"So cry?"

"I can't."

"I'm pushing too hard," Ann said. "You want a Diet c.o.ke? I'm still thirsty. I've got some in the refrigerator."

"Sure," I said.

While she left the office to get the c.o.kes, I tried to imagine Catherine reacting to the joke about the Wongs. I tried to see her face. She would groan and then she would smile supportively. Or maybe she wouldn't.

Ann came back with the two Diet c.o.kes, sat down, and said, "So, in the time we have left, do I tell you what I've learned about recently discovered innovations in surgery that were employed by the South during the Civil War or why Serbians are so good at preparing Middle Eastern food, or do you tell me what you've been doing for the past three days?"

I opted for the last three days. I had already told her about Hoffmann and Stanley and Roberta Trasker, so I told her about Digger and the boy named Darrell Caton and his mother in Sally's office. I told her about Dr. Obermeyer. I told her about Ames's little gun. And I told her about the Severtsons.

"And this is all true?" she asked with great interest. "You're not creating any of it?"

"I don't know how to create it," I said. "And why would I make it up?"

"To please your therapist," she said. "People do it all the time. I suggest something and the patient, wanting to please me, agrees even if they don't believe it. Don't try to please me. It gets in the way."

"I didn't make any of this up," I said.

"For a man who is trying to hide from the world, you seem to have been drawn very deeply into it."

"Not by choice," I said.

"You could have said no. No, I won't look for the woman and her two children. No, I won't try to find the county commissioner. So, why did you say yes?"

"I don't know. You want me to think about it?"

"Yes, but not consciously. The dead woman," Ann said. "The actress. You want to know who killed her."

"Of course."

"Why?" she asked.

"Closure," I said.

She said nothing, just looked at me till I said, "The closure I can't find with my wife's death. You think the reason I take on these searches for people, why I'm a process server is to find people responsible for things they know or have done wrong? You think I do it because I don't know who killed..."

"Catherine," Ann supplied. "And do you know who killed Mrs. Trasker?" she asked.

"I think so."

"But?"

"Nothing's ever simple about death. Nothing's ever simple about murder."

"We are once again out of time."

I got up and handed her a twenty-dollar bill. She placed it on her desk and rose.

"Remember, tell the jokes to Catherine."

I nodded. I wasn't sure I could do it.

The sky was threatening but no rain was falling. The homeless, shirtless black man who slept in the park right across the street, with traffic whizzing by on Tamiami Trail, was sitting on the green metal bench on the corner, his arm spread out along the back of the bench. He was talking to himself. I couldn't make out what he was saying.

"Hi," I said.

He nodded back.

"Want a cup of coffee?" I said.

He nodded back again. I didn't have to tell him to wait. I went back to Sarasota News & Books, got him a coffee and a bran m.u.f.fin, and went back to the bench.

He took the coffee cup in one hand and the m.u.f.fin in another.

"You want to hear some jokes?" I asked.

11.

HEAVY BLACK CLOUDS were moving in quickly from the east, pushing the heavy, slower-moving gray clouds out of the way.

Dr. James Obermeyer's office was in a three-building complex on East Street right across from Michael's on East restaurant. I'd been in one of the buildings a few months ago for an eye exam.

The picture on my television had started to look fuzzy, but Dave had come up to take a look at it and p.r.o.nounced the television healthy and me in need of an eye doctor. I went to his.

The eye doctor examined me, told me I didn't need gla.s.ses, and asked me how much television I watched.

"Too much," I had told him. "Mostly movies on tape."

"How much do you watch?"

"A lot, whenever I can."

His advice was simple. Stop watching so many videos, read books, go to the movies, see a baseball game, or bowl. I thanked him, paid him, and ignored what he had told me.

Obermeyer's office was in the building directly across from the ignored ophthalmologist. It was just before ten when I went through his outer office door and faced one of those gla.s.s part.i.tions, behind which sat a young woman talking on the phone and nibbling at the ends of her hair.

I stood waiting till she hung up.

"Yes?" she asked with a tired smile.

"You eat your hair."

"What?"

"You eat your hair," I repeated.

"I...what're you, a doctor?" she asked without interest.

"You can develop a fur ball just like a cat," I said. "Only you can't cough it up. It gets big enough and you need surgery."

"You want an appointment with the doctor?" she asked with a look that made it clear she thought I needed a psychiatrist, not an internist.

"No," I said. "Jim and I are friends. We were out drinking last night. I was having my eyes checked across the way and I thought I'd stop by and give him my half of the bar tab. I left before he did and just forgot."

"Your name?"

"Lew Fonesca."

"I'll see if he can see you," she said, pushing a b.u.t.ton on the phone as she picked it up.

My question was answered. The good doctor was in.

"Yes, Doctor," she said, after giving him my name. "He says he'd like to see you for a second. He owes you money. Okay."

She put one hand over the mouthpiece and said. "The doctor says you can leave the money with me. He's busy now."

"Can't do that," I said, and took four quick steps to Obermeyer's office door and opened it before the receptionist could stop me.

"Wait a minute," she called from the outer office, as I let the door close behind me and moved past two examining rooms, one on my right and one on my left. I found Obermeyer in his comfortable, carpeted office complete with leather chairs, a leather love seat, prints made by pressing inked dead fish against canvas on two walls, and all of his degrees, t.i.tles, and awards framed on the wall behind him.

He looked up from behind his desk. He was wearing a clean, white smock and a hangover.

"I have a very low tolerance for alcohol," he said, sitting up and blinking his eyes as he tried to focus on me.

Then it came to him.

"I remember," he said, pointing a finger at me. "Kevin Hoffmann's. You wanted me to-"

"Help get William Trasker out of that house."

"Mr. Trasker is a very sick man. He should not be moved."

"What would happen to him if he were moved?"

"I wouldn't want to be responsible," he said.

"So he's too sick to be moved?"

"That's my opinion, yes," he said, putting a palm against his forehead to determine if he might need an aspirin.

The phone buzzed. He picked it up, listened for a few seconds, and said, "No, Carla. It's all right. Do not call the police."

He hung up and looked up at me.

"What happens to you if the police find a way to get a couple of specialists to look at Trasker and it turns out that he's sick but there wouldn't be any problem moving him?"

"Professional difference of opinion," he said, looking around for something. "I'd have to stand by my diagnosis."

I pulled my notebook out of my pocket and read, "James Ryder Obermeyer, B.S. in physiology, North Dakota State University, M.D. from the University of Utah. Certified in internal medicine, practiced in five different towns in North Dakota before you came to Sarasota six years ago. Malpractice suits, seven. Complaints to American Medical a.s.sociation, sixteen."

"That's not uncommon for a physician in today's litigious world," he said.

"How about six DUI arrests and three accidents while under the influence?" I asked. "In one of those accidents in Ogden, Utah, a teenage girl was injured, lost her left leg. Your malpractice-insurance rate went up to something near the annual budget of the states of North Dakota and Utah combined."

"Are you threatening me?" he asked with indignation.

"Happens to me all the time," I said. "No, my point was that your professional opinion might not hold up particularly well against a cancer surgeon."

"I stand by what I've said," Obermeyer insisted with very little confidence and a distinct beading of perspiration on his upper lip.

"Mrs. Trasker was murdered. Kevin Hoffmann's holding Mr. Trasker against his will. You could wind up as accessory to a murder."

"I think you can leave now, Mr. Fonseca," he said.

"Fonesca. I'll call you later," I said. "Have Trasker ready to leave Hoffmann's house or I throw you to the American Medical a.s.sociation, the AARP, the Florida Medical Ethics Board, the County Medical-"

"Stop," he said. "You can't intimidate me and you don't frighten me."

"Channel Forty, SNN television, the Longboat Key Observer, the Planet," I continued. "The...You get the idea."

His face had turned red. He looked distinctly intimidated and frightened.

"You wouldn't do that," he said. "I'd sue you."

"I don't think so but if you did, it would be a waste of your time and money. I don't have anything. I could have ten thousand dollars if I take Kevin Hoffmann's money to be quiet about Trasker and get out of town. I wonder how much he's paying you."

"Do not come back here," he said with a quiver in his voice, "or the police will be called."

I considered pushing him a little further, but I remembered what he had told me about his bad heart.

I left the office, closing the door quietly before he could say anything more. I half hoped he would follow me into the hall and do some bargaining.

Carla the receptionist gave me a glance and then looked down at whatever she had been doing.

I stopped at the Texas Bar and Grill too early for lunch and not hungry. Ames was in his room in back. Ed Fairing was behind the bar, talking to a pair of black men in their fifties who could have been twins.

There were people at a few of the tables, early lunch birds, all-day drinkers with nowhere else they wanted to be, a woman in a sweat suit drinking coffee and reading a book.