“Protection,” I said.
“From?”
“Handford. Take a look.”
I lifted my shirt. Vivaise opened his eyes and examined the large bruise.
“Looks like modern art,” he said. “Colorful. My wife’s an artist. Abstract. Portrait. Landscapes. You name it. She’ll do it. You can pull your shirt down.”
“He killed her,” I said.
“No prints on the tire iron,” he said, closing his eyes again. “Not yours, not anyone’s. Got any more suspects for me, Lewis?”
I thought. Had John Pirannes found out about Beryl and me looking for Adele? Was keeping a teenage prostitute a reason for murder? Maybe Adele found out from Tilly the Pimp. Maybe Tilly the Pimp had a change of heart and came looking for me, afraid I’d tell Pirannes Tilly had talked too much. Maybe he had walked in on Beryl and… Maybe a lot of things. Dwight knew where I lived and worked. Keep it simple. Dwight was the man.
“No,” I said.
Vivaise opened his eyes, stood up and stretched.
“Your background checks. Got some nice words about you from the state attorney’s office in Cook County. Said you’d gone a little flaky when your wife died, but that you were harmless. I’ll go for Handford, see what happens. Is he smart?”
“He’s smart,” I said.
“Dangerous. Probably call a lawyer and refuse to talk if we pull him in.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
“Without evidence he’ll walk,” said Vivaise. “Smart ones usually walk, especially if they have money. Handford have money?”
“He’s a tow-truck driver. I don’t know what else.”
“We’ll see,” Vivaise said. “You got a friend to stay with? We’re still going over your place. I don’t think we’ll find anything, but sometimes you get lucky. You can go back in the morning.”
“I’ll get a room at the Best Western,” I said.
“You want a ride?”
“I’ll walk,” I said.
“Nice night. A little cool. Beryl Tree, she was a nice lady?”
“Yes,” I said. “She was a nice lady.”
“Melanie Sebastian,” he said.
“What about her?”
“You’ve got a file on her in your office. Mind telling me why?”
“I mind,” I said.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“The Sebastian folder has nothing to do with Beryl Tree’s murder.”
“We’ll leave that one open,” said Vivaise. “We made a copy of the file and your notes on Adele Tree. The file was on your desk. On that one, we don’t care if you mind.”
I hadn’t left the file on Adele on my desk. I had left it under the seat of the Geo. I was in no position to complain and I didn’t.
“You can go, Lewie. Things get anywhere, a trial, something, we may need you to come in and talk about Handford’s threats, the artwork he gave you, the fact that he knew his wife was in town and was after her. You’re our only witness. Take care of yourself.”
“I will, Etienne,” I said.
“You pronounced it right,” he said, adjusting his belt. “Last question. You know where we can find the daughter?”
He looked at the papers on his desk and then at me over his glasses.
“Adele,” he said.
“Haven’t found her yet,” I said. “She’s supposed to be living with Handford but I hear she ran away from him.”
“You hear?”
“You know, you hear.”
“Take care of yourself, Lew.”
“I will, Detective Vivaise.”
“Ed will be fine.”
“Ed,” I said.
There was a vacancy at the Best Western. The night clerk, a thin woman with a slightly pinched face and a nice voice, asked pleasantly if I had any luggage. I knew why she was asking. Suicides sometimes checked into hotels without luggage. They knew they weren’t going anywhere and didn’t need a change of clothes. There was also the chance that I had a prostitute or someone’s wife out of sight in a car and needed the room for a few hours. That was none of the management’s business, but dead bodies and bloody walls were.
“Fire in my place, down the street, behind the DQ. Lost everything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m insured,” I said with my most plaintive Jobian smile.
I needed a shave. I needed a bath. I needed to think. The clerk gave me a complimentary disposable orange-and-white Bic razor and the key to my room. It was two doors down from the one Beryl Tree had sat in waiting to hear from me.
A shave, a hot bath, a shampoo of what remained of my hair and I was ready to think. It was nearly eleven. I turned on the television instead and watched the rerun of a soccer match on ESPN. Manchester United was playing someone. I didn’t know who.
I lay in bed in my underwear with the lights out watching men running back and forth, crashing into each other, shouting, kicking and trying to score. I turned off the sound and fell asleep knowing that my inner clock would wake me in time to get back to my rooms, change clothes and drive the rented Geo to my appointment with Ann Horowitz.
My inner clock was off. I woke from a dream about a man dressed like the Joker in a deck of cards. The man was on a platform. There was a big crowd watching quietly. The Joker pulled out a small wooden box and held it up. He grinned and teased the audience with his hand, moving it as if he were about to open the box, and then pulling his hand back. He did this three or four times until three men wearing colorful shawls over their heads moved to the platform. The Joker looked at the men, bobbed his head and danced to make them smile or respond which they didn’t do, and finally, resigned, the Joker opened the box and waved it, and small red pieces of paper came flying out. The audience went “Ah.” The three men with shawls shook their heads in approval. The red paper came out in a storm that covered the floor up to our ankles. The audience was in a near religious fervor.
And then Beryl Tree was on the platform, Beryl Tree before her head had been shattered by a tire iron. The Joker handed her the box, which was still spewing red-paper snow. Beryl moved through the wildly applauding audience and handed the box to me. The audience went wild. Beryl said something to me. I couldn’t hear her. The crowd was too noisy. I knew that she was telling me something important. And then a man somewhere said, “Is that everything?”
I woke up. The room was bright with sunlight. I hadn’t pulled the drapes closed. On the television screen women were playing golf. The clock on the table near the bed said it was almost nine.
The man’s voice said.
“Let’s go.”
I got up and went to the window. A man wearing a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap was loading his car truck. A woman and a boy were getting in the car.
“That’s everything,” the man said and closed the trunk.
He saw me in the window, wasn’t sure how to react, and decided t6 smile. I smiled back and for some reason waited till he and his family had driven away before I got dressed, checked out and jogged to my office home.
The door was closed but not locked. There was no crime-scene tape. I went in. There was blood on the floor where Beryl’s body had been. There was blood on the floor near my bed where the tire iron had been thrown. I changed clothes and hurried to the Geo.
I made my usual stop at Sarasota News and Books for two coffees to go with chocolate biscotti, left the car in a space in front of the bookstore and took my paper bag to Ann Horowitz’s office a block away.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said, handing her the peace offering of coffee and biscotti. I knew she was a sucker for sweets.
She placed the biscotti on a napkin on the table nearby, opened the coffee, smelled it and nodded her approval. She was wearing a bright yellow dress with a pattern of large red apples. Her earrings were matching red apples. The room was flooded with light.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I said.
“Fortunately, the time was available.”
“But still…”