and sudden death at the hands of a murderer.  Yes, he knew how I had felt when my father had been murdered, although at the time, I did not fully appreciate that fact.  The three of us, Barnaby, Betty, and myself, have that common denominator, that common shared ache that resides in our hearts, but we have all found happiness again, both together and separately.  We are family, but as with all families, we have our private, sometimes secret lives, that are experienced on our own or with others.  But the bottom line, in Barnaby’s words, we are kin.

As for Cahill, he remains in prison, where he will be serving his time for many years to come.  I testified at the trial, as I had expected I would be required to do, but the subject of Barnaby’s gun, taken from his desk on that long ago day, never came up.  Cahill never testified, never offered his account of the story and how he had taken it from me, and Barnaby and I simply neglected to mention it.  As Barnaby had said, the gun was never a part of the investigation because I had never withdrawn it from the waistband of my pants, so I have no negative feelings of conscience by omitting it from my testimony. 

I don’t know what became of Cahill’s wife, but I have heard from friends inside the police department that she continues to visit him in prison against the advice of her father.  For some reason, she loves him, but how she could, knowing that he murdered three people, is totally beyond my comprehension.  But I do know this:  If he ever comes up for parole, the relatives of those three victims, including me, will be there to argue against his release.

As I write this, a plane is flying overhead as it descends into O’Hare Airport, reminding me that it is nearly time for me to leave.  My journal is nearly full, my account of this chapter in my life has come to a close, and when I return home, I will put it away.  Maybe someday, thirty or forty years from now, I will find it tucked away in the back of my closet, and I will relive those days that changed my life.  But for now, I’m ready to go home, back to my life in Barnaby Jones Investigations.

~ the end ~