The Tower of Evil (Bye-Bye Mysteries)

by Robert A. Liston

  “All I know is I’ve never been so happy as here. Thank you for insisting we move.”

  He turned her toward him, kissed her. “We’d better catch up to the boys.” They resumed their stroll.

  “I’d forgotten the worry and effort that goes into being a mother. I only remember the good stuff.”

  “You always did make it harder than it was. When I babysat the kids and their pals, I figured my job was to keep them from being hit by a car. Don’t play in the street. I said yes to everything else. We got along fine, no problems.”

  “And how often and for how long did you work this indulgence?” They stopped to watch the boys. Doreen picked up a heart-shaped stone. “I went to see Lorna Gould this afternoon. She’s distraught.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “I don’t know, I just do. She’s a friend.”

  “What kind of friend? Is she someone you clutch to your bosom, shake hands with or nod at uncertainly?”

  “Really, Walter, does it matter? I went to see her and she was glad to see me.” Doreen dropped her stone on the sand as not worth keeping. She turned to face him. ”The police got it wrong. Harry Gould was no suicide, he was murdered.”

  “Sweetheart, love of my life, he was found face down, hole in his right temple, gun in his right hand, with a suicide note nearby.”

  “He just passes the bar, hangs out a shingle and gets his first big case, so he decides to blow his brains out with a gun he doesn’t own and is terrified of ever since his father used one on himself years ago.”

  Byerly stopped and stared at her. “Put that way, love, you may have a point.“

  “A college chum was in town visiting him. It doesn’t make any sense for him to kill himself.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Lorna doesn’t know, but we ought to be able to find out.”

  “He or she will probably come forward to the cops—unless he or she plugged Gould. I’ll mention it to Lupe Hernandez. She’s not on the case, but she’s watching it for us.” They were near the boys now. Jamie, the abandoned one, ran over to them. He didn’t say anything, just stood there, his blue eyes soulful. Doreen knelt and hugged him. He ran back contentedly to help with the sand castle.

  “He’s very insecure.” Doreen said.

  “He keeps looking at me as an oddity. I don’t think he’s used to having a man around.”

  She laughed. “Maybe he thinks you’re his father.”

  “My urologist would be so proud.” They sat in the sand. “I have some information for you, only I’m afraid you’d add 2 and 2 and get 22.”

  “That’s the right answer sometimes. What have you got?”

  He hesitated, mostly for effect. “Last Tuesday morning a young woman was forced into a black limousine, apparently against her will.” He watched her eyes widen. “I knew it, a conclusion has been leapt to.”

  “Last Tuesday, that’s when Jamie was…where did this kidnapping happen?”

  “If you asked for the source of my information, you wouldn’t be so sure. It comes from Henry Clay, one of my homeless and not noted for his mental agility. He probably saw somebody getting into a cab beside the library.”

  “He can tell colors, can’t he? A long black cab?”

  “So she likes to ride around in style.”

  “What did the woman look like?”

  “Don’t even bother to ask. I should report to you, madam, that no one else saw this alleged kidnapping. The police never heard of it.”

  “It’s Jamie’s mother. She told Karen she had a job interview, went downtown and—”

  “Which gets us not one iota closer to knowing who Jamie is or what’s to become of him. Has anyone had the good sense to call Children’s Services?”

  “I’m not going to if I have to keep him myself. And don’t you dare either. This is a mystery for us to solve. The woman left Jamie with Karen La Rocca, a total stranger, simply because she was going to meet—”

  “Her doom?”

  “Could be. She obviously tried to hide the boy from someone.”

  “His real parents?”

  “She knew she would meet someone who would stop at nothing to find out where her son was.”

  He looked at her and grinned. “Tell me, Nancy, last name Drew, precisely why is that young man over there so valuable?”

  She looked at him, eyes wide, mouth slack, then over at the boys. “I have no idea.”

  “We’re losing the light, we’d better get back. C’mon, men, supper time.”

  Doreen did the shoes, he helped a little, then all four walked back home in deepening twilight. It was his favorite time of day, palms, yuccas, Norfolk pines and other exotic trees silhouetted against a lilac sky. He put his arm around Doreen’s shoulder and felt her nestle against him. “Magical, just magical,” he whispered.

  “Strange, though. Not a cloud in the sky and it’s supposed to rain tonight.”

  A few steps further along she said, “A chorus from Handel’s Messiah keeps going through my head, ‘Unto Us a Child is Given.’ Do you know it?”

  “Sure, but only the bass part. I don’t think you got it quite right. It’s Isaiah, ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given’.”

  “Same difference, I feel blessed.”

  Was she already too attached? He decided to say nothing.

  While Doreen fixed scrambled eggs for the boys, he went upstairs to shower. When he came down both were fast asleep on the couch in the den. “You finally did them in,” he said.

  “Wearing out an old woman is hard work.” She looked in the fridge. “My night to cook. What will you settle for?”

  “Oh, some rainy day fare.”

  “What a love you are. How about a TV dinner?”

  “I think our marriage is strong enough to withstand it.”

  They sat at the kitchen counter swallowing the less than tasteless food. “Confess, love, did you really know Lorna Gould?”

  “Must I confess?” She sighed. “All right, I knew her, more than slightly I think, enough to know she talked all the time about her son. As soon as I heard he was killed, I just had to go to her.”

  “Very thoughtful of you, love—and typical.” He forked peas into his mouth, swallowed. “Among this vast circle of friends of yours, do you happen to know one Karl Kinkaid?”

  “I know of him, who doesn’t?”

  “I pride myself on being one of the select few. What do you know about him other than he is rich, powerful, mysterious and lives in a castle?”

  “Lupe tell you that? It’s close to the mark. It seems Mr. Kinkaid owns this big estate in Montecito, but seldom uses it, largely because he’s rarely in town. I think he has something to do with politics—or maybe it’s oil, OPEC and oleomargarine.”

  “Thanks a lot, I can do better on the internet. Do you happen to know a Mrs. Kinkaid?”

  “I talked to his housekeeper once. She ordered flowers, roses and cymbidiums as I recall, lots of them.”

  “The man can’t be altogether bad.”

  “Why do you ask about him?” She listened. “If you know the ex-daughter-in-law, why not talk to her?”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Karen La Rocca came about 10, all dolled up and looking smashing. With her was a young man introduced as Marco Musante, dark, hirsute and bulging. He had muscles even God had forgotten, and he was proud of every one. Doreen took them into the sleeping children. Both were cooed over, then carried out to the car.

  “That went well,” Doreen said. “Apparently Marco no longer minds if Karen keeps an extra child.”

  “Tonight, anyway. Karen’s bod in a cocktail dress will do that to a man.”

  “No accounting for lust.”

  She went upstairs to shower, while he watched the news. It didn’t take long until he heard, “Got any more of that wine?”

  “Just a sec. I want to hear this.” He listened a moment and laughed. “That idiot Justin Wright wants all unwed teenage
mothers locked up in juvenile detention centers until they get their family values straight. Can you imagine him in the White House?”

  When this earned no reaction from her, he turned in his chair and saw her standing there in a red raincoat, matching umbrella raised over her head. She twirled it like a vamp, a devilish grin on her fact.

  “Don’t get wet, dear.”

  He swallowed. “What do you have on under that raincoat?”

  “Yours to find out.”

  He slowly rose from his chair.

  6: A Forbidding Place

  BYERLY SAT ACROSS from Phil Van Zant, wondering if all young doctors really looked alike or did it just seem that way. They all came with a certain smug self-assurance, probably a result of being young, handsome, slender and healthy. Cholesterol never accumulated in their arteries. Or maybe the smugness came from their power to force you to drop certain garments while they probed a seldom-shared orifice.

  Phil’s desk was a barrier between them. Couldn’t have that. “Say, Phil—” He refused to call young doctors “doctor.” They didn’t call him “professor,” not that he wanted them to. If he was Walter to a near stranger, Phil was Phil to him. “How’d you get into urology, anyway?”

  Phil Van Zant ignored him a moment while he perused a page of computer printout. “I was dating a girl in medical school. She was insatiable, near as I could figure, so I thought I ought to learn all I could about….” He let the sentence trail off.

  “Plumbing the depths of manhood?”

  “Good way to put it. Actually, it was a choice between urology and proctology.”

  “Therefore easy to make.” He was surprised by Phil Van Zant’s wit. He always looked like an undertaker—hardly a mien to inspire confidence.

  “How’s your urination, Walt? Is the new medicine working?”

  “Pretty well, but I’m glad for indoor plumbing, especially at night.”

  “How often do you have to get up?”

  “Once always, occasionally twice. I can live with that.”

  “That’s good news.”

  Byerly eyed him. “Having you look for good news is hardly good news to me. Is there a problem?”

  Phil Van Zant glanced at the paper in front of him. “Could be, Walt, your PSA is elevated.”

  Fear stabbed at him. The words no man wants to hear: your PSA is elevated. Prostate Specific Antigen. The blood test was a major breakthrough in early detection of prostate cancer. Your PSA is elevated. What the words really meant was a major alteration in his lifestyle. That’s what frightened him.

  “How high?” His voice sounded pretty good, considering.

  “Enough for us to run some tests and see what we have.” Phil Van Zant actually smiled. “Walt, I hope you’re not going to ask how much time you have left. Elevated PSA can mean lots of things besides cancer. Even if you have cancer there are all kinds, ranging from—”

  “You know that, Phil, and I know that. The problem and what scares me is does Doreen know that.”

  “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “Heavens no, that will really scare her.”

  Van Zant arose and snapped on a rubber glove. “Let’s start with what I believe is sometimes called—”

  “A finger wave. I was afraid of that.”

  “You shouldn’t be. Ever hear of Norman Schwarzkopf?”

  “Who said, if a tough, four-star general can bend over and tell his doctor to take all the time he needs, I should, too—or something like that.”

  “The general’s cancer was found early and he’s still with us.”

  “Can’t have too many generals.”

  “I met that doctor at a convention once. Quite a celebrity.”

  “I hope you won’t be.”

  A minute later Van Zant stripped off the glove saying, “It’s enlarged, as you know, and there may be a growth. I might as well biopsy some tissue right now.”

  “And what does that involve?”

  “We go up the rectum and—”

  “Ouch!”

  “You won’t feel a thing.”

  He grimaced. “That’s what they all say. Just as long as Doreen doesn’t know anything until all the results are in. One of us worrying is enough.”

  “It may well be nothing, Walt, but it’s best to stay atop these things

  “And all this time I thought you liked to get to the bottom of things.”

  It did hurt, but not too much really. As he left the office and headed for his Care Wheels van, Byerly told himself to take it in stride. It was a price of advancing years. Not to worry until he had something to worry about. Yes, mind over matter. Worked every time. He stopped on the sidewalk and looked around. Where had he left the van? Mind over matter. Sure. He’d walked right past the damn thing.

  He drove to The Sally and began his first run out to the clinics, Addie Kinkaid was not there, but he saw her later in the morning, walking on Chapala Street near the bus terminal. He pulled up beside her, said, “How about a cup of coffee?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  He parked in city lot five—75 minutes free parking—and they entered a small eatery in Victoria Court, a charming warren of boutiques and curiosity shops. “Breakfast?”

  “No, thanks, coffee will be fine.”

  She smiled, but there was no joy in it. This was a deeply unhappy woman, and who could blame her? She was attractive, intelligent, obviously accustomed to better things. “How’s it going—or is that a stupid question?”

  “I’m beginning to get the hang of this life.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to make the effort, Addie.”

  “Her eyes carried a hint of fear. “How did you learn my name?”

  “I made a few inquiries. You’re Addie Kinkaid, daughter-in-law of a very wealthy man. Am I right?” She looked startled. He had a sense she was trying to fend off his words. “How did you go from great wealth to The Sally.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “It’s a little strange and I’m intrigued. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  She hesitated, sighing deeply. “You helped me the other day. I guess I owe you.” Another sigh. “It was only yesterday, wasn’t it? The days are long, living on the street. There’s nothing to do.”

  “You don’t owe me, Addie.”

  She looked at him. “I don’t know your name.“

  “Walter, Walter Byerly.”

  She looked away from him. “It’s a familiar story, Mr. Byerly—pretty girl, handsome guy, fraternity party, booze, spread legs, pregnancy.” Her lips firmed into a hard line. Bitterness entered her voice. “I should add ruined lives to that list. I was stronger-willed in those days, I guess. I refused to have an abortion. When Josh was born, I wouldn’t let the Kinkaids have anything to do with him, unless or until Junior Kinkaid married me. To my surprise he did.”