“I’ve been busy,” I told Nancy Root.
“What have you found?”
Her voice was steady, strong, clear, but with an underlying effort.
What had I found? That the world is without form and void, that nothing is predictable, that the just and the unjust, good and bad, suffer or survive at about the same rate. That my mother’s God, if he was out there, had played a major game with us. He had built in an impulse, no, a drive, to survive, even when common sense told us that survival was, ultimately, impossible and painful. From her voice, from what had happened to her, I had the feeling that Nancy Root would understand, but I didn’t say any of this.
“It’s only been a few hours. I told you I should have some answers for you soon,” I said.
“The man who killed my son is insane,” she said.
“It might be a woman,” I said.
“No, he called me.”
Ames leaned against the wall near the door, watching me.
“What did he say?”
“That he was sorry,” she said. “He was crying. I couldn’t understand all of it. He told me to make you stop looking. He… pleaded with me. He was so pathetic.”
“You’ve changed your mind about wanting him dead?”
She ignored my question and went on. “He said he had to see me. That I’d understand if he could just talk to me. Then he hung up in the middle of a sentence. I had the feeling that he wasn’t just feeling frightened, sorry for himself, that there was something else at stake.”
“My question,” I reminded her.
“Yes,” she said. “I still want him dead. Nothing he can say would bring Kyle back and you did tell me that he had intentionally run down my son.”
“That’s what the witness says.”
“Then-”
I heard a voice behind her. She said something I couldn’t make out and then came back on the phone.
“There’s someone at the security desk who says he has to see me,” she said. “Corrine says he’s a big man with a white beard. It might be
…?”
“It might be,” I said. “How good is the person on security right now?”
“Ron? He’s a retired policeman. He’s at least seventy and-”
“Tell him to have the man wait. Tell him you’ll see him in a little while. Tell him you’re in the middle of a show.”
“I am,” she said. “It’s Friday. Matinee. Intermission. I have to go back on in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I said. “Do you have a gun?”
“No,” she said.
“Don’t do anything,” I said.
“Are you worrying about his hurting me or my hurting him?”
“Both,” I said.
She hung up.
“We rolling?” asked Ames.
“We’re rolling,” I said.
13
I explained to Ames as we drove up 301 to DeSoto and then went west past the greyhound track on our left and then the airport on our right. There was a long wait at the light at Tamiami Trail. The Ringling Museum of Art sat about three hundred yards in front of us behind the iron fence. The light changed. I went across the Trail and made a right turn into the Florida State University Asolo Center.
The parking lot was almost full, with visitors to the museum and to the matinee performance. I drove past the large box, which housed the theater, the Sarasota Ballet and the Florida State University graduate program for acting students.
I found a parking spot near the backstage entrance, pulled in and got out with Ames coming around and joining me as I moved up the concrete steps toward the door. It had taken less than fifteen minutes.
I had tried to think about what I would do when I stood in front of the man who had wept on the phone, but nothing would come. Whatever happened would happen. I had no plan. I glanced at Ames and saw that he had a plan; it consisted of showing me a very small pistol in the palm of his right hand.
“Double derringer,” he said. “A forty-one-caliber rimfire.”
“I don’t think we’ll need that,” I said.
“Can’t hurt,” he said.
“Yes, it can.”
He shrugged. We had no time to discuss it. We went through the door, Ames hiding the weapon in the palm of his large hand.
The security counter was on our left. A man in a blue uniform, lean and spectacled, stood behind the counter. There was no one else in view. The double doors leading backstage were closed.
“A man,” I said. “Big, white beard, wanted to see Nancy Root.”
The man behind the desk looked at us.
“Who’re you?” the guard said.
“Friends of Miss Root,” I said. “Where’s the man?”
“Left,” he said. “Nervous. Asked how much longer the show was. Not much room to pace in here. He went outside, walked around a little and then went off to the right, walking fast. You want to see Miss Root, you’ll have to wait too.”
“Is there any other way in?” I asked.
“Couple,” he said. “Can’t open them from outside and if they open from inside, it lights up on the board back here.”
“Except for the entrance to the theater?” I said.
“That’s right.”
“If he comes back, don’t let him in to see Miss Root,” I said.
“Not up to me,” he said. “Up to her.” He looked us over. A short dark man wearing a baseball cap. A tall old man in flannel shirt and an old cracking leather jacket. “You’re not cops.”
I didn’t confirm his keen observation. I went back outside with Ames next to me. We hurried around the building and up the steps to the theater. The doors were open. The play had to be nearly over.
An old woman in a white blouse and blue skirt stood talking to a young man behind the refreshment counter in front of us. They looked us over as we moved quickly toward them. The woman held a finger to her lips to let us know that we should be quiet. She whispered, “Show’s almost over. Can I help you?”
“Big man, white hair, white beard,” I said. “Did he come in a little while ago?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very odd. He said he had to get in. I told him he had missed more than half the show, but he went to the box office and bought a ticket.”
“He’s in the theater?” I asked.
“Oh yes.”
“Where?”
“Balcony,” she said. “Plenty of seats on the main floor, but I didn’t want him to disrupt the actors, so I thought-”
“We really have to find him,” I said.
“Performance will be over in about fifteen minutes or so,” she said.
“We really have to find him now,” I said.
“Why?” the young man behind the counter said.
I tried to think of a good lie that would get us in. I failed, so I said, “You know what happened to Nancy Root’s son?”
“Yes,” said the woman.
The young man nodded.
“I think the man with the beard was driving the car,” I said. “I’m working for Miss Root.”
“I’m calling security,” said the young man.
The woman looked confused.
“Good idea,” I said, starting toward the stairs on my left, half expecting the old woman to try to stop us. She didn’t.
We came to the mezzanine landing and went up another flight of carpeted steps and moved through a closed door into near darkness. We could hear voices, the projected sound of actors’ voices that said, We’re actors. We’re not talking normally. We’re projecting. We expect you to pretend that you don’t notice.
I groped my way through a hanging velvety drape with Ames at my side. A voice from the stage below us, Nancy Root’s voice, said, “And you think that would stop me? Fifteen years together and you think a few words can stop me now?”
The light from the stage was bright enough to make out the seats in the balcony, though the people in them were shadowy.
“Not here,” Ames whispered before I could see faces.
Most of the seats weren’t filled. People were scattered.
From the stage, a man’s voice said, “Stop you? With words? You’re right. I know you too well to think that common sense would make any difference. No, Maddy, I’m going to kill you.”
I motioned Ames down narrow steps and looked over the balcony into the orchestra seats. Ames did the same. The man wasn’t there. On the stage, Nancy Root, in a blonde wig, stood in a living room, arms folded, facing a tall, burly-looking man with wavy brown hair and a knowing smile. She was wearing a blue dress showing cleavage. He was wearing a tuxedo. He was holding a gun.