Lightning

by John Lutz

  “That’s when the nurse saw the man walking toward the stairway,” Wicker said. “She gave the same description as Miss Jackson and Officer Lapella. Said he was taking his time and seemed calm.”

  “He was calm all the time he was in here with us,” Beth said. “Calm and in a kind of sadistic daze, but you could tell a part of him was very alert. I’ve seen men like that before. Women, too.”

  “I’ll bet you have,” McGregor said.

  “He’s the man I asked you about three days ago,” Carver said to Wicker. “The one who came into the room and then turned around and left when he saw a nurse was with Beth.”

  “I know,” Wicker said. “We’ll learn his identity.”

  “Ask Norton about him,” McGregor said. “Or let me ask Norton.”

  “Norton’s under federal jurisdiction,” Wicker reminded him.

  “Sure he is, which is what’s gonna fuck up the case. Whoever beat up Lapella was a Bible-thumping shithead just like Norton, so Norton’ll probably know him. These militant religious jerk-offs are a big gang, like the Crips and the Bloods, only they pray.”

  “Norton’s not talking,” Wicker said. “He’s got an attorney.”

  McGregor smiled. “I know how to cut attorneys out of the loop long enough to get what’s needed here.”

  Wicker looked at McGregor with distaste, then at Carver.

  “He’s Del Moray’s biggest criminal,” Carver said, glancing at McGregor. “The chamber of commerce would make him a tourist attraction, only the tourists would faint.”

  McGregor started toward him, then stopped abruptly and grinned, probing the space between his yellow front teeth with his tongue. “Have your fun now, Carver, but he who laughs last will laugh standing on your fucking throat.”

  Wicker stared at McGregor as if he were something that should be stepped on but would make a mess.

  “Don’t forget it was my man got beat up,” McGregor reminded them.

  “As if you care about your man,” Beth said.

  “If it’d been an actual man, this probably wouldn’t have happened. We’d have the assailant in custody right now,” McGregor said disgustedly.

  “Or maybe a dead cop,” Carver said.

  “Let the nurses know when you feel well enough to make a formal statement,” Wicker said to Beth.

  She nodded.

  “Make damned sure my department gets a copy of that statement,” McGregor said. “The clinic bombing might be a federal investigation, but there’s no guarantee Lapella’s beating is connected to that.”

  “It’s guarantee enough for the U.S. government,” Wicker told him. “It’ll have to be guarantee enough for you.”

  McGregor glared at him, then at Carver. Then at Beth, the cause of this latest problem that was spoiling his day.

  “We’ll see how it plays out,” he said, then shoved the door open violently and stalked out.

  Wicker stared after him and shook his head. “I’ve dealt with locals all over the country, but that one’s as bad as I’ve seen. He’s a cop in name only. How’d he ever get on the Del Moray force in the first place?”

  “We think he somehow transferred to the department directly from the Mafia.” Carver saw no point in explaining that McGregor had been forced from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department in disgrace and was a Del Moray officer only because he had something on the mayor. Or, more accurately, the mayor’s wife.

  “We’ve got agents outside the hospital and on this floor,” Wicker said to Beth with a professionally reassuring smile. “Lapella’s assailant can’t get back in here. No one can without our okay. You’ll be safe.”

  Carver knew better. “I think she should check out and go home with me.”

  “Why?”

  “She’ll be safer there. I can make sure of that.”

  “I don’t think so,” Wicker said.

  “It isn’t up to you,” Beth told him. “It’s up to me.”

  Wicker stared at her. “I’ve talked to your doctor, Miss Jackson. He told me you’d asked about leaving the hospital. He recommends at least another day. So do I.” He looked at Carver. “Can we compromise on this? One more day?”

  “Ask her,” Carver said.

  Wicker did.

  “One more day,” Beth agreed, “then I become an outpatient.”

  Wicker smiled at her and left the room.

  Beth lay back on the bed and didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Carver sat down in the chair next to the bed and poured some water from the pitcher on the table into a plastic cup and held it out for her. She shook her head, refusing to drink. Carver took a few sips, then put down the cup.

  “It was a nightmare, Fred.”

  “I figured.”

  “He used poor Linda, tortured her and mutilated her for no reason other than to demonstrate that he could do it to me if that was his choice. So why didn’t he simply do it to me?”

  “If he’d already done it to you, what he might do would be removed as a threat. Whoever’s behind the clinic bombing—and it appears that someone other than Norton planned it—sees three threats: the FBI, the local law, and a snooping private investigator with a serious grudge. McGregor and the Del Moray police will be content with the conclusion that Norton acted alone. So might the FBI, after a cursory investigation. Those are the two biggest threats, and they have to be dealt with—and maybe they can be, because they’re constricted by the law and are at least somewhat predictable. But I’m a wild card, and they want me out of the deck.”

  “So beating up Lapella in front of me was simply a precaution, a message to you.”

  “An obvious warning,” Carver said. “They want Norton to go to trial, be convicted, and take the fall. Case closed, news media lose interest.”

  “Do you think Operation Alive is behind the bombing, and making sure Norton carries the whole blame is his lawyer’s real assignment?”

  “It’s looking more and more likely.”

  Beth chewed on her lower lip the way she often did when anger smoldered in her. “They’re underestimating me, Fred.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There are two wild cards in the deck.”

  He picked up the plastic cup and took another sip of ice water, worrying, thinking maybe one was wilder than the other.

  18

  THE HOSPITAL WAS CARVER’S second stop the next morning. In Beth’s vocabulary, Wicker’s “one more day” of hospitalization had meant one more night.

  “See that she doesn’t exert herself,” Dr. Galt told him outside Beth’s room. “Her cuts are superficial and the stitches can be removed soon, and there’s no lingering complication from the D and C. But her right hip’s still badly bruised and will need a cold compress if it begins to swell. I’ll prescribe pain pills, and something to help her sleep if she needs it.” Galt smiled and touched a hand gingerly to the hair plastered sideways across his gleaming scalp, like a man testing wet paint. “She tends to think she’s stronger than she is.”

  Carver could have told him a few things, but simply nodded. “Is she . . . psychologically okay?” he asked. “I mean, after losing the baby?”

  “I wouldn’t imagine she’s over it yet,” Dr. Galt said. “But she is very strong in that respect. She’s a realist and will accept what’s happened and get on with life.” He touched his slicked-over hair again. “We all have to do that.”

  “How’s Linda Lapella?” Carver asked.

  Dr. Galt looked blank for a moment, then his eyes brightened. “Ah, the police officer who was attacked yesterday. I’m afraid she’s unconscious, though she’s in stable condition. Blunt-object cerebral trauma, I was told.”

  Carver remembered Beth mentioning the WASP kicking Lapella while the dazed policewoman lay on the floor. “Does that mean she was kicked in the head?”

  “The injury’s consistent with that.”

  “When will she be able to have visitors?”

  “I’m not sure. Not today, certainly. You’d have to ask the h
ead nurse on her floor when visitors will be allowed.”

  Carver shook hands with Dr. Galt and thanked him.

  “The nurses should have Beth ready to leave in about fifteen minutes,” Dr. Galt said. “Be sure to phone me if there are any complications at all.”

  Carver said that he would, then decided that while the nurse was preparing Beth to leave the hospital, he’d go to Delores Bravo’s room and tell her Beth was leaving. The woman with her foot and part of her leg missing would be interested, and would doubtless need some cheering up.

  He was surprised to find Wicker sitting in the chair beside Delores’s bed. The rumpled little man stood up when Carver entered. He didn’t seem glad to see Carver.

  “Is coming here part of your investigation?” Carver asked.

  “She’s an eyewitness to the bombing,” Wicker said. He sounded oddly defensive, as if trying to justify his presence in the room. “She can place Norton at the scene.”

  “So she told me,” Carver said.

  Wicker sat back down.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to let Delores know that Beth was leaving the hospital this morning,” Carver added.

  Delores smiled at Carver from the hospital bed. Her long dark hair was neatly combed today, and the shadowed circles beneath her eyes were gone. “I appreciate you coming by,” she said.

  “Feeling better?” Carver asked.

  “Coming along. Our talk yesterday helped.”

  “I didn’t know you were a counselor,” Wicker said. Then he remembered and glanced down at Carver’s cane. “Then again, maybe you know something Miss Bravo can use.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Miss Bravo doesn’t recognize the description of the man who beat up Lapella.”

  “I know. I asked her about him yesterday after Beth saw him enter and leave her room. Same day I asked you about him,” Carver added.

  Wicker stood again and jammed his hands deep in his pockets, making his belt slip below his stomach paunch and the legs of his pants bag around his shoes. Carver thought he might have insulted Wicker by suggesting that the bureau should have known the WASP was dangerous, but Wicker didn’t seem annoyed.

  “I think you’re doing the right thing,” he said, “getting Beth out of here and in different, more familiar surroundings. McGregor can’t be counted on to furnish adequate protection here at the hospital. Maybe he couldn’t even if he tried. Better to have her away from here and on your own turf.”

  “How is she?” Delores asked.

  “Getting feisty,” Carver said.

  Delores smiled. “I can imagine that, just from what Agent Wicker has told me.”

  Wicker shifted his weight from one chunky leg to the other, as if the floor were tilting like a ship’s deck and he had to maintain his balance. “I’ll have a talk with McGregor, Carver. Use some bureau influence and make sure he knows it would be politically stupid of him to keep leaning on you and antagonizing Beth.”

  “Thanks,” Carver said. “He understands politics.”

  “Because he’s a born asshole,” Wicker said, then shot a glance at Delores, as if embarrassed at having used profanity in her presence. Not the FBI way.

  Carver thought it was time to share some information with Wicker. He invited him out into the hall. “Did Delores tell you about the shot fired into the clinic the week before the bombing?”

  “Just a little while ago. Before you told me,” Wicker added in a level voice.

  “I’ve only known about it one day,” Carver pointed out, “and I’ve had a lot to think about.”

  “Actually,” Wicker said, “we’ve known about it all along. Dr. Benedict told us the day of the bombing.”

  Carver knew the FBI had exercised a warrant and searched Norton’s house as well as his car. “Did Norton possess any firearms?” Silly question in Fort Florida.

  “A snub-nosed thirty-eight revolver, a nine-millimeter semiautomatic with a banana clip, and a twelve-gauge Ithaca shotgun. None of Norton’s weapons fired the shot. The bullet dug from the clinic wall was a steel-jacketed thirty caliber, probably from a rifle.”

  “So maybe Norton was careful enough to get rid of the rifle after the shooting.”

  “Maybe,” Wicker said. “But he was careless enough to leave bomb-making manuals lying around his house, and there were blasting caps in his car. I doubt he’d be so cautious as to drown or bury a rifle.”

  That sounded reasonable to Carver.

  They drifted back into the room.

  “I’d better get back to Beth,” Carver said, looking at his watch.

  “Tell her we’ll get together after I’m back on my—when I get out of here,” Delores said. “We have things to talk about. We both lost something in that explosion.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Carver promised.

  As he left the room, he saw Wicker sit back down.

  Beth was being backed from her room in a wheelchair as Carver approached. The elderly volunteer who was maneuvering the chair was also holding the flower-patterned valise that Carver had brought for Beth. The woman appeared to be well into her seventies, a large-framed woman with white hair that had probably once been blond to match her pale eyes and complexion. The breadth of her shoulders and hips suggested she had never been thin. There was a craggy symmetry to her features that lent her stateliness and probably, long ago, beauty of the unconventional sort that haunted.

  Carver kissed Beth and took the valise from the woman, then started to take over pushing the wheelchair.

  “Sorry,” the volunteer said with a smile, “I’ll have to take her down to the lobby and see her off. Insurance requires I look after her while she’s still on hospital property.”

  “Insurance rules the day,” Carver said, and stepped back.

  “I can walk,” Beth said.

  “Not if you want to leave here,” the volunteer said, showing a streak of steel.

  Carver grinned at Beth and stood aside to make room for the wheelchair as they started toward the elevator.

  “Where were you,” Beth asked as they descended, “trying to see Lapella?”

  “No, she’s still unconscious.”

  “Dr. Galt told me. That bastard kicked her in the head.”

  The volunteer studied the numerals on the digital floor indicator. The elevator stopped and the door glided open.

  “I was visiting Delores Bravo,” Carver said.

  The volunteer gripped the wheelchair handles tighter and leaned her weight forward so the chair’s wheels would hop over the ridge where the elevator didn’t quite line up with the lobby floor.

  “How is she?” Beth asked, craning her neck to look behind her and up at him.

  “She’ll need the wheelchair,” Carver said.

  Just outside the hospital’s side entrance, they waited for him in a patch of sunlight while he went and got the car. As he pulled into the driveway, he saw Beth still sitting motionless in the wheelchair, the white-haired woman standing over her like an aged and wise guardian angel.

  The sight scared and saddened him. For the first time he wondered if they were doing the right thing, letting Beth leave the hospital.

  Then he remembered Lapella, in the same purgatory between sickness and health, protected by the same corps of angels. They hadn’t made much difference the day she was beaten.

  He braked the Olds in front of the entrance, then climbed out and helped Beth into the car.

  As they were driving away, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the angel leaning against the wall by the entrance and lighting a cigarette.

  19

  HOLDING BETH’S OVERSIZE VALISE and the crook of his cane in his left hand, Carver unlocked the cottage door with his right. Beth stood alongside him, looking tired but obviously glad to be free of the hospital. Behind them on the beach the surf roared and dashed itself on land, while off in the distance gulls screamed.

  “What was that?” Beth asked, hearing another, faint sound from inside the cottage over the rush of t
he surf.

  “That’s a surprise,” Carver said, opening the door.

  He went in ahead of Beth, glanced around, then smiled and stepped aside, leaning on his cane and motioning for her to enter.

  She took a few steps inside, then stood still, staring at the medium-size black-and-tan dog that was staring at her with its head cocked to the side.

  “What is it and why?” Beth asked, never one to be fond of animals.

  “German shepherd,” Carver said. “I got it from the pound this morning before coming in to the hospital. The woman there recommended it, said they were a very territorial breed and he’d be protective of his house and owner almost immediately. And he’s got a good loud bark that’ll scare away any intruders.”

  Beth looked more closely at the dog. “Are German shepherds all swaybacked like that? And aren’t both ears supposed to stand up on a German shepherd?”

  Carver didn’t know the answer to either of those questions. “Maybe it’s a collie-shepherd.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Half German shepherd, half collie.”

  “But it doesn’t have long hair or a pointed snout like a collie.”

  Carver smiled. “That’s because he’s a German shepherd.” Setting the valise on the sofa, he snapped his fingers and whistled for the dog. The dog ambled over to Beth and stared up at her. She bent down and ruffled its fur between the ears, possibly to get it to quit staring.

  “His facial markings are odd,” she said. “Makes him look as if he has eyebrows.”

  Carver had noticed that at the pound, and on reflection realized it was the eyebrowlike markings that gave the dog the quizzical, intelligent expression that had made him feel confident in the animal as a loyal watchdog and companion.

  “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “Al. That’s what the woman at the pound said. And he’s had some training, she said. He’s housebroken and obedient.”

  “He looks old.”

  “She told me he was a young dog.”

  “He’s gray around the muzzle,” Beth said as Al began to lick her hand.