Bright Futures lf-6

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I’m happy for you both,” I said.

  There was nothing else to say. Ronnie folded his arms and watched me head for the door.

  Ames and I split a medium moussaka pizza-eggplant, cheese, sausage, and extra onion-at Honey Crust on Seventeenth Street. We were celebrating our partnership.

  “Too many suspects,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

  He was right.

  “Who’s your pick?” I asked.

  “Don’t know, but Corkle’s looking ripe for it.”

  “His grandson, daughter, Pepper the Preacher, Williams the Cop, and Ronnie Gerall. Just because he’s in jail it doesn’t mean he’s innocent.”

  “And maybe Gregory’s friend Winston,” said Ames.

  “And half the students at Pine View.”

  The next line should have been one reflecting incredulity that someone might murder over retaining a high school educational program. But both Ames and I knew that people had been murdered over a lot less. A few days earlier a Bradenton police officer had interrupted a ninety-dollar drug sale, and the buyer killed him. Two homeless men in Sarasota had fought, and one had died from a jagged Starbucks Frappuccino bottle to the throat. The fight had been over who had more teeth. Homeless Man Number One had more teeth, but Number Two said his were in better shape. Number Two pushed Number One into the concrete arch of a medical office building on Bahia Vista. Number One lost most of his remaining teeth and his life, blood and Frappuccino dribbling down his chest.

  “What do we do now?” Ames asked.

  “I’m going home to bed.”

  “It’s three in the afternoon.”

  “A good time to close my door, pull down the shade, take off my shoes and pants, and go to sleep.”

  But such was not to be.

  My cell phone sang “Help!”

  The number of people who had my cell phone number, at least the ones I wanted to have it, was four: Ames, Flo, Adele, and Sally.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Lew,” said Sally. “Darrell walked out of the hospital less than an hour ago.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Bad,” she said. “He put on his clothes and walked out before he was discharged. He’s supposed to be at home resting.”

  “You try his mother? Their apartment?”

  “I called her. He isn’t at the apartment and he didn’t call her.”

  “We’ll find him,” I said.

  “Call me when you do, all right?”

  “I’ll call you,” I said.

  Sally hung up. So did I.

  “Darrell?” asked Ames as he stood up with a box holding the last three slices of the pizza.

  I nodded and put a twenty-dollar bill on the table. I was on my feet now and heading for the door. Nothing had to be said. Both Ames and I would have given twenty-to-one odds that we knew where Darrell was.

  And we were right.

  When I opened the door to my new home, Darrell Caton was sitting in the chair behind my desk. Victor Woo sat across from him. They had been talking. I tried to imagine what the two of them would have to say to each other. Then I saw the small photograph in front of Darrell. I knew what it was. I had seen it before, on a table in the booth of a bar in Urbana, Illinois. Victor had shown me the photograph of his smiling wife and two small, smiling children.

  “Mind reader, Lewis Fonesca,” said Darrell. “Knew where to find me and knew I was hungry. What kind of pizza you bring me?”

  “Moussaka with extra onion,” I said.

  Ames placed the box on the desk. Darrell opened it and examined the pizza.

  “What the f… hell is musical pizza? Beans?”

  “Let’s get you back to the hospital,” said Ames.

  “Hell no,” said Darrell, handing a slice of lukewarm pizza to Victor. “They’ve got diseases and all kinds of shit in there. Worst place to be when you’re sick. I read about it.”

  “Let’s get you back,” Ames said again.

  “Your mother’s worrying about you. Sally is worried about you,” I said.

  “Think about it, Lewis Fonesca,” said Darrell. “Four people may be worrying about me. Four. You. Big Mac here. My mother and Ms. Porovsky. Him?” he added looking at Victor. “I don’t know what he’s thinking.”

  “What about Flo and Adele?” I said.

  “They know I escaped from Alcatraz?”

  “No.”

  “Then they can’t be worried, can they? Pizza’s good. What’s that yellow thing?”

  “Eggplant,” I said.

  “Woo,” Darrell said. “I’ll wrestle you for the last piece.”

  Victor shook his head no. Darrell picked up the last slice of pizza. He tried to hide a wince as he brought it to his mouth. Darrell was fifteen. No father. His mother had kicked a crack habit two years earlier and was holding down a steady job at a dollar store.

  “You’re going back to the hospital,” Ames said.

  “Don’t make me run,” said Darrell chewing as he spoke. “You won’t catch me and running could kill me. Besides, if you do get me back in the hospital, I’ll just get up and leave again.”

  “Why?” Victor asked.

  We all looked at him.

  “Why?” asked Darrell. “Because I’d rather die than be hooked up to machines waiting for Dr. Frankenstein and a bunch of little Frankensteins to come in and look at me.”

  “Fifteen,” said Victor.

  “Fifteen little Frankensteins?” asked Darrell.

  “You are fifteen. You wouldn’t rather die.”

  Victor looked at me. There were times after Catherine died that I wouldn’t have minded dying, but I never considered suicide as an option. There were times, I knew, that after he had killed Catherine, Victor had considered death as an option.

  “Mr. Gloom and Mr. Doom,” said Darrell. “You didn’t answer your damn phone. I broke out because I have to tell you something, Lew Fonesca.”

  “Tell it,” I said.

  “You should have brought more pizza.”

  “That’s what you have to tell me?”

  “Hell no. I had a visitor during the night in the hospital. I was asleep and drugged up. Room was dark. Machine was beep-beep-beeping, you know. Then I heard him.”

  “Who?”

  “A man, I think, or maybe a woman. He was across the room in the dark. He thought I was asleep. At least I think he thought I was asleep. He said something like, ‘I’m sorry. My fault. Silky sad uncertain curtains.’ Shit like that. Creepy. Then he said he had to go but he’d be back. I could do without his coming back. So, I got up and

  …”

  “Anything you could tell from his voice?” I asked. “Young? Old?”

  “Like I said, couldn’t tell,” said Darrell. “No, wait. He had one of those English accents, like that actor.”

  “Edgar Allen Poe,” said Ames.

  “Edgar Allen Poe, the guy who wrote those scary movies?” asked Darrell.

  “‘The silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain wrought its ghost upon the floor,’ ” said Ames.

  “Yeah, creepy shit like that.”

  “It’s from a poem by Poe, ‘The Raven,’ ” said Ames.

  “I guess. You know him? This Poe guy?”

  “He’s been dead for a hundred and fifty years,” I said.

  I knew one person involved in all this that had what might pass for an English accent.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Darrell. “You should have bought more pizza. Next time just make it sausage.”

  “Let’s get you back to the hospital.”

  “Let’s order a pizza to go,” said Darrell. “Do that and I go back to the hospital.”

  “Ames and Victor will get you the pizza and take you back to the hospital.”

  Darrell looked decidedly unwell when they went through the door. I called Information and let them connect me with the number I wanted. The woman who answered had a pleasant voice and a British accent. She tol
d me that Winston Churchill Graeme wasn’t home from school yet, but soon would be. She asked if I wanted to leave a message. I said no.

  When I hung up I walked over to the wall where the Stig Dalstrom paintings were and looked for truth in black jungles and mountains and the twisted limbs of trees. I focused on the lone spot of yellow in one of the paintings. It was a butterfly.

  I folded the empty pizza box and carried it out with me. At the bottom of the steps I dropped the box into one of the three garbage cans and called Sally. With no preamble, I said, “We found Darrell.”

  “Where?”

  “My place. Ames and Victor are taking him back to the hospital.”

  “I’ll call his mother.”

  “Are you at work?”

  “Yes.”

  “What can you tell me about Winston Churchill Graeme?”

  Twenty minutes later I was parked about half a block down and across the street from the Graeme home on Siesta Key. The house was in an ungated community called Willow Way. The house was a lot smaller than others in the community, but it wasn’t a mining shack.

  Winn Graeme hadn’t called back to set up a time to talk. I wondered why.

  I didn’t think Winn Graeme was home yet but, just to be sure, I called the house. I was wrong again. He answered the phone.

  “This is Lew Fonesca,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m parked on your street, half a block West.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like you to come out and talk.”

  “You can come in.”

  “I don’t think you want your mother to hear what we have to talk about.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Your visit to the hospital last night.”

  It was one of those silences, and then, “I’ll be right out.”

  There was no one on the street. A white compact car was parked in the driveway of the house from which Winn Graeme emerged. The house was at the top of a short incline with stone steps leading down to the narrow sidewalk. Trees and bushes swayed in the cool wind from off the Gulf.

  Winn saw my car, adjusted his glasses, and headed toward me. He walked along the sidewalk, back straight, carrying a blue gym bag. He walked like a jock and looked like a jock.

  He opened the passenger side door and leaned over to look at me before he decided to get in. The door squeaked. He placed the gym bag on the floor in front of him.

  “I have soccer practice in half an hour,” he said, turning his head toward me. “Someone is picking me up.”

  “We shouldn’t be long,” I said. “You have a car?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s in the garage. Why?”

  “Early this morning,” I said. “Say about two o’clock. Where were you?”

  “Why?”

  “Darrell Caton,” I said. “The hospital.”

  Winn Graeme took off his glasses, cleaned them with his shirt and looked through the front window into a distance that offered no answers. Then he nodded, but I wasn’t sure whether he was answering my question or one he had asked himself.

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re fragile creatures,” he said.

  “You told him you were sorry. Sorry for what?”

  “For not stopping what happened.”

  “Greg shot Darrell, right?”

  No answer from Winn, so I went on.

  “He was aiming at me, but Darrell got in the way.”

  Still no response.

  “Okay, not Greg. You shot Darrell.”

  Now he looked at me, and I at him. I saw a boy. I wondered what kind of man he was looking at.

  “To scare you into stopping your investigation,” Winn said.

  “First he hires me and then he tries to stop me,” I said.

  He said nothing, just nodded, and then, after heaving a breath as if he were about to run a hundred-yard dash, he spoke.

  “He found out something after he hired you, something that made him want you to stop. Firing you didn’t work. You found someone else to pay you. So he tried to frighten you into stopping. He hoped you would weigh your safety and possibly your life against the few dollars you were getting. He only made it worse.”

  “He shot at me in the car with Augustine, and then he shot Darrell.”

  “Who’s Augustine?”

  “Cyclops.”

  Winn looked out his window. A woman was walking a small white dog. She was wearing a business suit and carrying an empty poop bag. Winn seemed to find the woman and dog fascinating.

  “Both times he shot at me he sent someone else to the hospital,” I said.

  “Your life is charmed.”

  “No, Greg’s a terrible shot.”

  The god of irony was at it again.

  “Blue Berrigan,” I said. No response, so I repeated, “Blue Berrigan.”

  “The clown,” he said softly.

  “He wasn’t a clown.”

  “Greg didn’t do that.”

  “Horvecki?”

  “Greg didn’t do that. We weren’t unhappy about it, but he didn’t do that.”

  “Did you?”

  “No,” he said.

  A yellow and black Mini Cooper turned the corner and came to a stop in front of the Graeme house.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I told you all this because I’m sorry that I didn’t do anything to stop Greg. He’s my friend. Whatever I’ve said here I’ll deny ever saying.”

  “Why?” I said though I knew the answer.

  “Why what?”

  He had the door open now.

  “Why is he your friend?”

  “We need each other,” he said as he got out of the car. “Greg didn’t kill anybody.”

  He closed the door, crossed the street and raised his hand in greeting to the boy who leaned out of the window of the Mini Cooper.

  The boy in the car was Greg Legerman.

  Greg looked back at me and ducked back through the window. Winn Graeme crawled in on the passenger side, and they drove off.

  I could have confronted Greg Legerman, but sometimes it’s better to let the person you’re after worry for a while. I had learned that as an investigator with the state attorney’s office in Chicago. Patience was usually better than confrontation, especially with a nervous suspect, and they didn’t come any more nervous or suspicious than Greg Legerman. I wasn’t afraid of Greg’s not talking. I was afraid that he wouldn’t stop.

  I did follow the little car down Midnight Pass and off the Key, but I kept going straight when they turned left on Tamiami Trail.

  My cell phone rang. I considered throwing it out the window, but I answered it.

  “Lewis, I have a death in the family,” said Ann Hurwitz.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My cousin Leona was ninety-seven years old,” she said. “She’s been in a nursing home for a decade.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Lewis, you are one of the few people I know whose expression of sorrow over the death of a very old woman you don’t know I would believe. I must cancel our appointment tomorrow so I can attend the funeral in Memphis.”

  “All right.”

  “But I have an opening today,” Ann Hurwitz said.

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  “You did your homework?”

  My index cards were in the notebook in my back pocket.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Decaf with cream and Equal. Today I feel like a chocolate biscotti.”

  “With almonds?”

  “Always with almonds,” she said and clicked off.

  Fifteen minutes later I picked up a pair of coffees and three chocolate biscotti from Sarasota News and Books and crossed Main street. I was about to go through the door to Ann’s office on Gulfstream when he appeared, mumbling to himself.

  He was black, about forty, wearing a shirt and pants too lar
ge and baggy for his lean frame. His bare feet flopped in his untied shoes. He looked down as he walked, pausing every few feet to scratch his head and engage himself in conversation.

  I knew him. Everyone in this section of town near the Bay knew him, but few knew his story. I’d sat down with him once on the park bench he lived under. The bench was across the street from Ann’s office. It had a good view of the small boats moored on the bay and the ever-changing and almost always controversial works of art erected along the bay. He had been evicted from his bench in one of the recurrent efforts to clean up the city for tourists. I didn’t know where he lived now, but it wasn’t far. Even the homeless have someplace they think of as home.

  “Big tooth,” he said to himself as he came toward me.

  “Big tooth,” I repeated.

  The bag in my hand was hot and the biscotti must have been getting moist.

  He pointed across the street toward the bay. There was a giant white tooth which was slowing the passing traffic.

  He scratched his inner left thigh and said, “Dentist should buy it. Definitely.”

  One of the charms of the man was that he never asked for money or anything else. He minded his own business and relied on luck, the discards of the upscale restaurants in the neighborhood and the kindness and guilt of others.

  I reached into the bag and came up with a coffee and a biscotti. He took them with a nod of thanks.

  “You, too?” he asked, tilting his head toward the nearby bench-not his former residence, but the one right outside Ann’s office.

  “Can’t,” I said. “Appointment.”

  “Old lady who talks to ghosts and crazy people?”

  “Not ghosts,” I said.

  “I’m not a crazy person,” he said.

  “No,” I agreed.

  “You a crazy person?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should maybe find out,” he said, moving toward the bench, his back to me now.

  “I’m working on it,” I said and stepped through the door.

  Ann’s very small reception area was empty except for three chairs, a neat pile of copies of psychology magazines, and a small Bose non-boom box playing generic classical music. The music was there to cover the voices of any clients who might be moved to occasional rage or panic, usually directed at a spouse, child, sibling, boss or themselves. The music wasn’t necessary for me. My parents never raised their voices. I have never raised mine in anger, remorse, or despair. All the passion in our family came from my sister, and she more than compensated for it with Italian neighborhood showmanship.