Bright Futures: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) (12 page)

“Sounds like fun,” Ames said.

“Yes, ’tis. However, all in all, I’d rather be back in Cincinnati. Cynthia, however, longed for Paradise, and we wound up here. I’m not complaining.”

“The second case in your files,” I reminded him.

He turned the page of the stapled sheets in the folder and said, “One Jack Pepper, sophomore at Riverview High School. Attacked from behind while crossing an orange grove on his way home from school. Assailant told him to pull down his pants or die. Assailant proceeded to attempt anal intercourse. Failed. Boy stepped out of his pants and drawers and ran. Pepper turned and saw the attacker coming after him. Pepper ran faster, covered
himself with a damp, dirty newspaper and entered a gas station. Pepper identified Horvecki but Horvecki had the best lawyers money can buy and some friends in the right places. That was nineteen years ago. Jack Pepper is now thirty-six years old and living in relative tranquility in Cortez Village. Thrice Jack Pepper confronted our Mr. Horvecki in public places, broke his nose and cheekbone with a well-placed and probably knuckle-hurting punch, and kicked him into unconsciousness. Attempted murder, but . . .”

“Horvecki did not press charges,” I said.

“He did not. No other incident involving the two of them in the last nineteen years.”

“You have Pepper’s address?” I asked.

“That I have. I’ll give you both his and Essau Williams’s address,” said Pertwee. “And I shall print some possibly pertinent information for you.”

“Cost?” asked Ames.

“Close those two cold cases and find out who killed Horvecki,” said Pertwee. “These cases of open files challenge and mock me. The fewer there are, the lighter my burden, even though I know others will come to fill the drawers.”

We started back to the car, and Pertwee called out, “A sweet fella like Horvecki probably had lots of people who didn’t much care for him besides Williams and Pepper.”

We kept walking. One of the people who didn’t like Horvecki was Ronnie Gerall, sitting in juvenile lockup for killing a man everyone seemed to hate.

Cell phones are wondrous things. They keep people connected regardless of where they are. Going to be late for an appointment? Call. Have an accident on the road and need AAA? Call. Lapse into drunkenness at the side of the road and need AA? Call. Supposed to meet someone and they don’t show up? Call.
Cell phones are wondrous things. They take photographs and videos, tell you the temperature and baseball scores, let you order pickup at Appleby’s, tell you what time it is and where you are if you get lost, and play music you like.

People can find you no matter where you are.

The problem is that I don’t want to be connected, don’t want to order braised chicken to be picked up at Appleby’s, don’t want to take photographs or videos, and am in no hurry to get baseball scores.

But the machines give us no choice.

The young don’t have wristwatches.

Phone booths are dying out.

Good-bye to all that.

Still, I had a cell phone in my pocket, a birthday present from Flo Zink. Adele had programmed in a ringtone version of “Help!” that was now playing.

“L.F., unless her body is enriching a wood or bog, Rachel Horvecki is not dead. And she is still not leaving her footprint on the sands of time. I can tell you stuff about her. Got time to hear?”

“Yes.”

“She is twenty-seven years old, went to Sarasota Christian High School where she was on the yearbook committee, Spanish Club, Poetry Club, Chess Club, Drama Club, cross-country team; did three years at Manatee Community College, where she was on no club, went to a small school called Plain River College in a small town in West Texas. Her major was English Lit. No extracurricular interests or clubs. Plain River College registrar records show she dropped out. Reason stated: Getting Married. Sarasota Memorial Hospital records show she had an appendectomy when she was seventeen and came into the ER once, when she was fourteen, for a broken arm and bruised ribs. Hospital reported possible abuse, but Rachel insisted she had fallen down some stairs. Want me to keep looking?”

“Yes. See if you can find out who, if anyone, she married.”

“Will do.”

We hung up. I called Winn Graeme’s cell phone and told him I wanted to talk to him without Greg at his side pummeling him. He had something to do at school but would call me when he could get away.

I called the home of D. Elliot Corkle and left a message when he didn’t pick up. Since he said he never left the house, I wondered where he was. Maybe he was taking a shower or a swim or just didn’t feel like being connected to someone beyond his front door. I gave my number to the machine and said, “Please call me soon. What’s the ‘D’ in your name for?”

I called Sally. She answered. I said nothing.

“Lew?”

Cell phone. Caller ID. She knew who was calling.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I hoped that words would come when I heard your voice, but they’re not coming.”

“We can talk later,” she said. “I’m with a client now.”

“How is Darrell?”

“Better, much better. I’ll call you later. Promise.”

She ended the call, and I tried to think of other people to call. I wanted to wear out the charge in my phone so it would go silent, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I was tempted to launch into baseball metaphors.

Victor drove me to the Fruitville Library, where I got my bike out of his trunk.

“I can come back for you,” said Victor.

“No, thanks,” I said.

Ames said nothing, just looked at me and nodded. I nodded back. They drove off. The sun was high, the air filled with moist heaviness and the smell of watermelons from a truck vending them on Fruitville, just beyond the parking lot.

I chained my bike to a lamppost and went inside.

The cool air struck and chilled for an instant.

Two minutes later I had an oversize book of World War II airplanes open on my lap. I didn’t want to look at it. I wasn’t interested. It was a prop to keep a vigilant librarian from making a citizen’s arrest for vagrancy.

No more than five maybe six, minutes later, Blue Berrigan sat down across from me.

Y
OU JUST HAPPENED
to see me hiding here behind the fiction,” I whispered.

He was wearing a pair of dark corduroy slacks and a short-sleeved green and white striped polo shirt.

“I . . . I followed you.”

“From where?”

“You’re going to get angry,” he said. “It can’t be helped. We’re talking about my life here.”

He looked over his shoulder and out the window and gently bit his lower lip.

“You’re talking,” I said. “I’m listening.”

“I put an electronic tracer under the rear fender of your bicycle,” he said. “I removed it before I came in. They’re really cheap now. You can get them online.”

He held up both hands in a gesture designed to stop me from rising in indignation. I didn’t rise. I wasn’t indignant.

“I was afraid you didn’t believe me when we talked in the park.”

“I didn’t,” I said.

“I do lie a lot. People always say you should tell kids the truth; you shouldn’t lie to them. But there are truths you want to keep from children. There are truths they are better off without. What are you reading?”

A thin woman with wild hair came down the aisle perpendicular to us carrying a load of books she wouldn’t be able to read in a generation. The books at the top and in the middle of the pile threatened to fall. Blue Berrigan was silent until the woman rounded the corner, went up the next aisle, pulled out two more books, and balanced them on top of her heap. Then she went out of sight.

“I’m looking at pictures of old airplanes,” I said.

“Good.”

I wasn’t sure why he might think that was good.

“You’re not being blackmailed,” I said.

“No.”

“Then . . .”

“I’m being paid to distract you,” he said with a great sigh.

“From what?”

“Whatever you’re working on.”

“Who’s paying you?”

“A man who called me, said he knew my work, knew I was down on my luck. I’m supposed to keep bothering you, sending you on wild grouse hunts, tell you someone tried to kill me. Improvise.”

“How much is he paying you?”

“Five thousand dollars in advance. I’ve got it back in my room.”

“But you’ve decided . . .”

“The guy sounds nuts, is what I’m saying. I’m keeping the money, packing up, and moving west. I’m only renting a room here. He’s got someone keeping an eye on me. I’ll have to lose whoever it is.”

I was tempted to say I’d join him in his getaway, but it wasn’t temptation enough.

“Don’t go yet,” I said.

“Don’t go?”

“He calls you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him you have me looking for grouse.”

“Ah, I see,” he said.

“What’s a grouse?” I asked.

Neither of us knew for certain.

“Let’s leave separately,” I said. “He might have followed you. I’ll get back to you.”

He got up without certainty and said, “I’m really very good with kids. I just, you know, got lost.”

“I know,” I said.

“You don’t live near here.”

“No. I come here when I want to be alone, where no one can find me unless they plant tracking devices on my bicycle. You want to give me a ride home?”

“No, can’t,” he said standing quickly. “I’ve got to go.”

He strode away quickly. I waited about ten seconds and then followed him to the glass doors at the entrance to the library. I stayed against a wall inside, watching him find his car in the lot and leave. It was a well-used Jeep of uncertain vintage. I got the first three letters of his tag before he turned left. That’s when whoever was in the backseat sat up. I couldn’t see who it was.

“Embarrassing, demeaning, humiliating, abasing,” Darrell said. “It brings me down. Know what I mean?”

He was out of intensive care and propped up on a couple of pillows. There was an IV in his right arm and a look of exasperation on his face. He was out of danger, but not out of flaunt.

“Almost killed by a BB in my back,” he said with a single
shake of his head. “How do I explain that? How do I strut that? ‘Hey man, I got shot.’ ‘Yeah, with what?’ ‘A BB gun.’ ”

“It almost killed you,” I said.

“That makes no difference on my street. Take that back. Shot with a BB gun? That’s below a misdemeanor on my street.”

“Sorry. Maybe you’ll be lucky next time and get shot with a machine gun.”

“Not funny. I was lucky. Bad lucky,” said Darrell. “Hey, do me a favor and get the shooter. Then let old Ames shotgun blast him a second asshole.”

I nodded. He was still hooked up to the machine with the green screen that painted white mountains and valleys to the sound of a low
beep-beep-beep.

“I’ll find him,” I said. “You want my hat?”

“Your Cubs hat? I’m touched, Fonesca. I know what that hat means to you but a, it’s your sweat in there, and b, I’m not a Cubs fan.”

I nodded again.

“My mom still mad at you?”

“Sort of.”

“Ms. Porovsky?”

Sally was more than Darrell’s caseworker. She was someone who cared. Sally knew she couldn’t save the children of the world one abuse at a time, but she couldn’t help trying.

“She’s fine,” I said.

“You?”

“I’m fine.”

“Why don’t you look fine? I don’t look fine,” said Darrell.

“Nurse says you can go home in a few days,” I said.

“From almost dead to back to school in three or four days,” he said.

“It happens.”

“But not much,” he said. “Old Chinese Victor saved my butt from going down the stairs.”

He made a tumbling motion with his free hand.

“I decided something,” he said, licking his lips.

I poured him water from a pitcher into a plastic cup on a table near his bed. He took it and, with my help, drank.

“Don’t laugh. Don’t even smile, and don’t tell anyone, not even my mom.”

“I won’t.”

“I know,” said Darrell. “I’m going to try out for the play at Booker.”

Booker High, I knew, had a big annual musical production. I’d been told by Sally and Flo that they were very nearly professional.

“You sing?” I asked.

“That’s what I like about you, Fonesca. You are dribbling down with emotion. I can sing. I can act.”

“What have you done?”

“Nothing yet,” he said. “I just know I’m good. I’ll tell them on the street that I’m going to be the next Will Smith or Denzel or Cuba. Maybe they’ll buy it, you know?”

We went silent and I listened to and watched the green mountain-and-valley machine.

“Get the guy who shot me, Fonesca.”

“I’ll get him,” I said. “Darrell, he was trying to shoot me.”

“I know that. It didn’t hurt less because of that. I’m tired.”

“I’ll be back,” I said.

“I might be out of here first,” he said so softly I could barely hear him.

Darrell’s eyes were closed. He was asleep.

I had people to see and a bicycle parked outside. I made a decision.

There were only two cars parked in the small driveway of the EZ Economy Car Rental. The EZ was a converted gas station, a half-block
north of the now-demolished DQ on 301. It wouldn’t last much longer. The banks were moving like relentless giant Japanese movie monsters gobbling up small businesses and looking for more along the strip of 301 from Tamiami Trail to Main Street.

This didn’t matter to Alan, the formerly jovial partner of Fred, who was now dead with one heart attack too many. Alan had been the more likely candidate for heart trouble. In his late forties, Alan was twenty years younger than Fred but fifty pounds heavier. Alan was addicted to strong coffee. Alan had lost the sense of sardonic humor he and Fred had shared. It had kept them both sane between infrequent customers.

“Fonesca, the man from whom there are no secrets,” Alan said when I walked through the door.

He was seated at his wooden swivel chair behind the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand, a cluttered desk drawer lying in front of him. The coffee was in a black thermos. The suit and tie he usually wore had been replaced with slacks and a wrinkled white dress shirt with an open collar.