“What’re friends for?” he said as he closed the door behind him.
I thought it was a good question. I thought about my balloon dream as I listened to my answering machine. There had been that television series, The Prisoner, where a big white balloon rolled around keeping people from escaping from an island. That show had given me nightmares when I was a kid. And there was Vera Lynn in her white dress punctured by a bullet from her husband’s gun. Maybe I was missing something. I’d check it out with Ann Horowitz if I remembered.
Two of the messages were from Adele, one saying that she had read the article, the other saying that she’d call, which she had this morning. The final message informed me that if I didn’t pick up and serve the papers on Bubbles Dreemer this morning, someone else would be found to do it.
I shaved, washed and dressed, and made a phone call.
I was lucky, Clark Dorsey didn’t answer the phone, but maybe it wasn’t luck, maybe his wife always answered.
“Mrs. Dorsey, this is Lew Fonesca,” I said.
“You found them, Charles and Vera Lynn?” she asked almost in a whisper.
“I found them,” I said.
“Clark is working on the new room,” she said. “I can get him.”
“No,” I said. “You can tell him or not tell him. It’s up to you. Vera Lynn is dead and Charles doesn’t want to be found.”
“Vera Lynn is dead,” she repeated flatly. “How?”
“An accident,” I said. “But you were right.”
“I was right? About what?”
“You put those notes on my door telling me to stop looking for Vera Lynn, didn’t you?”
There was silence.
“I’ll tear them up,” I said.
“I put them on your door,” she said, her voice so low that I could barely hear her. “After Sarah’s death and… I just didn’t want anyone else hurt. I didn’t want my husband to go through any more.”
“You don’t have to tell him,” I said.
“I probably won’t,” she said. “Thank you.”
She hung up. She had been right. If Ames and I hadn’t gone to Vanaloosa, Vera Lynn would be alive. She wouldn’t be in my dreams. She and Charles Dorsey would probably have lived on entombed in that house torturing and supporting each other till she died of obesity or he went crazy.
I picked up a copy of yesterday’s Herald-Tribune at Gwen’s and read Rubin’s front-page by lined story as I ate the breakfast special, two eggs, two slices of bacon, grits, and coffee for two dollars. Brad Lonsberg had, according to the story that included separate photographs of Brad and Conrad Lonsberg, turned himself in to the police and confessed to two murders. Brad had given no reason for his actions. I doubted he ever would. The photograph of Conrad Lonsberg was recent. The writer had been snapped as he loaded a bag of groceries into his pickup truck. Conrad Lonsberg was looking directly at the camera with clear exasperation.
There would be many more pictures of Conrad Lonsberg now. He could run or hide but he was surely a hot news item again. People, US, Time, Newsweek, the wire services, and the television networks probably had a twenty-four-hour vigil outside his gate.
I finished my breakfast and headed for the trailer park. What I had for Bubbles was a summons for a court appearance. I needed her signature. I did not need a knee in the groin or a fist in my face.
Maybe Bubbles had been part of my dream. Chased by a giant white bubble. I drove into the trailer park across from the Pines Nursing Home, parked in front of Bubbles’s trailer, and procrastinated by taking out my notebook and writing what I could remember of my dream and what connections I had made. It didn’t take long. I took the court appearance order and my clipboard with the statement requiring her signature clipped to it. I had two black ballpoint pens in my shirt pocket. I approached the trailer looking at the small dingy windows. There was no sign of life.
I knocked and stepped back hoping I could outrun her to my car. I had left the engine running and the door open.
I was about to knock again when she opened the door wide.
“Roberta Dreemer, I’ve been instructed to give you this summons and to ask for your signature to confirm that you’ve received it.”
She was wearing a faded red T-shirt and a green skirt that didn’t match. I readied myself for an attack. I got tears.
“Give it to me,” she said, snatching the summons and the board.
I handed her the pen. She cried. She signed and returned the pen and clipboard to me. Then she looked at the paper in her hand.
“I don’t deserve this,” she said, still crying. “Believe me, I don’t deserve this.”
“I believe you,” I said, stepping back.
“You know a good lawyer?” she asked.
“Depends on what you can afford to pay?”
“I can pay with shit,” she said. “Look at this place. You think I’ve got any money.”
“If you want me to, I’ll ask around,” I said.
“I’d appreciate that,” she said sincerely, trying to hold back her tears now.
“That’s okay,” I said.
I left her standing in the doorway looking at the papers I had given her. I drove away slowly reminding myself of what I often forgot. You never really know what to expect from people.
I drove down Tamiami Trail to Osprey passing Sarasota Square on the way and arrived at Spanish Point at noon on the dot.
I had never been to this particularly historic site before but I knew a little about it from Dave at the DQ who took his boat down here frequently and liked to know about what he was seeing and where he was stopping. He was a walking encyclopedia of Florida coastal history.
More than four thousand years ago, people lived on Spanish Point. There is a burial mound and two middens or shell mounds that contain evidence of the lives of these people. These ancient Floridians fished, hunted, made shell, bone, and wooden tools, fished with nets, cooked their food, and buried their dead. The place was named Spanish Point just after the Civil War by its first white settlers, the Webb family, thousands of years after its original inhabitants were long gone. The Webbs heard about the supposedly beautiful spot from a Spanish trader they met in Key West. The family farmed at Spanish Point for forty years and are buried there.
I parked looking for the white minivan. There was none. I paid my seven-dollar entry fee.
The Point was eventually purchased by the widow of Potter Palmer. In fact, I knew that she and the Palmers had purchased much of the Sarasota area in the early part of the twentieth century. Berthe Matilde Honore Palmer-I got most of this part from the flyer a young woman handed me when I paid the entry fee-built an estate on the Point. In 1980 the Potter family turned the Point over to the Gulf Coast Heritage Association, Inc. That too was in the flyer.
There are more than thirty acres at Spanish Point with jungle walks, a sunken garden, and lots of other things. I skipped the jungle walk and headed for the water in search of Adele. Adele loved the beach. She could lose herself in daydreams when she looked out at the Gulf waters.
It was a hot day. Few tourists. The beach was empty except for me and two women. Waves from Little Sarasota Bay were coming in gently.
Adele was seated cross-legged in the sand near the water’s edge throwing small shells into the water. Flo sat next to her wearing a big, broad-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a blue dress with the image of a dolphin leaping between her breasts. Adele wore jeans, sandals, and a multicolored man’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Flo had watched my approach. Adele didn’t look up till I was next to them. She was a beautiful girl and while she was gaining weight from the pregnancy, she had lost the last of her baby fat. Her face was unblemished. Her blond hair brushed back, cut short. She was smiling.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” Adele answered.
“How are you doing, Flo?”
