“Then maybe she’s right,” Conrad Lonsberg said.
The voices of the children were right outside the door now.
“Brad?” asked Laura.
Brad Lonsberg shook his head in agreement. He had only one thing going for him, his love of his son.
“Your grandson is sixteen,” I said to Lonsberg. “What month was he born?”
Lonsberg knew where I was going but he answered.
“June,” he said.
“Adele is four months younger than Brad’s son,” I said.
“Let’s just go,” Brad said. “Now.”
“Who tells Connie?” asked Laura.
“Dad,” said Brad with some satisfaction. “He explains it all to him. I’ll talk to him later. Tell him the truth about Conrad Lonsberg. Tell him the whole truth including what you know and didn’t do.”
Brad Lonsberg brushed past his father. I nodded to Ames as the children came through the door each holding a big shell, but none was better than the one Jefferson had given me.
“Where you goin’?” asked the lanky boy who looked strikingly like his grandfather.
“Your grandfather will explain,” Brad said. “I’ll talk to you later. You can go home with Aunt Laura tonight.”
“You won’t be home?” asked the boy.
“Ask your grandfather.”
“I’ve-got the biggest shell,” the boy said, holding it out to his father.
Brad Lonsberg took it and said, “This is the most beautiful shell I’ve ever seen.”
Then he looked at his father and went out the door. I followed, barely looking at the two little girls. I would have liked two little girls, a son, a life. I didn’t look back at Laura or Conrad Lonsberg.
13
Ames and I accompanied Brad Lonsberg to the police station where he told the woman at the desk that he wanted to see Detective Viviase and that he wanted a lawyer. The young woman, short-haired, serious, in full uniform, told Brad Lonsberg that Viviase was off and wouldn’t be back till morning.
I suggested that she call him and tell him that the murderer of Bernard Corsello and Michael Merrymen was there to give a statement.
“The dog,” Ames reminded me.
“He killed a dog too,” I said.
“Dog?” she asked, looking at the odd trio in front of the desk.
“Merrymen’s dog,” I said. “Just tell Viviase.”
“And who are you?” she asked.
“Just describe me,” I said. “He’ll know.”
“I’m making a flat statement,” Brad Lonsberg said. “Just that I killed them. No why. Nothing more. Then I call a lawyer.”
“Suit yourself,” I said.
“If you get free,” Ames said, “I’ll shoot you dead on the street.”
“He’s fond of Adele,” I said.
Lonsberg sat quietly, his leg in obvious pain, while the young woman called Viviase. Ames and I walked out. I drove Ames back to the Texas. The late crowd was there and the voices inside were soft.
“Want to take a trip with me?” I asked.
“You need me?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Probably not.”
“When?”
“Probably tomorrow and the next day,” I said.
“What time you want me ready?” he asked.
“Early, around seven.”
“That’s not early,” he said.
“It is for me. Do you want to know where we’re going?”
“Makes no matter,” he said.
He walked into the Texas and I pulled away.
The phone was ringing when I entered my office. It was eleven on the dot.
I told Adele what had happened and asked, “What now?”
“I don’t know,” she said. ‘I don’t want his money. I don’t want my baby to have any of his money.”
“Then you’re going to destroy the rest of the manuscripts even though we made a deal?”
“Deals are made to break,” she said. “My father taught me that among other things.”
“If your father taught it,” I said, “it must be wrong.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Read tomorrow’s Herald-Tribune” I said. “And meet me somewhere with the manuscripts in two days.”
“Why not tomorrow?” she asked.
“I have to go to a town near Macon,” I said.
“I’ll call you on Monday,” she said. “Tell you where to meet me. Can I ask you a favor?”
“Ask.”
“Will you call Flo and Sally before they read it in the paper?”
“I’ll call them,” I said.
“Thanks,” Adele said and hung up the phone.
Before I called Flo and Sally I tracked down Rubin at the Herald-Tribune. He was there finishing a story for the next day.
“Rubin,” I said. “Recognize my voice?”
“Sure,” he said.
“I’m not giving you permission to tape,” I said, hearing an odd click on the line.
“Okay.”
“Go over to the police station right now,” I said. “Drop what you’re doing. I have a feeling the murderer of a man named Corsello and another named Merrymen just turned himself in.”
“That’s not my story,” he said.
“Find out the name of the killer,” I said. “It’s your story.”
I hung up, called Flo, told her Adele was fine, and then decided it was too late to call Sally. I’d call her early in the morning before she picked up the newspaper.
I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the two notes Digger had seen the monk pin to my door. I read the top one:
STOP LOOKING FOR HER. ONE INNOCENT PERSON IS DEAD AND GONE. LET IT BE AN END. LET THIS BE A WARNING.
It didn’t sound like Brad Lonsberg, and Digger, even given his relative lack of connection to the real world, had said the person who had left the note was small. The person had probably been wearing a raincoat and hood, enough to make Digger see a monk.
Some words in the message jumped out at me. “Innocent, gone, her.”
It wasn’t a warning to stop looking for Adele. It was a warning to stop looking for some other woman. There was only one other woman I was looking for, Marvin Uliaks’s sister Vera Lynn Dorsey.
I went to bed. No Joan. No Bette. I had lived and seen enough melodrama for one night. I slept without dreaming and woke early. Digger was back in the bathroom wearing relatively clean pants and a gray sweatshirt that had “Rattlers” written on the front with a picture of a coiled rattlesnake under it. Digger was shaved and looked sober.
“Rained last night,” he explained. “Ran out of the money you gave me so I had to come here.”
I started to reach into my pocket.
“No,” he said, trying to stand tall with some dignity while I stood shirtless washing myself.
“Five dollars for more information on that monk who left the note on my door,” I said, soaping my face and neck. “Payment for services.”
“That’s different,” said Digger. “What can I tell you?”
“You said the person was short.”
“Very short.”
“Shorter than me?”
He nodded his head. “Shorter than you.”
“Could the person have been a woman?”
“Women ain’t monks,” said Digger.
“Maybe it was a woman in a raincoat,” I said as I finished washing.
Digger looked up and then over at me. “Could’a been. Sometimes I’ve got a little imagination.”
I rinsed, dried myself with the towel I had brought from my room, and handed Digger a five-dollar bill. He pocketed it quickly and deep.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You earned it,” I said and went back to my office where I dressed, threw some clean underwear, socks, a clean shirt, and my razor in the Burdine’s cloth bag I had in the closet and went back out into another sunny day.
I picked up Ames who had a small duffel bag in his hand. He was wearing dark pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt. No slicker. No jacket. No visible weapon. He climbed in next to me and reached back to place the duffel bag on the floor of the backseat. It dropped a few inches with a metallic clank. I knew where Ames had stored his artillery.
We paused at a 7-Eleven for donuts and coffee and then headed straight up 175 North. There were a few slowdowns, once along the Bradenton exits for road construction, and then near the Ocala exit.