He spoke to a woman sitting at a plain metal table. More black books—probably Bibles—rested on each side of her.
She took a book from the stack on her left, cut out the first page with a razor, then placed it on the stack to her right. “If I can get product at bargain-basement prices, I’m going to do it. Why should I care which truck it fell off?”
I couldn’t see the page she’d cut, but I guessed it had a PROPERTY OF LUTHERAN CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER stamp. This explained why they were working in the middle of the night. Buying, transporting, and altering stolen merchandise is best done under cover of darkness.
Bouncer added more books to the pile on her left, then flattened the empty cardboard box. “But I worry about you, Mom. One of these days you’re going to get caught, and you’ve already got two strikes.”
The woman had to be Laurie Bogdanich—yes, I’d consulted the paperwork in the van and tried really, really hard to memorize her name.
If I walked right in and introduced myself, I’d officially be a witness to what they were doing. I figured Laurie would be more inclined to speak with me if things stayed friendly.
I backed up and waited out by the van. A few minutes later, Bouncer came out for more books.
I made sure to approach from a distance and make noise as I walked. “Hi. Remember me?”
His head shot up.
“Don’t worry, I’m not here to cause trouble. I just want to speak with your mom.”
He dropped the box in his hands.
“Maybe you can go tell her I’m here. It’s not for a news story. It’s personal.”
All at once he lunged forward and grabbed me. It was such an unnecessary thing to do that I was completely unprepared.
“What are you doing?” I struggled as he easily dragged me inside. “Seriously, what are you doing?”
His left hand let go of me long enough to grab a roll of duct tape from a shelf.
That’s when I got worried. “Let go of me, you idiot.” I raised my knee and kicked backward into his shin.
He was ready for it and jerked his leg out of the way. He was a bouncer, after all.
“I said I’m not here for a—” The duct tape went across my mouth in a crooked vertical line.
I hit at his face. I got one good scratch, but then he knocked my legs out from under me.
“What’s going on?” Laurie appeared. Her face contorted as she watched her son grappling with me on the ground. “What are you doing?”
“It’s that girl from the news.” He ripped off another piece of duct tape, but because of our struggling it ended up over one of his eyes. “The one who was asking about you at the club.”
“Why are you fighting with her?”
“Because he’s an idiot,” I yelled through the corner of my mouth that wasn’t taped.
“Because she’s going to do a story about you.” He had me on my back, but couldn’t get ahold of my arms. “It’ll be three strikes and they’ll send you to jail for the rest of your life.”
He tried again to rip off a piece of tape. I took advantage to send my elbow shooting into his ribs. He cried out and dropped the roll.
I ripped the tape off my mouth. “I’m not here to do a story.” All at once the pain registered in my brain and I shrieked. “Are my lips still there?”
Bouncer rallied and knocked me on my back again. I raised my knee and tried to kick him.
He intercepted my boot and held it in both hands. “How big are your feet? You’re like some evil little pixie with boulders in your shoes.”
I reached up and ripped off the duct tape that was still attached to his face. Most of his eyebrow came off with the tape.
He cried out, but grabbed my wrists. “Help me tape her hands, Mom.”
Instead, his mother collapsed into a chair and took out a cigarette.
Bouncer looked up from attempting to pin my arms. “You know what the doctor said about smoking.”
“Sweetheart, it’s Christmas, and you’ve kidnapped and assaulted a reporter—”
“Shooter,” I corrected while landing a punch across Bouncer’s jaw.
“Sorry.” She exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You’ve kidnapped and assaulted a shooter, whatever that is. Point is, I’m having a smoke.”
“I’m not here to do a story,” I said. “I don’t care about your business or where you buy the stuff you sell.”
Bouncer let up on me a little. “Then why are you here?”
I looked at his mother. “Carrie, you got arrested in 1984 with—”
“Laurie,” she corrected. “My first name’s Laurie.”
“Sorry, I’ve met a lot of people tonight. It’s hard to keep them all straight.”
“Remembering people’s names is the only talent that matters.” She took a tall devotional candle from a box and used it as an ashtray. “Doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO or a . . . What did you say you were?”
“A shooter. I shoot video for the news.”
“Whatever business you’re in, remembering people’s names will make you successful.”
I wasn’t in the mood to get lectured. “Did you sell stolen Bibles with a man named Carter King back in 1984?”
“I sold Bibles.” She grinned. “They may have been stolen, but the police never proved I knew that.”
“I’m looking for Carter.”
She shook her head. “When we got picked up, he made a couple phone calls and had bail there lickety-split. Took off and never looked back.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
She took another drag on her cigarette. “Why you looking for him?”
I paused to think. She clearly knew something, but didn’t want to get Carter in trouble. “I think he’s in town. He and my uncle have some old business, and I think Carter’s revived it.”
She gestured to Bouncer, who let go of me and sat back.
“He may be in town”—Laurie paused to take a drag on the cigarette—“but I don’t think he’d be likely to stir up trouble. The one time I met up with Carter again, he looked like he’d pretty well settled down. Going the straight and narrow.”
I sat up. “When was this?”
“Back five or six years ago. Ran into him at Valley Plaza.”
I stood and walked to her at the table. “You saw Carter King at the mall, here in Bakersfield?”
She nodded. “Said he lived here. Had family in town.” She waved the hand with the cigarette at me. “His niece was a mess or something.”
“She’s a meth addict,” I said. “And her mother, Carter’s sister, has Alzheimer’s.”
“He may be gone again. I don’t know.” Laurie crushed the stub of the cigarette into the candle. “But he seemed settled, back when I saw him. Said trying to help his family was all that mattered now.”
“What did he look like?”
“Same old Carter. Older, but still that same smile. I swear he could sell sunscreen to a crocodile with that smile.”
The fondness in her words made me wonder if they’d been romantically involved, but it seemed awkward to ask in front of her son.
My hesitation left an opening for her to try to end the conversation. “Is that all? Can I consider us square?” She stood up. “Or am I going to have a problem with you knowing about my business?”
“No. We’re square.”
Back in the van, I called Callum to tell him I’d found Laurie Bogdanich, as well as to ask if he’d seen Rod. I’d avoided doing it so far because Callum is notoriously grumpy when woken.
“Sorry to wake you,” I said when he finally answered.
“I was dreaming that chief meteorologist was an elected position in Kern County.” Callum’s voice sounded groggy and slow. “No problem because our weather guy is so popular, except in my dream some other jerk with the same last name decided to run and confuse everybody.”
I told him about Laurie and that Carter King had been living in Bakersfield for years. Then I told him about Rod.
His voice changed. �
��What do you mean you don’t know where he is?”
I explained everything—all the reasons he was probably fine as well as all the reasons I was worried.
When I’d finished, he said, “You’re right, there’s nothing to really indicate Rod is in danger, so wait until morning. He’ll probably turn up at the hospital or the TV station and you’ll feel silly for worrying.”
Collum paused. “Unless you want to try an end run around Handsome. Maybe go direct to a cop you trust who’ll be more sympathetic.”
Only one cop might be considered sympathetic to me. I’d first met him a year ago at the same time as Handsome Homicide. We’d helped each other again last summer when I’d tried to prove an accidental drowning was actually murder.
Despite the late hour, I found his cell phone number and dialed.
“What the hell, Hawkins?” Detective Lucero’s usually playful voice sounded strained and hoarse. “It’s four thirty in the morning, and Christmas morning, no less.”
Note to self, people will forget they like you when woken in the middle of the night.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I can’t find Rod and I’m nervous.”
He said a swear word I’d never heard before, and I’d heard some doozies.
After I explained that my uncle had been shot, Lucero’s voice changed. “Your uncle? The old guy?” He waited for me to say yes, then continued, “He’s a character. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear. I’m off all this week for the holiday.”
I told him about how I’d come home and found Rod’s car and cell phone at the house. He took notes, then put me on hold.
Finally Lucero’s voice returned. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m getting dressed and heading in to Sheriff’s Department headquarters. Can you meet me there in an hour?” Lucero was actually a detective with the Rural Crimes Investigative Unit. He wouldn’t normally work from headquarters, but this wasn’t a normal situation.
“Thank you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
When I hung up, I saw that I’d got a text from Freddy asking that I call him.
“Dude,” he started. “I’ve got sort of a situation-type thing going on.”
“What’s that?”
He hesitated. “So, it’s possible I lost that little dog.”
“It’s possible? You don’t know?”
“Calm down, I know.” He took a breath. “I definitely lost him.”
“How?”
“I took him back to the station, like you said, but after I geared up to go back out, the little dude kept trying to get in the van. He’s like a newshound, literally.”
My voice rose. “You brought him with you to the sludge spill?”
“I totally figured he’d stay in the van, but, like, a couple minutes ago, he jumped out when I had the door open.”
“Can you find him? On those stubby, little legs he couldn’t have gotten far.”
“I’m trying, dude.”
At this time of the morning, it would take an easy ten minutes to reach the Sheriff’s Department headquarters. Instead of the fifty-minute nap I’d been planning to take in the news van, I decided to go help Freddy and Thing.
I drove to where Highway 178 emptied out onto Seventeenth Street. Almost twenty-four hours earlier a tanker truck carrying sludge had crashed into a car. Five more cars and a smaller truck had crashed behind it. The injuries had been relatively minor, but the tanker had spilled its load of sludge. The cleanup had been expected to be finished by midafternoon. Now, almost twelve hours later, the roadblocks had actually been pushed out from the crash site, not in toward it.
I drove to the roadblock where Freddy had said to meet. I quickly removed Bud’s sweater so my logo shirt would be visible under my coat and got out.
Freddy’s news van was still parked next to the sawhorses, but there was no sign of him or the officers who should have been stationed there. I heard a noise from inside the restricted area. Two Bakersfield PD cops were chasing someone. I couldn’t see who the fugitive was, but then I heard, “Dude, I’m totally sorry.”
I jumped back in and drove the van up onto the curb. By the time I’d got around the sawhorses, the pursuit had turned into an alley. I stopped at the entrance and jumped out. I left the engine running and my door open, but I figured that inside a police barricade the van would be safe.
Down the alley, the officers had Freddy cornered at a Dumpster.
“Dude, you don’t understand.” He was kneeling with his back to us.
The officers had their hands on their weapons, but hadn’t drawn yet. “Put your hands where I can see them,” one of them instructed.
Freddy didn’t obey. “But my dog is under the Dumpster.”
“Never mind,” I shouted. “Do what they say.”
The officers saw me and freaked out. Now two journalists were inside the restricted area.
“Freddy, stand up and turn around,” I said. “You’re going to get yourself shot.”
He finally obeyed. “He’s totally under there, but good luck getting him out.”
“Dog,” I called. Thing appeared from under the metal bin. He walked slowly, but with purpose, until he was standing right in front of me. His crooked face looked up and curled into a dog smile.
The officers had already called for backup. After a surprisingly short lecture, we were let go. I had the feeling that they were actually concerned for our safety. It helped that Freddy had the dog to prove his story that he’d only entered the restricted area chasing Thing.
We returned to my van. I’d let a lot of the heat escape by leaving my door open so I turned the heater up to full blast. I drove Freddy back to the other side of the sawhorses with instructions to return Thing to the station and contact Callum about the sludge story.
At the Sheriff’s Department, I parked in the small lot where I’d picked up Rod yesterday. I remembered those first moments in the van, how grateful I was that he was safe.
I took a moment to call the hospital and check on Bud. Still no change. It wasn’t a surprise, but that didn’t make it easier to hear.
Because of the early hour, I had to walk to a side door near the rear, gated parking lot. I picked up a phone receiver mounted to the wall and gave my name and whom I was there to see. After several minutes of waiting I heard a noise. Through a thick glass window I watched a uniformed officer appear at the end of a long hallway and start toward me.
When the officer finally reached the other side of the door, he entered a code into a push pad, waited for a buzzing sound, and let me in.
He held the door while I passed inside. “If you’ll follow me, Detective Lucero is waiting for you.”
The door swung shut with an intimidating thud. I followed him through a maze of fluorescent-lit hallways and corridors. After four or five turns and a flight of stairs, I realized I’d never be able to find my way out again.
We passed a man in handcuffs being led by another uniformed officer. The man looked up from his shackled feet. His eyes found me through strands of long, stringy hair, black with filth. “You’re a tiny little slut.”
“If you’re going to name your junk, you shouldn’t say it outloud.”
He suddenly cut toward me. The officer escorting him was taken by surprise. His delay made it that much harder to rein the man in. I stayed back as both officers working together took the man down to the floor.
“You had to be a smart-ass.”
I turned and saw Lucero. I immediately relaxed. “Yeah, yeah. I say stuff I shouldn’t, blah, blah, blah.”
He smiled at me, then looked at the officer. “Thanks for bringing her in. I got it from here.”
“Come on.” He led the way toward the end of the hall.
We reached a door and he held it open for me. “Thanks for coming, Lilly.”
“Are you kidding? I’m the one who’s thankful that you’re helping me.” I entered the room and stopped short.
Handsome Homicide sat behind an industrial metal table. That wasn
’t even the worst. Lucero had brought me to an interrogation room.
TWENTY-TWO
Christmas Day, 6:05 a.m.
My head spun around just in time to see Lucero shut the door behind us. “What is this?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Handsome gestured to a single chair placed opposite him. “Would you please take a seat?”
“No.” I walked around Lucero and reached for the door.
Handsome didn’t get up. He didn’t even lean forward. “I understand you’re afraid the same person who shot your uncle may be after your boyfriend. If that’s true, then you walk out of here and he’s as good as dead.”
I turned back. “Is junior-high bully your only interview technique? I’m starting to think terrifying people is all you’re good for.”
“He put it a little bit strong,” Lucero said in sympathetic tones. “But the basic sentiment is true. Let us help you.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already left,” I said to him. “You did your job and got me here.”
Lucero started to say something, but Handsome cut him off.
“I’ve agreed to let Detective Lucero sit in on our interview.” Handsome and Lucero exchanged a look. It wasn’t exactly hostile, but it wasn’t friendly either. “I can bring in a female officer if you’d prefer that.”
“No, I would not.” I turned to Lucero. “I came here to speak with you. Get him out of here.”
“My hands are tied. It’s his case.”
Even I had to see the truth in that. Lucero wasn’t even a homicide detective.
Lucero must have sensed I was weakening. “Tell us both what you know and we’ll help you. That’s everyone’s goal here. What could be more important than Rod’s safety?”
Nothing, of course. I reluctantly took the seat opposite Handsome. I figured I’d play this out as far as I could without implicating Rod or Bud in anything illegal.
Lucero leaned against the back wall since there was no third chair.
“This interview is being video-recorded,” Handsome said. “Do you consent to that?”
I unzipped my jacket. “No.”
He scowled and got up. After being gone for a few moments he returned and sat back down. “Will you say and spell your name for me.”
Going to the Bad Page 18
