Ames nodded and left as Harvey said,
“Question one: How many days did she rent it for? Answer: Ten days. Question two: Where did she plan to return it? Answer: Back at the airport right here in town. Question three: Whose ID did she show? Answer: Caroline Wilkerson. Driver’s license. You ever see a photo of Caroline Wilkerson in the Herald- Tribune?”
“I’ve seen the woman up close, this morning.”
“I matched computer images from IDs of the two women,” said Harvey. “You’d have to be blind to think it was the same woman.”
“So,” I said, looking at my watch.
“So, someone with the touch, knowledge and a halfway powerful computer and a color printer could strip in a photograph of Melanie Sebastian over Caroline Wilkerson’s and then relaminate.”
“You know people who could do it?” I asked.
“I know some and I’m sure there are a lot more out there. I don’t think we’ll track her that way.”
“Thanks, Harvey.”
“I’ll keep looking,” he said.
“You’ve done enough.”
“This is fun. I need fun.”
“Then have fun. Call me if you turn anything up.”
We hung up and I looked at my wife’s nameplate. I remembered it on her door. I remembered her walking out to greet me with a smile, her hair pulled back, her… Question: How did Melanie get Caroline Wilkerson’s driver’s license?
I did know a lot now. Melanie Sebastian was driving a new red Neon. She was probably still within driving range of Sarasota unless she planned to: (a) drive back from somewhere two or three days away; or (b) return the car to some other Budget office. I was sure Harvey would keep track of that. And (c) was my favorite: She was still in the immediate area. Why?
I reached for the phone and the Melanie Sebastian file, which Dwight had gone through and dumped. It didn’t look as if he had taken anything. Why should he? He wasn’t looking for Melanie. I was. He was looking for Beryl Tree. I dialed the number for Caroline Wilkerson. It rang six times and the answering machine came on. It was her voice. The message was simple: “Please leave a message.” I did. I asked her to call me. Just in case she had tossed my card, I left my number.
Ames returned, broom and dustpan in hand, and went to work. I watched him. Once he had been worth about three million dollars, by his reckoning. Now he was cleaning the floors and tables in a bar and sweeping my floor and he said he was content. I believed him.
“Ames, I’ve got to find Beryl Tree.”
“She’s not at Flo’s?”
“Ran away. Her husband tracked her down.”
I pointed to the mess to indicate how he’d located her.
“We’ve got to find her,” he said as he swept. “I like the lady.”
“Then we better start looking for her and her daughter.”
“Adele,” he said.
“Adele,” I repeated.
“Nice name,” said Ames. “You feel up to it? You look kind of sickly.”
“Dwight came to see me last night.”
I got up, rubbed my sore stomach.
“Bad man,” said Ames, sweeping the floor.
“Very bad. I’ve got to get myself in shape fast,” I said. “I’ve got a date tonight.”
Ames stopped sweeping and looked at me. Just looked.
“A lady?”
“A lady,” I said, tucking the envelope with the tag number of the red Neon Melanie Sebastian had rented into my shirt pocket.
“You sure you’re up to it?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But I’m going to try.”
I looked at him and he looked at me and then at my wife’s name plaque.
“It’s worth trying,” he said. “You know what trying does?”
“What?”
“Keeps a man alive,” he said.
7
Beryl Tree could be in any one of five dozen motels in Sarasota, not to mention more in Bradenton. It would take too long to find her that way. No, the best way to find Beryl was to find Dwight or Adele or both.
I had called Carl Sebastian and told him I had some news.
“Yes?” he said eagerly. “Where is she?”
“I’d like to come by and see you,” I said.
“Sure, of course, but I have a dinner meeting tonight. Let’s see… It’s almost four. Can you be at the bar in Marina Jack in half an hour?”
“Half an hour,” I said.
He hung up and I got dressed. I wasn’t sure of how I should dress for my date with Sally Porovsky, but considering what I had in mind, I settled for clean blue slacks, a light blue button-down shirt and a red knit tie. Then I headed for Marina Jack’s.
It took me a little over five minutes to drive to the parking lot, find a space between a blue Mercedes and a digesting pelican, and head down the pier. The docks jutting off to the right and left of the pier were reasonably full of small to medium pleasure boats that bobbed with the tide. Gulls swooped, cackled and searched for food. A few pelicans sat on the dock or on empty boats, wings tucked into their chests, scanning the water without moving their heads.
A pelican circled above, saw something and dived awkwardly with a plop into the water just beyond a white boat with the name Dead Souls painted on its stern. Someone, I think it was Dave, told me that pelicans keep their eyes open when they dive and the eyes of the bird aren’t protected. Eventually, if they live long enough, pelicans go blind.
In front of me, in the circle in front of the restaurant, valets were parking cars, moving around cars that were already parked to wherever cars could be parked. I walked up the steps behind a man, woman and teenage girl. The girl walked the sullen walk of a teen who found neither her parents nor her prospects interesting. The walk said that she planned to keep letting her parents know that she did not plan to enliven dinner with her wit. I read a lot into the walk and when I moved past them while the father checked in at the reservation podium, I got a look at the girl’s face and knew I was right. The girl was just about the age of Adele Tree. I wondered where Adele was and who she might be having dinner with.
I wondered how the couple in front of me would react if the sullen girl was missing the next morning. Anguish, yes. Confusion, yes. Denial, yes. And guilt, always guilt. You can tell yourself it wasn’t your fault. A thousand shrinks with a thousand mandolins could tell you it wasn’t your fault. But it was. You can always think of something you should have done, could have done.
Carl Sebastian blustered and bragged, but a gargoyle called guilt rode on his shoulders, head back, laughing and showing sharp teeth. A small taunting demon of guilt hid within the purse of Beryl Tree, peeping out to whisper of things that could have been done and weren’t. I knew the demon and the gargoyle. We weren’t friends, but I knew them.
The place was noisy. The bar was to my right and beyond it was the dining room and beyond the dining room was the bay and a view of Lido Key about a half mile or so away.
Carl Sebastian was at a table in the bar. He sat alone, a drink in his hand, his eyes on me as I approached. I sat.
“What do you have?” he said.
I felt like saying “a sense of humor” or “a desire for civilized interaction,” but I didn’t.
He was dressed in a perfect-fitting white jacket, a black shirt and a white tie and, from what I could see, a perfectly creased pair of white slacks. There was even a black handkerchief in his pocket.
I looked at him and smiled. I think it was a smile.
“You’re in pain,” he said. “Your chest-”
“Nothing to do with your situation,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” said Sebastian, starting to put a hand up to check the wave in his white hair and then changing his mind. “I’ve just been
… don’t know. I can’t work. I can’t… would you like a drink? I’m just having Bloody Mary mix with a slice of lemon. They don’t have V8 tonight.”
“I’ll have the same,” I said.
Carl Sebastian looked up over my shoulder, made a slight gesture with his left hand and a waiter appeared. Sebastian ordered my drink and another for himself.