“Oh yes,” she said. “You know, Walgreen’s has a two-for-one special on aspirin, the hundred-tablet size.”
“I didn’t know that,” Viviase said.
“You’ll need a coupon.”
Viviase pressed the record button, sat back and said, “How’s your coffee?”
“Tea,” Georgia Cubbins corrected. “With pretend sugar.”
“Right,” said Viviase. “May I ask you some questions?”
“Questions?”
“About your daughter,” he said.
“Alberta,” said the old woman. “Her name is Alberta.”
“Yes, Alberta. And about Vivian Pastor.”
“Oh, Vivian is dead,” said the woman. “So is David. He’s my son-in-law.”
“Dead?”
“Oh yes. David is d-e-d. ”
“And Vivian Pastor?”
“Dead. Alberta cut her up into little pieces and we went to the lake and she threw the pieces to the alligators.”
Georgia Cubbins was smiling.
“We stopped on the way home for coffee and apple pie. I don’t remember where, but the waitresses had those little white hats, like the Jews, only white and not black.”
“They were Amish,” Viviase said.
“That’s their business,” Gigi said.
Georgia Cubbins might be well on the way to total dementia, but no one but her daughter could have spoken to her about cutting up Vivian Pastor and feeding her to the gators.
Viviase reached forward and turned off the recorder.
“You know you can see through water,” Georgia Cubbins said. “If it’s clean water.”
“That’s interesting,” said Viviase, rising and putting the tape recorder in his pocket. “Officer Willett will get you more tea if you’d like.”
“With pretend sugar,” she said seriously.
“Pretend sugar,” Viviase said, touching the old woman’s shoulder.
Viviase came out of the room and closed the door.
“Too damned easy,” he said.
“I think she wanted to tell someone,” the young woman next to me said. “Just waiting for the first one to ask her.”
“Not much of a witness, is she?” asked Viviase.
The young woman shrugged.
“I’m taking this to the district attorney,” he said. “I think we’ve got cause for keeping Mrs. Cubbins in protective custody. There’s reason to believe her life might be in danger if we returned her to the custody of her daughter.”
“She’s not a good witness,” I said.
“Understatement, Fonesca,” he said. “She is one hell of an awful witness, but she’s enough to keep the investigation open, to put a hold on Vivian Pastor’s social security checks, checking accounts, annuity payments. It’s a start.”
Ames was waiting for me outside the room. I told him we had another stop to make.
Amos Trent didn’t have to intercept us at the Seaside this time. He was in his office working late. I knocked at his door and he looked up.
“What?” he asked.
“I think the police are going to be calling you,” I said.
“Why?”
“I think the police may be about to arrest Alberta Pastor for the murder of her mother-in-law,” I said.
Trent said, “No,” and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Ames and I were still there.
“Might want to apologize to Dorothy,” said Ames.
“No,” he said. “I mean yes. Everything I touch turns to shit. This is my fourth job in three years, my fourth job. I’ve got an MBA but… I’m a haunted man.”
He looked at us for sympathy. I knew what it was to be haunted. He would have to deal with his own ghosts.
Dorothy Cgnozic was sitting in the armchair in her room watching a rerun of a rerun of Hollywood Squares. She was wearing a pink robe. The room was dark except for the glowing screen. It took her a beat or two to recognize us. She reached over her shoulder and turned on the lamp on the table by her bed.
“Tell me something good,” she said. “I need something good.”
“The woman who you saw murdered was Vivian Pastor,” I said. “Her daughter-in-law killed her.”
Dorothy pushed a button on her remote and the screen of her television went black.
“The people here know?” she asked.
“We just told Amos Trent,” I said.
“I think maybe Mr. Trent’s going to be looking for another job,” said Ames.
“That wasn’t what I wanted,” she said. “I just wanted to be believed. I’m sorry about Vivian. I can’t say I particularly liked her, but I would prefer her not to have been murdered.”
“Want to know what’s going to happen to Mrs. Pastor?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m content to leave that to the police and her God.”
She stood, opened a drawer in the table on which the lamp was standing and came up with a box and a manuscript of the book she had shown us before. She opened the box and the three of us had a chocolate-covered cherry.
“Will a check be all right?” she said.
“Fine.”
She handed the manuscript to Ames, fished out a checkbook, asked me how much she owed. I told her a hundred dollars would do it. After she had written the check and handed it to me, Ames held the manuscript out to her.
“No,” she said. “It’s for you. You remember my husband’s work. It should be with someone who appreciated him.”
“Thank you,” Ames said and shook the hand she offered.
“One condition,” she said.
Ames waited.
“You visit me once in a while,” she said. “If it’s not too much to ask.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Ames.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said. “I’ve got people to tell and vindication to savor.”
I had another stop to make. It could have waited till the next day but I wasn’t sure there would be a next day and I didn’t want to think about what I was going to say.
I called the number Nancy Root had given me. Yolanda answered.
“Fonesca,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “You want to come over right now and pick up your check.”
“I want to talk to your mother,” I said.
“Some other time,” she said.
Then Nancy Root came on the line.
“Mr. Fonesca, I’ve been trying to call you. Can you come over now?”
I told her I could and she gave me directions to her apartment. When we got there, Ames waited in the car while I pushed a button and was buzzed in through the thick glass doors.
The lobby was large and lifeless. The lights were night dim. I had the feeling that the couches and chairs had seldom been sat in and the artificial flowers had never been touched.
Nancy Root met me at the open door. She was wearing jeans and an oversize white sweater. I took off my cap. She said nothing, stood back and let me pass. In the small entryway was a bank of posters of plays she had been in, Man and Superman, Antigone, You Can’t Take It with You, Othello.
“This way,” she said.
I followed her into a living room with a night view of lights on the bridge to St. Armand’s and Longboat Key. Yolanda sat in a large, white armchair big enough for her to tuck her bare feet under her. She was hugging a pillow. She watched me as if I might be about to grab the family jewels and make a run for it.
Nancy Root nervously rolled up her sleeves. For the next ten minutes the sleeves kept creeping down and she tugged them up again. She pointed to the couch with its back to the window and sat in a chair just like the one Yolanda was in.
I sat.
“I thought you might have a show tonight,” I said.
“Sometimes,” said Nancy Root, “the show does not have to go on. In this case, however, the understudy is an Asolo Conservatory student who is very good, too young for the role, but, then again, I’m a little too old for it. I haven’t offered you a dri
nk.”
“No thanks,” I said.
Yolanda. was glaring at me. I saw the glitter of her tongue ring when she opened her mouth.
“I know who killed Kyle,” Nancy said. “I know all about what Richard did. I’m glad the man is dead. I’m glad there won’t be a trial, delays, testimony, excuses, deals. The only thing wrong with the scenario is that I don’t know why he killed my son. Why would a college teacher purposely run down a fourteen-year-old boy?”
Choices. Tell her the truth, that a man who prided himself on his understanding of morality, of right and wrong, had turned into a vengeance-seeking animal because his Down’s syndrome daughter had been spat upon? That her son had stopped in the street and taunted his pursuer with an upraised finger, defied him because Kyle Root was frightened and angry and fourteen years old and had never thought about death? Tell her to ask Andrew Goines, her son’s friend who could have been the one John Welles had chosen to follow, to kill?
“Was he drunk, high?” Yolanda said. “Was he insane?”
Her face was tight. Her eyes met mine. She was trying to tell me something. I thought I knew what it was.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “He didn’t get a chance to tell me. I think he was going to talk about it but your ex-husband showed up. Welles had a gun…”
I shrugged.
Nancy Root sank back in her chair once again, adjusting the sleeves of her sweater. She folded her hands and put the white knuckles of her thumbs to her lips.
I looked at Yolanda. I couldn’t swear to it but I thought she gave me a barely existent nod of approval.
“Okay,” said Nancy, suddenly standing. “I’ll get your check.”
She hurried out of the room.
“Andy told me,” Yolanda said.
“Told you?”
“Told me about what he and Kyle did,” she said.
I looked toward where Nancy Root had exited.
“She’ll take a few minutes,” Yolanda said. “She’s crying. I know Kyle. Knew him. She just thinks she does. If that dead guy backed him into a corner, Kyle would just tell him to screw himself or give him the finger.”
Something must have shown on my face. Yolanda smiled, but there wasn’t any satisfaction in the smile.
“Got it, right?” she asked.
I didn’t say anything. Nancy came back in, check in hand, eyes red. She handed me the check.
“Yola’s moving back in with me,” she said. “We need each other.”
Yolanda didn’t deny the mutual need, but I didn’t see any sign of it on her part.
“That’s right,” she said.
Nancy Root walked with me out to the elevator, adjusting her sleeves one more time as the bell dinged and the elevator doors opened. I got in.
“Thank you,” she said and as the doors closed, she added, “The hardest part is not knowing.”
It was almost ten. Ames and I drove to the Texas, had a beer and burger and looked at the manuscript of Two Many Words. Part One, Too Many Words, was about fifty pages long, each one with a crude drawing and no words. The drawings were of birds, people, pieces of luggage piled in an airport waiting area, a clock, a pencil, tables, a rabbit that resembled Bugs Bunny. Part Two, To Many Words, was also about fifty pages long, neatly handwritten in black ink, probably the longest single sentence ever written.
I began my search for the sunlight as I came out of the womb, my search for sunlight and God, and found sunlight pretty quickly, and darkness too, but I have the feeling that someday I’ll go back into that womb and find that God had been there waiting for me the whole while and he’ll say, Where the hell have you been, and I’ll say, Looking for you, and he’ll say, What the hell for, to which I will tell him that I wanted to know why I had been plucked timely from the warm darkness and sent out to grow old, feel pain and doubt, love and be loved, laugh and be laughed at, doubt and be doubted, and old God will answer saying I had just answered my own question
And words kept coming, but I stopped reading over Ames’s shoulder. I left him sitting there and knew that he would keep reading to the last word. I wondered if there would be a period after the last word. I meant to ask Ames in the morning.
Back in my office, it took about ten minutes before the phone rang. It was Viviase.
“Alberta Pastor is gone,” he said. “Packed up, got in her car, ran. Her lawyer says he doesn’t know where she went. She’s got no money but whatever she had on her and a Visa credit card. We’ll track her down. Looks like we’ll drop the charges against you and McKinney, except for the illegal weapon. Given the situation, the district attorney is willing to accept a fifty-dollar fine, an apology and the promise that Mr. McKinney’s love affair with firearms will not be hands-on.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I thought about telling you to stay out of trouble,” he said. “But that won’t happen, will it?”
“It finds me,” I said.
“Maybe you welcome it.”
“You sound like Ann,” I said.
“Ann?”
“My therapist,” I said.
We hung up and I did a dangerous thing. I should have washed, gotten into my pajamas and watched a Thin Man movie, but I sat at the desk, looked at the painting of the dark jungle on the wall, had trouble finding the spot of color and thought.
I thought about a dead philosopher and a smiling parentless girl with Down’s syndrome. I thought about a father who had lost his only son and had helped the boy’s killer commit suicide. I thought of a mother whom I had faced and told about what had happened to her dead son. I thought about an old woman whose mind was slowly slipping away and I tried not to wonder what would happen to her. I thought about my dead wife and my dead life. I thought about them till I fell asleep at the desk with my head on my arms.
I wanted nothing but to be left alone, maybe for a day, a week, a month, a year, forever.
The Last Chapter
That is the story I told Ann Horowitz. Not exactly in those words, but essentially that was it.
It took us through lunch. She called and had a pizza delivered, half double onion for me, half spinach for her. During my telling she had to use my phone to reschedule three appointments.
She assured me that none of the appointments was within years of approaching emergency status.
“You have forty dollars?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“We’ve been here four sessions,” she said. “I won’t charge you for a house call.”
“I didn’t call you and this isn’t a house,” I said.
“Sarcasm?”
“No,” I said.
“I was hoping for sarcasm. You are a tough case, Lewis. Are you sure you aren’t Catholic?”
“I’m sure.”
“You think it would work out if Georgia Cubbins moved into Seaside and shared a room with Dorothy Cgnozic?”
“No,” I said.
“How about if Jane Welles moved in with Adele and Flo?”
“No,” I said.
“Do you think either of those suggestions was serious?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You’re too smart.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s getting late. I still have to get back to the apartment, put on my bathing suit and do my twenty laps. If I miss my laps I get grumpy. Have you ever seen me grumpy?”
“No.”
“I’ll have to let you see that side of me sometime,” she said.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“So, let’s get to the heart of darkness,” she said.
“Why do you do what you do?”
“Serve papers?”
“Yes, and help people in need find other people they think they need,” she said.
“I serve papers to make enough money to live. I find people because I can’t stop people from finding me.”
“Because they sense in you a person who will empathize, will find, will give them closure?”
“Maybe.”
“You could make money other ways than serving papers, finding people.”
“I’m good at it.”
“Professor Welles could have shot you. Alberta Pastor could have strangled you.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m suicidal, but I don’t want to commit suicide. I want someone to do it for me.”
“Like Welles?”
“No,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Here comes the profound part, the part where I really earn my money. You feel guilty about your wife’s death. You’ve convinced yourself at one level that you deserve to die, but you know you don’t want to die and that makes you feel guilty.”
“This sounds like the end of Psycho, ” I said. “Where the psychiatrist gives a pompous explanation of why Norman Bates isn’t a transvestite.”
“Interesting choice for comparison,” Ann said.
“In the end Norman Bates is sitting alone in his cell, smiling, determined never to speak again,” I said.
“I remember,” she said. “But I’ve got a solution for you, well, at least a possible solution. You are helping other people search because something is keeping you from searching for the person who might give you some relief. Who am I talking about? Who, with your skills, could you be looking for?”
Silence. Silence. Silence. Except for the cars whooshing down 301 beyond my window.
“Lewis, a swimming pool of uncertain temperature beckons.”
“The one who killed my wife,” I said.
“Why didn’t you, with your skills, stay in Chicago and find that person instead of driving more than a thousand miles to hide behind a Dairy Queen?”
“She was gone. Finding who did it wouldn’t bring her back,” I said. “We’ve talked about this.”
“No, Lewis,” she said. “I am old, nearly ancient, but my memory is trained and I take very good notes. If you’ve talked to anyone about it, it is Lewis Fonesca.”
“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?”
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