Stuart Kaminsky - Vengeance

Beryl Tree was sitting on the folding chair in front of my desk. Her hands were clasped together. Her head was back. She was looking up at the ceiling at nothing. Her face was red with blood.

I checked my second room. No one was there. I went to Beryl, touched a large vein in her neck. Beryl Tree was dead.

Detective Ed Vivaise’s glasses were perched on the end of his ample nose so he could look down at the few sheets of paper in front of him and then over the tops of his glasses at me.

“Lewie,” he said, shaking his head. And then again, “Lewie.”

He was a little under six feet tall, a little over fifty years old and a little over two hundred and twenty pounds. His hair was short, dark, and his face was that of a man filled with sympathy, the smooth pink face of a man whose genes were good and who probably didn’t drink. He wore black slacks, a tieless white shirt. A black zipper jacket was draped on his straight-backed wooden chair.

Vivaise sat behind his desk in the Sarasota police station on Main Street. There were three other desks in the office, all institutional metal, all with papers and reports piled in metal mesh boxes or freestanding and about to topple. Vivaise and I were the only ones in the office. We had been sitting there for about an hour, or at least I had been sitting there an hour. He had gotten up and left the room four times, once to get himself and me coffee, and three times when the phone on his desk rang. All three times he had returned with papers.

In the hour, Ed Vivaise had said nothing to me but “Lewie, Lewie, Lewie,” which translated into “Lewis Fonesca, what have you gotten yourself into.”

“You don’t mind if I call you Lewie, do you?”

“I prefer Lew or Lewis,” I said.

Vivaise held up his hands in a gesture of peace and understanding.

“I understand,” he said, leaning over. “I’ll share a secret with you. I don’t tell many people, but my real name is Etienne. French. Can you imagine me getting any respect if I used the name Etienne? I’d spend half my time telling people how to pronounce it.”

“Thanks for sharing with me,” I said.

He smiled, the pained smile of a man with severe stomach cramps.

“The victim’s name was Beryl Tree,” he said, looking at the top paper in front of him.

“Yes.”

“No, I was telling you, not asking, but feel free,” he said. “Age, according to the ID in her purse, was forty-two. She looked a hard-life forty-two to me.”

He looked up.

“To me too,” I said.

“So,” he went on, putting the papers neatly in front of him and leaning back with his hands behind his head, “you tell me what you told Officer Bayles in your statement. New words, old words, whatever.”

“Right,” I said, leaning forward. “Beryl Tree came to me through a friend. I’m a process server.”

“She needed a process server?”

Vivaise’s eyes were closed now. He took his right hand from behind his head long enough to scratch his nose.

“No, she stopped at the Dairy Queen right near where I live, said she was looking for help finding her runaway daughter. She told the man at the DQ that she had come to the police, but she didn’t think they were going to do anything much about it. There were too many runaways from and to Sarasota. Check on reports for missing kids from Monday.”

“It’s all on computers,” he said, eyes still closed. “It’s been done. So far you haven’t fallen from the tightrope. So she came to you?”

“It was convenient for her. I was right behind the DQ. I said I’d try to find her daughter.”

“She gave you money.”

“She gave me money. Not much, but I needed it. I don’t need much.”

“I’ll back you on that,” he said. “After seeing your place, you don’t live high.”

“I looked for her daughter,” I went on. “So far I haven’t found her, but I did find her father or, to be a little more accurate, he found me. Told me to stop looking, threatened Beryl and me. His name is-”

“I’ve got it, Dwight Handford. Did time. An unwelcome resident. We have his records.”

“He’s using the name Prescott,” I said.

“Dwight Prescott?” he asked, writing the name on the pad in front of him.

“Yes. I took Mrs. Tree to stay with a friend. Handford found out she was there. She ran. I was out with a lady, came home, found Beryl’s body, called nine-one-one.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “Sixty-two dollars and change in her purse. Wouldn’t make much sense for you to bash her head in and call nine-one-one. Sense would have been to get rid of the body and go on with your business.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

His eyes were still closed. His hands were still clasped behind his head.

“But,” he said, “there are lots of reasons for killing people and I’ve seen killers do some very dumb things. Common sense doesn’t always prevail. You know what I mean?”

“Yes,” I said. “But it makes sense that Handford killed her and I didn’t. What reason would I have for killing her?”

“Who knows? She insulted your heritage, called you a queer, came on to you and you went nuts remembering some sexual trauma in the distant past.”

I blew out some air, sat up with my back aching slightly and said.

“You’ve got imagination.”

“Yeah. I’m a dreamer, aren’t we all,” he agreed. “Why do you have two tire irons in your office, one of which was found by your bed, the murder weapon according to lab, and the other on your desk?”

“Protection,” I said.

“From?”

“Handford. Take a look.”

I lifted my shirt. Vivaise opened his eyes and examined the large bruise.

“Looks like modern art,” he said. “Colorful. My wife’s an artist. Abstract. Portrait. Landscapes. You name it. She’ll do it. You can pull your shirt down.”

“He killed her,” I said.

“No prints on the tire iron,” he said, closing his eyes again. “Not yours, not anyone’s. Got any more suspects for me, Lewis?”

I thought. Had John Pirannes found out about Beryl and me looking for Adele? Was keeping a teenage prostitute a reason for murder? Maybe Adele found out from Tilly the Pimp. Maybe Tilly the Pimp had a change of heart and came looking for me, afraid I’d tell Pirannes Tilly had talked too much. Maybe he had walked in on Beryl and… Maybe a lot of things. Dwight knew where I lived and worked. Keep it simple. Dwight was the man.

“No,” I said.

Vivaise opened his eyes, stood up and stretched.

“Your background checks. Got some nice words about you from the state attorney’s office in Cook County. Said you’d gone a little flaky when your wife died, but that you were harmless. I’ll go for Handford, see what happens. Is he smart?”

“He’s smart,” I said.

“Dangerous. Probably call a lawyer and refuse to talk if we pull him in.”

“Probably,” I agreed.

“Without evidence he’ll walk,” said Vivaise. “Smart ones usually walk, especially if they have money. Handford have money?”

“He’s a tow-truck driver. I don’t know what else.”

“We’ll see,” Vivaise said. “You got a friend to stay with? We’re still going over your place. I don’t think we’ll find anything, but sometimes you get lucky. You can go back in the morning.”

“I’ll get a room at the Best Western,” I said.

“You want a ride?”

“I’ll walk,” I said.

“Nice night. A little cool. Beryl Tree, she was a nice lady?”

“Yes,” I said. “She was a nice lady.”

“Melanie Sebastian,” he said.

“What about her?”

“You’ve got a file on her in your office. Mind telling me why?”

“I mind,” I said.