Denial

19

Four hours later I knocked at Flo’s door. She took a long time answering. When she did, she had the baby in her arms and the voice of Johnny Cash behind her telling me he kept his eyes wide open all the time and walked the line.

I could have used Cash’s advice when I got up that morning.

“She’s sleeping,” Flo whispered. “Loves the man in black.”

I stepped in and she closed the door.

“Adele?”

“In school. You look like a soaked coyote that’s just dragged itself out of the Rio Grande.”

Flo’s knowledge of coyotes and the Rio Grande were acquired from movies, television and country music. She was a product of New York City, but a longtime citizen of popular country-and-western land.

“Ames is in jail,” I said.

“What the hell did he do now?” she said, moving to the sofa in the living room.

I sat in the straight-backed armchair across from her.

“Want to hold her?” she asked, offering the baby.

“No,” I said. “No thanks.”

Looking at Catherine was all I could handle. I wanted no responsibility. I hadn’t been doing very well with responsibility lately, particularly this day.

“He blew an office door open with a shotgun,” I said.

“What the hell for?”

“To save my life,” I said. “The gun is legal, owned by Ed at the Texas, but Ames has a record. He’s not supposed to carry a gun.”

“He saved your life?” Flo asked as Johnny Cash rasped out that he kept a close watch on his heart.

“Long story,” I said.

“I like long stories,” she said. “Just keep it interesting.”

I told her what had happened, kept it as short as I could and then said, “When the police came to Alberta Pastor’s office, she was crying. Very convincing. She insisted that the police arrest Ames and me. I told them that Alberta was a murderer. There were two of them, both too young to remember when Reagan was president. They took all three of us in. I asked for Ed Viviase. Alberta Pastor asked for her lawyer. I asked for Tycinker.”

“Sounds like a goddamn mess,” said Flo.

The baby stirred as the song ended. Flo rocked her gently. Johnny walked into a ring of fire and Catherine was still again.

“Alberta said Ames and I were trying to blackmail her about a story we made up about killing her mother-in-law. When she refused to give in to us, we threatened her.”

“What about the missing mother-in-law?” asked Flo.

“She said her mother-in-law checked herself out of the Seaside and insisted on being driven to the Tampa airport, where she said she was getting as far away from Sarasota as she could, that she was going to stay with friends. Alberta says her mother-in-law didn’t say where she was going.”

“But she lied to you about her mother being her mother-in-law,” said Flo.

“She says she never said it, that I was making it up on the spot.”

“What about the nurse, Emmie Jefferson?” asked Flo, leaning forward.

“They talked to her, showed her a picture of Vivian Pastor. She said it wasn’t the woman she had seen in Alberta’s car the night of the murder, but Alberta Pastor had never said Gigi was her mother-in-law.”

“What’s Alberta Pastor say now?”

“She insists that the police conduct a nationwide search for her mother-in-law to prove her story. I told Viviase that Alberta had fed her mother-in-law in pieces to the gators in Myakka Lake.”

“How many gators in the lake?” asked Flo. “A few thousand?”

“Right, the police would just have to cut open a few thousand gators looking for body parts,” I said.

“You went in ass first and she almost tore it off,” said Flo, smoothing down the baby’s fine yellow hair.

“I underestimated her,” I said.

“Where is she now?”

“Probably at her lawyer’s office filing a civil suit against me and Ames.”

“They let you go?”

“Viviase believed me,” I said. “Told me I should have come to him with what I had instead of going to Alberta’s office.”

“He was right, Lewis.”

“He was right.”

“What’s the word? Hubris. That’s it, right?” she asked.

“Walked into a ring of fire,” I said. “Brought Ames with me. We got burned.”

“And you want me to buy you asbestos suits or did you just feel the need to tell your tale to someone who’d listen to you and pat you on the cheek and say, ‘Poor boy’?”

“I’ll settle for you coming up with Ames’s bail.”

“Good,” she said, standing up. “I’ll get Catherine dressed and we’ll go down and get the Lone Ranger out of the jail. One condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Stop feeling sorry. for yourself and nail the bitch. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said.

When we got to the lockup on Ringling Boulevard, Viviase met us and ran the maze to get Ames out. He also told me that there was a restraining order against Ames and me. We couldn’t get within sight of Alberta Pastor.

Ames needed a shave. Catherine was awake and made it clear she wanted to be fed. I wanted someone to tell me to pack up and get out of town.

“Fonesca,” Viviase said, his face pink, his red tie loose. “You are in serious need of a shrink.”

“I’ve got one,” I said.

“Double your sessions,” he said. “You were an investigator for the Cook County states attorney. You had to know what could happen when you went into Pastor’s office. What’d you think? She’d just break down, confess, say she was sorry, take a plea with the district attorney?”

He was right.

“She killed her husband’s mother,” said Ames.

“And she’s going to pay for it, right?” said Viviase with a sigh. “You have any idea of how many murderers are driving around the city drinking coffee at Starbucks, deciding if their next car is going to be a Lexus or a… the hell with it. You two.”

He pointed at Ames and me.

“You two come with me and you, Mrs. Zink, the baby’s hungry,” Viviase said.

“I’ll get her home,” Flo said.

“You do that,” he said.

“I’ll call you later, Flo,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Let’s go,” Viviase said when Flo went through the door.

“Where?”

“To talk to a witness who might be able to save your very pathetic carcass,” he said, leading the way through a thick steel door. “But don’t count on it.”

“Who?” asked Ames.

“Georgia Cubbins,” he said.

We turned a corner, walked down a narrow corridor of polished white concrete. Viviase stopped at a door, reached for it.

“McKinney, you wait here,” he said.

“Who’s Georgia Cubbins?” I asked.

“Alberta Pastor’s mother,” he said. “Gigi.”

“But she-” I started as he opened the door.

“I told you not to count on it,” he said.

We were in a small dark room without furniture. In front of us was a glass partition, a two-way mirror. Beyond the window seated at a table was the old woman I had last seen at the Pastor house concentrating on newspaper ads and coupons in a state that could be called out-of-it. A very thin young woman in her early thirties wearing a white blouse and dark skirt sat across from Gigi Cubbins, who was drinking from a white porcelain mug. She held the mug in both hands and nodded, smiling at something the young woman, who had a pad of yellow, lined legal paper in front of her and a pen in her hand, said.

“Alberta Pastor’s lawyer is out looking for a judge, the chief of police, the governor or the president of the United States to get her mother out of here,” Viviase said. “If we’re lucky, we’ve got about half an hour.”

He pushed a button on the wall and we could hear what was being said inside the room beyond.

The young woman held up two fingers and said, “Mrs. Cubbins, how many fingers am I holding up?”

The old woman’s eyes widened and she said, “You mean you don’t know how many fingers you’re holding up?”

“Yes, I know.”

“So do I,” Georgia Cubbins said.

“How many?” asked the young woman patiently.

“Two.”

“Good.”

“What is?”

The young woman reached over and patted Gigi’s wrinkled hand.

“Do you know your husband’s name?”

“He’s dead,” Gigi said.

“Yes, but do you know what his name is?”

“Was,” Gigi said, putting down her cup and looking puzzled. “Is it still his name if he’s dead?”

“Yes,” the young woman said.

“Good.”

“What was his name?”

“Samuel.”

“Good and-”

“Walter.”

“Was it Samuel or Walter?” the young woman asked.

“Samuel Walter Cubbins,” Gigi said with a smile.

“And your son-in-law?”

“Dead too. Almost everyone is.”

“His name?”

“My…?”

“Your daughter’s husband.”

“David.”

“Your daughter’s name?”

“Turnkey.”

“Her name is Turnkey?”

“It’s what I call her. Her name is Albert, no, Alberta.”

“Good.”

“It’s good that her name is Alberta? Wasn’t my idea. My husband’s mother was named Alberta. I never liked the name.”

“Okay,” the young woman said.

“Did I pass?” asked Gigi.

“Yes. Do you mind if a policeman asks you a few questions?”

“Not silly ones like ‘What’s your name?’”

“I don’t think so.”

The young woman got up and said, “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Cubbins.”

Viviase opened the door to the room beyond the two-way mirror and the woman stepped out.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She looked at me, pursed her lips and shrugged.

“Dementia’s there,” she said, “but I think she likes to play games. She also doesn’t like her daughter.”

Viviase entered the room beyond the window. There was a crackle on the speaker when Viviase said brightly, “Good evening, Mrs. Cubbins.”

The old woman looked up at him in confusion. I saw no hope beyond the sheet of glass. I looked at Ames, who stood at near military attention, his eyes fixed on the old woman.

Viviase sat at the table. A uniformed woman stood against the wall.

“Do you mind if I turn on the tape recorder?” he asked, taking a small, silver recorder out of his jacket pocket and putting it on the table.

Georgia Cubbins looked at the recorder.

“It’s okay, Gigi,” said Viviase gently. “I can call you Gigi?”

“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 drink.”

“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.