Retribution lf-2 Read online

  “Say it,” said Conrad Lonsberg.

  “Adele is pregnant,” I said. “The baby is Brad’s.”

  “You’re crazy,” Brad said, squirming.

  “Adele told me about an hour ago.”

  “If she’s pregnant, I didn’t do it,” Brad said, pointing at himself.

  “DNA,” said Conrad Lonsberg.

  “DNA,” gasped Brad, “DNA? How different is yours than mine? If she’s pregnant, you’re more likely than…”

  “I used to do research for the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Cook County,” I said. “Your father and you don’t have exactly the same DNA. And I think you know it. You wanted Adele dead and hidden before anyone found out she was going to have a baby or could prove it was yours.”

  “DNA,” Lonsberg said. “I’m leaving. I’m taking Connie and leaving. Don’t bother me again and, Dad, don’t bother calling me again.”

  This time he did stand up, a little wobbly, and faced Ames.

  “You going to shoot me for trying to leave?”

  Ames looked at me. He would have had I given him a nod.

  “If the dog did bite you,” I said, “he has your blood on his teeth. More DNA evidence. And I have the two notes you pinned on my door. The police should be able to match your handwriting.”

  “Notes?” Brad Lonsberg said, looking genuinely puzzled. “I didn’t leave any notes on your door.”

  I looked at him. His indignation seemed real on this one. He hadn’t left the notes on my door.

  “Do either of you believe any of this?” Brad went on, looking at his father and sister.

  “Before your wife died she left you when she found you having an affair with a fourteen-year-old girl four years ago. My friend with the computer found out,” I said. “She filed for divorce. Civil case. Could have been statutory rape but the police never found out or didn’t care. No evidence. Your wife died. Divorce proceedings ended. You said she died of cancer. The records show…”

  “Hit-and-run,” said Laura. “Never found who did it.”

  “We have an idea now,” I said. “Don’t we? This time we have a damn good idea.”

  “This time?” asked Lonsberg.

  “My wife died in a hit-and-run accident. I didn’t want her to. I wasn’t having an affair.”

  “So this is some kind of vendetta,” said Lonsberg. “Your wife gets killed in a hit-and-run and so does mine. You blame me and you want me to pay.”

  “Not for my wife’s death. Maybe a little of that too,” I said. “I have some sick ideas. I see a shrink. Do you?”

  “So Brad wanted to kill Adele to keep from being charged with statutory rape?” Laura said.

  “I think your brother loves his son,” I said. “Just a guess. The way he feels your father doesn’t and never has loved either one of you. You told Adele that,” I said, looking at Laura. “Whatever your father has to leave, Brad wants to go to his Connie and your girls. He doesn’t want any of it to go to Adele’s child and his. That part I figured out, but so did Adele.”

  “You are out of your mind,” Brad said.

  The voices of the children told us they were heading back to the house. Brad looked toward the window. Jefferson woke up and looked toward the window.

  “I know that,” I said. “I told you. I see a therapist twice a week.”

  “You need one,” said Lonsberg.

  “That’s why I go,” I said. “But that doesn’t make me wrong. The police might find that nine-millimeter you used in your house. Simple ballistics. You didn’t throw it away after killing Corsello and shooting at me. You still need it for Adele.”

  “They can look,” he said and headed for the door.

  His father stepped in front of him.

  “He’s right,” Conrad Lonsberg said. “I believe him. I knew she was pregnant. She told me. I told her to work it out with you. I didn’t think you’d kill people. I…”

  “You’re an amazing man,” Laura said to her father, holding back tears and flashing anger. “You know so much about people who don’t exist and nothing about those closest to you who do.”

  “Genetics or environment,” Lonsberg said. “Possibly a combination. Like most talent. I don’t know where it came from, haven’t spent much time trying to figure it out. So, what do we do now?”

  Conrad Lonsberg was looking at me.

  “You agree not to disown your grandchild and Brad goes to the police and confesses,” I said. “He says he did it to get back the manuscripts. He thought Merrymen had taken them, that Merrymen had a grudge against him. He protects Adele and your grandchild.”

  “And the world finds out my manuscripts have been stolen,” said Lonsberg. “I’ll be a prisoner in my house. Or I’ll have to move again. B. Traven.”

  No one asked him who B. Traven was.

  “I agree,” he said. “She’s destroying my family and the manuscripts not only to get back at my son, but to get to me for not protecting her, not standing by her.”

  “That’s something else she told me,” I said.

  “Then maybe she’s right,” Conrad Lonsberg said.

  The voices of the children were right outside the door now.

  “Brad?” asked Laura.

  Brad Lonsberg shook his head in agreement. He had only one thing going for him, his love of his son.

  “Your grandson is sixteen,” I said to Lonsberg. “What month was he born?”

  Lonsberg knew where I was going but he answered.

  “June,” he said.

  “Adele is four months younger than Brad’s son,” I said.

  “Let’s just go,” Brad said. “Now.”

  “Who tells Connie?” asked Laura.

  “Dad,” said Brad with some satisfaction. “He explains it all to him. I’ll talk to him later. Tell him the truth about Conrad Lonsberg. Tell him the whole truth including what you know and didn’t do.”

  Brad Lonsberg brushed past his father. I nodded to Ames as the children came through the door each holding a big shell, but none was better than the one Jefferson had given me.

  “Where you goin’?” asked the lanky boy who looked strikingly like his grandfather.

  “Your grandfather will explain,” Brad said. “I’ll talk to you later. You can go home with Aunt Laura tonight.”

  “You won’t be home?” asked the boy.

  “Ask your grandfather.”

  “I’ve-got the biggest shell,” the boy said, holding it out to his father.

  Brad Lonsberg took it and said, “This is the most beautiful shell I’ve ever seen.”

  Then he looked at his father and went out the door. I followed, barely looking at the two little girls. I would have liked two little girls, a son, a life. I didn’t look back at Laura or Conrad Lonsberg.

  13

  Ames and I accompanied Brad Lonsberg to the police station where he told the woman at the desk that he wanted to see Detective Viviase and that he wanted a lawyer. The young woman, short-haired, serious, in full uniform, told Brad Lonsberg that Viviase was off and wouldn’t be back till morning.

  I suggested that she call him and tell him that the murderer of Bernard Corsello and Michael Merrymen was there to give a statement.

  “The dog,” Ames reminded me.

  “He killed a dog too,” I said.

  “Dog?” she asked, looking at the odd trio in front of the desk.

  “Merrymen’s dog,” I said. “Just tell Viviase.”

  “And who are you?” she asked.

  “Just describe me,” I said. “He’ll know.”

  “I’m making a flat statement,” Brad Lonsberg said. “Just that I killed them. No why. Nothing more. Then I call a lawyer.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said.

  “If you get free,” Ames said, “I’ll shoot you dead on the street.”

  “He’s fond of Adele,” I said.

  Lonsberg sat quietly, his leg in obvious pain, while the young woman called Viviase. Ames and I walked out. I drove Ames back t
o the Texas. The late crowd was there and the voices inside were soft.

  “Want to take a trip with me?” I asked.

  “You need me?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Probably not.”

  “When?”

  “Probably tomorrow and the next day,” I said.

  “What time you want me ready?” he asked.

  “Early, around seven.”

  “That’s not early,” he said.

  “It is for me. Do you want to know where we’re going?”

  “Makes no matter,” he said.

  He walked into the Texas and I pulled away.

  The phone was ringing when I entered my office. It was eleven on the dot.

  I told Adele what had happened and asked, “What now?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. ‘I don’t want his money. I don’t want my baby to have any of his money.”

  “Then you’re going to destroy the rest of the manuscripts even though we made a deal?”

  “Deals are made to break,” she said. “My father taught me that among other things.”

  “If your father taught it,” I said, “it must be wrong.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  “Read tomorrow’s Herald-Tribune” I said. “And meet me somewhere with the manuscripts in two days.”

  “Why not tomorrow?” she asked.

  “I have to go to a town near Macon,” I said.

  “I’ll call you on Monday,” she said. “Tell you where to meet me. Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Ask.”

  “Will you call Flo and Sally before they read it in the paper?”

  “I’ll call them,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Adele said and hung up the phone.

  Before I called Flo and Sally I tracked down Rubin at the Herald-Tribune. He was there finishing a story for the next day.

  “Rubin,” I said. “Recognize my voice?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’m not giving you permission to tape,” I said, hearing an odd click on the line.

  “Okay.”

  “Go over to the police station right now,” I said. “Drop what you’re doing. I have a feeling the murderer of a man named Corsello and another named Merrymen just turned himself in.”

  “That’s not my story,” he said.

  “Find out the name of the killer,” I said. “It’s your story.”

  I hung up, called Flo, told her Adele was fine, and then decided it was too late to call Sally. I’d call her early in the morning before she picked up the newspaper.

  I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the two notes Digger had seen the monk pin to my door. I read the top one:

  STOP LOOKING FOR HER. ONE INNOCENT PERSON IS DEAD AND GONE. LET IT BE AN END. LET THIS BE A WARNING.

  It didn’t sound like Brad Lonsberg, and Digger, even given his relative lack of connection to the real world, had said the person who had left the note was small. The person had probably been wearing a raincoat and hood, enough to make Digger see a monk.

  Some words in the message jumped out at me. “Innocent, gone, her.”

  It wasn’t a warning to stop looking for Adele. It was a warning to stop looking for some other woman. There was only one other woman I was looking for, Marvin Uliaks’s sister Vera Lynn Dorsey.

  I went to bed. No Joan. No Bette. I had lived and seen enough melodrama for one night. I slept without dreaming and woke early. Digger was back in the bathroom wearing relatively clean pants and a gray sweatshirt that had “Rattlers” written on the front with a picture of a coiled rattlesnake under it. Digger was shaved and looked sober.

  “Rained last night,” he explained. “Ran out of the money you gave me so I had to come here.”

  I started to reach into my pocket.

  “No,” he said, trying to stand tall with some dignity while I stood shirtless washing myself.

  “Five dollars for more information on that monk who left the note on my door,” I said, soaping my face and neck. “Payment for services.”

  “That’s different,” said Digger. “What can I tell you?”

  “You said the person was short.”

  “Very short.”

  “Shorter than me?”

  He nodded his head. “Shorter than you.”

  “Could the person have been a woman?”

  “Women ain’t monks,” said Digger.

  “Maybe it was a woman in a raincoat,” I said as I finished washing.

  Digger looked up and then over at me. “Could’a been. Sometimes I’ve got a little imagination.”

  I rinsed, dried myself with the towel I had brought from my room, and handed Digger a five-dollar bill. He pocketed it quickly and deep.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You earned it,” I said and went back to my office where I dressed, threw some clean underwear, socks, a clean shirt, and my razor in the Burdine’s cloth bag I had in the closet and went back out into another sunny day.

  I picked up Ames who had a small duffel bag in his hand. He was wearing dark pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt. No slicker. No jacket. No visible weapon. He climbed in next to me and reached back to place the duffel bag on the floor of the backseat. It dropped a few inches with a metallic clank. I knew where Ames had stored his artillery.

  We paused at a 7-Eleven for donuts and coffee and then headed straight up 175 North. There were a few slowdowns, once along the Bradenton exits for road construction, and then near the Ocala exit.

  We stopped at a Shoney’s for lunch. There wasn’t much to say or see on the drive. Trees, a few rivers, exit signs that promised Indian Reservation gambling, clubs that promised nude women twenty-four hours a day, flea markets.

  At lunch, Ames finally spoke.

  “Adele,” he said. He didn’t make it a question.

  “I talked to her last night,” I said. “I’ll see her when we get back.”

  “Is she keeping the baby?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, working on a burger. “She sounded like she was planning to.”

  Ames shook his head and pushed away the empty plate that had recently held a chicken fried steak and a lot of green beans.

  “You think she should abort?” I asked.

  “I don’t like Conrad Lonsberg’s son,” Ames said. “Child will be half his. Carry his blood. The girl’s barely just sixteen.”

  It wasn’t the position I expected from Ames.

  “So, you think she should abort?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said, getting up. “I don’t believe in killing babies. Maybe she can give it up. Maybe she and Flo can raise it. Maybe it’s none of our business.”

  I nodded. That was pretty much the way I felt.

  I turned on the radio to listen to talk shows, voices as we passed the turnoff for Gainesville and later crossed 110. Left for a long time on 110 took you to Tallahassee. Right for a long time took you to Jacksonville. I hadn’t been to either one. I had seen almost none of Florida outside of the Sarasota area. This was by far the longest trip I had taken since I had come down from Chicago and parked forever in the DQ parking lot.

  Vanaloosa was a little hard to find. It was on the map, not far from Macon, which was a large circle. Vanaloosa, about ten miles outside of town, was a dark dot. We got off of 175 and headed for Vanaloosa.

  When we got there it was dark. After asking a few questions at a Hess station just inside the town, we made our way to Raymond’s Ribs. The night was dark and the neighborhood filled with run-down homes. The faces we saw in cars and in front of the houses were black.

  Raymond’s was small, little more than a shack. Four cars were parked in front of it. As we got out of the Taurus, we could smell the rib sauce. It hit me with memories. My wife and I loved ribs. There were lots of rib places in Chicago and we… No, not now. A fat black man with a big white paper bag came out the door of Raymond’s Ribs as we walked in.

  There wasn’t much there: a wooden
counter, a small area for customers to stand and order, no tables or chairs, and an open grill behind the counter sizzling with ribs being tended to seriously by a small black woman. Serving the customers was an old black man who took orders. There was a phone on the counter.

  A young couple and a slight man with a small beard who kept looking at his watch were ahead of us. When it came to our turn, there was no one behind us.

  “Can I get you?” the old man said.

  “Ribs and slaw for me.”

  “Same,” said Ames.

  “Full ribs, half ribs?”

  “Full,” I said.

  Ames nodded. The old man turned to the woman at the grill and gave her our order. She wiped her hands on her work dress and started the order while I started talking.

  “You Raymond?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Get many white customers?”

  “Fair number,” he said with clear pride. “We got the best ribs in the county.”

  “In the state,” the woman at the grill said. “Best outside of New Orleans.”

  “Best outside of New Orleans,” Raymond agreed with a smile.

  “Last week a white man made a long distance call from your phone,” I said.

  Raymond stopped smiling.

  “I don’t remember that,” he said.

  “The white man who made that call must have paid for it,” I said.

  Raymond shrugged and looked back at the woman at the grill. She had her head down.

  I took the folded Arcadia newspaper clipping from my pocket, unfolded it, and laid it on the counter.

  “He’s about twenty years older now,” I said. “Recognize him?”

  Raymond glanced at the clipping and shook his head “no.”

  “You police?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “We’re trying to find him and his wife. His wife’s brother wants to get in touch with her. Family reunion.”

  Raymond looked down at the clipping again and thought.

  “That’s Mr. Cleveland,” he said. “Regular customer. Doesn’t talk much. Regular customer. Never knew till now he had a wife.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Don’t know,” said Raymond. “Comes in once, sometimes twice a week, orders enough for four people, says hi and good-bye, and that’s what I know. Here’s your order.”