Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page B

car?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Pick us up at the apartment at seven-twenty,” she said, smoothing the folds in her green skirt. “Or pick up the pizzas and we’ll have them at the apartment. Now, what can I do for you?”
    “Kyle McClory,” I said. “Name mean anything?”
    “You mean, is he in the system?”
    “Yes.”
    She turned, moved the mouse next to her computer, punched in the name, found a file and opened it.
    “Not much,” she said. “In fact, not anything.”
    “Try Andrew Goines,” I said.
    She did.
    “Nothing there either,” she said. “Anything else?”
    “Try Kyle Root. His mother is Nancy Root.”
    “The actress?”
    “Yes.”
    Sally did some more clacking of the keyboard and turned to me.
    “No Kyle Root,” she said. “But there is a Yolanda Root. Let’s see. She … yes, her mother is Nancy Root. Yolanda has a long sheet. Drugs, men and boys, even attempted blackmail on a local businessman when she was thirteen. Went into his office, took off her clothes and demanded money. She picked the wrong guy. Gay. He called the police. Yolanda is, let’s see, eighteen now.”
    “Where is she?”
    “Last known address is her grandmother and grandfather, mother’s parents, in Bradenton. Grandfather owns a hardware store. You know I’m not supposed to be doing this.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “Could lose my job,” she said.
    “I know.”
    “You’re helping someone, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “What’s the worst that could happen? I’d wind up in an office or managing a fast food franchise. Regular hours and no bad dreams about the day.”
    “And the kids would get all the free leftover junk food they could eat,” I added.
    “That supposed to be a joke, Fonesca?”
    “I don’t think so,” I said.
    “Good. Don’t forget about Saturday,” she said.
    “Saturday?”
    “Darrell Caton,” she said with a sigh.
    Darrell was a fourteen-year-old Sally had conned me into seeing once a week. Big Brother plan. Darrell had no faith in the idea. Neither did I, but we had both agreed to start this week.
    “I remembered,” I said.
    “Sure you did. I’m busy, Lewis,” she said wearily. “See you tonight.”
    She touched my hand, turned her back and picked up her phone.
    John Gutcheon was on the phone when I got off the elevator. He waved at me with a stapler and I went into the afternoon.
    I parked in the DQ parking lot and went up to my office, where the phone began ringing as soon as I opened the door.
    “Lew Fonesca,” I said, picking it up.
    “No more,” came a man’s voice, low, a little raspy.
    “Let it end here,” he said.
    “What?”
    “What happened to the boy, Kyle McClory,” he said.
    “You know.”
    “Yes, yes,” he said so low that I could barely hear him. “You have to stop looking.”
    There was no threat in his voice, just exhaustion.
    “You did it?” I asked.
    “Someone who doesn’t need any more pain, doesn’t deserve any more pain will suffer if you don’t let it just end here,” he said.
    I took the phone and looked out the window as I said, “I can’t.”
    Whoever it was had either been lucky and called the second I reached my door or he had watched me and called from a cell phone when he saw me get to the office. There were four cars in addition to my rental in the DQ lot. Across Washington three cars were parked, the sun bright on their windows, so I couldn’t see if anyone was inside.
    “You don’t understand,” the man said. “I’ve got to stop you.”
    “Why?”
    “Seneca said, ‘The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death process.’ We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.”
    My eyes were still on the cars in the lot and on the street.
    He hung up. One of the cars, a late-model compact, pulled out of the space on Washington and into traffic.
    I went across the street to the Crisp Dollar Bill. The bar was dark and smelled of beer. The bar