He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. She sat back behind her desk and slowly read it.
She looked up. “It’s the newspaper article about my husband’s death.”
“He was the victim of a hit-and-run driver, case was never solved.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she said coldly, sliding the paper back across. “So?”
“So the same night George Diaz was killed Bobby Battle’s Rolls-Royce was damaged. The next day the Rolls was gone, and so was the mechanic who looked after Bobby’s collection.”
“Are you saying this mechanic person killed my husband?”
“No, I’m saying Bobby Battle did.”
She looked at him, stunned. “Why in the hell would he do that?”
“Because he was avenging you. He was avenging the woman he loved.”
Sylvia rose, her fingers digging into her desktop. “What the hell are you trying to do here?”
Now King’s demeanor changed. He sat forward. “Sit down, Sylvia, I have a lot more to say.”
“I—”
“Sit!”
She slowly sank back into her chair, without ever taking her gaze off him.
“You told me once that you’d seen Lulu Oxley at the gynecologist you both used. You intimated she’d changed docs. But she didn’t change docs. You did.”
“So is that a crime?”
“I’m getting to that. I got the name of your new ob-gyn from your old doctor, and then I went to see your new gynecologist. She was way up in D.C. Why so far away, Sylvia?”
“That’s none of your damn business.”
“When you had your surgery three and a half years ago, your husband performed it. He was the best, you said. Only he had another agenda when he opened you up. I’ve discovered after talking to a surgeon friend of mine that the procedure to correct a ruptured diverticulum is one of the very few that would allow the surgeon to do something ‘extra’ in the pelvic region that most likely wouldn’t be noticed by anyone assisting him.”
“Would you please get to the point!” she exclaimed.
“I know, Sylvia.”
“You know what?” she said fiercely.
“That a tubal ligation was performed on you without your knowledge that rendered you infertile.”
There was a long silence. “You don’t know what you’re talking—”
King interrupted. “George Diaz corrected your diverticulitis and operated on your colon all right, but at the same time he also stapled your fallopian tubes shut. And he did it on purpose. You couldn’t go to your old ob-gyn with those staples in you: how could you explain them? So you went to a new one, probably with dummy records, and she removed them. I went to see her with a bogus story about my ‘wife’ and her fallopian tube problem. I said you’d recommended her because you said she’d done such a wonderful job on you. Because of confidentiality restrictions she couldn’t tell me much, but it was just enough to confirm my suspicions. And the damage was permanent, wasn’t it? You’d never have children.”
“You bastard, how dare you—”
King interrupted her again. “Your husband found out you and Bobby were lovers. You fell for the old man just like hundreds before you. And George took his revenge for your infidelity. And then you took yours.” He picked up the photo of George Diaz off her desk and laid it facedown. “You don’t have to keep up the facade of the poor, pining widow for me.”
“I was lying flat on my back in the hospital when George was killed!”
“That’s right. But I’m betting your husband told you what he did. He’d want you to know how he’d avenged himself for your betrayal. And you called Bobby and told him all about it. And he took his Rolls-Royce, went over to your house, saw Diaz out walking, and that was that. At first I thought Bobby had run Roger Canney’s wife off the road and killed her, because her death also occurred around the time George was killed. But hers was a simple car accident. Your husband’s death was murder.”
“It’s all conjecture. And even if it happened as you say, I did nothing wrong. Nothing.”
“The wrong comes later. Because you killed Bobby by injecting a lethal dose of potassium chloride into his nutrition bag.”
“Get out of my office.”
“I’ll go when I’ve had my say,” he shot back.
“First you say I’m the man’s lover, and then you say I’m his murderer. What possible motivation would I have for killing him?”
“You were afraid of being exposed,” King said simply. “On the very day he was killed we saw you at Diane Hinson’s home. Michelle told you Bobby was conscious, but that he was just rambling, calling out people’s names, saying stuff, totally incoherent. You were terrified he’d say your name, talk about your relationship. Then everything might come out. Maybe he’d already thrown you aside by then. So maybe you owed him nothing. I don’t know that for sure, but I do know that you went and killed him. For a doctor it would be easy. You knew the hospital routine. You put the poison in the bag and not the tube, and you left the feather and watch because you wanted the murder attributed to the other killer. You were very quick to support my theory of a family member having killed Bobby. But you made a mistake. You didn’t take anything from his hospital room. Those thefts from the other victims, the St. Christopher’s medal and the like, weren’t revealed to the public or to you. So you didn’t know to copy that detail.”
Sylvia shook her head. “You’re crazy. You’re as crazy as Eddie, you know that? And to think I was looking forward to rekindling what we had.”
“Right, me too. Guess I’m really lucky.”
Her face twisted hideously. “All right, you’ve had your say, now get out. And if you repeat one word of it, I’ll sue you for slander.”
“I’m not finished yet, Sylvia.”
“Oh, there’s more insane talk to come?”
“A lot more. You were also the one who burglarized the Battles’ home.”
“You just don’t stop, do you?”
“Bobby had probably given you the access code and a key. Junior had done work for you, you told us that. You got the stuff to frame him easily enough, and who better to forge a print than a medical examiner? I’m not sure how you did that, but I know with a very experienced person that it’s possible.”
“Why would I burglarize their home? What would I want with Remmy’s wedding ring?”
“You didn’t care about the ring! There was something else you were after. Battle was in a coma in the hospital. You weren’t sure if Remmy knew about Bobby’s secret cache. You weren’t even sure what you wanted was in there, but you had to look. In Bobby’s closet you knew where the secret drawer was, but you didn’t know how to open it and had to break in. Someone would obviously see that, so you broke into Remmy’s closet to make it look like a burglary and framed Junior for it. You’d probably heard from Bobby that Remmy had a secret cupboard in her closet, but he didn’t know its exact location. That’s why you had to bust everything up, looking for it.”
“And what exactly was I supposed to have stolen?”
“A picture of you and Bobby together. Some of the lettering from the back of the Kodak paper had stained the drawer. He might have told you he kept it there. Either way, you had to get it back. Because if he died and the photo was discovered, people might start putting the pieces together about your husband’s death. And even if you weren’t to blame for that, no one would believe you. And maybe it seemed pretty ironic your ending up with Remmy’s wedding ring. Did you ever wear it in the privacy of your home?”
“Okay, that’s it! Get out! Now!”
King didn’t budge. “And did you really have to kill Kyle? What, was he trying to blackmail you?”
“I didn’t kill him. He was stealing from me!”