“How are things at the Texas?”
“Fine,” he said.
“Think you might want to become my partner?”
“Already am.”
“Officially, I mean.”
“The pay would be bad, the hours all over the place, the job dangerous sometimes, no benefits?” said Ames.
“And those are the incentives,” I said.
“Sounds good to me,” said Ames.
“And there’s always a chance I’d get in this car one morning and just drive away for good.”
“Understood.”
“And your job at the Texas?”
“Could still do the cleaning up in exchange for my room. Big Ed’d be amenable.”
“Then it’s done?”
“Seems,” Ames said.
And it was done. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I knew something had happened, something I would have to talk to Ann Hurwitz about.
“Dunkin’ Donuts to celebrate?” I asked.
Ames had said enough. He nodded in agreement and we pulled into the parking lot of the Dunkin’ Donuts across from Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Our partnership was confirmed over coffee and chocolate iced doughnuts.
“Someone’s been following us,” Ames said after wiping his mouth.
“Blue Porsche.”
“Yes.”
“She parked in the lot?” I said. “Yes.”
“Maybe we should bring her coffee and a muffin?”
“No need,” Ames said, looking past me. “She’s coming.”
There were three chairs at our small table, the only table at which anyone was sitting. The sound on the television set mounted on the wall was off. On the screen, a very pretty blonde with full red lips and perfect teeth was looking out at the world and talking seriously about something.
The woman from the blue Porsche sat between me and Ames.
“Can we get you a coffee and doughnuts or a muffin?” I asked.
“Coffee, black, that’s all,” she said.
She was Corkle’s daughter and the mother of my teenage babbling client, Greg Legerman. She was dark and beautiful, her make-up perfect, not a hair out of place. Her skirt was blue and her long-sleeved cashmere sweater white. A necklace of large Chinese green jade and small jet black beads was all the jewelry she needed.
For an instant, just an instant, I remembered Catherine on the night we went to a concert at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. The symphony played Grieg and Brahms, and I watched my wife smiling and held her hand.
“You all right?” Alana Legerman asked.
“Perfect,” I said.
I introduced her to Ames. He nodded in acknowledgment. She didn’t offer her hand. Ames rose and headed for the counter to get her coffee. She sat up straight, probably a payoff from yoga classes.
“You didn’t give my son back the money he paid you to find out who really killed Horvecki.”
“If he wants his money back-”
“He won’t take it,” she said.
“No, he won’t.”
“You’ll get my son killed.”
Ames was back. He placed the coffee in front of Alana Legerman.
“Who would want to hurt him?” I asked.
“Whoever killed Horvecki,” she said, looking at the steaming coffee but not picking it up.
“You don’t think Ronnie Gerall did it?”
She considered the question. She took a breath, picked up the coffee, and said, “Ronnie has a temper and caustic verbal bite, but he hasn’t the fire inside for the kind of brutal thing that was done to Horvecki.”
“You know Gerall well?” I asked.
“Well enough.”
I pictured the two of them together. She was twenty years older than he was, but she was a beauty, and he was a good-looking kid. Stranger things had happened.
“How did you meet him?”
“That’s not relevant,” she said, drinking some coffee.
A fat man sat two tables away with a small bag of doughnuts and a large coffee. He was wearing a suit and a very serious look on his face. I watched him attack the bag and come out with an orange-iced special.
I looked at Ames, who sat with his large hands folded on the table. He understood what I wanted. Neither of us spoke. It was her move.
“I’d like you to continue to look for whoever killed Philip Horvecki. You return whatever money my son and my father gave you, and I’ll give you double the amount in cash. In addition, you make it clear to everyone you come in contact with that you are working for me. I’ll do the same.”
She touched the corner of her mouth with a little finger to remove a fleck that wasn’t there.
“So, whoever killed Horvecki won’t have any reason to harm your father and your son?” I asked. “If the killer wants my investigation to stop, he’ll go after you.”
“Yes,” she said, “If that’s what it comes to. Whoever it is is already trying to kill you.”
I didn’t see how changing clients would make a difference to someone who might want to kill me because I was looking into Philip Horvecki’s murder, and I wasn’t sure how accepting her offer might make her father and son a lot safer than they were already.
“How about this?” I said. “I keep the money you, your father, and your son give me, and the killer has to do a lot of thinking before going after your family. What’s Greg’s father like?”
“As some of Greg’s friends might say, Greg’s father is, like, dead. Heart attack. The world did not grieve at his passing.”
“Nine hundred and thirty dollars,” I said.
“A nice round number,” she said, reaching into her oversized Louis Vuitton purse. “Will a check do?”
“Nicely,” I said. “Make it out to cash.”
She had a checkbook in front of her and a lean silver pen in her hand. When she finished writing the check, she tore it out of the book and handed it to me.
“Then there’s nothing more to say,” she said, getting up.
“You could thank my partner for the coffee.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Thank you.”
This time she held out her hand, and Ames took it. “Report to me when you have anything and try not to upset my father and Greg. Oh, and one last thing. When I said ‘everyone you come in contact with’-don’t tell them you are working for me.”
She gathered up her purse and moved quickly toward the door. The fat man in the suit paused in his chewing to admire Alana Legerman as she went into the sunlit morning.
“Pretty lady,” Ames said.
“Very pretty,” I agreed.
“What’s next?”
“We do just what she doesn’t want us to do. We talk to Greg and Corkle.”
Greg was still in school. I left a voice message asking him to call as soon as he could.
D. Elliot Corkle answered the phone. I asked if I could come over.
“Something happen to Gregory?”
“No.”
“Come on over.”
“Be there in half an hour.”
He hung up. On the way to his house we stopped at a Bank of America and cashed the check. I gave half the cash to Ames. Alana Legerman hadn’t followed us-we would have known. It’s hard to hide a neon blue Porsche being driven by a beautiful woman.
The Saturn still made some voodoo sounds. Ames said he would engage his magical skills and take care of the Saturn’s remaining problems the next day.
My cell phone rang.
“You weren’t going to call me, were you?” Sally asked.
What was it I heard? Disappointment? Simple weariness? A headache in progress?
“I don’t know.”
“Dinner Saturday. Just you and me. No kids. Walt’s. Six-thirty.”
“You want me to pick you up at home?”
“You have a car?”
“Bought it today.”
“Acquiring property.”
“It can be abandoned or given away,” I said. “It
’s not worth much.”
“Or you can drive it into the sunset,” she said.
“Yes.”
Ames had put on his glasses and was reading a small blue book to let me know he was in no hurry for me to end the call.
“Pick me up at six-thirty,” she said.
“Six-thirty,” I repeated.
She hung up.
Ames took off his glasses and put the book back in his pocket. I drove. We were on our way to talk to an odd and possibly demented man with many millions of dollars.
Corkle answered the door. He was wearing a green polo shirt and navy pants with a welcoming smile.
“Can we come in?” I asked.
Corkle stepped back and wrung his hands just the way he did in his infomercials when he was about to offer “a sweet deal.” He may not have needed the money, but he couldn’t resist two customers.
“This is my partner, Ames McKinney.”
It was the first time I had said that. I felt a little like Oliver Hardy introducing himself in one of their movies-“I’m Mr. Hardy and this is my friend Mr. Laurel. Say hello Stanley.”-but Ames was no Stan Laurel.
Corkle stopped wringing his hands and reached out to shake. He looked delighted as Ames took his extended hand.
“Come in,” said Corkle. “The library. You remember the way Mr. Fon
… Fonesca.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Beer? Lemonade?”
“Lemonade?” Ames asked as I started toward the area with the yellow leather furniture.
“Yes, thanks,” I said.
“Three glasses,” said Corkle.
Ames and I sat on the uncomfortable leather sofa and waited. Corkle appeared in a few seconds with a tray on which rested a pitcher of iced lemonade and three glasses.
“Best lemonade in the world. Made with whole lemons from the tree right outside, seed and rind turned to a smooth pulp. More nutritious than the juice alone and it can be made in my D. Elliot Corkle Pulp-O-Matic in five seconds. Of course, you have to add sugar. I’ll give you a Pulp-O-Matic when you leave.”
All three of us drank. He was right. The lemonade was the best I had ever tasted.
“Blue Berrigan. Name mean anything to you?”
“No,” he said. “D. Elliot Corkle has never heard of him.”
“He was an entertainer,” Ames said. “Sang kids’ songs, had his own television show.”
“Didn’t know the man,” Corkle said, holding up his glass of lemonade to the sun to watch the tiny pieces of pulp swirl like the snowy flecks in a Christmas bubble.
“You knew Philip Horvecki,” I said. “You said…”
I paused to pull my index cards out of the day planner I kept in my pocket. I flipped through the cards and found the one I wanted.
“You said, ‘Horvecki is not a nice human being.’ ”
He sat back, folded his hands in his lap and looked up at the ceiling for about ten seconds before saying, “D. Elliot Corkle is considering lying to you. I could do it. I can sell almost anything, especially a lie.”
“But you won’t,” I said.
“I won’t. I knew Philip Horvecki. He had a three-acre lot at the fringe of downtown. He wanted me to buy it from him. I wanted to buy it, but not from him. D. Elliot Corkle did a background check. He was a weasel. I told him so. He didn’t like it.”
“You didn’t happen to kill him?” I asked.
“No.”
We all had more lemonade.
“Did you ever threaten to kill him?” I asked.
“No. Am I a suspect in Horvecki’s murder?”
“Ask the police that one,” I said.
“Then why are you still looking for someone else besides Gerall for the murder? Gerall is a smart-ass and a… a…”
“Weasel?” asked Ames.
“Weasel,” Corkle confirmed. “He bamboozled my grandson and my daughter. Neither has the good judgment of a John Deere tractor, which, by the way, is one of the finest pieces of machinery ever invented.
“You know what happened to Augustine?” he asked. He was looking directly at me, lips tight.
“I think he went back to acting,” I said.
“He’s a terrible actor. I used him on some of my infomercials because he looked tough and had muscles and D. Elliot Corkle wanted someone who could try to open The Mighty Miniature Prisoner of Zenda Safe, which can go with you wherever you go and is housed inside a candy or cigar box you could leave in plain sight.”
“I remember that,” said Ames.
“I’ll give you one when you leave,” said Corkle. “The Mighty Miniature Prisoner of Zenda Safe could not be opened unless you had a blow torch, but it had two defects. Want to guess what they were?”
“You advertised the safe on television,” I said. “People know what the safe looked like.”
“Several million people,” Corkle said, proudly pouring us all more lemonade. “Yes, it was hard for D. Elliot Corkle to come up with someplace the little safe could be hidden in the average house. And then, how was I to let them know where the safe should now be hidden? What’s the other problem with it?”
“The safe might be hard to open, but it can be carried away and opened somewhere else later,” said Ames.
“On the button,” said Corkle, closing one eye and pointing a finger at Ames. “Still sold enough to make a small profit on them.”
“I’ve got some questions,” I said.
“Shoot,” said Corkle.
“Do you know who killed Horvecki?”
“I believe in our justice system, in our police,” he said emphatically. “It’s the sacred duty of any citizen to help the police in any way that citizen can. People should not commit murder. Evidence should never be withheld.”
“Are you withholding evidence?” I asked.
“There are secrets inside the office of D. Elliot Corkle. Next question.”
“Secrets? Evidence?” I asked.
“Next question,” he said.
“No, that’ll do it,” I said. “Sorry about the intrusion. Thanks for your hospitality.”
At the front door, Corkle said, “Wait.”
We stood there until he returned with two boxes for me and two for Ames.
“You each get a Pulp-O-Matic and a Mighty Miniature Prisoner of Zenda Safe.”
“Heavy,” said Ames, holding a gift box in each arm. “You could beat a man’s head in with either one of these.”
“Wait,” Corkle said hurrying off, ducking into the closet and popping right back out with two more packages, both small. “The Perfect Pocket Pager.”
He stuck one in one of my pockets and did the same for Ames. We left the house and started down the path. It wasn’t until we hit the street that we heard the door close.
“Secrets,” Ames said. “Believe him?”
“Strongly suggests that he knows who did it or has a pretty good idea,” I said.
“Think he has something?”
“Maybe we can find out,” I said.
I had some trouble getting the trunk of the Saturn open, but when I did we placed our gifts inside, got in the car, and drove away from the Bay and from Corkle.
“Where to now?” asked Ames.
“Ronnie Gerall.”
11
Ronnie Gerall agreed to see us when I sent him a message saying that I had something important to tell him. Ames stayed in the waiting area of juvenile detention with his book, and I took off my Cubs cap and followed the guard down a brightly lit corridor that smelled of Lysol and bleach.
Ronnie Gerall was waiting for me when the door to the visitors’ room was opened. Ronnie was getting special treatment because he was accused of murder-and murder of a prominent, if not much loved, citizen.
Ronnie, his hair freshly combed, looked good in orange and a sullen pout. He did not offer to shake my hand, and I wasn’t about to be rejected.
“I have a new client,” I said as I sat.
I got an impatient look at this ne
ws.
“A client who’s willing to pay for a new lawyer,” I said.
“Why would I want to replace the guy from the public defender’s office? He’s inexperienced, stupid, and has no confidence. I was thinking of representing myself. Who’s my benefactor?”
“A woman who thinks you’re innocent.”
He stiffened and I knew he would come up with the right name if I pushed him.
“I thought you were going to find out who killed Horvecki and set me free to enjoy the sunlight, baseball, and pizzas.”
“It’s always good to have well-paid backup,” I said.
“What do you want to tell me?” he asked.
“Do you know Blue Berrigan?”
“Blue Berrigan? The dolt who used to have the stupid kid show on television?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know him,” Gerall said.
“Someone murdered him yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, but I have problems of my own.”
“I’m pretty sure he was killed because he knew who killed Philip Horvecki.”
This got Gerall’s interest.
“Then nail him,” Gerall said. “You know what it’s like in here? You have any idea of what kind of people are in here, people I have to be nice to when I want to punch their few remaining teeth out?”
“I’m still trying to find Horvecki’s killer. But I need you to answer one question.”
“What?”
“Does Corkle or Greg know about you and Corkle’s daughter?”
“Know what?”
His fists were clenched and he started to rise from his chair. I sat still and looked at him. I was getting to know his moves. I met his eyes. The menace slipped away.
“No, they don’t know,” he said sitting. “But when this is over, they’ll be told.”
“Why?”
“Because Alana and I are going to get married,” he said.
It didn’t have to be said, and I didn’t say it, but the observation hung in the dusty room. Either Corkle or Greg might prefer to have Ronnie in prison than living as Corkle’s son-in-law and Greg’s stepfather.
“I know what you’re thinking. She’s old enough to be my mother, but you’ve seen her,” Ronnie went on as if he were announcing the new issue of a Salmon P. Chase postage stamp. “She loves me.”
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