Torch

by John Lutz

  “That’s how it was.”

  “Give me a reason.”

  “I can’t yet, but I think there is one. After what happened to Gretch, I’m convinced Mark was murdered.”

  “The police won’t be convinced, though. Not officially.”

  “And you?” Carver asked.

  “I’m with the police, remember?”

  “I mean, how do you feel personally?”

  “Personally, I more or less agree with you that Mark was murdered.”

  “McGregor won’t.”

  “Well, Gretch didn’t roll himself up in a rug and beat himself to death,” Desoto said, “so this one’s definitely a homicide. And it’s in my jurisdiction even if the Winship deaths aren’t. I can keep you informed of any possible connection between Gretch and Mark Winship that might come up during the investigation.”

  “Donna was the connection.”

  “Sure. But we don’t know what that means. It doesn’t seem to be the stuff that murders are made of unless they’re crimes of passion. Donna killed herself and Mark died and that’s how it went, passion and grief. I mean, that’s how it could have gone if Mark actually committed suicide. But Gretch’s murder wouldn’t fit into the picture unless Mark was also a murder victim. This thing with Gretch muddies the waters considerably.” He smiled sadly and shook his head. “Life is a mystery, hey, amigo?”

  Carver said, “It doesn’t hold a candle to death.”

  27

  CARVER KNEW WHAT they wanted to hear, so they were finished with him first.

  He left police headquarters on Hughey before Beth and Hodgkins, knowing they might be there considerably longer. The polite, insistent questions would come faster when they were tired, when they’d be more likely to contradict themselves or each other if they were lying. The interrogators were aware he’d been one of them and knew their tricks, so the game had been cut short. He’d given his statement again to Desoto and two other officers while a recorder was running, then verified and signed the transcript.

  As he lowered himself into the Olds, he glanced at his watch. Three-twenty. He’d had a doughnut and several cups of acidic coffee in the interrogation room. He looked over at the beige brick and graystone building with its pinched, fortresslike windows and wondered when Beth would finally walk out. There was no way to guess. Homicide cases had top priority and created their own timetables. And it wasn’t every day someone was found who’d been beaten to death while rolled in a carpet. Desoto had told him the M.E.’s preliminary report had stated that almost every bone in Gretch’s body had been broken and there had been massive internal bleeding. The victim had died slowly and in great agony. Carver felt a rush of anger that anyone, even Gretch, had to die that way.

  He started the engine and got the car’s air conditioner huffing and gurgling, then drove to a McDonald’s and had a Big Mac, large order of fries, and a diet Coke. He’d swum this morning, so he figured he could afford the calories, and the Coke assuaged his dietary conscience. And it wasn’t as if he did this every other day; there was no reason to think of himself as weak.

  It was almost four when he called Burnair and Crosley from a public phone and asked to speak with Maggie Rourke. He was told Miz Rourke had left for the day. He stuffed more change into the phone and called Maggie’s cottage. No one picked up. He let her phone ring ten times before replacing the receiver.

  He got back in his car and pulled out into traffic, aiming the Olds’s long, prowlike hood toward Del Moray. When he got there, he’d call Maggie’s cottage again. If she still wasn’t there, he knew where he might find her.

  Maggie’s black Stanza was parked on Gull Avenue half a block from Shellie’s.

  Carver didn’t bother trying to conceal himself this time. He entered the bar, leaned over his cane, and looked around.

  The place was cool after outside, and more crowded now. Half the stools at the long bar were occupied by men in work clothes, a few in suits, and women mostly in casual clothes. Almost all the tables were taken. The TV above the bar was soundlessly showing the local news, two flawlessly coiffed talking heads miming half-sentences at each other, maybe about Carl Gretch. A karaoke setup was on a small raised platform at the rear of the bar, but it was too early for anyone to be at the mike pretending to be a celebrity. Soft rock with a deep bass beat was pounding at low volume from large box speakers that were angled out from the walls in each corner so they were aimed down at the customers.

  Maggie was at the far end of the bar, perched on the same stool Carver had seen her on the last time he’d been there. She was easily the best-dressed woman in the place, with her gray business suit and white blouse with a ruffled collar, her black high heels hitched over the barstool brace. She had a drink in front of her and was staring into it, her hands folded in her lap. There was a white napkin next to her glass with three red swizzle sticks laid out on it in no particular pattern. She’d been there a while. Carver figured she’d found the dismembered doll on her bed and maybe that was why she looked so disconsolate. Or maybe she’d heard about Gretch’s death and it meant something to her. He couldn’t ask her about the doll without her knowing he’d been in her cottage, but he could ask her about Gretch and try to catch her reaction. She had to have a lot of alcohol in her; it might be the best time to talk to her.

  She didn’t notice him until he’d taken the stool next to her. Then their eyes met in the mirror behind the bar. She didn’t seem surprised to see him, only nodded, then stared back down into her drink.

  “That looks diluted,” he said, nodding toward her glass. “Buy you another?”

  She didn’t answer.

  When the bartender, a short, stocky woman with black hair and no makeup, walked over, Carver ordered a Budweiser and another of whatever Maggie was drinking.

  It turned out to be scotch and seltzer. When the drinks were in front of them on the bar, Maggie stirred hers, then laid the plastic swizzle stick on the napkin with the others. She sipped her fresh drink as if testing it, seemed satisfied, and placed it carefully on its coaster. “You followed me.”

  “Sort of.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “I don’t, either,” Carver said. “It’s an unpleasant part of my job, following people.”

  “I’d certainly appreciate it,” she said—and he realized her words were coming slow and slurred—“if you wouldn’t mention to anyone at Burnair and Crosley I was here. You understand. Bad for the corporate image.”

  “You come here a lot?”

  She turned her head and studied him with blurry but still beautiful eyes. “It’s not the first time.”

  “Or the second?”

  Her despondent little laugh was more like a cry. Her right hand began to move on the bar in time to the music, the tips of her fingers barely brushing the polished wood surface, almost a nervous twitch. She was making an effort to seem sober. “So I gotta admit I have this problem. I’m a recovering alcoholic. It was okay until Mark died. I mean, I could cope with it. Stay away from it. Then, when I learned about his death, I fell off the wagon. Hit the ground hard.” No slurring that time. Good.

  “Anybody at Burnair and Crosley know about your problem?”

  “I don’t think so. I lost my previous job in the recession. Or the reshtru—restructuring, as it was called.” She smiled hopelessly. “No, that’s not true. I lost it because I drank. Anyway, I couldn’t find work, so I did some modeling, then I got involved in a bad—no, a disastrous—love affair. He had influence, and he used it to place me at Burnair and Crosley just before we broke up, gave me the highest recommendation that didn’t mention alcoholism. He helped me to stop drinking, too, and I stayed stopped until Mark died. So now I’m drinking again and trying to stop again.”

  “Are you trying your best?”

  “Not at the moment.” She sipped. Replaced her drink squarely on its coaster. “And now you know I’m a drunk who handles other people’s money. So what are you gonna do, have me executed?”r />
  “Not me.”

  “I’m cold clean sober at work, Carver. Always.” Her hand began to move again in time with the music.

  “I believe you.” He worked on his beer for a minute. “Speaking of people dying, have you heard about Carl Gretch?”

  No visible reaction. “Who?”

  “Enrico Thomas. Donna’s lover.”

  Now she blinked. Her hand stopped moving. “That guy? He’s dead?”

  “Died sometime last night,” Carver said. “Died hard.” Pushing it, watching her.

  “What? How?”

  “He was rolled up tight in a carpet and beaten to death.”

  She swallowed, then lifted her glass and took a huge gulp of her drink so she’d have something for her throat to work on. Delicately, she dabbed at her lips with the backs of her knuckles, making it seem like a gesture taught at finishing schools. “I never met him, so why should I care?”

  “He knew you. You were fellow clients at the Walton Agency.”

  She swiveled slightly on her stool and stared at Carver, looking genuinely confused.

  “He said he met you at a lung shoot,” Carver explained.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “It was a photographer’s shoot for a cigarette advertisement. You and Gretch were playing volleyball on the beach with some other models.”

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek, probably shredding it without feeling what she was doing to herself. “Yeah,” she said finally, “I remember that job. Gretch. Little guy? Latin?”

  “He’s the one.”

  “He was Enrico Thomas? Donna’s lover?”

  “They were the same man.”

  “I’ll be damned.” She swiveled back to face the bar and her drink. “And you say somebody beat him to death?” Trying to get it all straight in her mind.

  “I think Beni Ho did it.”

  “Isn’t that a Japanese restaurant?”

  “He’s the man I shot in front of your cottage.”

  “Really? Police gonna arrest him?”

  “No. There’s isn’t proof, and there won’t be. Ho’s very much a professional who takes everything into account.” He leaned closer to her. “Is everything all right with you?”

  “ ’Course not. That’s why I’m here doing what I’m doing, because of Mark. Trying to get over how goddamn unfair it all is.”

  “I mean, has anyone threatened you in any way?”

  She shook her head no firmly. “Why should anyone threaten me? Donna’s dead, now Mark is.”

  “And Gretch.”

  “I didn’t—I hardly knew him.”

  “Think about it,” Carver said softly. “Try to focus. First Donna, then Mark, and now Gretch.”

  After a moment she said, “I see what you mean. All three sides of a love triangle.” She slowly stirred her drink with the tip of her finger, red nail swirling amber liquid in the soft light from behind the bar. “But I don’t get it. Why? Why did any of it happen?”

  “I was hoping you could give me some insight.”

  “Uh-uh, I can’t. You know more’n I do about it, that’s for sure. Maybe . . . maybe it’s just fate. You believe in fate, don’t you?

  “Sometimes. I believe in geometry, too.”

  She cocked her head as if listening to music coming from her glass and looked puzzled. “Meaning?”

  “It’s why I asked you if you’d been threatened. It wasn’t a love triangle, it was a square. And there’s one side left.”

  She bowed her head, then moved a hand to caress her stomach. Swallowed several times noisily. “S’cuse me!” she said, and almost fell off her stool, using it for support while she stood and got her balance. “Might be a little sick . . .”

  He watched her stumble on numbed legs toward the rest-rooms at the rear of the bar. They were only about ten feet away or she might not have made it. The door marked GULLS slammed shut behind her. The other door was marked BUOYS. Carver had seen that a few times in Florida.

  She’d left her purse, so he was reasonably certain she wouldn’t try to leave through a back exit or window. He wasn’t sure if it mattered much anyway. Where could she go?

  When she came out of the restroom ten minutes later she was still walking unsteadily and was very pale. The stocky bartender gave her a look. Gave Carver a look.

  Carver picked up Maggie’s purse from the bar.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked, leaning with one hand on the bar’s padded edge.

  He planted his cane and got down off his stool. “I’m gonna drive you home.”

  “I don’t need anyone to do that.”

  “You do if you want to stay alive.”

  The bartender leaned over the bar so her black hair hung down over one side of her face. With her sturdy build and lack of makeup, it somehow made her seem ominous. “I can’t let you walk outa here and drive, ma’am. It could mean my job, and maybe a lot worse for you.”

  Maggie looked as if she might argue some more. But she sighed and licked her lips with a disgusted expression, then grabbed her purse from Carver and wove toward the door. Every man at the bar turned to stare. A few of them smiled. Carver followed her.

  He thought she might make for her own car and continue to object, but she was waiting for him outside the door, holding her purse clutched to her stomach with both hands. She was swaying slightly and had a look on her face as if she might be nauseated.

  “Which?” she said.

  Carver pointed to the Olds parked across the street, then gripped her elbow and helped her steer a straight course to the car. She smelled of alcohol and vomit, yet beneath that was an oddly appealing and persistent scent of perfume. Lilacs, Carver thought. He’d had his rough time with alcohol after Laura had left him and he’d been shot, and again after his son had died. He wondered how long Maggie would remain a beautiful woman if she stayed wed to the bottle.

  On the highway she fell asleep with her head propped on his shoulder. By the time they’d reached her cottage, she was impossible to rouse.

  He climbed out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and opened the door. He shook Maggie’s shoulder, shouted at her.

  She blinked at him and smiled, then closed her eyes again.

  There was no other way to carry her, walking with a cane. After fishing her keys from her purse, he wrestled her out of the car, slung her over his shoulder, and limped with her to the cottage door. She didn’t weigh much, and it was little effort once he’d gotten her up and balanced.

  When he’d unlocked the door and opened it he found a light switch and flicked it upward. A lamp on one of the tables came on. He carried Maggie to her bed and laid her down where the dismembered doll had been, then worked her remaining shoe off her nylon-clad foot. The other shoe must have dropped off somewhere between the car and the bed. She moaned in her sleep and rolled onto her side, drawing her knees up as if her stomach ached.

  Carver lifted one side of the bedspread and covered her up to the shoulders with it, then returned to the living room.

  The missing shoe was on the floor just inside the door. He picked it up and closed the door, then walked back and dropped it beside its mate next to the bed. Maggie hadn’t moved and was breathing evenly with her mouth open, making soft little snoring sounds. Her face was unlined, her expression blank. The alcohol had brought her some peace; the price would be paid later.

  After walking around the cottage and making sure the sliding glass door and the windows were locked, he placed her purse on the table with the lamp and left, locking the door behind him.

  When he reached the highway, he cranked down the Olds’s windows and let the wind chase the mingled scent of her from the car’s interior.

  28

  BEVERLY DENTON WAS eating lunch in the park across from Burnair and Crosley the next afternoon. Carver passed through dozens of foraging pigeons waddling about on the grass and pecking for morsels among the coarse green strands. They took to the air all at once with a great wh
irring and flapping, causing Beverly to look up from the book she was reading and see him. She smiled, but it was an uncertain smile.

  “I thought I might find you here,” Carver said, as she glanced at his cane and scooted over on the bench to make room for him. He didn’t like that and remained standing.

  She put down the sandwich she was eating and closed her paperback book, a Sue Grafton novel. So she was a fan of fictional detectives. “I haven’t gotten anyone in trouble, have I?” she asked.

  “No. In a roundabout way, you’re helping people.”

  She lifted the sandwich again, then hastily put it back down, as if deciding it would be bad manners to eat in front of him. She was wearing slacks and a matching green blazer, and the same oversized gold hoop earrings she’d had on the last time Carver had seen her. “I guess that means you’ve learned something about Donna and Mark.”

  “Nothing conclusive,” he said. “But you were right when you told me their deaths should be investigated.”

  “Do you think they really did commit suicide?”

  “I think Donna did. I think Mark was murdered.”

  She seemed to mull that over, staring out at the traffic on Atlantic Drive, squinting as if the sun hurt her eyes. “What do the police think?” she asked.

  “They think it would be more convenient if he committed suicide.”

  “Just like in books,” she said, tapping a fingernail on the glossy cover of the Grafton novel that was almost luminous in the sunlight.

  “More like in books than most people think,” Carver said.

  She smiled at him, with certainty this time. “You’re here because you want something from me,” she said.

  “Yes, just like in books. How long has Maggie Rourke been with Burnair and Crosley?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. Less than a year, though.”

  “She was recommended for her position by a lover she later broke away from. I need to know his name.”

  “I can’t help you there. I never heard of the guy.”

  “You can help,” he said. “You can find out his name.”