Eleventh Hour
Page 86

Dane said, “We’ll have two round-the-clock guards on him now.”
“That’s good. This is all very disturbing, Agent Carver. Violence at Lakeview. Not at all good for business.” He shook his head. “And your suspect is his own son. I must say, Weldon DeLoach has always appeared to be a very nice man. Every time I have spoken to him, he’s been solicitous of his father, very caring, always paid any and all charges on time. I’ve e-mailed him and spoken to him on the phone countless times over the years.”
Dane handed Mr. Latterley a photo. “Is this Weldon DeLoach?”
Mr. Latterley looked down at the grainy black-and-white photo that they’d had shot off the VCR reel. He didn’t say anything for a very long time. Finally, he raised his head, and he was frowning. “That’s Weldon. Bad photo, but yes, Agent Carver. You know, it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t Weldon who was here today. In fact, I simply can’t accept that it could have been him. He takes too good care of his father to want to hurt him.”
“All right. If not Weldon, have you any idea who else it could be?” Dane asked.
Mr. Latterley reluctantly shook his head. “No, no one else visits him, at least I’ve never seen anyone else. We do have security here, but I suppose some criminal from Captain DeLoach’s past could have gotten in.”
“It would have to be a criminal with a very long memory,” Dane said. He rose. “I want to speak to Daisy.”
They found Daisy in the rec room, this time reading a very old Time magazine, chortling about Monica’s semenstained blue dress and how the president was dancing around that blow. “A hoot, that’s what it was,” Daisy said. “He wanted history to judge him as a great president”—she laughed some more—“now he’ll be known as the moron who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.”
Daisy was wearing a different loose housedress today, sandals, her toenails painted a bright coral that matched her lipstick.
“I’m Special Agent Dane Carver and this is Ms. Jones.” Dane showed her his FBI shield.
“I remember you two. You were here yesterday. I’m Daisy Griffith,” she said, and grinned up at the two of them, a full complement of white teeth in her mouth. Nick believed they were hers. “Now, you’re here because of poor old Ellison. Knocked himself out again, didn’t he? Never did have a good sense of balance, did Elly. Always hurling himself about in that chair of his whenever he gets excited. Of course, he’s old as dirt—hmmm, maybe even older.” Daisy paused a moment, tapped her fingertips on a photo of Clinton shaking his finger at the media, and said, “I heard some of the nurses talking; they claimed it wasn’t an accident, that his son tried to knock him off. Is that true?”
“We don’t know,” Dane said. “Have you ever met Weldon DeLoach?”
“Oh yes, nice boy. Polite and attentive, not just to Elly, but to all of us.” She paused a moment, sighed. “Elly talks about him a lot, says he’s real talented, with lots of imagination, a good writer. He’s a Hollywood type, you know.”
“Yes, we know. Did Captain DeLoach ever speak to you about his son, other than what he did for a living?”
“Well, sure. Elly said he was just too old when Weldon was born, that Weldon had been a big accident. The boy had needed a younger man to raise him, and then his mother up and died on the two of them. Here he was, an older cop, and he had a little kid to raise.
“Just last week I think it was, he said his boy hadn’t turned out the way he would have liked, but what could he do? He said he was tempted, particularly now, to let everyone know what the real truth was. He said it would scare the hell out of me. I asked him what he meant by that, and he just threatened to throw a billiard ball at me. Mortie thought that was real funny, the old buzzard.”
The old buzzard, Mortie, was scratching his forearms incessantly. He said, yes, of course he’d spoken to Weldon over the years. “Oh sure, Elly talked about him sometimes, but I got the idea there was no love lost between the two of them. Did you know that Elly used to be a wicked pool player? Then his hands started shaking and the arthritis got him.” Mortie shook his head and scratched his forearms again.
“Would you like a pool cue, sir?” Nick asked. She chalked a cue and then handed it to Mortie. Mortie grinned and walked over to the pool table. He was hitting balls at a fine clip when Dane and Nick left the rec room.
“I thought it might keep him from scratching himself for a while,” Nick said. “What do we do now?”