Stuart Kaminsky - Denial

“Footsteps, someone running, like an echo,” he said. “That crazy son of a bitch was coming up after us.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure? We were at the ramp when we looked back and there he was screaming at us like a nut. For spitting. We ran. He didn’t catch us. We hid out in the main-street bookstore on the second floor for about ten minutes and then came out to wait for Kyle’s dad. And there he was.”

“Kyle’s dad?”

“No, the crazy guy. In a car coming right up in front of the movies. There was someone in the back, but I couldn’t see. He saw us. We ran like hell back down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. When we hit the lot, we heard a car screeching into the parking lot. It was him, same car.”

“What kind of car?”

“Taurus. Blue. Late model. No more than a year old. He saw us, came flying over the speed bumps. We ran through the lot and went over the fence on Fruitville. Ran across the street, almost got hit by a pickup. Then we went down the first street. I don’t know what it was.”

“He was still following you?”

“He must have seen us go down the street. We were half a block down, running, when we heard the car turning behind us. We didn’t know where we were. I followed Kyle between two houses. A couple of guys, Mexicans, yelled at us, asking us where the hell we thought we were going.”

“The guy in the car?”

“Didn’t look back,” he said. “Went through a yard full of old tires and stuff and ran around down 301 and into the Walgreens on the corner. We went to the toilet in the back and locked ourselves in. I’m telling you, that guy was nuts.”

“You decided to separate,” I said.

“Yeah, but not until we got out of the toilet and saw the guy running out of the store. The girl at the checkout counter said she thought a guy who just left was looking for us. She said we could catch him if we hurried.”

“That’s when you decided to separate?”

He nodded.

“We looked through the window and saw him pulling out of the lot,” Andy said. “He wasn’t going to give up. So we split up. I went back toward the 20. Kyle went back around the drugstore. That’s it. Who’d ever think someone would kill a kid because he spit on his wife or daughter? Have to be nuts.”

“You’d recognize him again if you saw him?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah. White hair, little beard. Pretty big guy.”

“Old?”

“Yeah, like your age, maybe.”

“Anything else?”

“He had a bumper sticker,” Andy said, looking at the Lord of the Rings poster. “Saw it when he pulled out of the drugstore lot. Manatee Community College parking sticker.”

“How do you know that?”

“My mom has one, blue and white. She teaches a course there Thursday nights.”

I got up. So did Andrew Goines.

“You’re going to tell the police, aren’t you?”

“Soon,” I said.

“You have to tell my mom?”

He had quickly gone from being a cocky fifteen-year-old to a frightened ten-year-old.

“She wouldn’t understand,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t say anything to the police. Kyle was dead and I wasn’t sure it wasn’t just an accident. But now…”

“Now?”

“He called you. You said he called you, right?”

“He did,” I said.

“My mom thinks I’m some kind of perfect kid,” he said. “She’s all the time telling people how much I’m like my dad. I’m not like my dad. She’s going to find out, isn’t she?”

“About the spitting?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. Maybe not for a while. Maybe not any time.”

Andy Goines looked at his watch.

“Almost fifteen minutes,” he said. “I told you I’d give you five. You done?”

“I’m done.”

“You’re going to find him, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Thanks.”

He awkwardly held out his hand. I shook it. His palm was wet. He walked with me to the front door. His mother was in another room talking on the phone and tapping something out on the computer at the same time. I didn’t wait to say good-bye.

“I should have stayed with Kyle,” the boy said. “I should have been there to help him. My dad would have.”

“He might have run you down too,” I said. “Then your mother would have to go on without your dad and you. It’s hard to go on alone.”

I was going to add, “Trust me,” but I didn’t trust people who said that. It almost always meant that I had just heard something I definitely should not trust.

He closed the door behind me.

I stopped to report to Marie Knot that I had handed out the two summonses and to pick up a check for my work. Then I drove to the DQ lot and parked. It was a little before six. I got a double burger and a large chocolate cherry Blizzard, went up to my office and turned on the light.

The phone was ringing.

“Fonesca,” I said.

“I was watching you. I could have killed you,” he said. “You didn’t see me.”

“Thanks for not killing me,” I said, sitting behind my desk, Blizzard and burger in front of me.

I took off my cap and waited. He was sitting out there no more than a few hundred feet away. He had seen me go through the door.

“Can’t you understand?” he pleaded.

“Explain it to me,” I said. “Come on up to my office. I’ll split a burger and a Blizzard with you.”

“It’s useless, isn’t it?” he asked.

“You mean trying to get me to stop looking for you? Yes, but it doesn’t hurt for us to talk. Call whenever you like.”

He started the car he was in. I heard it over the phone and out the window.

“How’s your knee?”

“Never hurt much,” I said, moving to the window to see if I could spot the car. I didn’t. “Well, maybe for a minute or two.”

“Your shoulder?”

“Seems all right. Don’t you have a philosopher to quote?”

“You’re joking,” he said. “You’re mocking me.”

“No,” I said. “I’m interested.”

“Do you believe in God?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Depends on when you ask me.”

“God,” he said, “is a concept by which we measure our pain.”

“Which philosopher said that?”

“John Lennon.”

He hung up before I could ask him if he had ever heard of a poet named Gregory Cgnozik who was another admirer of the dead Beatle. I walked out the door. At the railing, which rattled when I leaned on it, I looked up at the clouds, fluffy billows, reddish in the reflection of the sun. I watched them drift south. I don’t know what I wanted from the clouds, from the moment. Peace? A minute, five minutes of peace?

I could have started visiting the people who had been released from the Seaside the night Dorothy Cgnozic had supposedly witnessed a murder, but it wasn’t in me.

I went back inside and made two calls while I finished eating.

Call one was to Nancy Root. She wasn’t there. I told her machine I was making progress and would report to her soon. Call two was to the Texas Bar amp; Grille. Ed Fairing answered after three rings and said, “Texas,” over the rumble of voices. I could almost smell the beer. I asked for Ames, who came on a few seconds later.

“What have you got planned for the next two or so days?” I asked.

“Working on my models, reading, breathing easy,” he answered.

“Think you can make a trip in the morning and maybe one in the afternoon to Manatee Community College?”

“I can,” he said.

“Paying job,” I said. “Go through the parking lot looking for a late-model Ford Taurus, blue with an MCC parking sticker. Check the front of the car for dents, blood or some repair or paint touch-up in the last few days. If there’s more than one Taurus that matches, write down the license tag number. Tell Ed it’s important.”