Going to the Bad (7 page)

The animal shelter's truck sat in a space nearby, but if they thought anyone was going to adopt this thing, even on Christmas Eve, they were nuts.

Despite its small size, it tried to jump into the van. I reached down to pick it up, but it leapt at me and licked my face. Before I could jerk back, a cloud of monumentally bad breath made its way into my nostrils.

“What did you eat?” I held the dog at arm's length while walking to the building. “Poop? Vomit? Vomit made of poop?”

I found the shelter guy in the break room. He had several crates with dogs and cats, and one birdcage.

I held out “Thing” for him to take. “I found this dog in the parking lot. Is it one of yours?”

Right after I said the words, I felt uneasy. What if it wasn't a dog? It would be just like me to casually walk around with some dangerous wild animal that I'd mistaken for a pet.

Fortunately the shelter guy recognized Thing and apologized for letting him get away. The man's manner was edgy and preoccupied. I guessed he was the lowest employee on the totem pole—hence his working Christmas Eve—and probably inexperienced.

By the time I entered the newsroom it was eleven forty-five.

Instead of the scanners and the usual mix of typing, conversation, and cable news channels, I heard the chorus of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” One of the writers had brought his guitar to work and was accompanying the celebrants. I guessed most of them were scheduled to leave after the noon show and were coasting through their remaining time on the job.

I picked up three homemade Christmas cookies on my way to the assignment desk. I did a double take when I saw Freddy sitting in Callum's spot.

“Dude,” he said when he saw me. “How's your uncle?”

I avoided the question. “Has Rod called in?”

Freddy shook his head, and the mop of curls whipped back and forth. “No, but Callum's here. He shot video at your house and is totally trying to cut something for the noon.” Freddy leaned down and lowered his voice. “Don't tell him I said so, but it's not half-sucky. He's got an eye for composition.”

“Is there anyone who can relieve you from the assignment desk? You don't even work here anymore.”

“Callum's putting me on as a freelancer.” Freddy gestured into the newsroom. “Most dudes are saying adios after the noon, so I offered to stay.”

Scanning the dry-erase board where the day's stories were listed, I could see he was right about our staffing. Already thin for the holiday, we were now stretched to the breaking point with the sludge crash and Bud's shooting.

“We're lucky you're here.” I pointed up at the board. “But you might want to take down that last story.”

Freddy turned, read
Grandma vs. Sleigh
, and jumped up. “I can't look away for five seconds.” He finished erasing the joke, then yelled into the newsroom, “Not cool, dudes. Some of us are trying to work.”

The ten-thousand-year-old demon entered.

Since she was coanchoring the noon with Ted, I thought I should warn her. “The shelter is here with the animals, but the guy's distracted and nervous. You may want to spend some extra time with him going over how the adopt-a-pet segment works.”

She gave me a frosty look, probably because of the words we'd exchanged earlier that morning, but thanked me.

After she'd left, Freddy said, “Just saying, dude, think about the old olive branch. It's smart to make friends with the friend of your friends.”

I couldn't imagine who'd want to be friends with her, so his argument didn't move me. “Whatever. Is the live shot ready for the noon from the scene of the sludge accident?”

“Totally.” Freddy's face lit up. “And rumor's going around that it wasn't sludge that spilled. I'm hearing it was some kind of secret, toxic military waste.”

I bit into the last sugar cookie and spoke while chewing. “Weren't you trying to convince me earlier that a giant snake escaped from the same crash?”

“Dude, I hear a lot of stuff. Not all of it's gold, but I seriously got a feeling in my gut about this toxic-waste thing.”

“Hey, Lilly.” Callum stood in the open doorway of an edit bay. He still wore his casual vacation clothes and the beard. The hair
growing out of his ears was longer than normal too. “I uploaded all my raw video from the scene to the server. Be kind when you look at it. The camera work isn't the greatest.”

“I'm sorry you had to give up your vacation.”

He waved me toward the edit bay. “Come on. I'll fill you in on what I found out. It won't take long.”

I followed him in and slid the sliding glass door shut to block out the Christmas carols.

“How about Freddy on the assignment desk?” Callum sat down. “I'm trying to hang back and let him get a feel for it. Don't tell Freddy I said so, but he's not half-bad. He's got a real ear for the scanners.”

He reached for the mouse. The edit bays, which previously housed decks and monitors for editing videotape, had been retrofitted with computers. Reporters could now edit their video digitally and push it directly onto the control-room playback server via our network.

“I'm trying to cut some B-roll and a couple sound bites for the noon.” He clicked on a file. “It's taking me forever because I have no idea what I'm doing.”

He played the raw video from the scene and also what little there was of his going door-to-door on my block, which even by his own admission had been a complete failure.

“There's some drug and gang activity in the neighborhood.” I felt awkward admitting it. Rod had wanted to move. Maybe I should have agreed. “The people who aren't involved themselves make a point of not seeing crime for fear of retribution.”

Callum nodded. “One of my sources at the Sheriff's Department says it's looking like a robbery gone bad. They figure your uncle walked in on a thief who shot him.”

I hesitated. How much should I tell Callum? Could I trust him to keep quiet if it turned out Bud was doing something illegal? “Is that their only theory?”

“I heard they're taking molds of tire tracks from the alley
behind the house. Your uncle's '71 Plymouth Fury was found back there, and they think his attacker parked next to it. Preliminary word from the scene is that they're looking for a pickup.”

“Good luck with that. As Bud would say, you can't toss a sack of armpits in this town without hitting a pickup.” I waited while Callum laughed, then stepped cautiously out onto the proverbial limb. “I think Bud was meeting someone.”

Something in my voice got Callum's attention. “Why? You know something you're not telling me?”

I decided to tell Callum about Bud's visit to the pawnshop and subsequent call to Leland Warner. I finished with the message Bud left on my cell that morning. “I think Bud was trying to make sure the house was empty so he could meet someone there. He needed privacy and even mentioned that the police couldn't know what he was doing.”

Callum leaned back in the chair and whistled. “You got Leland Warner, pawnshops, an implication of illegal goings-on, and an actual shooting, all mixed in together. What a rat orgy.”

We were each silent for a moment. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. “It's a great story.”

“No need to say the obvious.” He tried to pat me on the shoulder. The gesture was actually more touching because of his awkward execution. “You probably need to be at the hospital for the next few days. If at some point you want to investigate this thing for KJAY, all the station's resources are at your disposal.”

I shook my head. “I'm starting now while the leads are still fresh, but what about Bud's phone message to me? If he didn't want the police to know what he was doing, then he's probably implicated in something illegal. I may not want to broadcast that on television.”

Callum hesitated. “If you change your mind and drop the story, the less I know about your reasons, the better.”

Callum's professional ethics would prevent him from suppressing news. Even this Don't Ask, Don't Tell suggestion was probably costing him some self-respect.

Now it was my turn to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

Callum, never comfortable with emotion, reached for the mouse again. “After I finish editing this for the noon, is there any background work I can do for you?”

“Yes. I need information on the Warner family. Leland has a son who may need money and a sister named Erabelle. She lives abroad and seems to have some old issues with Bud.”

I hadn't wanted to say that Bud might have treated her badly. I'd never thought of him as a settling-down kind of man, but I also hadn't thought of him as a callous womanizer either.

Callum nodded. “I can do basic background-type stuff, run a LexisNexis search, but my contacts are all cops and politicians. We'll need somebody else for society gossip.”

I remembered what Junior had said as I was leaving his room. “There's an old story about Warner being robbed of some family heirlooms. Military medals or something like that. Can you see if any of your police contacts remember an investigation?”

I refused to believe Bud would steal from his best friend, but I did have doubts about what soured that relationship. People grew up and apart, as Warner had said, but those two had spent fifty years living in the same city and pretending not to know each other. That rift sounded traumatic and final.

“I've never heard of it,” Callum said. “So that means the theft was before my time. For something that old, the cops will be retired. Let me make a few calls.”

“Thanks.” I stood. “I'm going to call pawnshops. Maybe I can locate the one Bud visited yesterday and find out what upset him so much.”

The noon was just beginning so I stopped in the hallway outside the studio. The shelter officer was there waiting with the animals in crates. We each watched Ted and his coanchor through a large glass window.

“I thought I was nervous,” the officer said, “but that guy looks like he's going to throw up.”

I said a silent prayer on Ted's behalf to God, fate, or whoever might be listening. On a normal day I would have stayed and watched. Instead I found a phone book and retreated to an edit bay.

The calls to pawnshops went quickly. The owners all knew Bud—apparently he was a regular customer—and four of the six reported seeing him the previous day. None could remember anything unusual happening and all said Bud lingered to crack jokes with the men and flirt with the women.

When I'd reached the final listing, I asked the owner if there were any other pawnshops I might have missed.

“You could try Pawn Max. He's retired, but his wife keeps the shop open a couple days a week. Doubt they'd advertise in the phone book. I think she only works to get away from all the craziness at home.”

He didn't have a phone number, but the address he gave me wasn't far from the station. I decided to drive over and check it out.

Pawn Max did business in a commercial strip cutting between a neighborhood on the upswing and one in decline. The businesses looked as if they were sliding the wrong way, despite the best efforts of the shopkeepers.

Just as I'd been told, the Pawn Max sign above the storefront was discreet. Less discreet were the plywood and the police tape covering the door and the windows.

They'd been robbed.

Christmas Eve, 12:36 p.m.

I
retrieved my gear bag and camera from the van before
walking down the block looking for an open business. I hoped to find someone who could get me in touch with the owners of Pawn Max, since they obviously weren't going to be opening the store anytime soon.

I stopped at Kincaid's Pharmacy and Gifts. A blast of air, thick with heat and potpourri, hit me as I pushed open the door. The flowery odor went with the cute teapots, stationery, and tea towels they were selling. It did not go with the security guard sitting by the door.

The female cashier was busy ringing up a customer with a last-minute Christmas gift, so I spoke with the guard.

He was a large man, but probably too old to stop an actual robbery. I guessed he was there more as a deterrent to shoplifters than anything else.

He spoke in a deep bass. “I'd help you if I could, but I only know the Pawn Max lady to say hi.” He pointed to a Caucasian man in a white coat behind the pharmacy counter. “But I think Mr. Kincaid is friendly with her.”

I thanked him and walked through the aisles of laxatives and deodorants to the rear. As his Scottish name suggested, Kincaid had red hair. It had probably dimmed a little with age, but hadn't gone gray.

“I'm from KJAY,” I said. “I'm hoping you might know how I can contact the owner of Pawn Max.”

“I can give you the store's phone number.”

Despite its not being offered, Kincaid probably had a home
number for Mr. and Mrs. Pawn Max. At the least he'd know another business owner on the block who had it. I tried to quickly size him up.

Pushing fifty, but still trim. Vain enough to make the extra effort to stay in shape. Single, judging by the lack of a ring, but not a player. Probably divorced. Pictures of golden retrievers taped to the register where you'd expect to see kids. It appeared that he made his employees, although there were only two of them, refer to him as Mr. Kincaid.

Instinct told me he'd want to be on TV, want it real bad. His brain would replay fantasies about old rivals and enemies seeing the segment. If he did have an ex-wife, he'd probably call and tell her to watch.

“Can I interview you about the robbery?” This was a twofer. I actually wanted a sound bite for the five o'clock show, but also hoped interviewing him might help me get a home number for the Pawn Max owners.

“I don't know if that would be good for business.” Contrary to his words, he straightened the white pharmacist's jacket and ran a hand through his thinning red hair. “Things are bad enough without scaring off the customers we have left.”