His eyes lazily drifted toward me. “She’d be dead if I hadn’t convinced her to run.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I said. “But still it was lucky for you, Hoyt—shooting down two birds with one stone like that. You were able to save her life—and you were able to stay out of jail.”
“And why exactly would I go to jail?”
“Are you denying you were on Scope’s payroll?”
He shrugged. “You think I’m the only one who took their money?”
“No,” I said.
“So why would I be more worried than the next cop?”
“Because of what you’d done.”
He finished his drink, looked around for the bottle, poured himself some more. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Do you know what Elizabeth was investigating?”
“Brandon Scope’s illegal activities,” he said. “Prostitution. Underage girls. Drugs. The guy was playing at being Mr. Bad.”
“What else?” I said, trying to stop quivering.
“What are you talking about?”
“If she kept digging, she might have stumbled across a bigger crime.” I took a deep breath. “Am I right, Hoyt?”
His face sagged when I said that. He turned and stared straight out the front windshield.
“A murder,” I said.
I tried to follow his gaze, but all I saw were Sears Craftsman tools hanging neatly on a pegboard. The screwdrivers with their yellow-and-black handles were lined up in perfect size order, flat-tops on the left, Phillips head on the right. Three wrenches and a hammer separated them.
I said, “Elizabeth wasn’t the first one who wanted to bring Brandon Scope down.” Then I stopped and waited, waited until he looked at me. It took some time, but eventually he did. And I saw it in his eyes. He didn’t blink or try to hide it. I saw it. And he knew that I saw it.
“Did you kill my father, Hoyt?”
He took a deep swig from the glass, swished it around his mouth, and swallowed hard. Some of the whiskey spilled onto his face. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. “Worse,” he said, closing his eyes. “I betrayed him.”
The rage boiled up in my chest, but my voice stayed surprisingly even. “Why?”
“Come on, David. You must have figured that out by now.”
Another flash of fury shot across me. “My father worked with Brandon Scope,” I began.
“More than that,” he interjected. “Griffin Scope had your dad mentor him. They worked very closely together.”
“Like with Elizabeth.”
“Yes.”
“And while working with him, my father discovered what a monster Brandon really was. Am I right?”
Hoyt just drank.
“He didn’t know what to do,” I continued. “He was afraid to tell, but he couldn’t just let it go. The guilt ate at him. That was why he was so quiet the months before his death.” I stopped and thought about my father, scared, alone, nowhere to turn. Why hadn’t I seen it? Why hadn’t I looked past my own world and seen his pain? Why hadn’t I reached out to him? Why hadn’t I done something to help him?
I looked at Hoyt. I had a gun in my pocket. How simple it would be. Just take out the gun and pull the trigger. Bam. Gone. Except I knew from personal experience that it wouldn’t solve a damn thing. Just the opposite, in fact.
“Go on,” Hoyt said.
“Somewhere along the line, Dad decided to tell a friend. But not just any friend. A cop, a cop who worked in the city where the crimes were being committed.” My blood started boiling, threatening again to erupt. “You, Hoyt.”
Something in his face shifted.
“I got it right so far?”
“Pretty much,” he replied.
“You told the Scopes, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “I thought they’d transfer him or something. Keep him away from Brandon. I never thought …” He made a face, clearly hating the self-justification in his own voice. “How did you know?”
“The name Melvin Bartola, for starters. He was the witness to the supposed accident that killed my father, but, of course, he worked for Scope too.” My father’s smile flashed in front of me. I tightened my hands into fists. “And then there was the lie you told about saving my life,” I continued. “You did go back to the lake after you shot Bartola and Wolf. But not to save me. You looked, you saw no movement, and you figured I was dead.”
“Figured you were dead,” he repeated. “Not wanted you dead.”
“Semantics,” I said.
“I never wanted you to get hurt.”
“But you weren’t very broken up about it either,” I said. “You went back to the car and told Elizabeth that I had drowned.”
“I was just trying to convince her to disappear,” he said. “It helped too.”
“You must have been surprised when you heard I was still alive.”
“More like shocked. How did you survive anyway?”
“It’s not important.”
Hoyt settled back as though from exhaustion. “Guess not,” he said. His expression veered again and I was surprised when he said, “So what else do you want to know?”
“You’re not denying any of this?”
“Nope.”
“And you knew Melvin Bartola, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Bartola tipped you off about the hit on Elizabeth,” I said. “I can’t figure out what happened exactly. Maybe he had a conscience. Maybe he didn’t want her to die.”
“Bartola a conscience?” He chuckled. “Please. He was a low-life murdering scum. He came to me because he thought he could double-dip. Collect from the Scopes and from me. I told him I’d double his money and help him out of the country if he helped me fake her death.”
I nodded, seeing it now. “So Bartola and Wolf told Scope’s people that they were going to lie low after the killing. I wondered why their disappearance didn’t raise more eyebrows, but thanks to you, Bartola and Wolf were supposed to go away.”
“Yes.”
“So what happened? Did you double-cross them?”
“Men like Bartola and Wolf—their word means nothing. No matter how much I paid them, I knew that they’d come back for more. They’d get bored living out of the country or maybe they’d get drunk and boast about it in a bar. I’ve dealt with this type of garbage my whole life. I couldn’t risk that.”