Read Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) for Free Online

what I saw.”
    I think Ames smiled.
    “You think whoever did it might want to hurt you?” I asked. “Your door was locked.”
    “If someone wants to murder an eighty-three-year-old woman in an assisted living facility,” she said, “it doesn’t take much effort, but …”
    She reached down for a white cloth bag near the table holding the Kleenex and pulled it over to her. She reached into it, dug deep and came up with a formidable-looking hunting knife in a leather sheaf.
    “I will not go gently,” she said. “My husband would turn away from me in heaven or hell when we met if I didn’t protect myself.”
    “Cgnozic?” said Ames. “Any relation to Gregory Cgnozic?”
    “My husband,” she said with obvious pride. “You know his work?”
    “A fine poet,” Ames said. “Ran with Kerouac, Ginsberg. Heard him once in Butte. Sense of humor. A little like Ferlinghetti.”
    “People don’t remember Gregory,” she said.
    “More than you think.”
    “Not many,” she said.
    She reached back, lifted the box of Kleenex and pulled something from under it. The something was a check for two hundred dollars made out in my name. She had spelled my name correctly.
    “You don’t have to—” I began.
    “It doesn’t mean anything if I don’t pay you,” she said. “I pay you and the service you perform remains mine. You understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” said Ames.
    I pocketed the check. I now had one hundred dollars in cash and a check for two hundred dollars in my pocket. They weighed as much as the hopes of two women.
    “Anything else?” I asked.
    “Prove me right,” she said, standing. “Lunchtime. Food’s not really bad here. People complain, but it’s not really bad. Chicken salad today, but you can always get a toasted cheese if you want and you can get popcorn and coffee whenever you want.”
    Ames and I both stood. She took the empty can and disposable cup from Ames.
    “We’ll work on it,” I said.
    Gladys, the big nurse, wasn’t at the nursing station when we went by but the redhead looked up at us from her desk and said, “Well? You don’t still believe her?”
    “Mind if we go through the motions?” I asked.
    “If it will make Dorothy feel better and you don’t disturb any of the residents and you don’t run into the boss,” she said. “But believe me, everyone is accounted for. Nobody died.”
    “Could someone have come in to visit a resident during the night?”
    “Till eleven,” said the redhead patiently. “After that, no visitors. Doors are locked for the night. You have to ring to get in. Emmie Jefferson’s note said Dorothy’s murder happened at a little after eleven.”
    “Could she be a few minutes off?” Ames asked.
    “Possible,” said the redhead. “Does it make a difference?”
    We thanked her and went down the corridor and out the door to the parking lot.
    “Must be ways to get in here without ringing,” Ames said. “I’ll scooter back on my own later and check.”
    “Right,” I said. “Gregory Cgnozic was a famous poet?”
    I was driving now down the narrow road, past a trio of ducks quacking near the pond.
    “No,” said Ames. “Just a poet. Happened to catch him that one night in Butte. He was a last-minute fill-in for another Gregory, Corso.”
    “Was he good?”
    “My opinion? Yes. That night in Butte he said John Lennon was the greatest poet of the twentieth century,” said Ames. “Audience applauded. Don’t think they believed it, though, but he wasn’t joking.”
    “You believe her, about the murder?” I asked.
    “Woman saw what she saw,” he said.
    We went back to the Texas. It was crowded. There was no chicken salad on the menu. Just the items listed on the blackboard above the bar. Burgers of large size with whatever you wanted and chili as hot as you wanted. Ames went to work. I stood at the bar, made a phone call, went for the chili and corn bread, worried about Dorothy Cgnozic and drove over to Bank of America two blocks away