I half hoped he would fail. I felt uncomfortable owning anything larger than a DVD player.
My cell phone was on the otherwise empty desktop in front of me. I was waiting. On the way home I had told Ames that it would probably take an hour or less for the police to arrive, so he had better do as much as he could on the car before men in blue appeared bearing guns in the usually quiet street.
The old woman former juggler in an orange robe would describe us to the police. That would be enough.
“A tall old man wearing a coat in the heat and a not-too-tall, sad-looking fella wearing a Cubs baseball cap,” Ames had said as we drove.
“Driving in a noisy old car,” I added.
“Won’t be hard,” he said.
It was at that point that I called Detective Ettiene Viviase to tell him about the body in the jeep across from Bee Ridge Park. It was better to have a cop I knew around.
Viviase arrived thirty-five minutes into my longing for the comfort of dark jungles. It was just enough time for him to take a look at Berrigan’s body, leave someone to take over the crime scene and get back to Ames and me.
I heard the footsteps on the wooden stairs and watched the door open. Ames was at Viviase’s side.
Once, I had heard Viviase referred to as “Big Ed.” He wasn’t particularly big, maybe a little under six feet tall and weighing in at a little over two hundred and twenty pounds. He was wearing his usual uniform, a rumpled sports jacket, dark slacks, a tie with no personality and a weary look on his face.
“Got a little more to do on the car,” said Ames. “Need a few parts. Should get it working within reason.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Viviase, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “Now tell me a story. Nonfiction preferred.”
“Mind if I wash up my hands?” asked Ames.
“Please do,” said Viviase moving to the desk and facing me across it.
Ames walked slowly through the bathroom door and closed it behind him. Then I heard the water start to flow.
“We didn’t kill him,” I said.
“I know that,” said Viviase. “If you had, you probably wouldn’t have walked up to his door asking for him after you crushed his skull.”
“I definitely wouldn’t have,” I said.
“Talk,” he said.
“Berrigan found me at the Crisp Dollar Bill,” I said. “He said he wanted my help. He was nervous. When Ames showed up, Berrigan went to the bathroom and out the window. You can check with Billy the bartender and the customers who were there. When Berrigan went through the bathroom window, we followed him. He was frightened. I thought maybe we could help. I ran outside and saw him pull away in the jeep. There was someone in the car with him. I couldn’t make out who. My car-”
“Your car?”
“I bought it this morning.”
“The Saturn McKinney was working on?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a gem.”
“Thanks. It moves at its own pace.”
“Two questions,” said Viviase. “First, what did Berrigan say he wanted?”
“He didn’t have time to tell me.”
“Thin, Fonesca. Very thin. Third question: Why did you leave the scene of a murder?”
“Because we didn’t want to get involved.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Civic duty, right?”
“I knew you’d find us.”
Ames emerged from the bathroom and joined us.
“I’ll talk to McKinney now,” said Viviase. “Let’s see if he remembers it the way you do.”
Ames did. We had gone over the story as we clunked our way home. Ames got it down perfectly. He told it tersely.
“This have anything to do with the Horvecki murder you’ve been asking about?”
“Don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t, though it was more than likely that the two were related.
“Since I’m here, would you like to tell me how you got involved in the Horvecki business?”
I didn’t want to tell him for many reasons, not the least of which was that I had been recommended for the job by Viviase’s own daughter, Elisabeth, but I had to tell him something.
“Two kids just came to me. Friends of Gerall.”
“Why you?”
I shrugged and said, “Ask them.”
“I will,” he said. “Fix your car. Stop trying to get the Gerall kid off. Lighten up this room. I’ll get back to you. You listening?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you won’t back off, will you?”
“No.”
“All right, give me the names of the two kids,” he said. “And don’t tell me it’s confidential. You’re not even a private investigator.”
I gave him Greg and Winn’s names. He wrote them down and said, “They visited Gerall in juvie,” Viviase said putting the notebook away. “I knew who they were.”
“Just trapping the coyote,” said Ames.
“Very colorful,” Viviase said.
“Anything new on the Horvecki daughter?” I asked.
“Nothing I plan to share.”
Which, I concluded, meant that he had nothing more than what Dixie had given me and probably a lot less.
Viviase left.
Seconds after he was gone, the door to my bedroom opened and Victor Woo came out with a girl. She was no more than fifteen, dark, cute, still holding onto a little baby fat. She wore faded jeans and a white tucked-in short-sleeved blouse with a flower stitched over her left breast.
“Is my father gone?” she asked, standing back in case Viviase decided to return. His footsteps had clacked down the stairs and, unless he had taken off his shoes and tip-toed back up, he was gone, at least for now.
“He’s gone,” I said. “How did you find me?”
“Your name is in my father’s address book. I went to where you were supposed to be, but there was no building.”
Victor moved to the floor in the corner. Elisabeth Viviase glanced at him.
“I asked a sad fat man in the car rental place. He told me where you live. Why is that man sitting on the floor in the corner?”
She sat in one of the two chairs on the other side of my desk.
“Penance,” I said, sitting.
“For what?”
“Ask him.”
She turned to Victor and said, “Why are you doing penance?”
“Murder,” he said softly.
With a veteran policeman as a father, the possibility of murder in close proximity was not confined to CSI on television.
“Why here?” she asked. “Why do penance here?”
“I killed his wife,” Victor said flatly.
Elisabeth turned back to me, tried to figure out if this was some comic routine with her as the butt of the joke. Whatever she saw in my face, she decided to change the subject.
“Ronnie didn’t kill Horvecki.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he was with me,” she said.
“When?”
“A week ago on Saturday,” she said.
“What time?”
“From seven till midnight.”
She sat with back straight and false sincerity masking her face.
“The murder took place after midnight,” I said.
“Well, I may have left Ronnie’s at one or later.”
“I was just testing you,” I said. “Horvecki was actually killed no later than noon.”
“Well,” she said, sliding back as far as she could go. “Now that I think of it, I was with Ronnie from seven to midnight on the day before the murder. On the day of the murder, I was with him as early as eleven in the morning, maybe earl… You’re testing me again.”
She looked away.
She returned to the self-certain statement of “Ronnie didn’t do it.”
“You didn’t go to the police with your alibi for Gerall,” I said.
“You kidding? My father would find out in five minutes. I wanted to tell you so you could find the real killer without telling my father about, you know, my coming here.”
Victor suddenly stood, and asked, “Would you like a Coke?” The move reminded me of James Coburn when he tilted his hat back and suddenly stood erect, ready for a showdown with his knife against a gun.
“Diet Coke,” she said.
Victor looked at me.