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ed. He rubbed his hands over the knees of his khaki trousers and glanced at the flat screen mounted on the opposite wall. A talk show was airing, the sound muted.
“But you do have a daughter named Elizabeth?” Rex asked, noting that there wasn’t one framed picture visible in the room. He’d scanned the bookcase, tables, mantel, and walls. Nothing.
“Elizabeth and I . . . we don’t keep in touch much,” Gaines admitted. “It’s always been strained between us and these last few years—” Shaking his head, he added, “Ever since she married that shit of a husband of hers, it’s been worse. Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I suppose.”
“Her husband died?” Rex asked, feeling that Ravinia wanted to jump in and hoping she would cool it for the moment.
“A week or so ago. Courtland Ellis. Thought awful high of himself, he did.”
“Was there a funeral?” Ravinia asked.
“There was something. I didn’t go. What’s the point? I didn’t like him. No reason to pay my respects and be a goddamned hypocrite. Besides, Elizabeth didn’t want me there. Got one phone call from her. Pretty much told me all I needed to know.”
“What happened to him?” Rex asked.
“Car accident on the 405. Papers said he was with some woman, not Elizabeth.”
“Why don’t you see each other anymore?” Ravinia asked.
“Oh, she thinks a lot of things that aren’t right . . . about people,” Gaines said, skirting the issue. “You know about her?”
“What do you mean?” Rex asked.
“About the bridge that collapsed?” Ravinia said at the same time.
Rex glanced her way, wanting to give her a warning frown, but Lendel Gaines was watching them too closely.
“Who you been talking to?” he asked, sounding merely curious.
“We went to the Brightside Apartments,” Ravinia said, and Rex would have kicked her if he could.
Gaines responded with a snort. “Marlena. Old hag.”
“She said your wife left you,” Ravinia added for good measure, and Rex stopped trying to derail her as her tactics seemed to be working a hell of a lot better than he would have ever expected.
“That woman left us both. She made a half-hearted attempt to get Elizabeth to go to Denver and live with her, but Elizabeth balked. Can’t say as I blame her. She was in high school at the time. Wanted to finish out around here. And the truth was that Joy—that’s the bitch, my ex-wife, and don’t you believe there was any joy in her at all—and the joker she married weren’t all that thrilled to have a teenager come live with them.” Gaines’s face pulled in on itself. “Kids that age are a trial, mind you, but that man’s a prick, no two ways about it. Got what he deserved when he married Joy.”
“You ever talk to Joy?” Rex asked.
Lendel’s mouth twisted. “Nope. She’s dead; died a few years back. Cancer of some kind, I think.” He waved a hand as if what kind of disease didn’t matter. “You know what they say, ‘what goes around, comes around.’”
Ravinia asked curiously, “You think the cancer was some kind of payback?”
He shrugged, glanced at the muted television again.
“So, Elizabeth stayed with you?” Ravinia asked, getting back to the purpose of the visit.
“She slept here. That was about it. Left soon after graduation and I never saw much of her afterward. Especially after she married Courtland. Jesus, what was she thinking? A lawyer.” Gaines said the last word as if it made his point all too clearly. “She always blamed me for everything, but it wasn’t my doing.”
The vitriol the man had for his son-in-law was palpable. Even the cats seemed to feel it. The two on the back of the couch slid down to the floor and slunk out of the room while the black one on the stairs stared with unblinking eyes, his long tail twitching.
“Do you have an address for Elizabeth?” Rex asked.
Gaines nodded. “Long as she hasn’t moved.” He got up and walked, stooped over, into the kitchen where Rex could see him rifling through a small drawer near a sliding door. Perching a pair of reading glasses onto his nose, he sifted through a stack of papers until he found what he was looking for, then walked back to the living room, holding out a scrap of paper.
He turned over the handwritten scrap of paper to Ravinia, who had her hand out “Always meant to put it in my permanent file, but I know it anyway, so you can keep it. Phone number’s there, too. You’ve got that same look as she does.”
“Do I?” Ravinia asked, looking up from the address and folding the note into fourths. “What does she blame you for?”
