I stopped at an open bedroom doorway. A flashlight sat on the floor pointing straight up. The light it blasted on the ceiling reflected downward and cast the room in a soft glow. Two figures lay on the floor. A down comforter spread under them protected them from the dirt and coarse wood planks. Pillows had even been placed under their heads.
At first I feared I was too late to save them, but then I saw the rise and fall of their chests and guessed they’d been drugged.
The third person in the room was not drugged. Brandon turned from pouring turpentine on one of the walls. He saw me and froze.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “You’ve got all the money, the jewelry, and the meth. Take it and run. I won’t stop you.”
He looked more annoyed than surprised to see me. “You’re the lady from KJAY, right? Warner’s security guy promised you wouldn’t come back. He said you were taken care of.”
“It’s a good thing I did come because maybe I can stop you from doing something that you’ll regret.”
He shook his head. “The only regret I have is that I didn’t do this sooner.”
The window to try to talk Brandon out of harming anyone else was closing. Instead of lying to him or tricking him, I decided to speak honestly. “I understand you can’t do this anymore. Your mother is a drug addict and your grandmother needs round-the-clock care, and each is getting worse. Anyone would think about leaving, and a lot of people would actually do it.”
I stepped into the room. “I understand that you’re desperate, and I know one way or the other you’re going, but you don’t have to kill your mother and grandmother. You can walk out of here right now without hurting anyone else.”
He still hadn’t moved. “How did you even know I was leaving?”
“Someone got Mida to sign papers mortgaging the land, but the money’s not in her account.” He looked surprised I knew, but didn’t interrupt me. “There was also your mother’s dog. It didn’t run away. The animal shelter has it because the owner turned it in. I thought it was Sally until I saw the pawnshop records. You’ve been selling things for weeks, probably at other pawnshops too. Appliances, Hummel figurines—anything that’s not tied down. You’ve built a nest egg to take with you.”
“Why do you even care? Didn’t Warner give you money to go away?”
I made a split-second decision not to tell him about Bud. I hoped I might still be able to avoid more violence. “I understand why you need to leave. You’re under so much pressure here and it’s not fair, but you don’t need to kill anyone else. You can walk right out of here and drive away.”
“You say you understand, but you’re clueless.” He looked down at his mother and grandmother. “When I was a kid, I found a stray cat. Every night I brought her inside to my bedroom so the wild animals couldn’t hurt her. One day Mom and Grandma say how we’re going to Disneyland for three days. I begged them to let me leave the cat inside, but they thought she’d wreck the house.”
I had a feeling this story wasn’t going to end well for the cat.
“When we got back, I looked everywhere. Finally I found her out in the brush. She’d been torn open. Parts of her were even missing.” He looked up at me. “It happened because I wasn’t there to protect her.”
“That was a cat. Your mother and grandmother are human beings. They’ll survive without you.”
“No, they won’t.” He threw the metal can of paint thinner. It crashed into the wall with a bang that sent me jumping back to the doorway. “When the money stopped last month, I saw how it was. My mother is gone. She doesn’t exist anymore. Before she dug up the jewelry, she actually traded sex for meth, that’s how desperate she was.” He pointed toward the living room where Kincaid’s body still leaked blood. “I’m glad I killed that monster. I did the world a service.”
“But you don’t have to kill your mom too. She could still get better.”
“She’s been to rehab twice and each time she’s gotten worse. This is the only way. If I leave her here, she’ll OD in an alley or worse.”
“Then what about Mida? Even with the Alzheimer’s, your grandmother still has the capacity to love you. She can experience joy and happiness. You may think this is some kind of euthanasia, that you’re being good to her, but trust me, it’s not what she’d want.”
“In another year, maybe two, Grandma won’t be able to talk or walk. She can’t even go to the bathroom now without help. You can’t argue that a quick, painless death isn’t better than what’s coming.”
Despite the weird love in his words, something in his tone sounded a warning. I watched as his hand whipped behind his back and withdrew the gun. I wondered if it was the same one he’d used to shoot Bud.
“In a way,” I said, “maybe it’s better that you won’t walk out of here peacefully and ride off into the sunset with all that money.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’d always feel guilty for letting my uncle’s murderer get away.”
He jerked in surprise. “Your uncle?”
“Bud Hawkins. You shot him yesterday in my living room in Oildale.”
“That’s your uncle?” Brandon said it as though we’d just discovered a friend in common, not a murder. “I’m sorry about the old guy, but I couldn’t risk him making trouble.”
“And the money you stole?” He frowned and I said, “I know he had fifteen thousand at the house. Isn’t that why he wanted to meet you there?”
He nodded. “I told him I’d pawned those things and sold the brooch to Kincaid in order to pay our bills. He offered to give us the money to help until we got things straightened out with Warner again.”
“And you decided you’d kill him and keep the money and both brooches?”
“Mostly, I wanted to shut him up so I could get away clean today. I’ve been planning this ever since Warner’s money stopped coming last month. I couldn’t risk your uncle ruining it the day before I was scheduled to go.” Brandon lifted the gun. He actually looked sorry. “I wish you hadn’t come here.”
I held up the bat. “You’re right to wish that.”
He laughed. “What, are you going to swing at the bullet?”
I’d thought Brandon was pretty smart, but then again I’d thought he was nice too.
I took a step closer. “When a gun fires, there’s a small explosion. That’s what propels the bullet. If you pull the trigger, the spark could ignite all this accelerant you’ve spread everywhere. You’ll blow all of us up, even yourself.”
I withdrew my hand from my pocket. “Fortunately for me, that’s not how Mace works.”
I sprayed it right at him. His hands shot to his face as he cried out. It wasn’t military or law-enforcement grade, so it didn’t take him down. Blind and desperate, he lunged at me. I jumped out of the way, but he still clipped me and we both fell.
He landed on top of Sally and I hit the floor.
I’d dropped the bat in my fall and now saw it rolling away. I heard Sally’s confused voice as she woke from her drugged sleep. Brandon rose from where he’d fallen on her and started to move toward me.
Still on my hands and knees, I dove for the bat. I took hold of the fat end and jammed the wood shaft straight back under my arm. It hit him in the gut just as he leapt at me again.
I heard something and turned my ear toward the front of the house—sirens. Brandon was already making painful noises because of his eyes and the blow from the bat, but I heard a louder, clearer cry when he recognized the sirens too. He had to know there was no way out now. Even if he did get by me and to his truck, he couldn’t see to drive.
I feared he might try to retaliate in his last minutes of freedom. Despite Brandon’s injuries, a man with nothing left to lose and a grievance can do a lot of damage. But instead of lunging at me again or trying to stand, he went still. He wiped fluid from his face, but it did nothing to stop the flow coming from his eyes and nose. I was even tearing up and having trouble breathing from all the chemicals in the air.
That’s probably why I didn’t see him reach into his pocket. Brandon had the lighter out before I knew the danger. He was too far for me to get to him so I threw the bat. It stunned him, but he still held the lighter. One motion from his thumb and we’d all go up in flames.
I leapt across the women and dove for his hand. Outside, the sirens reached a crescendo and stopped. We struggled, falling over Mida and Sally.
“Help!” I screamed. “Help! We’re inside. He’s going to blow the building up.”
In retrospect that was not something likely to make people run into a structure, but to his credit I heard Lucero calling back, “I’m coming, where are you?”
“One of the bedrooms,” I yelled. “Hurry.”
Sally tried to push us off her as she came more fully awake, but we continued to struggle.
When footsteps pounded in the hallway, Brandon played his last card. His mouth opened and bit down on my arm. I had to let go.
He rocked back on his haunches and held the lighter up. He smiled as his thumb moved. He really was getting out today, one way or the other.
That’s when I saw Sally. She rose up on her knees and swung the bat at her son. In her case, self-preservation trumped mother love.
THIRTY-TWO
Christmas Day, 4:03 p.m.
The officers responding to my 911 call had been the first to arrive, but they hadn’t proceeded beyond the mobile homes. Lucero had led the charge to the farmhouse.
Mida and Sally were taken to the emergency room in an ambulance. I gave a statement and promised to come in for a longer Q&A later. Brandon was arrested for Frank’s and Kincaid’s murders and also taken to the hospital. Nobody said it, but I knew they’d up the count to three homicides when Bud died.
Brandon’s pickup contained the meth, Warner’s $500,000 bribe, another $340,000 in cash, and both brooches.
I called Leanore and asked her to come get me since the police didn’t want my van moved until they’d finished the investigation. We briefly returned to the station, where everyone was celebrating Ted and the demon’s triumphant noon show. Predictions were that a record number of viewers had tuned in to see the pet segment. That wouldn’t matter to KJAY since it wasn’t a ratings period, but Ted and the demon were sure to become household names. The morning-show idea seemed to be getting real traction.
Ted had also presented the video I’d shot of Junior and the snake. It was already garnering massive hits on the KJAY website, and the Huffington Post was going to link to it.
I stayed at the station long enough to sit for a quick interview about my confrontation with Brandon. Callum said it was the best Christmas present I ever gave him.
Before leaving for the hospital, I called Erabelle and explained what had happened. She agreed to make sure Mida was placed in a dementia-care facility, and I promised to try to keep the Warners out of my official story to the police.
“How’s Bud?” she said before hanging up.
“Last time I called, there was still no brain activity.”
“I keep thinking . . .”
“What do you keep thinking?”
“What would all our lives be like if Bud and I had gotten married? You’d be my niece.”
I had a flash of how I might feel in fifty years if Rod and I broke up now. Somehow I knew that I’d never be happy with someone else. “Do you want to come see Bud? I can tell them you’re family.”
“No.” My offer seemed to depress her more, but maybe she felt like a coward for not coming. “I’m flying back to Indonesia tomorrow. I’ll make arrangements for Mida before I go.”
I hung up and got the keys for van #3. It felt strange not to be in my usual #4, but I figured a lot more was going to change at KJAY than which van I drove, so I should try to adapt.
As I prepared to back out, I heard a yipping sound outside. I put the van back in park and opened the driver’s-side door. Thing had got out of his crate again and sat looking up at me with its irregularly shaped eyes.
“What do you want from me?” I said. “What am I supposed to do with you?”
Leanore passed on the way to her own car. “You’re supposed to take him home and love him.”
“I don’t think so.”
“If nobody adopts him,” she called back, “the shelter will kill him.”
“Leanore, you are diabolical.” I reached down and picked Thing up.
I couldn’t imagine being responsible for a dog for the rest of its life, but then again, I couldn’t imagine allowing anyone to hurt it. “No peeing in the van or in the house.” Its stumpy, little tail wagged as I set it down on the passenger seat and shut the door.
At the hospital, I left Thing in the news van with a cup of water and some pee pads I’d bought at the grocery store.
When I entered the ICU waiting room, I thought it was empty. Then I saw Rod sitting alone in a dark corner. He’d shaved, showered, and changed clothes, but it didn’t look as if he’d got any sleep.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but there’s still no brain activity. They’d like to take him off the respirator.”
“Where’s Annette?”
He paused and took an awkward look around the room. “She’s not coming. I talked to her on the phone and she’s exhausted. Just can’t face being here if there’s no hope.”
“I guess it’s you and me, then.” I took a deep breath. The words were hard to say, but I knew that I had to say them. “I’m sorry that I make things hard for you sometimes. I’m sorry that you keep having to prove that you love me. I hate that about myself—”
“Lilly, no.” He looked surprised. “I never should have said those things.”
“Yes, you should have. I’m glad you were honest. I’m going to try harder.”
“I should have been honest about a lot more than that. I’ve been sitting here beating myself up. What you said about Warner and Erabelle . . . I’ll tell you the truth about Bud, if that’s what you want.”
“I already know.”
We sat down and I told him about visiting Kelvin Hoyt, whom Rod hadn’t known about, and how I’d finally guessed the truth. I also told him about Brandon and what had happened at the farmhouse. I glossed over the more dangerous parts. Rod would hear about it eventually, but for now I wanted to focus on Bud and my father.
“There’s a part of me that wishes you’d succeeded and I never found out the truth.” I didn’t like admitting it, but I thought I owed it to Rod. “But that’s the weak part of me. It’s not the part that you should be encouraging.”
“I went way too far and lost my bearings, but it wasn’t just you I was trying to protect.” Rod paused. “You don’t understand what it was like when I found Bud. He was raving and terrified. I asked who shot him and he wouldn’t tell me. He didn’t even want his shooting investigated because he was afraid you’d learn the truth and hate him.”
I’d assumed that yesterday, when Rod had invoked his grandfather’s recent death, it had been a ruse designed to explain why he wanted me to stay at the hospital. Seeing his emotion now, I realized that grief from his own loss had probably heightened his reaction to finding Bud. Maybe that’s why he’d gone to such lengths to honor Bud’s wishes.
When I suggested it, he quickly agreed.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to say good-bye to your grandfather,” I said. “But I’m almost glad that I never said good-bye to Bud.”
“Don’t say that.”
I looked down where our hands rested together. “I wouldn’t know what to say to him.”
“You’d speak from your heart.”
“What if my heart is full of anger and bad stuff?”
“You have a giant heart, Lilly. If it were full of anger, you wouldn’t try so hard to protect it.”
The doctors came and spoke with us. They said that Bud was essentially gone already. Once they took him off the respirator, his body would stop breathing and die.
I believed them, but somehow couldn’t sign the papers ye
t.
I finally went in to see Bud. The hollow and sunken appearance of his face surprised me the most. Even though he wore tape and padding around the ventilator tube, I could see that his skin looked as thin as Saran Wrap as it clung to his cheekbones.
After Rod and I had been there a short time, a nurse came and told us someone wanted to see Bud, but since he wasn’t family, they couldn’t let him into the ICU. I went out to the waiting room expecting to see Kelvin Hoyt, but it was Bouncer.
“I thought I’d try to see him, at least.”
“Did you ask Laurie if he’s your father?”
Bouncer shrugged. “She wouldn’t talk about it. I know that sounds weird, but if you knew her, you’d understand.”
I told the nurse that Jake was my cousin and they let him in. Rod took the news of Bud’s possible paternity the way he took everything, with kindness. We offered to leave, but Bouncer said not to. He stayed long enough to hear a few of the better and crazier Bud stories. In a way it felt like a wake, except Bud was in the room with us.
When Bouncer was ready to go, I walked him to the door of the ICU. “If I ever need some duct tape, can I call you?”
It was a corny, stupid joke, but he laughed anyway. “I always have an extra roll handy.”
I think we each wanted to know the other better, but were wary of both pushing too hard and being pushed ourselves.
When I returned to Bud’s room, Rod got up to go find coffee and Mountain Dew. We were each emotionally and physically exhausted and needed some artificial stimulation.
After he’d gone, the only sound in the room came from the ventilator pumping air in and out of Bud’s lungs. The quiet intensified the pressure I felt. Finally I scooted my chair close to the bed and took Bud’s hand.
I was going to tell him that I knew the truth and didn’t blame him, but in the end I didn’t think he’d want to hear it. For all his folksy wisdom, Bud was a practical man. Forgiveness for breaking something wouldn’t concern him so much as fixing the damage.
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