Going to the Bad (14 page)

“He called?”

Callum started toward the ladies' room door. “During the show. Says he won't go on camera, but see what he'll tell you off-the-record.”

Kelvin Hoyt probably knew all kinds of juicy details that weren't in the police file, but I had something far more pressing.

“Rod is pushing himself to exhaustion and my uncle may be out of surgery soon. Before I do anything else, I need to go check on them at the hospital.”

Callum stopped at the door with the generic female stick figure. “Then it's a good thing I told Hoyt you'd meet him at the hospital.”

I drove as quickly as I could, but once I'd parked in the hospital lot, I stayed in the car. I had a call to make before going upstairs. I'd been putting it off all day.

She picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“You have caller ID, Mom. Why are you pretending you don't know it's me?”

“Because I'm polite, sweetheart.” She made a sound I knew well, a slight clearing of the throat signaling disgust for her offspring. “I clearly failed you as a mother since I didn't pass that trait on.”

“Excuse me for having a low bullshit tolerance.”

“Lilly, language!” She lowered her voice. “You could at least use the initials.”

“I'm sorry, but my previously mentioned low tolerance prohibits me from referring to it as BS.” This was a complete lie. My mother had programmed me against any kind of swearing from an early age. Ironically, the only time I ever broke free and went blue was when speaking to her.

“It's Christmas Eve,” she said, playing the holiday card. “Did you call just to start a fight on this holy day?”

Tomorrow's the holy day,
I started to say, but guilt stopped me just in time. I had started things off badly with the caller ID comment and then the swearing, which I knew she hated. I really was a jerk.

“You're right. I'm sorry, Mom.” How was it possible to feel so guilty and so angry at the same time? “I actually called with bad news. I should have done it sooner, but it's been a crazy day.”

Her voice rose with panic. “Did you and Rod break up?”

“No.”

Hooking up with Rod was the only thing I'd ever done that made my mother proud. She was even willing to overlook that we were living together while not married.

“It's much more serious. Uncle Bud has been shot. He's in surgery right now.”

“Oh” was all she said.

“You sounded more upset at the prospect of my breaking up with my boyfriend. I know you don't like Bud, but that's a bit much.”

“I love Bud as much as anyone,” she said with absolutely no feeling. “He helped us after your father died. I don't know how I would have paid the mortgage.”

She paused. I waited for the inevitable but.

“But there's no denying he associated with some shady characters. There were times I was ashamed to be seen with him, all those tattoos and never shaving.”

Her tone reminded me of Warner's when he'd also been talking about Bud. “Did Dad ever mention Bud being friends with Leland Warner?”

“The billionaire?”

“I don't know his exact financial status, but, yes, the rich guy.”

“What would a man like that have to do with Bud?”

Her tone, more than the words, made me angry. “Is there anyone else in the family I can ask? Any random relatives I don't know about?”

“Bud was the only family your poor father had.”

I flashed on a surprise birthday party my mother had thrown for my father on one of his weekends home. She'd invited neighbors, coworkers, and friends from church. It had been a big success. The sun had shone on our modest backyard. The breeze smelled like clean sheets instead of the usual Bakersfield dairy-cow odor. We ate fried chicken off paper towels soaked with grease and drank Kool-Aid in Styrofoam cups.

Bud had not been invited. Maybe that was why my father had stayed in the kitchen performing useless tasks, absent from his own party. Maybe without Bud there he felt alone.

“What about friends?” I said into the phone. “Bud was in Korea. Did he talk about army buddies?”

“None that lived.”

We finished the call with the appropriate promises and good-byes. Mom said she wanted to know the minute there was news
about Bud. She even offered to help pay for the funeral, but even that felt like a dig. The implication that Bud wouldn't have left enough money to pay for his own funeral hung in the silence after her offer.

I signed in at the front desk, slapped a hospital visitor badge on my coat, and walked to the bank of elevators I'd used earlier in the day. The doors opened on the surgical floor and I made my way to the waiting room. Annette sat alone looking about as bad as I'd ever seen her. She was pretty, but this day was aging her in a way she'd probably never fully recover from.

On the other side of the empty room, Rod sat with her sleeping daughter, Bonnie. An open children's book rested in his lap as though he'd just been reading the little girl to sleep. I didn't cross the threshold.

“Rod,” I whispered.

He glanced up. Relief spread across his face and down through the rest of his body. It was as though stress and worry had bound him into a tight package and seeing me had cut the strings.

He carefully stood without waking the sleeping child. Annette came with him out to the hallway.

I kept my voice low. “Is there any word, yet?”

They each shook their heads, but Annette looked ready to cry. “I don't know how much longer I can stay.”

“You should go.” Rod gestured toward her sleeping daughter. “You need to take Bonnie home. Lilly and I will stay until Bud's out of surgery.”

The assurance in Rod's voice made it that much harder for me to say, “I'm sorry, but I have an errand to run on another floor of the hospital.”

Rod stared for a moment. “What kind of errand?”

“I'm really sorry.” I looked at Annette. “I have a lead on what happened to Bud this morning. It has to be followed up.”

The tension returned to Rod's body. “We should let the police handle this.”

I looked him square in the eye. “We both know there may be aspects to this that Bud wouldn't want the police to be aware of.”

He started to argue, but Annette said first, “It's okay. You two go, but when you get back, I may take Bonnie home.”

She started back into the waiting room, but I stopped her. “Did Bud ever mention any old army buddies? Maybe friends he might have still known right after Korea?”

“No. You wouldn't even know he was a veteran from how little he talks about it.”

Annette returned to the waiting room, and Rod and I walked to the elevators. As soon as we were out of earshot, he said, “Where are we going?”

“To see Kelvin Hoyt.” I pushed the down button. “He was the police officer in charge of finding Carter King after the robbery.”

“He's in the building?”

The door opened and we got on the elevator. It was huge to accommodate stretchers and rolling beds.

I hit the button for the third floor. “He's getting chemo in oncology.”

“We shouldn't bother him at a time like this.”

“I agree, except it was his idea. Hoyt actually called Callum after hearing we were looking for him.”

The doors opened and I exited.

Rod caught up with me. “Leanore told me what happened at the King farm. That crazy woman might have shot you.”

“If it's any consolation, Leanore said it was a small-caliber rifle.”

He forced me to stop by taking hold of my arm. “It's not.”

He kissed me full on the lips until my toes curled and I forgot about everything else. Then he pulled back. “Promise me you won't go out there again. It's not safe.”

Christmas Eve, 6:04 p.m.

T
his put me in what Uncle Bud would have called a
tighter spot than a cat's butt in winter. You see, I'd already decided to go back out there again that night. I wasn't going to have any peace until I knew if Carter King was using the farmhouse.

Instead of lying to Rod, I deflected by walking to the nurses' station and explaining whom we were looking for. The man behind the counter said the department was about to close for the evening, but we could go in and sit with Mr. Hoyt while he finished his treatment.

Rod did not continue our previous conversation. Chemotherapy rooms aren't good places for arguing or kissing.

An old Caucasian man was stretched out in one of the many La-Z-Boy recliners spaced at discreet intervals. He was the only one in the room and his eyes were closed as he listened to the spa music playing overhead. In that way some people do, Kelvin Hoyt sensed he was no longer alone and looked up.

“Hi.” I crossed the room, followed by Rod. “I'm Lilly Hawkins from KJAY. I think you spoke with our assignment manager.”

“Sure did.” Hoyt brought the chair up to sitting and offered his hand. The rubber tubing from his IV moved with his arm. “Sergeant Kelvin Hoyt, Bakersfield PD, retired. At your service.”

We shook. I could feel the bones in his hand. Hoyt had to be in his early eighties, but all of the usual ravages of age were heightened by the chemo. Instead of thinning hair or a bald strip across the top of his head, he was completely hairless. Sitting in the large chair, he looked shrunken. Even the pair of thick, black-framed glasses slipping down from the bridge of his nose looked too big for him.

Rod shook after me. “Pleased to meet you, sir. My name's—”

Hoyt laughed. “No need to introduce yourself, Mr. Strong. Terrific reporting you did last summer on that fire.”

“That's very kind of you, sir.” Rod always shrank a little into his shell when recognized. “Please call me Rod.”

“I'm a big fan of KJAY. You're the most professional operation in town. That's why I was so eager to talk when I heard you were working on the old King case.”

Obviously he'd missed the five o'clock show. “I am working on a news story, but there's a personal angle for me as well.” I pulled up a stool and sat down next to him. “My uncle was shot this morning. He was the chief witness against Carter King in the theft of Warner's jewelry.”

“And you think King might have shot him, out of revenge or something?”

I decided not to mention the pawnshop, since I only had a hunch how it fit in. “Something like that.”

Hoyt glanced at each of us. “This is all off-the-record, you understand?”

Rod nodded. “If that's how you want it.”

“I doubt it will matter because I doubt Carter King had anything to do with what happened to your uncle.”

I tried not to let my disappointment show. I was probably only mildly successful. “Why's that?”

Hoyt smiled. “Besides the fact he waited an awfully long time to get his revenge?”

I smiled back. “Yes. You could drive a dump truck through that hole in my theory, but humor me. Besides that.”

“King never was the kind of man for murder.”

“Why not?”

Kelvin Hoyt shifted his weight in the chair, as though trying to get comfortable before starting a long story. “You have to understand, I inherited the case in the early sixties. Leland Warner was turning into a real big shot about that time. The powers that be wanted to impress him so they reopened the case.”

Hoyt pushed the chair back so he was more comfortable. “I worked at it for the next twenty-five years. Not full-time, you understand, but I kept feelers out there, trying to get information on where King might be and what he might be doing. That's a long time to be shadowing a fellow, and I got a pretty good feel for him.”

Hoyt looked at me. “King was shady, but he never was the type to cross the line into murder. And most of his schemes weren't even illegal, just unethical.”

I glanced at Rod, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. “Not only does that not sound like a murderer, it doesn't sound like someone who'd commit a high-profile jewelry robbery. Is it possible King was framed?”

Hoyt laughed. “No way. Even if your uncle hadn't witnessed the theft, King's own sister said he confessed to her before running away. She even described the two brooches.”

“What about Mida?” I said. “Did she know more about Carter's whereabouts over the years than she let on?”

“You mean the sister?” I nodded, and Hoyt continued, “Doubt it. She got married and moved off the family's land. I think she was trying to put everything behind her.”

“She's back there now.”

“I heard something like that right before I retired. Her daughter got herself pregnant, no father in sight, so they all moved back to the farm to raise the baby.” Hoyt shrugged. “I never was one to believe the country was better than the city. Kids go bad because they go bad, not 'cause the city messes them up.”

Rod turned and I followed his gaze to the plump nurse entering the chemo room. “Do you remember any local friends or contacts that King might be staying with if he came back to town?”

“Nah. He'd be an idiot to come here, even after all these years. The man is probably sitting in a condo in Florida, if he isn't dead.”

“How we doing in here?” The nurse was Latina, but her hair had been dyed an intense red. It fit her bright personality.

It was obvious Hoyt liked her from his smile. “Better than some and worse than others.”

Rod and I stepped back so she could check the IV bags and speak with him.

When she left, I asked my last question. “Were you ever able to trace the brooches? Russian antique military medals must be pretty rare. Did King sell them?”

“No, but that's not unusual.” Hoyt took a sip of the soda the nurse had got for him. “Back then there wasn't so much interest in antique jewelry like that. The star, with the diamonds, was probably broken up for parts, like a stolen car.”