Retribution: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) (11 page)

“Bingham,” she said.

“My name’s Fonesca. I’m looking for a woman named Vera Lynn Uliaks. She’s the sister of a friend and he wants to find her.”

“Marvin,” she said.

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“Slow one.”

“Very slow. He lives in Sarasota now. About Vera Lynn…”

“She married Charles Dorsey,” she said. “I’d say 1975 but I’d have to check.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Needn’t be,” said Ethyl. “I’d like to string you along, tell you I have one of those photographic memories like those women on television, but it’s not in me. I was Vera Lynn’s bridesmaid. Not a big wedding, but I stood up and so did Charlie’s brother Clark.”

“You know where they went, Charlie and Vera Lynn?”

There was a long pause and then Ethyl Bingham said, “If you’re a reporter or something trying to dig up what happened to the Taylor girl, believe me you’re wasting your time. It was an accident. I knew Vera Lynn. She had a
temper, yes, but under it… It was the rumors, the talk that drove them off, not some big job Charlie said he had waiting in Ohio. Charlie was doing just fine right here in Arcadia.”

“What did he do?”

“He was chief of police.”

“And something happened to a girl named Taylor?”

“You didn’t know,” she said.

“I told you. Marvin wants to find his sister. What was the Taylor girl’s first name?”

“Sarah, Sarah Taylor,” she said. “That’s all I’ve got to tell you.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died,” said Ethyl Bingham. “She died. I’m sorry. I don’t like ghosts in the morning.”

“I know how you feel,” I said. “But…”

“I’m sorry. That’s all I can or wish to say.”

She hung up.

I called Harvey and said, “Good Morning, Americans,” in my best Paul Harvey, which is far worse than Harvey’s. “Vera Lynn Uliaks married a Charles Dorsey in Arcadia in 1975. He was chief of police. A young woman named Sarah Taylor died in 1975 in Arcadia. There may be a connection.”

“If the Arcadia court system and police have a data bank or the newspaper, I’ll get back to you soon. Meanwhile, I’ll work on finding Charles Dorsey and Vera Lynn Dorsey.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Just keep mentioning it,” he said. “I live on health food, computers, and sincere compliments.”

I shaved with my electric razor and went outside where the sun was glowing orange and happy. I ignored it and with my toothbrush and paste moved down to the rest room shared by the tenants.

An old man, fully clothed, was sitting on the toilet. His head was back and he was snoring. I moved to the sink and brushed my teeth. The hot water wasn’t working. I washed cold.

Considering the state of the building, the indifference of
the landlord, and the clients and the homeless, the rest room was reasonably clean thanks to Marvin Uliaks who swept and scrubbed once a week and then knocked on every door in the building holding his hand out and saying, “Bathroom’s clean.”

Some said “thanks.” Some didn’t answer. Most gave him a quarter or even half a dollar. I gave him what I could, usually a buck. It was worth it.

The homeless guy snoring in the toilet stall had a definite smell of baked and spoiling human. He woke up with a snort. There was a partition between us but I could hear him drop his pants, use the toilet, cough, pull up his pants, and stagger forward.

He turned to look at me.

“You’re the little Italian,” he said, pointing at me.

In spite of the heat he wore two sweaters and a three- or four-day growth of beard.

“I am,” I said, washing the remnants of soap from my face. The bruise on my face provided by Bubbles Dreemer was almost gone.

“I slept here,” the man said, reaching into his pocket for something he didn’t seem to be able to find.

“I guessed.”

“Usually sleep in a closet at one of the twenty-four-hour Walgreens,” he said. “Move from one to the other. Used to be a pharmacist. No, that’s not right. I am a pharmacist. I just don’t work as one. It’s been more than a while.”

“That a fact?” I asked, toweling off my face.

“True as the fact that the sun is out there waiting to bomb us to early ultraviolet death,” he said, searching his other pocket for whatever was missing. “Not good to spend too much time in the sun.”

“I’ll remember,” I said.

“You’re in the office about five doors down,” he said.

“I am.”

He failed to find what he was searching for in his second pocket.

“I’m a bit unsteady today,” he said. “Oh, I don’t drink. Never did. No drugs either. It’s my mind. Doesn’t function right. I lose days, weeks, get headaches, fall a lot, get to
know the people over there in the emergency rooms at Doctor’s Hospital and Sarasota Memorial.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s the way things are,” he said with a sigh. “Saw something last night might interest you.”

“What was that?” I said, heading for the door.

I had to come within inches of him. Decay.

“The ghost of Martin Luther posted the bans on your door,” he said. “I stood in the shadows, and in his robes, a cowl over his head, he posted them on your door.”

“A man dressed like a priest?”

“Or a woman,” he said. “My eyesight is … well, years ago I had glasses but today I’m a living testament to man’s ability to endure.”

There was a definite note of pride in his voice.

“We endure,” I said. “You like Thai food?”

“I consume any food. I’m a human in need of fuel. I have given up the concept of like and dislike of food, lodging, or clothes. It exists and I wander.”

“Come on,” I said.

He followed me to my office door and pointed to it.

“There is where he posted his conceits,” he said.

“You have a name?” I asked, opening the door.

“I had one,” he said. “Now I am known as The Digger.”

“Why?”

“Who,” he said, putting a not clean palm on my shoulder, “the hell knows? But it seems to fit me.”

“Wait here,” I said, leaving him in the doorway. I retrieved the two cartons of food and my plastic fork and brought it to him.

“Thai, you say?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It would probably settle nicely with a root beer,” he said, cradling the two cartons.

I fished a dollar out of my pocket and handed it to him.

“I’ll accept this food and dollar if you’ll accept my thanks,” he said.

“I accept, and thanks especially for telling me about Martin Luther’s visit.”

“Are you a Lutheran?” he asked.

The phone began to ring.

“Lapsed Episcopalian,” I said.

“Odd for an Italian,” The Digger said.

The phone kept ringing.

“Root beer,” I said.

He took the hint and wandered away. I closed the door behind him and went for the phone.

“Fonesca,” I said.

“Ed Viviase,” the caller said.

Ed Viviase was a detective in the Sarasota Police Department. I liked him. He tolerated me. Considering the fact that I was a depressed process server who basically wanted to be left alone in my room, our paths had crossed more times than chance would account for. Sarasota is not a big city, but I doubted if many other noncriminals who lived and visited here were known by Ed Viviase and the rest of the force.

“We have to talk,” he said.

“Let’s talk,” I said.

“In my office,” he said. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes,” I agreed.

He hung up. Sarasota Police Headquarters is little more than a block away, north on 301, cross the street to the right, and there it is less than half a block away. Fifteen minutes was plenty of time to walk to his office and wonder why he wanted to see me.

I put on clean slacks and a clean white short-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar. One of the collar buttons was slightly cracked. When it went, I’d probably just throw the shirt in the garbage can and pick up another one at the Women’s Resource Center.

The Digger was sitting at one of the canopied metal tables in front of the DQ eating his Thai food and drinking what I assumed was a large root beer. I nodded to him and he nodded back as I stopped at the open window of the DQ. Dave was there. Dave, leather-worn by the sun, the face of an adventurer. He reminded me of Sterling Hayden.

“What do you have ready I can eat while I walk?” I asked.

Dave looked back.

“Double burger with cheese,” he said.

“I’ll take it.”

“You got it.”

I paid and said, “How’s the sailing?”

“I’m thinking of taking her around the world,” he said. “Sell this place and go. A year. Maybe more. You can come. I mean it. You don’t talk much. You’re a good listener. I could teach you enough so you could help and I’d supply provisions.”

“I get seasick,” I said, accepting the double burger and handing him two dollar bills.

“You’d get over it,” Dave said.

“Can you play tapes on your ship?”

“Songs?”

“Videos,” I said. “If I go, Joan Crawford goes.”

“Fonesca, you’re saying no to a dream here.”

“It’s your dream, Dave.”

“Think about it,” he said.

There were customers behind me, a pair of old women.

“I will,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t as I stepped away and headed for Detective Ed Viviase.

THE DOOR TO
Viviase’s office was open. His name was Etienne. No one called him Etienne, not, according to him, even his wife. He was Ed. That’s what it said on the small plaque on his desk: “Detective Ed Viviase.”

The last time I had been in the office, there were scaffolds against two walls that were going to be painted the same shade of detective brown as the other two. This time there was no scaffolding, just a large office with very little furniture, three metal desks, a couple of chairs, and a line of file cabinets. Each desk held a computer and stacks of papers and reports threatening to tumble or already tumbled.

Viviase was the only detective in the room. I guess he had seniority. He was closest to the window in the room.

“Lewis,” he said, shaking his head as he looked up at me from behind his desk over the glasses perched on the end of his ample nose.

It was getting to be our regular routine.

Viviase was a little under six feet tall, a little over fifty years old, and a little over two hundred 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 was wearing a rumpled sports jacket and a red tie. He looked like a policeman, a cup of coffee in front of him, an already tired look on his face though it was a little before ten in the morning.

I knew he had a wife, kids, worries about his older daughter’s tuition and bills at the University of Florida, and an inability to resist carbohydrate intake. Ergo, the oversized chocolate-filled croissant on a napkin next to his coffee cup.

“Have a seat,” he said. “We’ll play a game.”

I sat across from him. He held up his cup, wanting to know if I’d like some coffee. I had drunk some of the coffee from the machine down the hall once before. The pain had been bearable.

“Okay,” said Viviase, “let’s play.” He took a long drink of coffee making a face that suggested he was ingesting prison-made whiskey. “I describe two men. You tell me if they resemble anyone you know.”

I nodded.

“One man is short, on the thin side, balding, looks like his pet turtle just got mashed on McIntosh Road. With him is a tall old man, denim, flannel, maybe even cowboy boots. Old man stands tall, looks like a cowboy.”

I shrugged.

“You want to use a life line? Call a friend who might have an idea?” he asked.

“It sounds like me and Ames,” I said.

“That your final answer?”

“Sounds like me and Ames.”

“Then,” he said, looking at his coffee and donut and settling on a bite of donut, “that would place the two of you at the home of a man who was murdered last night. Man’s name was Corsello, Bernard Corsello, sixty-nine, retired shoe salesman from Utica.”

“Someone said Ames and I killed this Corsello?”

“No,” Viviase said with a shake of his head and a cheek full of croissant. “Three kids driving by Corsello’s house
said they saw two men go up to Corsello’s door. They were on bikes. The kids, not the men. When they drove past the house about five minutes later, they saw two white men fitting yours and Ames McKinney’s description getting into a white car, an old white car with a blue top. You renting a car, Lewis?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Happen to be white with a blue top?”

“Yes.”

He swiveled his chair, took off his glasses, and looked out the window. His back to me now he said, “Corsello was shot, bam, once, right through the stomach, tore a hole in his heart. Bullet dug its way through his back into the hallway wall. Shaeffer hasn’t had much time but he thinks it’s a nine-millimeter from a Glock. Nice gun, the Glock. Costs a lot but you get your money’s worth. Lightweight, easy to shoot, no kickback, almost indestructible. Know anyone with a gun like that?”

“No,” I said.

“If your friend Ames were to carry a weapon, what would you guess it would be?” Viviase swiveled back to face me and adjusted his glasses. His right hand reached for the donut and then clasped his left instead. He began tapping his thumbs together.

“Ames isn’t allowed to carry a gun,” I said.

“I know. I said ‘if,’” Viviase reminded me.

“Something old, heavy, noisy, reliable,” I said.

Viviase shook his head.

“What did you find in Corsello’s house?” he asked.

“I wasn’t at Corsello’s house,” I said. “It was another tall cowboy and short Italian.”

He unclenched his hands and downed more coffee.

“Maybe this will help,” he said. “We know you didn’t kill Corsello, at least not the time the kids saw you. He’d been dead for hours. But you were in there with the body for at least five minutes.”

“No,” I said.

“Lewie, don’t make me bring those kids in here for a lineup,” he said. “Waste my time, your time. And I don’t like one of the kids. Smart mouth. X-rated mouth. Seen too
many movies with that black guy, what’s his name, Martin Lawrence.”