A Song for the Asking Read online

  ‘That’s right.”

  “Speak up. What did you say?”

  “I said yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir, what?”

  “Yes sir, I’m disobeying a direct order.”

  “You ain’t gonna start blubberin’ now, are you?” said Kane, his face inches from Tommy’s.

  “No, sir.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, sir.” Tommy was fighting it hard now, and not succeeding.

  “I don’t believe this,” said Kane. With a growl of disgust he pushed Tommy away. Then he turned, walked slowly to the ocean’s edge, and stood staring out over the angry, slate-gray waters.

  Travis jumped down from the raft, warily watching his father.

  “You two girls go run to your mama,” Kane ordered over his shoulder. “Maybe you can all get out your hankies and have a real nice cryin’ fest.”

  “Please, Dad. You’re wrong this time,” said Tommy softly.

  Without answering, Kane turned and marched off down the sand.

  Later that night, long after lights in the Kane residence had been extinguished and darkness covered the beach, Travis lay awake listening to the waves pounding the shore, feeling their rhythmic, crashing vibrations drumming like a heartbeat through every window and timber of the old house. In his mind’s eye he revisited the afternoon’s events. Again he saw himself standing silent and powerless as Tommy refused to continue the contest. Again he felt the paralyzing fear seeping into his limbs, followed by the hateful surge of craven relief as he realized that his own test of spirit, his own crucible of courage, had unexpectedly ended. And once again he felt the burning flush of shame for allowing Tommy to suffer their father’s wrath in his stead.

  “Tommy? You awake?”

  “Yeah,” Tommy answered drowsily from the adjacent bed. “At least I am now.”

  “I … I just wanted to say thanks. I don’t think Dad planned on stopping till he’d booted my tail black-and-blue.”

  “Aw, hell, Trav. It wouldn’t have gone that far. Don’t make more of it than it was. Dad just had too many beers and got carried away.”

  “Carried away? I can’t believe you’re defending him.”

  “I’m not defending what he did,” Tommy’s voice came through the darkness. “It’s just that Dad thinks you could use a little toughening up. I guess he thinks I could, too. He wants us to be more like him, if you can believe that.”

  “There’s a scary thought. Two more people like Dad in the world.”

  “Three. Allison doesn’t count for Dad because she’s a girl, but don’t forget Nate.”

  “Right. Poor Nate. I don’t envy him,” said Travis, remembering the look of terror in his younger brother’s eyes as he’d fled the beach. No one had been able to find him for hours. It turned out he’d crawled beneath the joists of the lower deck, remaining hidden until well after dinner. “That kid’s got a long way to go,” he added.

  “Maybe Dad will mellow by then. Mom claims his temper has improved a lot since she first met him. She says it used to be worse.”

  “Hard to imagine.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tommy?”

  “What, Trav?”

  “Thanks for sticking up for me.”

  “Forget it. It’s no big deal. Let’s get some sleep.”

  “Okay.” A pause, then, “It is a big deal, though. To me, anyway. When you’re gone, I’m not sure how I’m going to make out around here on my own.”

  “You’ll do just fine, Trav.”

  “Tommy?”

  “Yeah?”

  Wondering how to proceed, Travis hesitated, attempting to find some acceptable construction of words and phrases that would allow him to ask his brother whether he loved their father. All the Kane children had joked about their feelings for their father at one time or another—kidding, sarcastic, tiptoeing around the edges of an issue that, like looking at the sun, none of them could view straight on. Long ago Travis had given up trying to find the answer, discovering safety in feeling nothing at all.

  “What is it, Trav?”

  Travis started to speak, but hesitated, realizing he had already read the response to his unspoken question in his brother’s eyes that afternoon, both for Tommy and for himself: No stranger can truly hurt you; that terrible power is held only by those you love.

  “Nothing,” Travis finally answered, staring out at the dark, roiling ocean beyond their bedroom window. “Forget it. Good night, Tommy.”

  “Night, Trav.”

  7

  Monday morning, at a little after six-thirty a.m., Travis and Tommy stood shivering on a deserted construction site overlooking Paradise Cove. The Santa Ana winds had abated during the night, with an onshore flow of cool, moisture-laden marine air at last deposing the desert gusts of the past week. Hands thrust deep in their pockets, the boys stamped their feet against the cold, silently wishing the sun would hasten its ascent.

  Around them in the chilly morning air, marching to a dead-end circle at the end of the street, rose the partially completed skeletons of several wood-framed structures, each sequentially further toward completion than the previous one. The nearest was scarcely more than a foundation surrounding a concrete block chimney; the farthest had been roofed and bore the marks of the rough trades: electrical wires and copper pipes lacing the walls, sheet-metal ducts gleaming between the studs, window casements filling their appropriate openings. At regular intervals among the houses mammoth stacks of lumber squatted like shadowy behemoths, and piles of scrap wood and trash lay heaped here and there. In the center of the project sat a mud-splattered trailer with a sign reading Stewart Construction, Inc.

  As the sun finally rose and the construction site came to life around them, Travis and Tommy huddled beside the trailer, watching a steady procession of vehicles ascending the hill to a large parking area across the street. Travis noticed that the crew appeared to range in age from early twenties to mid-thirties. After climbing from their cars and pickup trucks, most of them assembled in casual groups drinking fast-food coffee and talking in easy, unhurried tones.

  Just before seven a.m. all heads turned at the throaty sound of a motorcycle climbing the hill. A moment later a man wearing a leather vest and riding a black Harley-Davidson roared up the street, skidding to a stop beside the trailer. He dismounted and removed his helmet, glancing curiously at the two boys.

  Travis returned the man’s gaze, looking into the creased, weathered face of the individual before him, thinking he resembled a startlingly accurate throwback to the sixties—at least what Travis had seen of those years on TV and in the movies. The man had a full beard and mustache and wore his curly black hair long and wild, and his muscular arms and callused hands spoke of a physical strength hardened by a lifetime of labor. But the man’s pale-blue eyes were undoubtedly his most arresting feature. They crinkled now with humor as he looked from brother to brother, deepening the lattice of furrows radiating like a road map from the corners. “You must be Kane’s boys,” he said. “I’d recognize that hair anywhere.”

  Tommy ran his hand self-consciously over his head. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Dad said we were supposed to report to Tony.”

  “That’s me.” The man pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the trailer. After tossing his helmet inside, he whistled to the men across the street. “Lemme get the guys going,” he said, starting toward a metal tool shack beside the trailer. “I’ll get you two set up after that.”

  The crew ambled over and lined up to punch their time cards at a clock just inside the trailer. Some greeted the Kane boys as they passed. One, a heavily built youth with a pimply face and lank blond hair, smirked at Tommy. “Ain’t seen your ass in a couple years,” he said. “Team ain’t been the same since I graduated, huh?”

  “We’ve been doing okay without you, Junior,” Tommy answered.

  “Yeah?” Junior paused to stare at Travis. “Who’s this? Oh, that’s right, I heard you had a baby brother. Wh
at’s up, Red? Lost your mommy?”

  “No, but neither one of us has seen yours in a while,” Tommy cracked before Travis could answer. “If she turns up, have her give us a call.”

  The youth’s eyes hardened. Tony, who’d returned from the tool shack in time to hear this exchange, stepped between Tommy and Junior. “Get to work, Junior,” he said. “I’m not paying you to gab.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Junior regarded Tommy and Travis coldly, then turned and sauntered off.

  “Only here a few minutes and already making friends!” Tommy exclaimed cheerfully, clapping Travis on the back.

  “What’s with him?” asked Travis.

  “That’s Junior Cobb,” Tony answered. “For some reason, he thinks I should have hired his cousin instead of you two.”

  “He thinks we took his cousin’s job?”

  “Something like that. Junior’s a good worker, but a little shy in the brains department. Got a mean streak, too. Stay away from him. By the way, either of you have any construction experience?”

  “Some,” Travis answered doubtfully.

  “Dad’s had us helping around the house since we were old enough to carry lumber,” Tommy added.

  “Perfect, ’cause that’s exactly what you’re gonna be doing, at least for the next few days,” said Tony. “Our forklift’s busted, so there’s a lot of wood that needs moving. You’re gonna need some gear, too. Both of you show up tomorrow with nail bags, a tape measure, and a twenty-two ounce framing hammer. You don’t have to buy work boots, but I’d recommend it.”

  “We’ve already got some,” said Tommy.

  Tony nodded approvingly and continued. “Here’s the setup. I’m running two crews. Ron Yeats is lead man on one; Wes Nash runs the other.” He checked his watch, then pointed at two large, rough-looking men across the street. “That’s them over there sipping coffee and acting like the day hasn’t actually begun yet. They’ll keep you busy. One more thing. Drinking or fighting on the job gets you fired. Period. Any questions?”

  “No, sir,” Tommy and Travis answered in unison.

  Tony shook his head and grinned. “And drop the ‘sir’ shit. Now get to work.”

  *

  At a little after nine that morning Kane rapped on the door of Lieutenant Nelson Long’s office. Hearing nothing, he raised his hand to knock a second time, then stopped as Long’s gravelly voice boomed from the other side. “Come.”

  Arnie, who had been standing behind Kane, followed him in and closed the door behind them. Both detectives stood uneasily in the center of the room, regarding the group of men sitting in a rough semicircle behind the lieutenant’s desk. Along with Lieutenant Long, three others were present: Theodore Lincoln, the West L.A. Division captain; Lieutenant William Snead, a thin man with intense, predatory eyes; and a pudgy, balding civilian neither Kane nor Arnie had ever seen before.

  Lieutenant Long looked up impassively, his dark face unreadable. “You both know Captain Lincoln,” he said glancing at the stern-looking man with close-cropped silver hair on his left. The captain nodded, impatiently tapping his foot.

  “Morning, Captain,” Arnie said. “What’s this—”

  “You’re late,” the balding man interrupted. “You were told to be here at nine.”

  “Sorry, Lieutenant,” Arnie said, ignoring the bovine civilian whom both he and Kane quickly sized up as somebody’s political flunky. “We just got a homicide call. Everybody else is out, and—”

  Long raised his hand. “I know that, as does Mr. Jellup from the mayor’s office,” he said, glancing at Jellup with thinly veiled contempt. Then, turning to the final person present, “This is Lieutenant Snead.”

  “I know Snead,” said Kane.

  “Lieutenant Snead,” the man with piercing eyes corrected.

  Kane stared at Snead, then turned back to Long. “What’s Internal Affairs doing here?”

  “We’ll ask the questions,” said Captain Lincoln. “But as you mention it, Lieutenant Snead is here at the request of the mayor’s office, with my concurrence. Before we get into that, we have other matters to clear up.” Reaching across Long’s desk, he picked up a thick three-ringed folder with the name Agnes Sellers taped on the spine. Kane recognized it as the chronological log, colloquially known as a murder book, of the investigation into the death of Senator Bradley’s nanny. As the primary detective, Kane had been responsible for ensuring it contained everything pertinent to the case, including detailed measurements, descriptions, weather, and lighting conditions of the crime scene, a list of all investigative persons who had been present, the crime report, death report, autopsy findings, pictures, field-interview summaries, arrest warrants, and regularly updated follow-ups. Often a murder book could swell to the size of a metropolitan phone book. Agnes Sellers’s was no exception.

  Captain Lincoln thumbed slowly through the binder, stopping on the update Kane had made linking the maid’s common-law husband to his recently opened safety-deposit boxes at the Century City bank. He looked up at Kane. “As the primary investigator in the Sellers homicide, you were instructed to inform the FBI of all aspects related to the kidnapping,” he said. “When you established there was a possible connection with what’s his name—Escobar—to the kidnapping, why didn’t you notify the Bureau?”

  “That was a judgment call,” Arnie answered. “We didn’t have anything definite—”

  Captain Lincoln raised his hand. “I asked Kane.”

  Kane glanced at Arnie, then back at the captain. “Well, I’m not going to bullshit you here, sir. There are a number of reasons we didn’t bring in the Bureau. The safety-deposit box approach was a long shot, and at that point the feds had already disregarded our investigation of the maid, making it abundantly clear they thought that avenue was a dead end. Besides, as we found out, there wasn’t room for an increased presence on the stakeout. And most of all,” Kane added, “I didn’t want them screwing up my investigation. Which, by the way, they managed to do anyway.”

  “Their two agents paid for their mistake,” said Lincoln. “And now, because of it, I have the Bureau climbing all over my ass claiming some maverick cop left them out of the loop.”

  “It was my case, sir.”

  “That’s correct, Captain,” interjected Lieutenant Long. “Despite the FBI’s expropriation of the kidnapping phase of the case, we still had jurisdiction on the homicide. Our cooperation on that was purely voluntary.”

  “Nonetheless, they’re blaming the death of one of their agents and the injury of another on our lack of communication.”

  “With all due respect, that’s bull,” said Arnie. “Those two cowboys roared into the middle of our bust without checking with anybody and got caught with their pants down. If it hadn’t been for Kane, there would have been two agents dead instead of one.”

  “Speaking of cowboys, Detective Kane,” the captain continued without missing a beat, “why didn’t you wait for the hostage negotiator to arrive? Who gave you permission to mount a one-man assault—endangering the lives of every civilian in that building, not to mention the hostages?”

  “Hostage,” Lieutenant Long pointed out. “By then they’d already shot one and tossed him out the window.”

  “I’m still talking to Kane,” Lincoln snapped.

  Kane shifted uneasily, sensing the real issue had yet to be broached. “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he replied. “Like the lieutenant said, they’d already killed one hostage, plus a Bureau agent. Another one was bleeding to death on the street, and SWAT wasn’t going to get there in time. But that’s not what this meeting is about, is it, Captain?”

  “For once you’re right, Kane,” said Lieutenant Snead, the officer from Internal Affairs. “Evidently you’re not as thick as you look.”

  Kane smiled coldly. “Looks can be deceiving, slugger. Check the mirror.”

  “Keep feeding the bear, Kane,” said Snead, his lips twisting in a gelid smile. “You’re making my job all that much easier.”
/>   “What’s going on?” asked Arnie. “Kane’s one of our best detectives. He just pulled in two kidnapping/homicide suspects, located the Bradley kid, and probably saved the life of a Bureau agent. Now you’re treating him like garbage. What gives?”

  “Just how did you come up with the location of the Bradley boy, Detective Kane?” Snead asked. “Did the suspect simply blurt it out?”

  “Is that what we’re getting at here?”

  “Escobar is claiming you’re a racist and that you shot him in cold blood,” said Jellup. “He says you interrogated him before the arrest and shot him to get him to confess. He still maintains he’s innocent, by the way.”

  “Horseshit. If he’s so innocent, how did he know where the boy was? Besides, he pulled a gun on me. Just like the guy in the hall.”

  “The man you shot in the hall is no longer around to dispute your story,” Jellup continued, looking distastefully at Kane. “But Escobar is, and his wife’s backing him up. We can’t afford another excessive-force trial in this city, for God’s sake. Especially with racial overtones.”

  Kane bristled. “Racial overtones? What the hell are you talking about? I don’t give a damn if Escobar’s a goddamn Eskimo. That dirtbag had just killed—excuse me, allegedly killed—an FBI agent and a civilian. He wasn’t about to give up the Bradley boy. I may have pushed him for the kid’s whereabouts, but I sure as hell didn’t shoot him to get it.”

  “The kid died anyway,” Snead pointed out. “Your actions, whatever they were, didn’t help one bit.”

  “It was still a good shooting,” said Kane. “Both the guy in the hall and Escobar.”

  “That’s the way the officer-involved shooting team saw it,” added Lieutenant Long. “There’s no way the review board isn’t going to rule it a good shoot.”

  “We’ll see,” Snead noted dryly. “Considering that Kane spent several minutes alone with Martin and Escobar and then mysteriously came up with the boy’s location, Escobar’s accusations have raised serious doubts. We intend to find out exactly what happened in that room. Everything.”