by John Lutz
Carver opened the cottage door for Wicker as the FBI agent walked up onto the porch. He looked beyond Wicker at the shadowed form of the woman in the car, but she wasn’t moving and was obviously not coming in.
“Surprise,” Wicker said with his thin little bureau smile.
As he entered the cottage, he widened his smile and nodded to Beth, who was still on the sofa. Al, who was lying down now, spotted him, struggled to his feet in sections, and ambled over to lick his hand. Wicker patted the top of Al’s head. Al’s pupils jiggled but he didn’t seem to mind.
Carver closed the door, looking more closely at the rumpled FBI agent. There was something even more unbusinesslike than usual about Wicker tonight, not so much in his unkempt appearance—which was normal for him—but in his oddly awkward yet cheerful bearing.
“Ordinarily a visit from the FBI at this hour means somebody’s under arrest,” Beth said. Al moved back across the room to collapse in sprawling and complete comfort in his previous position at her feet.
“Not in this instance,” Wicker assured her. “I had something to tell you two, and we were out driving around, so I figured it wasn’t all that late and you might still be awake.”
“We?” Carver said.
Again Wicker’s thin smile invaded his features despite his obvious effort to remain straight-faced. “Delores and I,” he said. “She’s been released from the hospital except as an outpatient, and I’m, er . . .”
“Helping her in her recovery,” Beth finished for him.
Wicker brightened. “Something like that.”
“She should come in,” Carver said.
“No, no. She still needs a wheelchair. Soon she’ll be fitted for a prosthetic foot, then she’ll get around on crutches for a while as she learns to walk again. Believe me, she’s got the spirit to do it! The doctors say within a year she might even be playing tennis. She used to love tennis. Still loves tennis, I mean . . .”
Beth stood up from the sofa. “I need to get away from this gibberish. I’m going out and talk with Delores.” Al stood up, too.
Both men stood silently until woman and dog had gone out the door into the night.
Carver offered Wicker something to drink, but Wicker declined, saying he had to leave soon. His glance slid toward the door, toward Delores Bravo. Carver walked around the counter and got a Budweiser out of the refrigerator, pulled the tab, then leaned on the counter and waited.
“We’ve found parts from the Coast Medical Services bomb,” Wicker said. “Bits of material from the container, some wire splices and plastic connectors. It looks like the same kind of bomb that went off at the Women’s Light Clinic. The bomber’s signature’s the same.”
Carver knew that “signature” was bomb squad talk for the distinctive method each bomber employed to construct his or her deadly packages. He set his beer can on the counter and stared at it, then at Wicker. “You’re saying Norton couldn’t have been the Women’s Light Clinic bomber? That the real bomber’s still at large?”
“No, I’m saying someone—maybe Norton—made both bombs. The explosives were sticks of dynamite set off with blasting caps, a battery, and a timer, all contained inside a large hollowed-out Bible.”
“Your lab can tell all that?”
“You’d be surprised how much is left of an exploded bomb,” Wicker said, “if you know where and how to look. Sometimes we can even lift the bomb maker’s fingerprints.” He made a helpless gesture with both hands. “Not this time, though, at the site of either clinic.”
“You going to keep holding Norton?”
“Sure. He could have been the Women’s Light bomber and made both bombs. The Coast Medical clinic explosion might have been the work of another Operation Alive fanatic, taking up where Norton left off.”
“Or trying to make Norton look innocent.”
“We’re taking that possibility into account, too,”
“What about Norton’s wife, Carrie? Might she be the second bomber?” Carver found it hard to imagine even as he made the suggestion. Frail and shy Carrie Norton, who would look twelve until she was forty.
“Not her. She’s been under surveillance since the bureau entered the case.”
Carver came out from behind the bar, leaned on his cane, and said, “I’ve got some information for you, too.” He told Wicker about Adelle Grimm’s motel meeting with the Reverend Martin Freel.
“Unlikely lovers,” Wicker said.
The sound of women’s laughter drifted into the cottage on the ocean breeze. Beth and Delores. Carver and Wicker looked in the direction of the melodious laughter. Beautiful, Carver thought; he loved hearing the laughter of women. He’d mentioned that once to Desoto, who had agreed with him. Then Carver recalled the shrill giggler in the Deep Water Lounge. Some women’s laughter was beautiful.
“The fact is,” Wicker said, “Freel’s got a solid alibi for the days before and after the time of the Women’s Light bombing. He was with half a dozen people in Orlando at the time of the detonation. And we’ve investigated him thoroughly and found no indication of an affair with Adelle Grimm.”
“They would have been careful,” Carver said.
Wicker rubbed his cheek, thinking about it. “She must know Freel might have been behind her husband’s death, Carver. Are you saying . . .”
“Maybe they were both behind Dr. Grimm’s death. Or maybe Freel acted on his own and Adelle didn’t know about it ahead of time. Maybe she doesn’t believe now that he had anything to do with the bombing. Freel could easily convince her that Norton acted alone.”
“There’s still Freel’s alibi,” Wicker said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly restless. He wanted to leave, to get back to Delores. “I think you’d better tell McGregor about this, Carver, stay on the legal side of the line.”
“I will, but tomorrow’s good enough.”
Wicker grinned. “Okay, but do it first thing in the morning. I’ll wait until tomorrow afternoon to notify him. Give him a chance to act smug.”
“Smugness is one of the few things about him that isn’t an act.”
Carver reconsidered waiting until tomorrow to phone McGregor. Maybe he should call him tonight, possibly waking him up. Hadn’t he insisted on information as soon as possible?
He went with Wicker out to the blue FBI sedan. It looked like the one Anderson had parked in to watch the cottage. Its engine was off and was ticking in the heat; or maybe that was Wicker.
Carver said hello to Delores Bravo, who flashed a white smile and looked much better than she had in the hospital. Her long dark hair was combed back, flowing over her shoulders, and her brown eyes gave back the moonlight.
Beth came around from the passenger side, where she’d been talking with Delores through the window. Wicker gave his guilty little smile again as he got in the car and started the engine.
Beth moved closer and stood next to Carver, and they watched the blue official car drive away. Al took a few steps in the direction it had gone, as if considering chasing it, then trotted back and sat on his haunches next to Beth.
“Surprise, surprise,” Carver said as the taillights disappeared in the darkness around a curve in the road to the coast highway.
Beth looked over at him. “You mean you didn’t see that coming?”
“Sure, but not to such a feverish degree until the investigation was ended. Wicker’s a pro. An open and obvious affair with a crime victim isn’t very professional.”
Beth laughed and shook her head. “Come off it, Fred. Poor love-struck guy didn’t have any choice. It happened to him, maybe in an unguarded instant. One day everything’s normal, next thing he knows, he has no appetite and his sleep is disturbed.”
She was right, Carver knew. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe not even by Adelle Grimm and Martin Freel.
Beth leaned over and kissed his perspiring cheek. “Sometimes love even disturbs your sleep, Fred.”
They walked back toward the cottage.
/> “Before it does tonight,” he told her, “I’m going to finish this can of beer. Then I’m going to phone McGregor and disturb his sleep.”
“Then?” she asked.
“Then I’m going to disturb your sleep. Or at least delay it.”
She veered toward him and let her bare arm brush his. “Sounds like a good night’s work.”
As they opened the cottage door, Al barked loudly. “I think he’s still hungry,” Beth said.
“No,” Carver said, “I recognize that bark. He’s trying to tell us he wants to spend the night on the porch.”
And he nudged Al outside with his cane and shut the door.
35
THERE WAS A MESSAGE ON Carver’s office answering machine the next morning from Norton’s attorney, Jefferson Brama. In a smooth but booming voice, Brama informed Carver that he was in Del Moray and would like to see him later that day. He left a phone number for the Surfside, an ocean-view hotel on Cortez Way, a finger of land jutting out to sea, then crooking south at the first knuckle to run parallel to shore. It featured the best beach in the area and was a magnet for tourists with too much time and money. When the attraction waned and they departed, they still had too much time.
Carver called the number, asked for Brama’s extension, and as soon as the phone on the other end of the connection was answered, he hung up. Brama was in his room, which was what Carver wanted to know. The Surfside was only fifteen minutes away.
He gripped his cane and stood up, slipped his gray sport coat on over his black polo shirt, then left the office and crossed the already-baking parking lot to where the Olds sat in partial shade. He’d take the initiative by determining the time and place of his meeting with Brama, and by making an incursion into Brama’s territory.
Something about what he knew of the man, and the voice on the answering machine, made him think his best strategy was offense.
The Surfside was a twenty-story building that looked like a stack of blue-and-white ice cube trays. It was one of half a dozen luxury hotels lined side by side on the most expensive real estate in Del Moray. The spacious lobby, all tile and glass and polished stainless steel, added to the icy impression and seemed as cold as the inside of a refrigerator. All of the buildings on Cortez Way were air-conditioned almost to the point of frost. The wealthy clientele seemed to require it. Carver had seen women wearing bikinis, high heels, and mink jackets cruising the exclusive shops on the palm-lined avenue. They seemed one with the blue herons and flamingos roaming the immaculately tended grounds of the hotels, exotic and not at all out of place.
Carver had no trouble getting Brama’s room number from the desk clerk. He didn’t phone upstairs before riding the elevator to the nineteenth floor. It got colder the higher he went.
When he knocked on the door to Brama’s room, it opened almost immediately.
A sixtyish, potbellied man with steel gray hair combed straight back without a part looked out at Carver with bright blue eyes. He was medium height, wore pleated, pin-striped gray dress pants, a white shirt, and broad paisley suspenders. He smelled strongly of cologne. The scent wasn’t offensive, like McGregor’s bargain brands. Brama smelled clean and expensive. His sleeves were rolled up neatly and he was holding a white towel, still absently going through the motions of drying his hands.
“I thought you were room service,” he said. His blue gaze flicked up and down Carver, hesitating only a moment as it took in the cane. Brama smiled. “Please do come in, Mr. Carver.”
Brama had a corner suite. The cream-colored drapes on the wide, right-angled window were open to reveal a vast view of sea and shore. A tiny palm-top computer sat next to the phone on a table by the cream leather sofa, a coiled black wire connecting it to the base unit.
As soon as Brama closed the door, there was another knock. “Excuse me,” he said to Carver, and reopened the door.
This time it really was room service. Brama instructed the bellhop to carry the covered tray out to the balcony.
“Help yourself to something from the service bar,” he said to Carver, pointing to the wood-paneled door of a small refrigerator set in a credenza near a desk. “There’s enough on the tray for two, I’m sure.”
Carver got a bottle of Perrier water from the refrigerator and walked toward the sliding doors that led to the balcony, the tip of his cane leaving deep, round impressions the size of quarters in the plush blue carpet.
There was a sweeping view from the balcony. The white hulls of boats from the marina dotted the ocean, and far out to sea an oil tanker and a cruise ship were visible, squatting on the horizon like islands. A gull soared past, lower than Carver, and seemed to glance up at him with amused disdain; what was a human with a cane to a creature with wings?
The bellhop placed the tray on a white, decorative iron table and whipped the white cloth napkin from it to reveal a squat silver tea or coffee pot, a wicker basket of assorted pastries, and two plates whose contents were concealed beneath silver covers.
Brama held the room service check steady in the breeze and signed it with a flourish, poked his gold pen back in his shirt pocket, then tipped the bellhop with a five-dollar bill.
As the bellhop left, Brama smiled and motioned for Carver to sit opposite him in one of the matching wrought iron chairs. Carver did. Brama waited until he was seated before sitting down himself. He had a beaming, friendly smile. Carver knew that behind it, Brama was assessing him.
“There’s enough tea here for both of us,” Brama said, “if you’d prefer that to bottled water. And do help yourself to a roll.”
Carver declined the tea but chose a small cheese Danish. Brama tucked a large white napkin into his collar and removed a silver cover from a plate of bacon and eggs, another cover from over a grapefruit half that had a maraschino cherry perched in its center like an exposed secret heart. He began eating with obvious enjoyment, saying nothing, playing the good host but putting Carver slightly ill at ease, waiting for him to fill time with words and possibly say something unwise. Carver knew the game. He sipped Perrier water and enjoyed the view.
Finally Brama lifted his napkin for a moment to dab delicately at his lips, which were curved in a faint smile. “I’m going to subpoena your friend Beth Jackson,” he said. “And possibly you.” He gave his tea bag a final few dips in his cup of water, then lifted it by its tabbed string and placed it on a saucer. “I’m sorry about having to do that, but you’re both eye witnesses to the Women’s Light bombing.”
Carver showed no reaction. “Is that why you wanted to talk?”
“Not entirely. Do you feel uncomfortable speaking with me without legal counsel present, Mr. Carver?”
“No. I have no reason to feel uncomfortable.”
“That’s a fine, forthright answer, even if some, quite wrongly, would deem it a foolish one. I wouldn’t think the highest of a man who would voluntarily sit across from an attorney in a conversation that might involve a homicide if he felt uncomfortable doing so.”
“I didn’t see much that morning. And nothing that would help your client’s case.”
“I prefer witnesses who didn’t see much, but remember what they did see.”
“When the bomb went off, I was sitting in my car half a block away.”
“That gives you distance, objectivity. I like that in a witness.”
Carver felt like someone being blocked whenever he moved a checker.
“Your friend Miss Jackson is another story,” Brama said,
“She is,” Carver said. “She was closer.”
“Yes. I’m truly sorry about that.” Brama sipped his tea. “I’m not so much interested in what you saw the day of the bombing, Mr. Carver, as I am in what you’ve seen since. I understand you’ve been investigating, plying your trade—as well you should—and that she is working on a series of articles for Burrow.”
“She’s plying her trade, too,” Carver said.
Brama waved a strip of bacon he’d been about to bite into. “Of course, of
course. As she should be, working to ease the shock and memory of her experience. Do believe I’m not trying to pump you for information, Mr. Carver.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve learned that true and useful information is a shy creature that most often comes unbidden in its own time and place. And I understand perfectly well that your personal interests lie with the prosecution in this case.” Brama took a generous bite of scrambled egg, then a sip of tea. “But before we get into legalities, I thought we might speak off the record.”
“Are you going to try to convince me Norton’s innocent?”
“No, we won’t get into that.”
“I’m not sure he’s guilty,” Carver said.
Brama sat back and smiled at him. His right eye picked up the blue of the sea and glinted in the sun like a diamond. “Oh? Why not?”
“There’s been another clinic bombing, and your client’s in jail and obviously couldn’t be the perpetrator.”
Brama smiled wide, winked, and shook his head. “It doesn’t suit you to play dumb, Mr. Carver.”
“I don’t consider myself overly smart.”
“Well, that’s fine. That’s sensible. A man who sees himself as uncommonly intelligent probably isn’t.” Brama leaned forward. There was a dark droplet of tea on his chin. “But forget intelligence. What about instincts? Do you have good instincts, Mr. Carver?”
“Sometimes.”
“Ah! So much more important than intelligence, especially in your line of endeavor.” The drop of tea plummeted and made a vertical streak on the white napkin tucked into the neck of Brama’s shirt.
“What about your other client?” Carver asked.
Brama stared at him across the table, letting his eggs cool in the breeze. “What other client?”
“Reverend Martin Freel.”
“Oh! He truly isn’t connected with the Norton case except in the most peripheral manner. The FBI, your friend Wicker, will attest to that.”
