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

to cash my check.
    Then I drove down Main, parked in the public lot on Main and 301 and headed for the office of Detective Etienne Viviase.

4
    THE PLAQUE on his desk read: DETECTIVE ED VIVIASE. His real name was Etienne Viviase, but even his wife called him Ed. He was a little under six feet tall, a little over fifty years old, and a little over two hundred and twenty pounds. Hair short, dark. Face smooth, pink. He was wearing a dark rumpled sports jacket with a tie the color of Moby Dick.
    He was seated behind his desk, one of three in the office. The other two were, at the moment, unoccupied, though the closest had a tall pile of reports that was doomed to topple.
    “You called?” he said, mug of coffee in one hand, a scone with raisins or chocolate chips in the other.
    I looked at the chair across from him and he nodded to let me know it was all right to sit.
    “Scone?” he asked. “Coffee?”
    “No thanks,” I said.
    “Am I going to enjoy this conversation?” he asked.
    “I don’t think so,” I said.
    He looked at his wristwatch, which resulted in
crumbs falling in his lap, which resulted in his brushing away the crumbs, which resulted in him spilling some coffee, which missed his pants leg by inches.
    “Five minutes,” he said.
    “Kyle McClory,” I said.
    Viviase smiled, but not much, shook his head, but not much, and said, “Not my case.”
    “Who should I talk to?”
    “Me,” he said. “I don’t think anyone here, especially Mike Ransom, whose case it is, will talk to you.”
    “His mother asked me to look into it,” I said.
    “You’re not a detective,” he said. “You are a process server.”
    “She asked me. Private citizen.”
    “Is she paying you, private citizen?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Why don’t you branch out into skip tracing?” he asked, taking a bite of scone and examining it to see how much he had left.
    “I have enough work. Too much.”
    “Well, I told you. Mike Ransom’s working on the Kyle McClory case,” he said. “The father’s a big-time radiologist. The mother’s a local celebrity. She’s got a lawyer with a little clout.”
    “Tycinker,” I said.
    “We’re working on it.”
    “Can’t hurt if I ask some questions,” I said.
    “It could hurt, but then again it might help,” he said. “What do you want from me?”
    “What do you know? I mean, what do you know that I can have? I understand there was a witness.”
    “Hold on,” Viviase said, finishing his scone and putting his coffee mug gently on the desk.
    He walked over to the file cabinets, opened one in the middle, pulled out a file and came back to his
desk. He sat, wiped his fingers and turned on his computer after checking something in the file, which now lay open in front of him.
    The computer hummed. He entered something and sat back to wait.
    “How’s the kid?” he asked.
    “Adele?”
    “Yeah, and the baby.”
    “Both fine.”
    He was about to speak again, but I could see something popping up on the screen. Viviase reached into his pocket, pulled out his glasses, put them on and looked at the words in front of him.
    “Looks like … ,” he said, reading what was in front of him and then checking the open file. “After ten, guy walking past the park saw it.”
    “Guy?”
    “His name is Arnoldo Robles,” said Viviase. “He works at a Mexican restaurant, El Tacito.”
    I said nothing.
    “You turn up anything on who killed the boy, you turn it over to me, right?” Viviase asked, leaning back.
    “Right,” I said.
    “Mr. Robles lives on Ninth,” Viviase said, scanning the file. “He was on his way home from work, walking up Gillespie past the park. Let’s see. Saw the kid running past him, thought maybe he was about to be mugged. Kid turns down Eighth. Robles hears a car behind him. Robles reaches Eighth. Car turns behind the kid, who’s in the middle of the street. Kid is running. Car’s lights hit him. Kid stops. Holds up his hand. Car nails him. Driver gets out to