Stuart Kaminsky - Midnight Pass

“Fonesca,” I said.

“What happened?”

It was Kenneth Severtson asking a reasonable question.

“I left a message on your machine.”

I looked at the battered metal box I had picked up in a pawnshop on Main Street.

“So?” he asked anxiously.

I told him the story and ended with “They should be home soon. Your wife had to answer a few questions for the police.”

Long, long pause.

“He killed himself in front of Kenny and Sydney? She was in bed with him in front of Kenny and Sydney.”

“They were in another room. They’re young,” I said. “I don’t think the sex part sunk in.”

I didn’t believe that and I wasn’t sure he would either, but it was a lie he could pretend to hang onto if he really wanted it.

“I’m thinking about a divorce and asking for custody of the children,” he said.

“Talk to Sally.”

“I don’t know. I want things the way they were,” he said, thinking out loud.

“I know, but it won’t happen. You take her back, you take the pain. There are things harder to take. Talk to Sally.”

“If there’s ever anything I can do,” he said.

I thought of asking him if he knew any jokes, but decided to say, “Thanks, you owe me some money. You can send it to me or drop it off.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”

I played the messages, erased Severtson’s and two from Dixie to call her. I dialed Dixie at home.

“It’s me, Lew,” I said before she could cough or say hello in her fake hoarse voice.

“Roberta Goulding had a brother and a sister,” she said. “Brother, seven years younger, Charles. Sister, six years younger, now Mrs. Antony Diedrich living with her husband in Fort Worth. He’s got a Toyota and a Buick dealership. Don’t know where the brother is.”

“Thanks, Dixie,” I said.

“That’s not why I called mainly,” she said. “Kevin Hoffmann, member of the board of just about everything in Sarasota, major contributor to the Ringling Museum, Asolo Theater, Sarasota Ballet, Sarasota Opera, Pine View School and Booker School Scholarship funds, Committee to Open Midnight Pass. Goes on and on.”

“He’s bought lots of friends.”

“One might conclude,” said Dixie. “Makes lots of money, like lots.”

“Like?”

“Taxes on income over the past six years show over a million and half a year, some years over two million,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You haven’t heard the best,” she said. “He’s going to have a birthday Sunday.”

“I’m happy for him,” I said.

“You might want to give him a present,” she said, and told me why.

When I hung up with Dixie, I called Roberta Trasker. She answered after three rings.

“It’s Lew Fonesca,” I said.

“You found William?”

“You know Kevin Hoffmann?”

The pause was long. I opened the phone book and searched the pages for Hoffmann’s number while I waited. He wasn’t listed.

“Yes,” she said. “Socially. He and his wife, Sharon, and William had business with him. Sharon left him about five or six years ago.”

“You said ‘William had’ business with Hoffmann.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose I’m…”

“I understand. Mind if I call Hoffmann and ask him if he has some idea where your husband is?”

“No,” she said. “I gather you haven’t gotten very far in finding William.”

“One small step closer,” I said. “I’ll call you when I have more. You have his number, Hoffmann’s?”

When I hung up I looked over at the Dalstrom painting on the wall, the deep dark jungle and darker mountains, the single touch of color in the flower.

Then I dialed the number Roberta Trasker had given me. A man answered.

“Mr. Hoffmann?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Lew Fonesca,” I said. “Mrs. Trasker give me this number.”

“What do you want to speak to Mr. Hoffmann about?”

“William Trasker,” I said.

“What about Mr. Trasker?”

“He’s missing,” I said. “I want to ask Mr. Hoffmann a few questions that might help me find him.”

“You’re making this inquiry on behalf of Mrs. Trasker?”

“Yes.”

“You’re with the police?”

“I’m not against them,” I said.

I was tired. I wanted to go to a back booth at the Crisp Dollar Bill across the street, listen to the bartender’s tapes, eat a steak sandwich, drink an Amstel, get back in bed, and watch a videotape, something old, something black-and-white, something with William Powell.

“May I have a noncryptic answer?” the man said.

“I’m not a police officer.”

“One moment.”

The phone was placed down gently, and I looked at the painting on my wall while I waited. The jungle was inviting and I wanted to smell the orchid. I didn’t know if the orchid in the painting had a smell.

“Mr. Hoffmann is busy. If you leave a number, he’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

“Tell him I have a birthday present for him,” I said. “It can’t wait.”

The phone went down again and this time a different man’s voice, a higher voice, said, “This is Kevin Hoffmann. And you are?”

“Lew Fonesca.”

“You told Stanley that you have a birthday present for me.”

He sounded amused.

“Yes.”

“And you are looking for Bill Trasker?”

“Yes.”

“And you are representing…?”

“Someone who wants to find Trasker.”

“Come on over,” he said.

He gave me the address.

“I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

I called the Herald-Tribune office and got a young reporter named John Rubin who maybe owed me a favor.

“Midnight Pass,” I said.

“I’m on a deadline,” Rubin said. “Call me back tomorrow, early afternoon.”

“Two minutes,” I said.

“Something in it for me?”

“Might be,” I said.

“Something big?”

“A woman I know,” I said, thinking of Ann Horowitz, “says all size is relative. A hit-and-run on Webber might not be worth more than a paragraph on page ten unless the victim or the driver was someone with power, pelf, or notoriety.”

“Pelf?” Rubin said with a laugh. “You’re a funny guy, Fonesca.”

“I don’t try to be but I’m working on it, my shrink’s orders,” I said. “Midnight Pass.”

“That’s your big story?” he asked. “Midnight Pass? I’m working on a double murder, guy goes nuts, stabs his wife with a screwdriver, batters her boyfriend with a foot stool, shoots himself with a speargun.”

“A speargun?”

“Yeah, and if you think that’s easy, try it some time.”

“There are better ways to kill yourself.”

“Much better, but they don’t make good stories. Any case, they’re dead, he’ll live. Midnight Pass, huh?”

“There’s a vote on Friday on whether to start reopening it,” I said.

“The vote will be to open it,” Rubin said. “If I count my votes right.”

“Maybe you’re counting them wrong,” I said.

“You know something,” he said, sounding interested.

“You tell me something,” I said.

“Okay,” said Rubin. “Pass started closing up when Casey Key drifted closer to Siesta Key. In 1983 two property owners got permission from the county to fill in the Pass and reopen it a little bit south. They filled Midnight Pass and tried to open it a little south. It didn’t want to reopen. Two very small armies lined up across from each other, sometimes literally. One cried, Open the Pass for traffic and nature. The other cried, It was too expensive to open it and keep it open and nature was doing just fine without it.”

“And?”

“Both sides tried to line up environmentalist backing, but that hasn’t led to much. One pack of environmentalists didn’t like the fact that man and not nature had closed the Pass. That pack didn’t like the fact that the closing created a dark-watered and not always fragrant-smelling Little Sarasota Bay the Gulf waters couldn’t flush out.”