Vengeance (26 page)

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Authors: Stuart M. Kaminsky

BOOK: Vengeance
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“Yes, sir?” she asked. “You have a reservation?”
“No,” I said. “I’m looking for Melanie Sebastian, a guest here.”
Some of the bounce left the woman but there was still a smile when she said,
“No guest by that name is registered.”
I pulled out the photograph Carl Sebastian had given me and showed it to her, the one of Carl and Melanie happy on the beach. She took it and looked long and hard.
“Are you a friend of hers?”
“I’m not an enemy.”
She looked hard at the photograph again.
“I suppose you’ll hang around even if I tell you I’ve never seen her?”
“Beach is public,” I said. “And I like to look at birds and waves.”
“That picture was taken three or four years ago, right out on the beach behind the house,” she said. “You’ll recognize some of the houses in the background if you go out there.”
I went out there. There was a small, clear-blue swimming pool behind the house and a chest-high picket fence just beyond it. The waves were coming in low on the beach about thirty yards away, hitting the white sand with a moan, bringing in a new crop of broken shells and an occasional fossilized shark’s tooth or dead fish.
I went through the gate to the beach and looked around. A toddler was chasing gulls and not even coming close, which was in the kid’s best interest. A couple, probably the kid’s parents, sat on a brightly colored beach towel watching the child and talking. Individuals, duos and quartets of all ages walked along the shoreline
in bare feet or floppy sandals. Melanie Sebastian was easy to find. There were five aluminum beach loungers covered in strips of white vinyl. Melanie Sebastian sat in the middle lounger. The other four were empty.
She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, dark sunglasses and a two-piece solid white bathing suit. She glistened from the bottle of lotion that sat next to her atop a fluffy towel. She was reading a book or acting as if she was, knowing I was on the way. I stood in front of her.
“
War and Peace,
” she said, holding up the thick paperback. “Always wanted to read it, never did. I plan to read as many of the so-called classics as I can. It’s my impression that few people have really read them, though they claim to have. Please have a seat, Mr. Fonesca.”
I sat on the lounger to her right and she moved a bookmark and laid
War and Peace
on her lap. She took off her sunglasses. Her face was beautiful, somber. Her body was lean and taut. Normally, I would have enjoyed looking at her. Normally.
“We spent two nights here after our honeymoon in Spain,” she said. “You would think Carl might remember and at least call on the chance that I might return here, but …”
“I’ve been paid to find you and deliver a message,” I said. “Will you talk to him?”
She sat for about thirty seconds and simply looked at me. I was decidedly uncomfortable and wished I had the sunglasses. I looked at the kid still chasing gulls. He was getting no closer.
“You’re not here to kill me,” she said conversationally. “You could have done that in your office, or at least tried. But that would have been awkward.”
“Kill you?”
“I think Carl is planning to have me killed,” she said, turning slightly toward me. “In fact, I’m sure he is. Considering that it’s Carl, he doesn’t have much
choice. But I can see that you’re not the one who’s going to do it.”
“Why does your husband want to kill you?”
“Money,” she said, and then she smiled. “People thought I married Carl for his money. I didn’t. Mr. Fonesca, I loved him. I would have gone on loving him. He was worth only about a hundred thousand when we married, give or take a percentage point or two in either direction. I, however, was worth close to eleven million dollars from an annuity, the sale of my father’s business when he died, and a very high-yield insurance policy on both my parents.”
“When you left, you cleared out all your joint bank accounts, credit cards. I checked. Your husband has almost nothing. I checked that too. His business is in debt and he’s on the edge of bankrupt.”
“How did you find out?”
“Computers are frightening things. Almost as frightening as people.”
“I hope Carl paid you in cash.”
“This morning. After I found out about his situation. It still doesn’t make sense, Mrs. Sebastian.”
“Call me Melanie. Your first name is … ?”
“Lewis. Lew.”
“It makes perfect sense,” she said. “I know Carl has been telling people I’m having an affair with Dr. Green. Lew, I’ve been faithful to my husband from the day we met. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about him. I have ample evidence, including almost interrupting a session between Carl and Caroline Wilkerson in the buff in our bed five weeks ago. I was supposed to be out of town. I came back a day early to surprise him. It seems the man almost old enough to be my grandfather married me for my money. After I carefully closed the door without Carl or Caroline seeing me, I went out, stayed in at the Hyatt, did a lot of thinking. On the way out, I took Caroline’s driver’s license. I
wanted to give her something to think about.”
“You have reasons for divorce,” I said. “But …”
“My word against theirs,” she said. “He’d drag it on, find a way to hold up my assets. I haven’t the time, Lew. So I did a little digging and discovered that Caroline was far from the first. I don’t know if he is an old man afraid of accepting his age or if he simply craves the chase and the sex. I know he had no great interest in me in that department for the past year.”
“You waited five weeks after you knew all this and then suddenly walked out?”
“It took me five weeks to convert all my stocks and my life-insurance policy to cash and to withdraw almost every penny I have in bank accounts. I didn’t want a scene and I didn’t want Carl to know what I was doing, but, obviously, he has known for several days.”
“And you think he wants to kill you?”
“Yes. I don’t think he knows the extent of what I have done, nor that I’ve cashed in the insurance policy,” she said. “Carl claims to be a real estate dealer. He has averaged a little over twenty thousand dollars on his real estate deals each of the years we’ve been married. As for his investments, he has consistently lost money. He thinks that when I’m dead he’ll have millions when, in fact, he’ll have only a few thousand dollars in his bank account, an apartment he won’t be able to maintain, and a 1995 paid-for Lincoln Town Car. Not much for a nearly seventy-year-old man with an image to maintain.”
“And he’s trying to kill you before you hide your money?”
“Yes, but it’s too late. I’ve put all the money, but what I’ve kept with me in cash, into boxes and I’ve sent the boxes to various charities, including the United Negro College Fund, the Salvation Army and many others.”
“Why don’t you just tell him?” I asked. “Or I can tell him.”
The toddler’s mother screamed at the boy, who had wandered too far away in pursuit of the gulls. The kid’s name was Harry.
“Then he wouldn’t have tried to have me killed,” she said.
“You want to die?”
“No,” she said, “but I’m going to whether he kills me or not. Within a few months. I’m dying, Lew. Dr. Green knows it. I started seeing him as a therapist when I first learned about the tumor more than a year ago. I didn’t want Carl to know. I arranged for treatment and surgery in New York and told Carl I simply wanted a few weeks or more to visit old school friends, one of whom was getting married. He had no objections. I caught him and Caroline in bed the day I returned. I had hurried home a day early to be with my husband, break the news to him. Treatment and surgery proved to be relatively ineffective. The tumor is inoperable and getting bigger. I don’t wish to die slowly in a hospital.”
“So you set your husband up?”
“You can look at it that way,” she said. “But I couldn’t do it without his full cooperation.”
Harry the toddler was back with his mother, who was standing and brushing sand from the boy, who was trying to pull away. There were gulls to chase and water to wade in.
“You disapprove.”
“I don’t know. It’s your life. You know a short tank of a man, about as bald as I am? Drives a blue Buick.”
“Catano,” she said. “Luke Catano.”
“He’s been following me since your husband hired me. He saved my life at least twice.”
“He wanted you to lead him to me,” she said. “He wouldn’t want you dead. Carl is in a hurry. Luke is
Carl’s ‘personal assistant.’ He has a record, including a conviction for murder two. Don’t ask me how he and Carl came together. The story I was told didn’t make much sense. So it looks like Luke Catano is my designated assassin.”
“What if I don’t tell him where you are,” I said.
“You don’t plan to tell him?”
“No, even if you tell me to.”
“Good,” she said. “I want to finish a few books, classics, before Catano comes. He’ll find me without your leading him here. It may take him awhile. If it takes too long, I’ll find a reasonably subtle way to let Carl know. I plan to die right here on the beach if possible. I’ve left a letter with my lawyer, documents proving my husband’s infidelity, misuse of my money, which I knew about and chose to ignore, and a statement that if I’m found dead under suspicious circumstances, a full investigation into the likelihood of my husband’s being responsible will be conducted. Now that I know Luke Catano is involved I’ll drive into Sarasota tomorrow with a new letter for my lawyer including Catano’s name. Lew?”
I must have looked dazed. I came back to the beach, the world, the beautiful dying woman and the boy trying to get away from his mother.
“Sorry,” I said.
I got up.
“That’s it, then,” I said.
“Almost,” she answered. “Adele.”
I sat again.
“Adele?”
“The file on your desk. The day I came to your office. I read it before you got there, remember I was just finishing it when you arrived.”
“I remember” I said.
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, I think so,” I said. “She’s going to a foster home, a good one. Her father’s dead.”
“I know,” she said, looking at me. “I killed him.”
“Oh, Holy Mother,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Did Carl tell you I took his gun, the one in his desk, when I left?”
“No.”
“I can see why. It was not purchased legally. After I left your office I thought about Dwight Handford. I must have decided to kill him while I was reading the file. The idea of what he was doing to … I’m leaving a relatively evil world, Lew. I didn’t want to leave it before a monster like Handford. Somehow it didn’t seem right that I should die and he should go on living. I memorized his address and got up enough nerve to kill him. I’d never fired a gun before. He had no idea who I was or why I was killing him.”
“Christ,” I said.
“You’re shocked?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you’re not sorry Handford is dead?”
“No.”
My eyes were open now. Her hand was out, waiting. I got up and took it.
“You’re a good listener, Lew,” she said.
“My job,” I answered.
“Carl is not a good listener. He’s a talker. If he listened, he’d know where I might be.”
I let go of her hand and she put her sunglasses back on and returned to Tolstoy.
I headed back to Sarasota, considered making a stop for coffee, but I didn’t want to be with people. I kept seeing Melanie Sebastian sitting on that lounger in her wide-brimmed straw hat, reading and waiting.
In my room, I popped
Prince of Foxes
into my VCR. Not enough Orson Welles. Too much Tyrone Power.
In a few days I’d forgive Power and watch
Blood and Sand.
The phone in my office rang on and off for more than an hour. I lay in bed watching the movie. I ignored the phone till the movie was over and then I answered. I didn’t want Carl Sebastian coming to my door or sending Luke Catano. It was Sebastian.
“Well?” he asked, sounding like a concerned and ill-treated husband.
“I found her, lost her,” I said. “I talked to her for a few minutes. All she said was she didn’t want to talk to you. I’ll keep looking for her, no charge. If you want your money back—”
“No, no. Work fast,” he said earnestly. “I’m worried about Melanie.”
“I’ll work as fast as I can,” I said.
When I hung up, I took out the photograph of Melanie and Carl Sebastian on the beach. They still looked happy. To the extent you can tell such things, they seemed to be very much in love.
I decided to wait a few days, drive around, ask questions in all the wrong places, let Catano keep up with me and then I’d give up and tell Sebastian I had lost her trail. I would send him a report. A few days after that, maybe a week or two, Catano and Sebastian would find her. Melanie would be dead. I hoped it would be on the beach but it would probably be a hit-and-run.

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