“Lonsberg,” I said after the beep. “This is Fonesca. My guess is you’re sitting there listening to this message. If you want to pick up, we can talk.” He didn’t pick up so I went on. “I didn’t tell this guy Rubin or anyone else about your father’s missing manuscripts. He was playing you. Rubin called and left a message for me while I was out. I’m back now and I’m going to call him and tell him nothing. Just so we’re clear, I’m working for your father, but my goal in this is to find Adele and be sure she is all right. If the paper or the police connect Adele with the missing manuscripts, she might be in trouble I couldn’t get her out of. If you want to call, you’ve got my number.”
I hung up, checked off Lonsberg’s name, and looked up at Mickey.
“I’m not going back to his house,” he said painfully. “Never.”
“I don’t know who your grandfather’s house goes to or if it’s paid for but it might be you,” I said.
“Might,” he agreed. “I could live there but…”
It struck him.
“The cops might think I killed him to get the house?” he groaned in obvious pain.
“Cops think whatever works for them,” I said. “It’s possible.”
“I’ll go to Adele,” he mumbled, looking down.
“I thought you didn’t know where she was?” I said.
“I don’t. I’ll… I’ll just find her and we’ll stay in the house for a few days and go to St. Louis. I have an aunt in St. Louis.”
“You said ‘house,’” I said. “She’s not at your grandfather’s. It’s a marked-off crime scene and she’s too smart for…”
Then it hit me. I looked at Ames. He had the same thought I had. Adele actually owned a house. When Ames and I had found her father’s rotting body there less than a year ago, the little stone house in Palmetto had smelled of filth, rotting corpse, and decaying food. The walls were cracking. I knew a realtor was trying to sell it, but it wasn’t much of a prize and the neighbors would be only too happy to tell what had happened there, maybe even show prospective buyers a clipping from the Bradenton Herald with the house in uncolorful black and white. My guess, given that it was in a poor neighborhood of the very old and very black and the house was ready to commit suicide and collapse, the asking price was probably around thirty thousand, maybe less. Legally, I guessed, the house belonged to Adele now. I found it hard to imagine her going to it after all that had been done to her by her father in that place, but it made some sense. Or maybe it didn’t.
I called the Herald-Tribune number Rubin had left and he picked it up after one ring.
“City Desk, Rubin,” he said.
“You called.”
“What is your connection to the missing Lonsberg manuscripts?” he asked.
Good question. He assumed the manuscripts were missing and I was connected. He wanted an answer, but first he wanted confirmation.
“Conrad Lonsberg, the writer?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What makes you think I have anything to do with Lonsberg?”
“A reliable source,” he said.
“Your message says the person who told you about all this didn’t leave his name,” I said.
It was my turn to be clever. I was looking for gender. Rubin, however, was good.
“The caller left no name. Is it true?”
“I’m a process server. Someone’s playing games with you. Why don’t you just ask Lonsberg?” I asked, knowing there was no chance of getting Lonsberg to say a word, even a single word if Rubin or some TV crew tracked him down at a hardware store or Publix.
“We’re expecting confirmation from Lonsberg’s son in a few minutes,” said Rubin confidently.
“Fine,” I said. “Maybe he knows what you’re talking about. You ever read anything by Lonsberg?”
“Me? What has that got to do with this?” asked Rubin.
“It’s a trick question,” I said. “Think about it. Meanwhile, unless you have some papers you want served or someone hires me to serve papers on you, our friendship is over.”
“Maybe not,” said Rubin. “I read Fool’s Love in high school. Required reading.”
“And? Did you like it?”
“No.”
“Did you tell the teacher you didn’t like it?”
“She loved it. I’m not an idiot.”
“Neither am I,” I said and hung up.
My guess was that he wasn’t going to get any confirmation about Lonsberg, Adele, and the missing manuscripts. It was also clear that he made no connection between the dead Bernard Corsello and Adele. If he did, a good reporter would have no trouble tying me to Adele’s recent and unpleasantly dark life.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing.
“Need firepower?” Ames asked.
The last time we had gone to the house in Palmetto Ames had been carrying a very mean shotgun.
“Maybe something small,” I said.
“Got to stop at the Texas,” he said.
“Right. Let’s go, Mickey.”
“Where?” Mickey asked.
“To Palmetto,” I said. “To Adele’s house.”
“She’s not there,” he said emphatically. “She’s not there. She’d never go there.”
Now that he had confirmed to Ames and me where to find Adele, I grabbed my paperback copy of Plugged Nickels and we hurried him out of the office. I closed and locked the door and hustled Mickey to the Taurus. Ames sat with him in the backseat till we got to the Texas Bar and Grille. Mickey, his jaw now swollen to the size of a baseball, suggested the need for the nearest emergency room. He looked at the handle of the back door when Ames got out.
“I can’t go,” he said.
“Because you promised Adele you wouldn’t tell where she was and you’re afraid she’ll be angry.”
“Part of it,” he said. “I just want out right now. This is kidnapping.”
“You can get out,” I said. “Got friends? A place to stay? You need a doctor. We’ll take you to one unless you want to walk. You probably have something broken in your face. Hurt?”
“A lot,” he said, slumping back.
Ames was back quickly. He climbed in next to Mickey and held up a revolver that could well have been picked up as a souvenir after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
I drove straight up Tamiami past the airport and through the carnival of malls and fast-food shops on both sides. When we passed Cortez in Bradenton, we went straight up Ninth while most of the traffic veered to the right to stay on 41.
The malls became small shops and Mexican tamale stands. There were places with rooms for the night, week, or month, cheap. The migrant Hispanic workers who picked tomatoes a few miles away filled the street in picking and packing season. This wasn’t the season.
We went past the Planetarium and over the bridge across the Manatee River. On the other side was Palmetto. The last time Ames and I had come here, it had been raining. Today the sky was clear.
I had no trouble finding the street and the house where Dwight Hanford had died. It looked a little different. Someone had cleared the yard of beer cans, decaying boxes, and assorted nausea. Where there had been only crumbled stone and shells, there was now grass trying to stay alive. Grass was in a battle with the shells and rock. It looked like the shells and rock were winning.
There was no vehicle parked on the narrow driveway next to the house. Adele was smart. If she was inside, she had probably parked on some side street within running distance but not within sight.
The three of us went to the door. I nudged Mickey ahead of me.
He knocked and called, “Adele.”
No answer.
“Adele, I’m hurt.”
Still no answer. I tried the door. It was open. We stepped in, side by side in the dining room that had no
