Ames looked at me. He had a low boiling point but he didn’t show it. He looked calm. He always looked calm even when he was gun to gun with someone who might want to end his life. This time the someone had a baseball bat, but Ames didn’t care. Loyalty and dignity were important to him above all things and I had the feeling though he was giving away about thirty years and a baseball bat, Michael Merrymen might be in trouble.
“We’re not deputies,” I said, pleading with my eyes for Ames to stay put. “We’re looking for your son.”
“My son? What the hell for? And who are you?”
“Your son is friendly with a girl named Adele Hanford,” I said. “She’s missing. Her foster parent doesn’t want to call the police so she asked us to find her.”
Merrymen laughed and shook his head.
“Mickey is among the missing,” he said. “We don’t get along that well. He goes for days at a time. Usually to his idiot grandfather.”
“Your father?” I asked.
“My dead wife’s father,” he said. “I don’t know who else he sees or what he does.”
“Your father-in-law’s name?” I asked.
“Corsello, Bernard. Why?”
“You’ve never met Adele?” I asked in return.
“No, and I don’t give a shit about her or what Mickey is doing with her,” he said.
“You’d best watch your mouth,” Ames said evenly.
“I’d best… this is my fucking house,” Merrymen answered, pointing the bat at Ames.
The fat end of the bat was inches from Ames’s chest. Merrymen’s chin jutted out.
“If you’ll just let us look at your son’s room, we’ll go quietly,” I said.
“No,” he said, smiling at Ames who didn’t smile back.
I got up to leave. Merrymen walked across the room to a door off the kitchen. He opened the door and the dog came running in. He was big for a pit bull though not as big as Jefferson, but this was a pit bull and Jefferson was just a dog.
The pit bull looked at Merrymen and Merrymen made the mistake of pointing the bat at Ames again. The dog knew what he was supposed to do, but so did Ames and Ames was smarter than the dog. He yanked the bat from Merrymen’s hand and as the dog leaped toward him, Ames flipped the bat and took a full swing at the animal that was in the air flying toward his throat.
Ames connected. A line drive. The dog flew across the room, hit the wall with a yelp, and turned to attack again. Only now there was something distinctly wrong with his right front leg. He growled and limped forward. Ames readied the bat and then swung it once four feet in front of the dog who squealed, turned, and headed back for the door from which he had come.
Ames walked slowly over to the door and closed it.
“You son of a bitch,” Merrymen said, reaching for the bat.
Ames held out his arm warning the hysterical man to stay back.
“You break in…”
“You invited us in,” I reminded him.
“You attacked my dog. In my house. You bastards. She sent you, didn’t she?”
Merrymen pointed toward the kitchen again.
“We’re looking for your son,” I reminded him. “We’re looking for a girl named Adele.”
“You’re looking for jail time,” he said. “I’m calling the police. What are your names?”
“Hal Jeffcoat and Glenn Beckert,” I answered. “Now we’re leaving.”
I moved toward the front door. Ames backed away with me and dropped the bat on the tile floor. Merrymen took a step toward his fallen club.
“Best not,” Ames said.
“Go, go report to the bitch that you almost killed my dog,” Merrymen shouted. “I can get another dog. Two of them.”
“Just be sure you clean up their manure and yours,” said Ames.
We went through the door. Ames pushed it closed behind us.
“He might have a gun,” I said.
“Might,” Ames agreed.
We hurried to the Cutlass and got in. Merrymen’s door didn’t open. I made a circle in the cul-de-sac and headed away from the far side.
“You know how to swing a bat,” I said.
“Played some,” Ames said calmly.
“In high school?”
“Farm team. Pittsburgh Pirates. Didn’t have the temper or talent for it,” he said. “Long time ago.”
I checked my watch. I still had an hour and a half before I met Sally and her kids for dinner.
“You’ve got some time?” I asked.
“Whatever the Lord if there is one is willing to give,” he said.
I pulled over to the Walgreen drugstore at Tuttle and Fruitville. Walgreens drugstores seem to be about half a mile apart throughout Sarasota. The phone book was reasonably intact and I found a Bernard Corsello on North Orange. We drove, said nothing. I turned on the radio. A talk-show host I didn’t recognize was on WFLA talking about serial killers. The NPR station had the market report. I switched back to AM and found WGUL, the oldies station.
A woman was singing, “Let me free.”
“’Let Me Go, Lover,’” Ames said. “First song written for a television drama. Don’t know her name.”
The woman on the radio was just singing, “If you’ll just let me go” when we pulled in front of a one-story house just north of Sixth. The neighborhood was a couple of notches below middle class. The houses were small, in reasonable shape with neat green yards.
A half-moon and bright stars. A nice evening. On the cool side. Some kids on bicycles, two black, one white, the kids purposely came close to hitting us and zipped away jabbering to each other.
There was no driveway. The concrete walkway was narrow and cracked. There were lights on in curtained rooms on both sides of the door. I found the bell, pushed it, listened to it ring inside, and waited. No answer. I rang again. No answer.
I tried the door. It opened but not much, about three or four inches. It was hitting something.
“Mr. Corsello,” I called through the crack.
No answer. I pushed the door again. It gave. A little. Ames pitched in. Whatever was blocking the door gave way enough for me to stick my head in. I saw what was blocking the door.
The body was facedown, head toward the door. There were two reasons to think he was dead. The floor in front of your front door is an unusual place to take a nap. I’ve known stranger ones, but the blotch of blood and the hole in his back took whatever hope I might have had.
“Dead man,” I told Ames.
He nodded as if he were accustomed to finding dead men on a daily basis. I stood trying to decide which way to take this. I looked around the street. Nothing. No one. A small red car with a bad muffler zoomed down the street.
I thought about the missing Mickey and Adele and I motioned for Ames to help me push some more. When there was enough room, we slid through the door. I closed it behind us. There was a light on in the entryway. From where we stood we could see the entire place. Small living room with an old overstuffed chair placed about four feet away from a giant television screen where an old episode of Jeopardy! was going forward silently. It was an old show. Alex Trebek, with no gray hairs, played with the cards in his hand.
Beyond the living-room area was a kitchen with a table and four chairs. To the left were three doors. Two were open. The closest one was a bedroom with a neatly made bed, a big dresser, and a giant Jesus on the cross over the dresser. The second open door was a bathroom. No light was on in there.
“Don’t touch anything,” I said, kneeling at the body for a number of reasons.
First, I wanted to confirm that he was really dead. He was. Completely. The body was cool. The dead man was wearing a robe. It was pulled high enough so I could see the only other thing he had on, a pair of underpants.
