Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) Read Free

big.”
    “I’ll give you the name of a policeman you can talk to,” I said. “You have a pencil and paper?”
    “I have several pens and a pad, but I don’t need them. The police will think I’m an old nut with a fuzzy brain. Come talk to me.”
    “I really don’t—”
    “I can pay,” she said.
    “It’s not the money,” I said.
    “Sterling said you find people,” she said.
    “Yes. I’m a process server.”
    “Well, find the woman who was murdered,” she said.
    “And find whoever killed her?” I added.
    “If you wish,” she said. “I’m not crusading. I’m simply trying to prove that I am not a demented old woman. And I want to do something besides watching game shows and re-reading books from the library here that I’ve already read three times. Besides, murder is wrong.”
    “I’ll try to stop by before noon.”
    “Come any time,” she said. “I’m always here.”
    I hung up. The sky was clear with a few pillow-drifting clouds. The air was cool. I could bike to the Seaside Assisted Living Facility on Beneva south of Clark in about half an hour but I wouldn’t have to.
    I had been called the day before and asked to be at the office of Tycinker, Oliver and Schwartz, a law firm just off Palm Avenue. I regularly served papers for the partners. I assumed they had a job for me, maybe a summons or two. Two would be fine. I had some cash in a video box mixed in with my stack. I didn’t need the money, but I couldn’t turn down the request.
    When I got to the office, parked my bike and chained it to the drainpipe next to the gray wooden sign that carried the name of the law firm, I thought I smelled gardenias. Catherine liked the smell of gardenias. Sometimes, like this moment, I smelled gardenias and wasn’t even sure they were really there.
    I had told Ann about smelling things that weren’t there when I thought about Catherine. Ann thought it was either a healing compensatory delusion or I was getting migraine auras. I don’t get headaches. My teeth are fluoride protected. I’ve never had surgery and the worst illness I’ve had was the flu. I was cursed with almost perfect health.
    I was expected, nodded to by the secretaries, told to go into Richard Tycinker’s office. Tycinker, solid, fifties, gray suit and colorful tie, sat behind his desk and shook his head as he looked at me. I was wearing my jeans, a washed-out white short-sleeved pullover with a collar and a little embossed koala bear on the pocket. Sitting in the chair across from Tycinker looking back over her shoulder at me was a woman who did not look impressed. I took off my Cubs cap.
    “Miss Root, this is Mr. Fonesca,” Tycinker said.
    She nodded and smiled, a sad smile. I had the feeling
that I was supposed to recognize her. She was lean, almost skinny, pretty face, not much makeup. Her eyes met and held mine.
    “You know about Miss Root’s son?” Tycinker asked solemnly. “Kyle?”
    I remembered. Page three or four of the Herald-Tribune about a week ago. The article had said the boy was Nancy Root’s son, but his name hadn’t been Root.
    “Kyle McClory,” Tycinker said. “His father and Nancy are divorced.”
    Nancy Root was an actress. She appeared regularly at the Asolo Theater and Florida Studio Theater, in St. Pete, around the state and from time to time in regional productions around the country. Her name popped into bold type frequently in Marjorie North’s column. Once in a while she did a cabaret act, show tunes, ballads at the Ritz-Carlton. She had even had some small speaking roles in television shows like Law & Order, Profiler, Without a Trace and Just Shoot Me.
    I had never seen her act or heard her sing. I had never gone to a play or a movie in Sarasota, seldom watched television and never been inside the Ritz-Carlton. The reviews always said she was good. It was a local given.
    A hit-and-run driver on Eighth Street had killed Kyle McClory, fourteen, a student at Sarasota High School, half a block