Stuart Kaminsky - Denial

“Ed’s no problem,” Ames said. “I’ll start in the morning.”

That was it. Enough for one day. Too much for one day. I wanted to lie down and watch a VHS of Joan Crawford in Possessed, followed by Seven Keys to Baldpate, the version with Richard Dix. I wanted to sleep for about eight or nine days.

But it wasn’t to be. The knock at my door came at the point in Possessed where Joan Crawford was about to shoot Van Heflin.

I went to the door half expecting that the guy who killed Kyle McClory would be there ready either to talk or shoot me or both.

I didn’t recognize him for a second or two, but he was familiar.

I didn’t recognize Detective Etienne Viviase because he was wearing sneakers, brown slacks with a big buckle shaped like an Indian-head nickel and a University of Florida baseball cap and sweatshirt. The gator on the shirt grinned at me. The detective did not.

“Detective,” I said.

“Process server,” he said. “I’ll make this quick. My wife and kids are parked out there and my Peanut Buster bar is probably melting.”

“Want to come in?”

He looked over my shoulder at my office and said, “No thanks. Know a man named Maxwell Root?”

“Hardware store in Bradenton,” I said. “Father of Nancy Root. Grandfather of Kyle McClory.”

“And,” said Viviase, “grandfather of Yolanda Root. He says you harassed his granddaughter.”

“Just asked her some questions,” I said.

“How about Dr. Richard McClory and Andrew Goines? You ask them questions too?”

“Yes, but-”

“Anonymous caller,” he said. “Call transferred to me because Mike Ransom has the day off and Lichtner on the desk knew I’d dealt with you a few times in the past. The caller, a very nervous man, said you were harassing the friends and family of Kyle McClory.”

“You check with McClory and Goines’s mother?”

“They have no complaints.”

“Yolanda Root?”

“She says you were, quote, an asshole, but that you weren’t harassing her. Don’t feel too upset about the ‘asshole’ comment. She had equally unoriginal insults for McClory.”

“So what brings you to my door with a Buster bar melting below? Just Nancy Root’s father’s harassment claim?”

“Who made that call with all that bullshit about your harassing people?”

“The guy who ran down Kyle McClory,” I said. “He tried to run me down too.”

“Really? When was this?”

“Yesterday. Mall on Fruitville and Lime. Good Mexican restaurant there.”

“The one where Robles works. Have any plans for telling Ransom?”

“Not until I know the name of the caller,” I said.

“And you know this guy who called killed the McClory boy?”

Someone called, “Dad,” from the parking lot beyond the railing. Viviase looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Be right there.”

“He told me,” I said. “He practically told me.”

“When?”

“He calls me a couple of times a day,” I said. “Wants me to stop looking for him. Said he’ll have to kill me too if I don’t stop.”

“You’re a suitable case for treatment,” Viviase said.

“I’m in treatment,” I said.

“You getting close to finding the guy?”

“Yes.”

He thought for a few seconds.

“When you do, if you do, let me know,” he said. “Remember the case is Mike Ransom’s and he’d get more than a little pissed off if a process server came up with his hit-and-run killer.”

“It was murder,” I said.

“Great,” said Viviase with a sigh. “Better and better.”

“Ed,” came the voice of a woman from the DQ lot.

“Your ice cream is now cold chocolate peanut soup.”

“Dump it and I’ll come down and get another one,” he called.

I was half afraid he was going to ask me to meet his family. He didn’t. He just turned and walked toward the steps. I closed the door and went back to my bed. The pause button froze Joan Crawford, gun in hand, wild look on her face. I pressed her into action. She fired six bullets and the scene faded to black.

Dawn came dull gray. Fog. I could have and would have stayed in bed another hour or two or three if the phone hadn’t been ringing.

I considered permanently disconnecting it but then there would be even more people coming to my door.

I looked at my watch. Eight-thirty. The phone kept ringing. It could be him, Taurus the Philosopher with more threats, pleas and warnings. I slowly took out my soap and shaving gear and put them in my gym bag. The phone kept ringing.

I pulled a clean gray pullover polo shirt over my head and went into the office.

“Fonesca,” I said, picking up the phone.

“Nancy Root,” she said. “When you called last night, I was in a show. Then, this morning I found out that my father called the police and said you were harassing Yola. I just got off the phone with him. I was furious. Please don’t let him stop you from finding whoever… I find it so damn hard to say it.”

“I won’t let it stop me,” I said. “You didn’t tell me you had a daughter.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was important.”

I didn’t say it, but I thought it. Not important that she had a daughter? Not important that I talk to her? Both?

When I didn’t say anything, she asked, “Was it?” Yolanda Root had told me about her brother’s and Andy Goines’s vandalism. I had used what she told me to get Andy Goines to open up. In the scheme of things, yes, it was important.

“I may have something for you in the next few days,” I said. “No promises.”

“You know who did it?”

“Give me a few more days.”

“But… yes, all right. Richard called me. He said you’d seen him.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

I wondered what she was sorry for. For going to see her ex-husband? For how he might have behaved?

“It’s okay. I’ll call you when I have something.”

“Can you meet us later?” she said. “Richard and me.”

“I’ve got-”

Someone took the phone from her and said, “Fonesca, how soon can you get to my office?”

It was Richard Tycinker.

“One-thirty,” I said.

“Good.” He hung up.

I took my list of names and forwarding addresses of those four escapees from Seaside, went down the stairs with my gym bag, picked up a coffee to go and an Egg McMuffin from McDonald’s and drove down Bahia Vista to the YMCA, where I did four miles on the treadmill, did the round of machines, nodded to a few of the regulars, who nodded back at me. We didn’t know one another’s names. I didn’t want to know their names.

When I finished, I showered, shaved, used the rollon deodorant, got dressed and went back out into the fog. I had coaxed and sweated myself back into a state resembling life.

I drove up Lockwood Ridge to University Parkway, turned right and found University Gardens, beflowered, gated and nowhere near a university.

The sheet on the seat next to me said Ellen Gallagher now lived here with her grandson and his wife, Ralph and Julie Church.

I told the guard at the gate, a woman of more than average weight and less than average height, that I was there to see the Churches.

“Sorry, no churches in University Gardens,” she said. “You must be looking for St. Thomas’s a few miles east.”

“No,” I said, “I mean Julie and Ralph Church.”

“Ah,” she said with a smile.

Her brown eyes met mine.

“I knew that,” she said. “Couldn’t resist. You can go nuts here alone and I’ve been on since five this morning.”

“It was a good joke,” I said.

“You’re not smiling.”

“I don’t smile.”

“Your name?”