I was parked in front of the hardware store on Main. I stopped at an outdoor phone booth where there was a complete phone book and had no trouble finding Harrington House. It was in Holmes Beach, a Bed and Breakfast. That was on Anna Maria Island. I’d been there to try to find the house where Georges Simenon had lived for a while. The house was gone. I called Harvey the computer whiz.
“Miriam Latham Sebastian has been turning her investments into cash and emptying her joint bank accounts,” he said happily. “I’ve got a feeling there’s more.”
“Keep at it,” I said.
I hung up and wondered why Dr. Gerald Bermeister had been so cooperative. I considered calling Harvey back and asking him to check on the good doctor, but decided that could wait.
I got into my rented car, flipped on the air conditioner and eased back through a break in traffic. I made a left and then another left and then another which brought me right back to Bermeister’s office building. I got out fast, ran into the office building, rode the elevator up to Bermeister’s floor and then rode back down again and got into my car.
The blue Buick was idling half way down the block near the curb. He had followed me around the block and was waiting for me now. I hoped I had given the impression of someone who had left something in the doctor’s office.
I had noticed the blue Buick when I picked up my rental car, but it hadn’t really registered. I hadn’t been looking for someone who might be following me. But I had spotted what I thought was the same car when I came out of the Cafe Kaldi. Now I was sure. I eased past the Buick, looking both ways at the intersection and catching a glimpse of the man behind the wheel. This guy was short, wore a blue short-sleeve shirt and looked, from the color of his hair and sag of his tough face, about fifty.
There must have been lots of reasons for someone to follow me, but I couldn’t think of any good ones other than that the guy in the Buick was hoping I would lead him to Miriam Sebastian. I could have been dead wrong, but I didn’t take chances.
He was a good driver, a very good driver, and he kept up with me as I headed for Tamiami Trail. I pulled into the carry-out lane at the McDonald’s across from the airport hoping he would follow me in line. I even timed it so a car would be behind me other than the Buick which was the way the guy who was following me would want it, too. My plan was to order a sandwich and pull away while the Buick was stuck behind the car behind me. If I was lucky, there would also be a car behind him so he couldn’t back up.
He was too smart. He simply drove around and parked between a van and a pick-up truck in the parking lot.
Hell. I decided it was all-out now. He had almost certainly figured I had spotted him by now, and I didn’t have time to keep playing tag. Miriam Sebastian might be gone by the time I got to Harrington House which was still at least forty minutes from where I took my cheeseburger, put it on the seat next to me and peeled off fast to the right, away from the direction I wanted to go. In the rear-view, I watched the Buick back out as I sailed at sixty down Route 41. He was good, but there’s a definite advantage in being the one who is followed. It took me ten minutes to lose him. By then I guessed he knew I wasn’t going to lead him to Miriam Sebastian. I ate the burger while I drove.
I took the bridge across to St. Armand’s, the same bridge you could see from Raymond Sebastian’s apartment, and then drove straight up Longboat Key through the canyon of high-rise resorts and past streets that held some of the most expensive houses, mansions and estates in the county.
I went over the short bridge at the end of the Key and drove through the far less up-scale and often ramshackle hotels and rental houses along the water in Bradenton Beach. Ten minutes later, I spotted the sign for Harrington House and pulled into the shaded driveway. I parked on the white crushed shell and white pebble lot which held only two other cars.
Harrington House was a white three-floor 1920s stucco over cement block with green wooden shutters. There were flowers behind a low picket fence and a sign to the right of the house pointing toward the entrance. I walked up the brick path for about a dozen steps and came to a door. I found myself inside a very large lodge-style living room with a carpeted dark wooden stairway leading up to a small landing and, I assumed, rooms. There were book cases whose shelves were filled and a chess table with checkers lined up and ready to go. The big fireplace was probably original and used no more than a few days during the Central Florida winter.
I hit the bell on a desk by the corner next to a basket of wrapped bars of soap with a sketch of the house on the wrapper. I smelled a bar and was doing so when a blonde woman came bouncing in with a smile. She was about fifty and seemed to be full of an energy I didn’t feel. I put down the soap.
“Yes sir?” she said. “You have a reservation.”
“No,” I said. “I’m looking for Miriam Sebastian, a guest here.” Some of the bounce left the woman but there was still a smile when she said, “No guest by that name registered.”
I pulled out the photograph Raymond Sebastian had given me and showed it to her. She took it and looked long and hard.
“Are you a friend of hers?”
“I’m not an enemy.”
She looked hard at the photograph again.
“I suppose you’ll hang around even if I tell you I don’t know these people.”
“Beach is public,” I said. “And I like to look at birds and waves.”
“That picture was taken three or four years ago, right out on the beach behind the house,” she said. “You’ll recognize some of the houses in the background if you go out there.”
I went out there. There was a small, clear-blue swimming pool behind the house and a chest-high picket fence just beyond it. The waves were coming in low on the beach about thirty yards away, but still moaned as they hit the white sand and brought in a new crop of broken shells and an occasional fossilized shark’s tooth or dead fish.
I went through the gate to the beach and looked around. A toddler was chasing gulls and not even coming close, which was in the kid’s best interest. A couple, probably the kid’s parents, sat on a brightly painted beach cloth watching the child and talking. Individuals, duos, trios and quartets of all ages walked along the shoreline in bare feet or floppy sandals. Miriam Sebastian was easy to find. There were five aluminum beach loungers covered in strips of white vinyl. Miriam Sebastian sat in the middle lounger. The others were empty.
She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, dark sunglasses and a two-piece solid white bathing suit. She glistened from the bottle of lotion that sat on the lounger next to her along with a fluffy towel. She was reading a book or acting as if she was knowing I was on the way. I stood in front of her.
“War and Peace,” she said holding up the heavy book. “Always wanted to read it, never did. I plan to read as many of the so-called classics as I can. It’s my impression that few people have really read them though they claim to have. Please have a seat, Mr. Fonesca.”
I sat on the lounger to her right, the one that didn’t have lotion and a towel, and she moved a book mark and laid the book on her lap. She took off her sunglasses. She was definitely the woman in the picture, still beautiful, naturally beautiful though the woman looking at me seemed older than the one in the picture. I showed her the picture.
“Mr. Sebastian would like to talk to you,” I said.
She looked at the photograph and shook her head before handing it back.
“We spent two nights here after our honeymoon in Spain,” she said. “You would think Raymond might remember and at least call on the chance that I might return. But…”
“Will you talk to him?” I asked.