Then I drove down Main, parked in the public lot on Main and 301 and headed for the office of Detective Etienne Viviase.
4
The plaque on his desk read: DETECTIVE ED VIVIASE. His real name was Etienne Viviase, but even his wife called him Ed. He was a little under six feet tall, a little over fifty years old, and a little over two hundred and twenty pounds. Hair short, dark. Face smooth, pink. He was wearing a dark rumpled sports jacket with a tie the color of Moby Dick.
He was seated behind his desk, one of three in the office. The other two were, at the moment, unoccupied, though the closest had a tall pile of reports that was doomed to topple.
“You called?” he said, mug of coffee in one hand, a scone with raisins or chocolate chips in the other.
I looked at the chair across from him and he nodded to let me know it was all right to sit.
“Scone?” he asked. “Coffee?”
“No thanks,” I said.
“Am I going to enjoy this conversation?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
He looked at his wristwatch, which resulted in crumbs falling in his lap, which resulted in his brushing away the crumbs, which resulted in him spilling some coffee, which missed his pants leg by inches.
“Five minutes,” he said.
“Kyle McClory,” I said.
Viviase smiled, but not much, shook his head, but not much, and said, “Not my case.”
“Who should I talk to?”
“Me,” he said. “I don’t think anyone here, especially Mike Ransom, whose case it is, will talk to you.”
“His mother asked me to look into it,” I said.
“You’re not a detective,” he said. “You are a process server.”
“She asked me. Private citizen.”
“Is she paying you, private citizen?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why don’t you branch out into skip tracing?” he asked, taking a bite of scone and examining it to see how much he had left.
“I have enough work. Too much.”
“Well, I told you. Mike Ransom’s working on the Kyle McClory case,” he said. “The father’s a big-time radiologist. The mother’s a local celebrity. She’s got a lawyer with a little clout.”
“Tycinker,” I said.
“We’re working on it.”
“Can’t hurt if I ask some questions,” I said.
“It could hurt, but then again it might help,” he said. “What do you want from me?”
“What do you know? I mean, what do you know that I can have? I understand there was a witness.”
“Hold on,” Viviase said, finishing his scone and putting his coffee mug gently on the desk.
He walked over to the file cabinets, opened one in the middle, pulled out a file and came back to his desk. He sat, wiped his fingers and turned on his computer after checking something in the file, which now lay open in front of him.
The computer hummed. He entered something and sat back to wait.
“How’s the kid?” he asked.
“Adele?”
“Yeah, and the baby.”
“Both fine.”
He was about to speak again, but I could see something popping up on the screen. Viviase reached into his pocket, pulled out his glasses, put them on and looked at the words in front of him.
“Looks like…,” he said, reading what was in front of him and then checking the open file. “After ten, guy walking past the park saw it.”
“Guy?”
“His name is Arnoldo Robles,” said Viviase. “He works at a Mexican restaurant, El Tacito.”
I said nothing.
“You turn up anything on who killed the boy, you turn it over to me, right?” Viviase asked, leaning back.
“Right,” I said.
“Mr. Robles lives on Ninth,” Viviase said, scanning the file. “He was on his way home from work, walking up Gillespie past the park. Let’s see. Saw the kid running past him, thought maybe he was about to be mugged. Kid turns down Eighth. Robles hears a car behind him. Robles reaches Eighth. Car turns behind the kid, who’s in the middle of the street. Kid is running. Car’s lights hit him. Kid stops. Holds up his hand. Car nails him. Driver gets out to look at the body, then gets back in the car and drives off.”
“Why was the boy in the middle of the street?” I asked.
“To get to the other side. I don’t know.”
“What was he doing in a blue-collar Hispanic neighborhood at that hour?”
“Don’t know,” said Viviase.
“Anyone ask his friend Andrew…”
“Goines,” Viviase said, reading it from the file. “Yep. Mike asked him. Goines kid said he had no idea.”
“Robles see any other traffic, cars?”
“Doesn’t say,” said Viviase.
“How fast was the car going?” I asked.
“Doesn’t say, but Robles didn’t think he was speeding.”
Viviase gave me a long look, lips pursed, and removed his glasses.
“He ran the boy down,” I said.
“I didn’t say that. The report doesn’t say that. Right now it’s a hit-and-run. Something else turns up, we’ll look into it.”
He gave me a long quiet look. He wasn’t quite encouraging me, but he was a long way from telling me to mind my own business.
“Did Robles describe the car?”
“Let’s see… Sedan, probably late model, probably four doors.”
Viviase closed the file, reached over to put his computer to sleep and said, “Five minutes are up.”
“I think I’ll talk to Detective Ransom,” I said.
“Your funeral,” he said. “That’s his desk.”
Viviase pointed with a pencil at one of the other desks. “He’s probably at the hot dog cart outside. Late lunch.”
I went in search of Detective Michael Ransom.
The hot dog pushcart was on the sidewalk at the corner of Main and 301. You could see the Hollywood 20 theater across the street.
Two men, both big, both in their thirties, one with short dark hair, the other with even shorter blond hair, were standing by the cart with a hot dog in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other.
“Detective Ransom?” I asked.
The heavier, younger of the two men, the one with dark hair, looked at me, his cheek full of hot dog.
“Yeah,” he said.
“My name’s Lew Fonesca. I just talked to Detective Viviase.”
“So?”
“I’m a friend of Nancy Root’s. I used to work for the state attorney’s office in Chicago,” I said. “I’m sort of her family representative.”
Ransom took another bite of hot dog and a drink of Coke.
“I know who you are, Fonesca,” he said.
“You mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Very much,” he said.
The other cop turned his back on us and went on eating.
“I’ll only take a minute. By the clock.”
“First, this is the only meal I’ve had today,” he said, showing me what was left of his hot dog. “Second, I’ve got a small stack of open felony cases sitting on my desk. The McClory death is in that stack. I’ll deal with it.”
“I’d just like-”
“Ed told me about you,” he said, taking a step toward me. “I am politely asking you to not interfere with my ongoing investigation.”
“But-”
“Now I’m firmly asking you,” he said, coming even closer.
“If-”
“Now I’m telling you,” he said, almost in my face.
I smelled onions and jalapeno.
“Tell Ms. Root I’m working on it Tell Dr. McClory I’m working on it. And tell yourself not to obstruct justice. Fonesca, I’m a tired man and I think I’ve got some kind of gastric problem. I’ve got an appointment with my doctor in the morning. This job can give a person a very bad stomach. Don’t make it worse. Now, if you want a kosher dog, I’ll pop for it, but you carry it away and don’t look back.”
I shook my head no, walked down the street, got into my rented Saturn, drove up 301 to Fruitville, turned left and then right at Gillespie Park. The sun was bright. Kids were playing in the park. I turned just past the tennis courts down Eighth. There were cars parked on both sides but enough room for vehicles going in both directions. Kyle could have stayed on the sidewalk but he didn’t. Was he just crossing the street? I drove slowly looking for blood, trying to determine exactly where the boy had been hit and killed. There was no blood, none that I could see.