“Jarret.”
“Do me a favor,” I said, my face radiating heat. “Don’t repeat secondhand stories about me anymore. You weren’t there. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Chapter Twelve
Late and in a rush, I parked in the Sportmen’s Lodge tree-lined lot and dashed beneath the bougainvillea arbor to the side entrance of the Patio Café. I roamed over the red-and-black plaid carpeting inside, scanning the small legendary coffee shop for Jarret. The old-fashioned counter stood laden with glass-domed trays of pastries and doughnuts. A scattering of diners sipped coffee in the white leather, red-piped booths under autographed photos of John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and posters of old Republic westerns—throwbacks to the 1930s and ’40s cowboy flicks and B-movies filmed down the road at Republic Studios, now CBS Studio Center.
No sign of Jarret in the dining room so I exited the café on the hotel side, toward the grass-green carpeted pool area. Tourists slathering suntan lotion, chatting, or reading, filled the deck chairs around the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Laughing, screaming children performed cannonballs into the water.
I spotted Jarret in a row of chairs at the far end of the pool. Long and lean with flat abs and muscular shoulders, he was stretched out on a blue-and-white lounge chair in swim trunks and black sunglasses. His face lifted toward the sun, he held a quarter-folded newspaper in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
He took off his glasses, dashed bottled water over his sandy brown hair and face with posed flair, and waved me over. “Hey, gorgeous, where’s your bathing suit?”
“At home, at the bottom of a box. I thought we were having breakfast.”
“Sit down,” he said, patting the chair next to him. “We can eat at one of the umbrella tables. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Eggs. And an air-conditioned booth where we can talk in private.” I danced away from the edge of the pool seconds before an army of kids splashed up the steps.
Jarret toweled his head, face, and body, and pulled on a T-shirt. As we strolled into the restaurant, the waitress behind the counter waved and the host greeted him like an old friend.
“Pleasant staff,” I said as we waited for a table.
“Ira got me a room here because they’re used to dealing with celebrities,” he said. “I told him I wanted to stay in the Valley.”
“Interesting choice, considering Laycee stayed here, too.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did she? I didn’t know.”
A goateed waiter in a black shirt seated us in a private booth in the corner and then took our order. Steak (rare) and eggs (up), biscuits with gravy, orange juice, and coffee for Jarret, and two eggs easy with a side of rye toast for me. After the waiter brought the juice and poured our coffee, he left us alone.
I stirred cream into my coffee. Nothing like another steaming cup of java to cool off on a hot day. “Did your parents reach you?”
“I talked to them late yesterday afternoon after I left my lawyer’s office. Mom told me she called you. I’m sorry they bothered you.”
“Marion and Bud aren’t ever a bother. They were anxious when they were unable to reach you. The news reports worried all of us. My mom called me more than a few times.”
“Viv phoned me at the hotel last night. You’re lucky you have such great parents. Your mom didn’t grill me about what happened. She asked me if I was taking care of myself.”
“And are you? You were pretty drunk last night.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “The last two days have been a living nightmare, beginning with the freaking bird going kamikaze and hexing my game. Everything went south from there. I just wanted to disconnect last night.”
His response didn’t surprise me. I understood his urge to withdraw—a need to escape was a common reaction to trauma. But what trauma was Jarret erasing? A bad game, finding Laycee’s body, or a guilty conscience? I sipped my coffee and waited for him to continue.
“Every rumormonger in the Midwest contacted my parents yesterday—the neighbors, my cousins, the church ladies, hell—even Coach Olson from the high school. Anyone who ever asked my folks for tickets to see me pitch now wants to know if I’m a murderer.”
“I’m sorry. I know how hard you work to protect your folks from gossip.” And his vices. Unlike my family—where trouble sat open to discussion—the Cooper family harbored secrets. A problem concealed meant a problem erased.
Jarret clenched his fist. “I don’t know what was worse: finding Laycee like that, the police grilling me all day, or hearing my mother cry.”
“Last night on the phone you apologized to me. What for?”
He stared at his coffee cup with his elbow on the table, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his palm. “You know I didn’t kill her.”