“It’s his name,” I said.
“I’m gonna get me a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan hits. Can you narrow it down some?”
“He’s a philosophy professor at MCC,” I said.
“Got it,” Dixie said and started her journey on the Internet highway after inserting a CD in a slit in the computer.
The CD began to play. A woman began belting out a song.
“The Pointers,” said Darrell.
Dixie paused to look at the boy with a smile.
“My mom plays this stuff all the time,” said Darrell.
“Your mom has good taste,” Dixie said, turning back to the screen.
Dixie’s fingers moved in time to “Fire.” The images on the screen kept flashing by as she clicked, pointed, clicked, scrolled. One screen showed a man who might be a much younger version of Welles. I didn’t have time to read any of the words near it or on the other pages.
“Bank, bank, bank,” Dixie sang in place of the words on the CD. “Can’t hide from the Heart of Dixie.”
We watched. Dixie took snatches of the grilled cheese sandwich. Three, four, seven, ten minutes. “Fire” became “Automatic.”
Finally, she pushed a button, sat back with her hands behind her head and waited while one of three printers on the table to the right of the computer began to make noises.
“Laser life,” she said.
“Most cool,” said Darrell.
“You know the Net?” she asked.
“Know what it is,” said Darrell.
“Want to come over sometime, I’ll teach you stuff,” she said.
The printer hummed.
Darrell looked at me.
“Ask your mother,” I said.
Dixie reached over and handed me three sheets that had spewed out of the printer.
“Want bank records, debt report, medical history?”
“Maybe,” I said, reading the sheets she had handed me.
As I finished each one, I handed it to Ames to read.
I learned that John Wellington Welles was fifty-two years old, born in Canton, Ohio, to Clark Welles and Joyce Welles, both deceased, both high school teachers, he of math, she of English. John Wellington Welles, who had no siblings, had a BS degree in sociology from Syracuse, an MA in linguistics from Cornell and a PhD in philosophy from Columbia. He had taught at Northeastern University in Boston for fourteen years, left a tenured full professorship to move to Sarasota to work at MCC, lower pay, lower prestige and no tenure.
He had a long list of publications, including a book called Introduction to Ethics, articles in journals, though the latest one had been published six years earlier. Six years earlier, Welles’s wife had died, cancer. They had one daughter who was now nineteen.
I had his current address, in Bradenton, the make of his car, a Taurus, and even how many payments he had left on it, six. He was paying $234 a month. His house was fully paid for and evaluated at $149,000, which did not put him in the high range of homeowners. Two arrests, both within the last six years, both for assault, neither of which had led to a conviction.
“Assault,” Ames said.
“Can you find out about these assault arrests?” I asked Dixie.
She nodded, took her hands from behind her head and began the search. Darrell moved close, looking over her shoulder, mouth slightly open. The rapidly changing light and colors did a light show across his face.
It took about five minutes.
“Both arrests in Boston,” she said. “I’m not printing this stuff out and I’m getting it off my hard drive as soon as I’m done.”
“Why?” asked Darrell.
“Because,” Dixie whispered, “it is not legal.”
Darrell grinned at both Ames and me. I leaned over to read about Welles’s arrests. No alcohol involved. No weapons involved. One incident happened in a department store a day before Christmas. Welles attacked a man named Walter Syckle, broke his nose. Syckle dropped charges. No reason given for the assault. The second arrest was similar. Welles punched a twenty-year-old man in line at a supermarket. Released. Charges dropped. No reason given for the assault.
“Has a temper,” said Ames.
“Looks that way,” I said.
That was all I could get from Dixie. I gave her six twenty-dollar bills. I’d charge it to Nancy Root. Dixie folded the bills, slipped them into her shirt pocket and said, “Thanks,” and then, to Darrell, “I meant it about coming back here. Bring your mother.”
“She won’t be trusting you. She’ll say you must want something and she got nothing to give.”
“Bring her,” said Dixie. “I’ll grill cheese sandwiches and we’ll surf for all kinds of good stuff.”
Ames, Darrell and I left and went to the car.
“You wondering what I’m wondering?” I asked Ames.
“Yes.”
“Why did he leave a tenured job at a university for an untenured one at a community college?”
“Maybe pushed out,” he said.
“Or maybe he was running away,” I said.
“People do it,” he said. “Something happens. They run.”
He meant me.
“Want to go to Welles’s house?” Ames said.
“What’d he do?” asked Darrell from the backseat.
“Something he seems to feel very sorry about,” I said. “We’ll get him away from the house, at the talk.”
Ames nodded.
I drove back to the DQ five minutes away, and got Darrell and myself medium chocolate cherry Blizzards and a Dilly Bar for Ames. We sat at one of the metal tables in front of the DQ the sky rumbling and dark but the rain not yet falling.
“Never had one of these,” Darrell said, working on his Blizzard. “It’s good.”
I’m not sure what I was going to say. My eyes were following the cars flowing by; my thoughts were following not much of anything.
A big truck with RED RIVER CITRUS written on its side over the picture of an orange rumbled by and jerked over a bump.
A blob of my Blizzard fell in my lap. The truck was gone. Another blob fell but I moved my legs in time. I looked at the cup in my hand. It had a small round hole on one side and another one on the other side.
“I think someone just shot at me,” I said.
“Shit,” said Darrell. “You’re dripping.”
“Yes,” I said.
Ames was up, right hand under his slicker as he looked up and down the street. There were three people in the DQ line. No one was walking down the street.
“You all right?” he asked, not looking at me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Someone really shot at you?” asked Darrell.
I put the Blizzard down. The dripping had slowed. The holes were now above the drink line.
“Welles,” Ames said.
“I don’t think so,” I answered.
I tried to stand but my legs wouldn’t move.
“Sure you’re all right?” Ames repeated.
I wasn’t all right. I was numb. It didn’t seem real. Reality is noise, a car skidding toward me, a punch or a doctor telling someone he has a year to live. This had been noiseless.
“You callin’ the cops?” Darrell asked.
“No. Let’s go,” I said.
“Where?” asked Darrell, excited.
“To see some very old people,” I said.
“Shit, that’s no fun.”
“One of them has a pet alligator.”
“One of those baby things?” asked Darrell.
“A big one,” said Ames.
“Name’s Jerry Lee,” I said.
“Could have hit the boy,” Ames said in a husky whisper, following me to the car.
“Yes.”
Ames went silent as we got in and closed the doors. I looked at him. His face was rigid, the muscles of his jaw twitching slightly.
“Yes,” I said.
“I get my barrels on him, I’m pulling,” he said.
“Maybe we can come up with an alternative,” I said.
Ames just shook his head once. It was a definite no. Ames rode at my side with the shotgun in his lap and his eyes scanning the faces of the people in every car that passed us.
At the stoplight at Hillview we pulled up next to a big, yellow Lincoln with a tiny bespectacled woman driver with curly white hair. She turned her head toward us and found herself looking into the eyes of Ames McKinney. She turned her eyes forward again, watching the traffic light.