I wasn’t hungry.
When they went back to their suite, I followed and stood outside the door, trying to listen through the curtained window without giving the impression to anyone that I was a peeping tom. There was an alcove with doors to more rooms and a stairwell ten feet away. If I heard anyone open the door inside the room, I could get to the alcove and up the stairs before I was spotted.
The rooms were set back from the railing, so I couldn’t be seen from the atrium floor. I made sure no one was watching me from a floor above and put my ear to the window. I couldn’t make out words inside the room but the voices were hard and angry.
I went back to my room. I hadn’t been able to get Janice Severtson alone. Stark had stuck too close to her. I would call Severtson in the morning, give him his wife’s room number, advise him to pass it on immediately to his lawyer, and head back home. I’d alert Sally before I called Severtson in case she wanted to contact him and try to talk him into being reasonable when he heard from me. I couldn’t spend any more time in Orlando. I had a missing commissioner and two days to find him.
I took a hot shower, got into my boxer shorts, and turned on the television. I was going to look for a movie, but the channel guide told me there was a Cubs game on WGN.
It was the fifth inning. Kerry Wood was pitching. The Cubs were up, three to nothing. The announcer said Moises Alou had hit a home run with two men on to give the Cubs the lead.
I tried to lose myself in the game. I almost succeeded. The Cubs were ahead, five to nothing, going into the ninth. They were playing at home. The Pirates were batting. Wood was going for a complete game shutout.
I tried not to think about the little girl in Stark’s arms, of the little boy who had asked me questions about his mother and father, about Adele and the baby, Sally and her children, Darrell Caton, who had looked at me with contempt in Sally’s office.
The Cubs helped. They almost blew the game. Wood got wild, gave up two walks and a double. Score was five to two. Reliever came in. I didn’t recognize his name. He had just come up from Triple A. He walked the first man. The next batter hit into a double play, but the runner on second scored after a bad throw to the plate by the first baseman, Mueller. Five to three. The next man up got on with a broken-bat single to right. The tying run was on base.
Two outs. The batter hit one deep and high. It kept traveling toward the vines in right field. Sammy backed up to the wall, eyes on the ball. He timed the little leap and pulled the ball down for the final out.
In baseball, sometimes things went right.
In baseball, there was always a clear end, a final score.
I turned the lights out and got in bed. I was asleep in seconds.
Someone was knocking at my door. I sat up dizzy and looked at the clock with the glowing red numbers. It was a little after three in the morning. The knock came again. I got off the bed and went out of the bedroom to the door.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Janice Severtson.”
I opened the door and flipped on the lights. The children were both in pajamas and robes, crying. Janice Severtson needed a comb and a good dry cleaner. Her white robe was splotched with blood.
“Can we come in?” she asked. “Please.”
I stepped back and the weeping trio came in. I closed the door and turned to watch them sit on the small sofa. Janice Severtson was trying to comfort them, kissing the tops of their heads, hugging her children.
“How did you find me?” I asked. “And why?”
“I called the desk after I recognized you earlier,” she said. “I said I didn’t remember your name but that we knew each other from Sarasota. I described you. They found someone who remembered checking you in.”
“I hope the description was kind,” I said, putting my jeans on over the orange boxer shorts I had been sleeping in.
She didn’t answer that one. I pulled my shirt on over my head.
“I called some friends I can trust in Sarasota,” she went on, looking at the dark television screen and hugging her sobbing children. “Found someone who knew you. My husband sent you, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Can I trust you?” she asked, continuing to soothe her children. “I have no one else to turn to.”
“You can trust me. But I’m not sure why you should believe you can.”
“No choice,” she said with a shrug. “I want you to take Sydney and Kenny back to their father.”
Both children said, “no,” but Janice wasn’t listening.
“At three in the morning?” I asked.
She sat the children on the little sofa against the wall and told them she would be back in a second. Kenneth Jr. turned his head into his mother’s shoulder. The little girl looked down and bit her lip. Then Janice motioned for me to follow her into the bedroom, where she closed the door.
“I just killed Andrew Stark,” she said. “I’ve got to go back to the room and call the police. Take my children home. Please. My husband is a good father. I don’t want them involved.”
“Let’s go to your room and have a look before we call the police.”
I slipped my bare feet into my unlaced sneakers and opened the door.
Janice Severtson hugged both her children and told them she would be gone for just a minute. They weren’t crying anymore. They looked as if they were nearly asleep.
“Can we watch television?” Kenny asked.
“Sure,” I said, handing him the remote.
He clicked it on. A voice in Spanish rattled excitedly about a soccer match going between guys in green uniforms and guys in yellow ones.
“They play soccer in Mexico in the middle of the night?” he asked.
“It’s a tape,” I said.
He nodded knowingly, eyes blinking as he changed the station and watched a crocodile slither into a pond of water.
“Be right back,” Janice Severtson said, following me through the door after I checked my pocket to be sure I had my room card.
Even at three in the morning, the atrium wasn’t empty. Five men were seated eight stories down talking softly. A crew of cleaning people was sweeping and scrubbing. Janice Severtson looked down across the open space at the closed door of her room a floor below.
“What happened?” I asked quietly.
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, took a deep breath.
“He tried to rape me,” she said. “He hit me, pulled my hair. He’d gotten up during the night. He was drunk. There was a knife on the table. His knife along with his wallet and keys. I told him to stop. He didn’t. I told him he’d wake the children, that they would see us. I begged him. He grabbed my wrist and laughed. We were standing there, just…I twisted my arm and pulled free and then I brought the knife down. He looked surprised. The children slept through it all. Thank God, the children slept through it. Andrew, he lay there with the knife in his chest. I didn’t know what…You know the rest. I’ll go back and call the police. You take care of my children, please.”
“You’re sure he’s dead?” I asked.
“Yes. I covered his body with the blanket so the children wouldn’t see him when I woke them up.”
“I’ll go take a look. You go back to your kids and give me your room card.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’m asking you,” I said. “I won’t take long. If the phone rings, it’ll be me. Answer it.”
She brushed her hair back with her long fingers and pulled the room card out. I took it and let her back into my room. The television was on. Kenny had switched to an old Dick Van Dyke rerun, the one where Rob goes off to a cabin to write a novel. The episode, as I recalled, was funny. Sydney was asleep and Kenneth Jr. wasn’t laughing.
I went down the fire stairs and made my way to the room on the seventh floor. I opened the door and wiped the door handle clean with my shirt. Then I kicked the door closed. The lights were on. There was a vague body shape under the blanket on the open hide-away bed.