Free Denial: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky

skies. I liked small enclosed spaces. I hated lying on my back outdoors at night. It made my head swirl. I had felt a little of this before Catherine died. Since she was gone, it had gotten more defined. I welcomed it.
    Flo didn’t have to get Adele. Adele came down the hallway to the living room, baby in her arms. Adele smiled at me. No, actually, it was a grin. Catherine, five months old, thin blonde hair, was thoughtfully chewing on her mother’s hair.
    “Mr. F,” Adele said. “Want to hold her?”
    “No thanks,” I said.
    Flo came back in the room, handed me a cold glass of Diet Dr Pepper, touched Adele’s face, kissed the baby’s forehead and scurried off down the hall.
    I didn’t want a baby’s life literally in my hands. I don’t trust fate and I know if there is a God or gods, devils or demons, they can play games a certified sociopath might admire.
    Flo came back with a colorful Indian blanket and rolled it out on the living room floor. Adele loosened the baby’s grip on her hair and placed Catherine on the blanket on her stomach, facing us. The baby lifted her head unsteadily, hands pushing against the rug, and looked at me. Our eyes met.
    “Lew,” said Flo. “Lew.”
    The thought had crept up on me. My wife, Catherine, and I might have had a baby like the one who was looking up at me if a hit-and-run driver on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago hadn’t killed her four years ago.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “You all right?” asked Adele, coming to my side. Roy Rogers had stopped and Johnny Cash was singing about killing a man in Reno as I rejoined the living.
    Adele was about my height, blonde, clear-skinned and definitely pretty. She had lost the touch of baby fat shortly after I first met her.
    “How’s school?” I asked.
    Catherine rolled over onto her back.
    “Straight A’s, arts editor of the paper,” Flo said.
    Catherine rolled onto her stomach, heading toward the edge of the rug. As she rolled again, Adele stepped over and put her back in the center of the rug. Flo picked up a red plastic baby toy that looked like a ball with handles and placed it in front of the baby.
    “How’s life treating you, Mr. F?” Adele said.
    I knew how life had treated Adele. Her father had sold her to a local pimp when she was thirteen. Her father had murdered her mother. Adele had gotten into an affair with the married son of a famous man when she was fifteen, who had taken her in. Result: Catherine was named for my wife. Catherine’s father was serving a life term for murder. And yet there was Adele smiling, finishing high school, and writing award-winning stories that were sure to get her an invitation to major universities.
    “Fine,” I said.
    “He’s been bumping into things,” said Flo.
    Johnny Cash was finished. The Sons of the Pioneers were now singing “Cool Water.”
    I drank some Diet Dr Pepper and watched Catherine suck on one of the handles of the circle.
    “You know a boy named Kyle McClory?” I asked as Adele sat cross-legged on the rug next to the baby.
    “Knew,” Adele said. “He got killed about a week ago. Hit-and-run.”
    “How well did you know him?” I asked.
    “Hardly,” she said. “He was a freshman. Two years apart in age. Two decades apart in life school. He was a kid. You trying to find the driver, right?”
    “Yes. I’m working for his mother.”
    “Wait, wait,” said Flo. “How’s knowing about the boy going to help you find some hit-and-run drunk?”
    “He thinks maybe Kyle was murdered, right, Mr. F.?” Adele was smiling, her hand gently rubbing the back of the baby, who was totally absorbed with the difficult choice between which handles of the toy she was going to put in her mouth.
    “It’s possible,” I said. “What about Yolanda Root? Kyle’s sister.”
    Adele looked up and said, “Half sister. She wants no part of Doc McClory or his name. He wants no part of her. Probably the only thing they ever agreed on. Her, I can tell you a whole lot about. What