“So?”
“You have clung with great tenacity to your grief,” she said.
“Finding the person who killed my wife …”
“Catherine.”
“Catherine,” I said. “Finding the person who killed Catherine might help me give up my grief?”
“You tell me,” she said.
“I don’t know. Even if I did try, where would I be if I failed?”
“It is a no-lose situation,” she said. “You find the person and that part ends. You fail to find the person and you know that you tried. Your life of quiet desperation will always be waiting for you in these two rooms, at least until they demolish the building.”
Ann got up. I opened my wallet and handed her two twenty-dollar bills, which she tucked into the outer pocket of her briefcase.
There was a knock at the door. Ann looked at me. I nodded my head yes to let her know it was all right to answer it.
Sally was standing there.
“Lew,” she said. “Thought you’d like to know that Jane Welles is going with her aunt to Reno tomorrow.”
Ann touched Sally’s shoulder and left the office. Sally stood in the doorway waiting.
“How would you like to go to Flo’s for a barbecue dinner tonight? The kids, Adele, Ames?”
“No,” I said.
“Good,” said Sally. “Because there is no dinner. What there is, is a pair of tickets to a movie at Burns Court. You can’t say no. I already bought the tickets.”
“I don’t go out to movies,” I said.
“You were going to take Darrell.”
“I would have found a way out.”
“Life is full of new and crazy adventures, Lewis,” she said. “Look, I just got off of a fourteen-hour day. My feet hurt. I can’t stop seeing the face of a ten-year-old girl I think is being abused by her stepfather and I need a movie. Help me out here. Don’t make me work for it.”
“Let’s go see a movie,” I said.
“Good. You were a real hit with Darrell.”
Sally smiled as I folded the empty pizza box and shoved it in the wastebasket. I tried to smile back.
“Made a decision,” I said.
“Tell me about it on the way,” she said. “The movie starts in fifteen minutes.”
“It’ll just take a few seconds,” I said. “I’m going to find the person who killed my wife.”
“Which means you’re not going to lock yourself in your office in the morning?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going to lock myself in my office. No.”
BY STUART M. KAMINSKY
Lew Fonesca Mysteries
Vengeance
Retribution
Midnight Pass
Denial
Always Say Goodbye
Abe Lieberman Mysteries
Lieberman’s Folly
Lieberman’s Choice
Lieberman’s Day
Lieberman’s Thief
Lieberman’s Law
The Big Silence
Not Quite Kosher
The Last Dark Place
Terror Town
The Dead Don’t Lie*
Toby Peters Mysteries
Bullet for a Star
Murder on the Yellow Brick Road
You Bet Your Life
The Howard Hughes Affair
Never Cross a Vampire
High Midnight
Catch a Falling Clown
He Done Her Wrong
The Fala Factor
Down for the Count
The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance
Smart Moves
Think Fast, Mr. Peters
Buried Caesars
Poor Butterfly
The Melting Clock
The Devil Met a Lady
Tomorrow Is Another Day
Dancing in the Dark
A Fatal Glass of Beer
A Few Minutes Past Midnight
To Catch a Spy
Mildred Pierced
Now You See It
Porfiry Rostnikov Novels
Death of a Dissident
Black Knight in Red Square
Red Chameleon
A Cold, Red Sunrise
A Fine Red Rain
Rostnikov’s Variation
The Man Who Walked Like a Bear
Death of a Russian Priest
Hard Currency
Blood and Rubles
Tarnished Icons
The Dog Who Bit a Policeman
Fall of a Cosmonaut
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express
Nonseries Novels
When the Dark Man Calls
Exercise in Terror
Short Story Collections
Opening Shots
Hidden and Other Stories
Biographies
Don Siegel: Director
Clint Eastwood
John Huston, Maker of Magic Coop:
The Life and Legend of Gary Cooper
Other Nonfiction
American Film Genres
American Television Genres (with Jeffrey Mahan)
Basic Filmmaking (with Dana Hodgdon)
Writing for Television (with Mark Walker)
*Forthcoming
PRAISE FOR DENIAL
“Pacing a series is a tricky maintenance job. Move too fast, your hero loses credibility. Move too slowly, your readers get bored. Move just right, you produce Denial.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Compelling in Lew’s unobtrusively sensitive way, though it looks as if his fifth case, when he searches for the driver who ran down his own wife in Chicago four years ago, will be the big one.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Edgar Award-winner Kaminsky renders characters so vivid you can nearly hear them breathe … Plenty of suspense and lively dialogue keep the pages turning in this tale of a man who describes himself as ‘a magnet for despair.’ Never fear: Fonesca may be forlorn, but he’s not giving up the fight.”
—Mystery Scene
“Kaminsky charges his plots with dialogue that rings true and introduces the reader to a full quota of oddball characters in the process.”
—Sarasota Herald-Tribune
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
DENIAL
Copyright © 2005 by Stuart M. Kaminsky
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
eISBN 9781429912679
First eBook Edition : February 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-765-35022-0
ISBN-10: 0-765-35022-X
First Edition: June 2005
First Mass Market Edition: February 2007
Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) Page 22