Part 5 (1/2)
”I can find them, maybe,” I said. ”It's hard to hide in the age of computers. But I can't force her to come back. If she doesn't want to come back, I can tell you where she is. It might be a good idea for you to let a lawyer know what's going on while I'm looking.”
”I'll do that,” he said.
”Did you bring the note she left?”
He went into an inside jacket pocket and came out with an envelope. He handed it to me. It had ”Ken” written neatly on the front in blue ink.
I opened the envelope and unfolded the piece of unlined paper inside. The note was handwritten, neat, blue ink. It read: ”Ken, the children and I are going. Please don't try to find us. I'll write to you when we are settled. I think a divorce would be for the best.” It was signed ”Janice.”
”Show this to your lawyer and start thinking about whether you want custody of your kids,” I said, returning the note and envelope to him. ”That note is the start of a good case. And if she's in a hotel room with Stark and your son and daughter, and I see them spend the night together, I can testify if it comes to that.”
I waited to see if this was sinking in.
”Ask my lawyer,” he said.
”That's what I would do.”
”I want my kids,” he insisted. ”I may want my wife, but if I can't have her, I want Kenny and Syd.”
”I told you what I can do,” I said.
He thought about that for about a minute.
”Okay,” he said.
We worked out the payment and he gave me a five-hundred-dollar cash advance, all in fifties. I told him I'd check in with him and if it started to take a lot of time he could rea.s.sess the situation, especially if I had to go out of town or out of the state. He agreed.
”Find them,” he said, placing a business card in front of me. ”Please find them.”
And he was gone. His office number was on the front of the card along with his home number. I pocketed the card as my phone rang. I picked it up and said, ”Fonesca.”
”Colleen Davenport,” Warren Murphy's secretary said.
She worked for one of the partners at Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz, where I was on a retainer. In exchange for that retainer, I got paid a fixed sum each time I served papers and I got the reasonable use of the services of Harvey the Hacker, who had an office in the back of the law firm.
”Two jobs,” she said. ”One has to be done today. The other by Friday.”
”I'll be right over,” I said. ”Can I talk to Harvey?”
Colleen said Harvey was out of town, which could mean that Harvey was out of town or Harvey had fallen off the wagon. I hung up and went to my backup, Dixie Cruise, no relation to the actor.
Dixie was slim, trim, with very black hair in a short style. She was no more than twenty-five, pretty face, and big round gla.s.ses. Dixie worked behind the counter at a coffee bar in Gulf Gate Plaza. About six months back, I had sought her out to answer a summons about a reported a.s.sault she had witnessed in the coffee bar and found that Dixie, who had as down-home an accent as any Billy Bob, was a computer whiz.
I called her at the coffee bar and she agreed to meet me when she got off of work at her apartment in a slightly run-down twelve-flat apartment building near the main post office. She had a small living room with a sofa bed, a large kitchen, and a bedroom devoted to her two computers, two large speakers, and all kinds of gray metal pieces with lights.
When I got to Dixie's apartment and she got in front of her computers, it took her ten minutes and cost me fifty bucks, which I would bill to Kenneth Severtson. Andrew Stark belonged to AAA. Three days earlier he had purchased two adult and two children's tickets to Disney World, Sea World, and Universal Theme Park. Dixie got a list of hotels in Orlando. Andrew Stark had Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express cards. He had used the Visa to check into an Orlando hotel yesterday.
”Emba.s.sy Suites on International Drive,” Dixie said, pointing at the screen as if her right hand were a handgun. ”Checkout Thursday. Want to know what he ordered from room service?”
”Should I?”
Dixie shook her head and said, ”A lot of burgers, fries, and c.o.kes, both diet and the new vanilla one,”
In the old days, prehacker, I would have gone to AAA, told a sad story, and hoped for the best. Then I would have tried airlines, travel agencies, and friends of Janice Severtson and Andrew Stark. Sarasota isn't huge but it might have taken me days, which means that without Dixie, Stark and Janice would have checked out before I found them.
I went to the law offices of Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz on Palm Avenue. Colleen Davenport gave me two sets of papers to serve: one was urgent, the other had a few days.
”How's Harvey?” I asked her.
She was young and inexperienced and trying to look a little older and filled with understanding of the world. She did a fair job.
”Truth?” she said softly as I stood next to her in her cubicle outside of Murphy's office. ”He's had a relapse.”
”Bad?”
”He's been at this place in Mississippi for two weeks,” she said. ”Firm is paying the bill. Harvey's too valuable to lose.”
I went back to the Nissan with the papers. I put one aside for a Mickey Donophin and read the one for Georgia Heinz. There was an address on a street behind Gulf Gate Mall. I drove there. It was a small house, white, one bedroom, maybe two. No car in the driveway.
Paper in my pocket, I went up to the door and knocked. No answer. I found an almost hidden bell b.u.t.ton. I pushed it. No sound.
”She's not home,” a woman's voice came from my left.
The woman came from behind a tangelo tree, holding a green hose. Water was spraying weakly from the nozzle. A little rainbow ran through the spray.
”At work,” the woman said.
She was about seventy, maybe more, dry, wearing a flowery gardening dress and a big green floppy hat that shaded her face.
”You happen to know where she works?” I asked.
”I happen to know. Yes I do. Who is asking? I'm not sending her no bill collectors. Poor thing got enough trouble.”
”Trouble?”
”Lost her job at the bank, leg infection, even her old dog died. Then she had to see what happened.”
”What happened?” I asked.
”Swear you're not a bill collector.”
”I swear,” I said. ”I just want to give her something.”
It didn't really matter what I told the woman. I could have said I was a hit man out to get Georgia Heinz. This was a lady determined to tell a story.
”Happened right out there,” she said, pointing her hose at the street just behind my car. ”Night, around ten maybe. Victor and I were watching a Nero Wolfe when we heard the scream. I said, *Victor, somebody screamed.' And he acknowledged the fact. Victor has a hearing aid, you know.”