If You Really Loved Me Part 23

"Where are you guys living now?" Cinnamon asked.

"In Orangea"moving to Anaheim . . . but anyways, from what Patti said, Linda and Alan were apparently tied to some group that Alan dealt drugs with ... I don't know if Linda owed money or what. But they wanted Data Recovery. They wanted it bad. Real bad. Okay? They had Larry [Larry Bailey] locked up for two weeks in a house, tied to a chair. That's what the San Bernardino police told us. They found unlimited tons in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Cocaine, PCP, and all kinds of drugs . . . and they found them on and in Linda. She was apparently a heavy user and I had no idea."

Newell and Robinson exchanged incredulous glances. David was lying "big time."

"No, I never knew she used drugs," Cinnamon murmured.

"It's in the autopsy report. That she was heavy into it, and very recently." (In fact, toxicologists had detected a minute amount of cocaine in Linda Brown's system after autopsy, a minuscule metabolite of the drug. There were many ways it could have been introduced into her system.) "Anyways," David continued conspiratorially, "they were instructed to off me so that Linda would inherit the business entirely, and her and Alan could run it by themselves under whoever this mob group thing is. . . . The mob is still trying to get Larry or Alan to off me. They want Data Recovery. As long as I'm alive, the government and everyone else comes to me. I mean, I've done the Pentagon. I'm the one that found out what killed the shuttle Challenger crew. All that kind of stuff. The Stealth bombera"that's critical to the United States. I've saved all that s.h.i.+t since you've been in here. The Mafia wants to run it. They want The Process."

Newell listened, slightly shaking his head. It was easy to imagine that a man who wove such grandiose stories might influence his fourteen-year-old daughter. But now that daughter was eighteen, and no longer a child.

David Brown's deep, confident baritone rumbled on. "They [the Mafia] promised her money and all kinds of s.h.i.+t, for her and Alan to find a way to get rid of me. They wanted me dead. As long as I'm alive, no one else will be able to get Data Recovery. See, I don't charge a million dollars a job, like I could. I've done several lately that I could have charged a million dollarsa"like for the First Interstate Building fire. There's over a thousand computers in there. Okay, I got maybe five thousand dollars out of it. I do it honestly. I don't rip people off because it just isn't worth it. I charge a fair price for my service.. . . Anyway, Alan has apologized since then ... but I can't trust him. He's still tied to the Mafia. Larry's even been caught with a gun on his way to shoot me againa""

"But," Cinnamon cut in, "what was the real purpose behind it all? What was the real reason?"

"That was the honest, real reason." And David was off again, describing Linda and Alan's plot to kill him, and Patti's decision that she would save him. But he would not say the words to kill Linda.

"But what should I tell the Board?"

In the twinkling of an eye, David reversed himself. "Why don't you tell them the truth wasa"remember? Linda wanted you out of the house and I didn't."

"Linda didn't want me out of the housea"there wasn't enough room in the house."

Patiently, her father explained the scenario he wanted Cinnamon to repeat. "She wanted you to move out. And you ended up moving to the trailer. And then she wanted you out of the trailer and back with your mom. And your mom didn't want you. I told her [Linda] I waited too many years for you to be with mea"we'd had too much fun. Linda wanted you out of the house. You and Patti both. She wanted you guys outa""

"Linda never told me she wanted me out of the house."

"I'd swear she did. But she made sure I knew. I thought she told you. I thought that's why you got in a fight with her once and moved out to the trailer."

Cinnamon shook her head and told him she had moved out because she didn't want to share a room with Patti.

And now, incredibly, David changed tactics again.

"Well, Patti said if worse comes to worse, she'll confess to it, but you guys are going to have to get your story straight. She'll take your place."

"Why can't you just tell the truth?" Cinnamon cried.

"I'll tell you why." He paused to think. "You can tell them the truth if you don't tell the whole truth . . . okay? Because if there was knowledgea"if me, Grandma, Grandpa, Patti a"everyone had knowledge in advance of what was going to happen, then we'd all go to jail. Everyone. That doesn't make any sense, because we weren't the ones who did anything wrong. As far as I'm concerned, you didn't do anything wronga""

"As far as I'm concerned, I didn't do anything wrong either," Cinnamon agreed bitterly.

For Newell and Robinson monitoring this bizarre conversation, it appeared that every possible suspect in the murder of Linda Brown had just been neatly eliminated. Save Alan Bailey. Save Larry Bailey. And neither had ever been a serious consideration.

"I asked you not to do it," David was saying obscurely. "Because I wasn't taught about the repercussionsa""

"Well, how did Patti feel about this? Doesn't she have any remorse? Doesn't she feel bad?"

"It's tearing her up."

"I don't hear from her," Cinnamon said softly.

David swore Patti had written often. And once again, he offered Patti up as a trade for Cinnamon. He explained that Patti had moved out of his house. "She can take the blame for it, and you just stick to your thing that you never knew anything about it. 'Cause she doesn't have anybody. All she's got is Heather."

My G.o.d, Newell and Robinson wondered. Who was this man? Patti was expendable. All she had in the world was her child. David Brown's reasoning was, thus far, totally self-serving.

Patti had moved out, he a.s.sured Cinnamon, but she had come on the tripa"she was out in the camper right nowa" because he needed someone to accompany him to handle his medications. "She's not as dingie as she was anymore," he explained about Patti. "She's grown up a lot. She's in pain, Cinny. She hates what happened. Not because of Linda. Because of you."

"Now she hates what happened."

"Noa"she's hated it since it happened. She knows I wouldn't stay here a week. I would find some way to kill myself. She knows that you've got to be feeling something like that."

"I feel stupid, "Cinnamon said with feeling. "'Cause I was so young. And I loved you so much. And I was gullible enough to do it."

Newell sat up straight. What did that mean? Do what? They couldn't tell. The words coming over the wire tumbled out in a non sequitur fas.h.i.+on. The only solid theme that never varied was that David had to be left in the clear. No one must ever, ever implicate David Brown.

"Grandpa was going to do it if you didn't," David was saying forcefully.

Cinnamon was shaking her head. "Grandpa loved Linda. Grandpa wouldn't do something like that."

"You don't know Grandpa as well as you think you do."

"I don't know anybody as well as I thought I did."

"Patti is willing to prove it to you by taking your place."

"She won't be able to take my place."

"If she confessed to it. There have been no confessionsa" the only confession was when you were under drugs in the hospital."

David's mind was clearly racing; the DA's men watching could see him lean toward Cinnamon, gesturing. He was explaining to her that there was nothing solid against her, that it would be easy to get her out and put Patti in. It was Cinnamon he really loved, the baby girl he had been proud of "since the day you were born." Patti didn't matter. Patti was moving out anyway.

"I thought you said she already moved out," Cinnamon shot back.

"She's here today to help," David repeated easily. He already had two housekeepers to look after Krystal.

"What about the baby?" Cinnamon asked suddenly.

"What baby?"

"Heather."

"What about her?"

"What's^ happening with the baby? I never hear you talk about Patti's baby."

Newell and Robinson knew this was the sticking point, the final betrayal that had brought Cinnamon to them. They smiled grimly as they heard David squirm trying to avoid the subject of Heather.

"Who's the father of the baby?" Cinnamon asked point-blank.

"Honestly?" David took a long pull on his cigarette, his whistling breath loud over the transmitter wire. "Patti went through a spell there when she didn't know. She thinks it's a guy named Doug. He's the one claiming responsibility for it. And Patti says he's a creep. He's Greek. He's meana"he's. .h.i.t her. She wants nothing to do with him and she's not giving him any visitation rights."

"You're not the father?"

"h.e.l.l no! I'm not the father. Are you kidding? I haven't been with a woman in so long I don't even know if I prefer men now. Sometimes I think about it. You think I'm joking? I'm serious. I don't think I could ever trust a woman again."

Newell and Robinson frowned. There was something offbeat, something grotesque, about the way David Brown spoke to Cinnamon, a vulgar intimacy about matters most fathers did not discuss with their daughters.

Cinnamon seemed used to such conversation. She ignored it. She would not be sidetracked. She had an agenda to meet, and she homed in on another question that had tormented her for years. The insurance payoff. She had never heard of it until they told her at Board. "They said there's a million-dollar life insurance involved. . . . They asked me, 'Did your father get it?' I don't know what to tell these people."

David's voice betrayed just a veneer of fear. He went into a long, convoluted explanation. He himself was uninsurable a"ever since they found his "car had been shot up. ... When Linda died, they canceled all our policies. I'm totally uninsurable," he said almost proudly.

"I am too." Cinnamon shrugged.

The girl had a wry sense of humor. She was quicker than her father, far wittier than any of the family Newell had yet spoken to. It wasn't mean comedy; she simply picked up instantly on plays on words. Three and a half years in this place hadn't knocked it out of her. Sometimes she was so quick that her humor went right over David's head.

Cinnamon wanted to talk about the truth. David clearly did not. He grew impatient with his daughter. Why wouldn't she just accept his offer of Patti as the guilty party and stop asking for the d.a.m.n truth? David believed in Patti. She would sacrifice herself.

Or, if Cinny didn't like that scenario, he had a detective out there right now, trying to tie Larry into the murder. "Somebody broke into the house while we were all gonea" the one in Garden Grove. The police were out there; they shut up the house . . . okay. What I've told everyone is that there is no way that youa"any more than mea"were capable of shooting somebody. Okay? So I am still paying a detective to investigate it."

Or waita"he had another option for her. "They say the only way you would ever get a reduced sentence is if you told them something convincing that did not indicate it was preplanned. That it was an act on the spur of the moment. Like a fight."

Suddenly, a shadow fell over David and Cinnamon, and Lieutenant Favila motioned Cinnamon over, saying gruffly, "Have you got your pa.s.s?" Under his breath, he whispered, "Make sure you say, 'Dad, I have to tell them the truth.' Got that?"

She nodded and showed the security chief her pa.s.s.

"What did he want?" David asked suspiciously.

"Something about I didn't check out in Unit, and they didn't know where I was."

He nodded, unconcerned. "Anyways, if you could think of something to tell them that would satisfy thema""

"How about the truth?"

"Okay. Do me a favor. Okay? Tell me the truth. Okay?"

"I didn't do it," Cinnamon answered flatly.

"That's the truth? . . . The honest-to-G.o.d truth? Did Patti do it or did you do it? .. . You remember clearly?" "I remember."

"Well, you said you forgot a lot of things."

"You asked me to say that, remember?" Cinnamon almost sobbed. "I want to make sure you remember what you asked me to say. Because you said, if I loved you .. . Don't make me feel like I'm crazy!"

He backed off. He was a master at this. However repugnant Brown was, Newell had to give the guy points for controlling a conversation. "I'm not trying to make you feel like you're crazy. ... I honestly do not know to this day if Patti did it."

"Well, I didn't do it. I didn't see her do it."

"Okay. Now, I understand your conclusion. I wish you had told me a long time ago."

"You do!" Cinnamon exploded.

"I told you, 'Don't do it.' You said you had to because 'I love you, and I'm not going to let Linda and Alan hurt you.'"

Cinnamon burst out. "You said if I loved you . . . and I would get less time for it. That they wouldn't even send me to jail.... I just want to make sure you remember what you told me because I am about to lose it in here."

Now, it was David's term to be alarmed. Obviously, the last thing in the world he wanted was for Cinnamon to flip out.

"Don't! Don't lose it. Patti did it," David said. "No wonder I've been afraid. Every night she stayed in that house ... I never thought Patti was so capable of being so kind as to say that she would take your place for it. I couldn't understand. You didn't even see it then. ... If I had known she had done it, I would have made her confess to it a long time ago. You didn't tell me. . .."

"You told me what to say. You didn't ask me."

"... Let Patti take the blame for it. You don't know anything. Okay?"

"They're not going to let me go. I've already been convicted."

David explained that he could arrange to have Patti convicted. Patti was the one with the gunpowder on her. "All this time I thought you did it because you love me," he breathed. "This is not what I wanted. I would have much rather had you home all the time."

"I would have liked to have been at home."

"... Don't be angry at me for something I didn't know, Cinny.... All the books and stuff I read. I thought I knew a lot about everything."

And with it all, David Brown was still tap-dancing in, out, and around his interchangeable plots. He never once suggested that he had any guilty knowledge. Newell saw another zinger telegraphed every time he heard David say "honestly" and "honest to G.o.d."

David appeared to be thinking hard. The best thing, still, was for Cinnamon to pretend she remembered nothinga" just as she always had. Yes, that was still the safest plan. He instructed her carefully. "Then your truth is that you don't know anything. You don't remember anything. 'Cause if they come to me, that's what I'm going to tell them. I don't know anything. And I don't remember anything. Because if/go to jail, I can't survive jail. Especially with my heart and my liver and my kidney problem. I can't.... I would kill myself before I would let myself die a slow and painful death in a cell. It's a lot worse, you know, for grown-up men in prison."

Lieutenant Favila checked Cinnamon's pa.s.s again as she and her father moved inside to join Manuela and Krystal and Arthur. He whispered to her, "They want you to tell them to bring Patti in so you can bury the hatchet. You want to hear from Patti that everything is done and over. You want to kind of make peace with Patti. See if you can get a confession."

But visiting hours were almost over, and Cinnamon was exhausted, her s.h.i.+rt soaked with sweat. There was no time. She knew Patti, and she knew Patti wouldn't tell the truth in fifteen minutes. It would have to be next time.

Cinnamon hugged her father good-bye, and Grandma and Grandpa, and Krystal. And then she hurried into the hidden room to have the wires and transmitter taken off.

"How do you feel?" a male voice asked on the tape.

"Nauseous."

"You can go in there and untape that stuff and get that off of you."

Drained, Cinnamon peeled the apparatus from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She had done it; she had defied her own father. She was still afraid of him, and suddenly, her legs began to tremble. She wanted very much to believe that Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson could really keep her safe. Her father was going to be enraged when he found out what she had done to him.

Somehow, in some combination, or separately, there had clearly been three main "players" in the sudden death of Linda Marie Brown.

Cinnamon.

David.

Patti.

Jay Newell and Jeoff Robinson had heard Davida" alternately stuttering, bl.u.s.tering, ordering, and cajolinga" on their hidden transmitter, but it had been a long time since anyone had heard from Patti Bailey. With David blithely offering to exchange Patti's freedom for Cinnamon's, as much as admitting Patti's culpability, the dead woman's sister was next on the list for the investigators.