Scorcher fc-2

by John Lutz

  Sometimes they’d go out to dinner, or to a movie. They liked comedies. Almost always they returned to Dewitt’s apartment on Low Citrus Drive, where Nadine would stay until well past midnight.

  Dewitt’s apartment was in a three-story sandstone building with a lighted pool whose water looked as if it needed filtering, though it wasn’t as bad as the pool at the Mermaid Motel. Red iron steps led to the upper-floor apartments, where railed balconies overlooked the pool and a row of ratty-looking, floodlighted palm trees. A flower bed along a low stone wall was colorful with azaleas and marigolds but wildly overgrown. The place could have used a caretaker who actually cared.

  The building had a ground-level garage where tenants’ cars were kept out of the sun and safe from vandalism. Carver would sit in the parked Olds where he could keep an eye on the garage exit, as well as on the windows of Dewitt’s apartment. Usually, around eleven o’clock, the lights in the apartment would wink out and Carver’s imagination would switch on. He couldn’t stop flashing back to his night with Laura. All movement and softness and warmth, familiar yet strange. A new beginning and an end all packaged in a few hours; something personal yet independent of both of them that had to try its wings, and soared and fell.

  Sometimes Nadine’s low-slung red Datsun would screech like a thing in agony from the garage and make a sharp turn onto the street, taking Carver by surprise. He’d have to hurriedly start the Olds and catch up to tail her. She knew no way to drive other than fast.

  The Datsun had metal louvers across the rear window to keep the sun out, like exterior Venetian blinds, and it was difficult for him to know if Nadine was alone. At times she and Dewitt would leave the apartment, and Carver would think she was by herself in the car. He’d follow her several blocks, encouraged by the fact that she wasn’t heading home. Maybe she was on her way to a secret rendezvous with Paul. Then, at a traffic signal or in a brightly lighted area, he’d discover that Dewitt was with her and they were only going out for drinks or a pizza and would return to the apartment later and probably do things he didn’t want to envision.

  Occasionally, when he knew she and Dewitt were set in one place for a while, Carver would phone his cottage number, key-in the answering machine for messages, and listen in the hope that he’d hear Emmett Kave’s voice, or possibly Nadine’s. He was always disappointed.

  But one afternoon, when Nadine and Dewitt were at lunch, Carver finally did receive a phone message from one member of the Kave family: Adam, who wanted to see him as soon as possible and sounded disgusted and angry.

  Carver was sure he knew what Adam wanted with him. He thought he should get back in the Olds and drive straight to the estate and level with Adam Kave. Tell him about Chipper, about McGregor, the entire convoluted tangle of lies and deception. Get everything out in the open and make his quest for vengeance burn hot and pure again. There was nothing Adam or McGregor could do now to stop him from finding Paul Kave and the truth. And nothing anyone could do to protect Paul, or Carver, from the fire of that truth.

  But Carver didn’t leave right away for the Kave estate. He stayed in the stifling phone booth near the tennis club and called McGregor first.

  After a series of switches from one headquarters line to another, there was a muted clatter on the other end of the connection, and McGregor came to the phone.

  “I think Laura talked to Adam Kave,” Carver told him.

  “Balls! How sure are you?”

  “Very. She stormed out of my place last week furious with me. Did everything but yell back that she was going to the Kave family. And just now I got a message on my answering machine: Adam Kave wants to see me as soon as I can get to the estate. He sounded hot as one of his barbecued kraut dogs.”

  “Used all your charm on your ex-wife, did you?” McGregor said nastily.

  “Charmed her about like you did. She gave me the impression she didn’t like or trust you. Mentioned something about her skin crawling.”

  “Ah, she’s being coy.” But McGregor was wisecracking absently; there was an edge of intense concern in his voice. He was the type who calmed himself or bought time with his own inane patter while he got his balance. It didn’t take him long to regain equilibrium. “Hey, Carver, why don’t you avoid old Adam for a while?”

  “No. I’m driving out now to talk to him.”

  “Why meet trouble halfway?”

  “Because it’s trouble I caused.”

  “Find ethics or something?”

  “Never could shake them, I guess.”

  “It’s people like you cause most of the problems in this world.”

  “Doesn’t some of the evidence against Paul Kave make you stop and think?” Carver asked.

  “Stop and think and you’re lost,” McGregor said. “Trick is to keep moving and thinking at the same time.”

  “If Paul-”

  McGregor interrupted. “Don’t lay this bullshit on me, Carver. I don’t wanna hear it. I mean it!”

  “What do you want?”

  “For you to stay away from Adam Kave.”

  “Sorry,” Carver said, “can’t do that. However bent the arrangement is, he’s still my client. I should talk to him, tell him what he oughta know.”

  McGregor lost his patience. “Why the fuck call me if you’re gonna do what you want anyway? No, wait a goddamned minute! It’s not that you shouldn’t have phoned, come to think of it. I got something to say in this matter, way I see it.”

  “We don’t see it the same way. Can’t you get it straight Adam Kave’s on to us? I thought I owed you enough to inform you what’s happening, so you don’t get caught by surprise.”

  “You mean when the chief struts in here and rips my rank off? Chews my poor cop’s ass and puts me back in a uniform and a patrol car?”

  “It’ll be more than that, and you know it.”

  “Don’t ever bet on me taking a fall, stranger. You’d lose the farm on that one.”

  Carver felt his features alter in a slight smile. “You’re such a survivor.”

  “Way I figure it, too. I’m still here; there are plenty who ain’t.”

  “You set this up with the Kave family, remember? You recommended me.”

  “Nope. Don’t remember a thing about that. Somebody record that conversation? For that matter, who the hell is this? Do I know you? Do I? Hey, let’s have a look at your American Express card, see if I recognize the name.”

  This new tack didn’t really surprise Carver. It was possible, he realized; McGregor could play dumb, toss out angry denials, and slip through unscathed in his quest for job and rank retention and even promotion. He was a convincing guy in his sick way. And his arrangement with Carver couldn’t be proved. People like McGregor learned early how to obscure their tracks, and got better at it as life wore on. Takers who were also keepers.

  “I won’t mention to Adam that you know who I really am,” Carver said.

  “I don’t know who you really are, pal. Know your name, is all. Heard you was a troublemaker. Maybe went a little whacky after your son got baked. Hell, can’t blame you for that. But I tell you, it gets thin. Time passes, you gotta try and forget instead of getting snagged on what happened. Attempting to stir up some shit is all you’re doing.”

  “What do you think, the phones are bugged there at police headquarters?” Carver said. “Jesus, can’t you talk straight?”

  “It’s your hearing ain’t quite straight,” McGregor said. “I got work to do now, pal, so call somebody else and tell ’em your smoke-dreams. You on booze or drugs, fella? You talk like your brain’s lost some circuits.” He was rolling now, laying out grounds for denial and letting Carver know the new rules. That’s what this conversation had become about, letting Carver know.

  “Listen, McGregor-”

  “Sorry, dumb fuck, I’m not so lonely I gotta pass the time with a crank caller.”

  “You must be. You’ve got no friends.”

  But McGregor had hung up. The first step in taking on a new
and innocent attitude. Blending back into the bureaucracy. He’d be good at it.

  Carver left the cramped, ovenlike phone booth and limped across the pavement toward his car, which by now would also be sizzling in the sun. In each direction on the highway, heat vapor rose shimmering and gave the illusion of wetness on the flat concrete. As he neared the Olds, a small lizard regarded him warily, then darted into green-tinted shadows and became instantly invisible.

  Carver wished he were as adaptable. But then, what kind of life was it if you were a reptile?

  Ask McGregor.

  Chapter 31

  Adam Kave himself appeared at the door and wordlessly ushered Carver through pseudo-Spain and into the large room where Mel Bingham and Dewitt had fought. The place was messy; apparently the maid hadn’t come in today from Fort Lauderdale. There were still a few drops of Dewitt’s blood on the rug; they were dark brown now.

  Adam walked to the French doors and carefully closed and latched them, as if someone might be lurking on the grounds and overhear the conversation. Maybe he had something there; the Kave family seemed to attract the bizarre. Such as an investigator working for and against them.

  Carver was surprised to see that Adam looked as if he’d been drinking heavily. The flesh of his face was sagging. Even his intense dark eyes seemed oddly elongated. They were also very bloodshot. His black hair was slicked back carelessly and stood out in oily tufts behind his ears. He was wearing blue pinstripe suit pants, a wrinkled white shirt, and a red silk tie that looked as if it had been knotted in the dark. There was a tremulous quality to his wide, steel-trap jaw that evoked in Carver the special pity reserved for the strong gone weak.

  Adam knew how to drive to the point, however. He faced Carver and said, “You’re a deceitful bastard.” His voice was even huskier than usual but it was somewhat slurred, lacking its customary force.

  Carver moved to the black leather sofa and sat down. The cushions hissed beneath him as he settled in. He sank lower than he’d anticipated and felt constricted and immobilized by the soft upholstery. He waited for Adam to talk out the emotion that was obviously pulsating and pressuring within him. On the credenza were an empty bottle of Cutty Sark and a clear glass with half-melted ice floating in diluted amber liquid. The room was quiet. The ocean breaking rhythmically on the beach outside sounded like labored breathing.

  Adam paced three steps to his left, three to his right, almost as in a ritualistic dance, and squared off again at Carver. “Your former wife came to see me. She told me about the way you tricked me. About the shitty deal you made with that police detective, McGregor. He knew who you were all along.” Kave slammed his right fist into his left palm so hard it had to bruise, but he gave no indication of pain; the effects of expensive Scotch. “By God, I’ll have his ass for this! Both your asses!”

  “You’ll find McGregor’s covered his,” Carver said.

  “And you haven’t?”

  “No. I guess, under the circumstances, I don’t care enough about it.”

  Adam was wringing his powerful hands now, flexing and unflexing them. He felt strong. He could wrench the lid off any stuck jar. “You want revenge,” he said, staring down at the floor. “That’s all you were after from the beginning. That was the plan. Eye-for-an-eye fanaticism. So appealingly simple, it must seem to you. You want to kill Paul, the way you think he killed your son.”

  “It began that way,” Carver admitted.

  “Ah! But now you have your doubts?”

  “Some.”

  “Of course! You think he’s innocent and you want to help him!” The slurred voice was thick with irony. Adam shook his head slowly. “More lies. Ha! Know what, Carver! I think you’re wriggling on the hook and trying to keep your investigator’s license. What passes for your professional reputation.”

  “I don’t care about that,” Carver said. “It’s just that certain things I learned while searching for Paul don’t fit tight. Never really have, only I was too blind and deaf to realize it. Pieces from some other puzzle have accumulated.”

  Interested despite his anger, Adam relaxed somewhat and dropped his hands to his sides. “Example?” he snapped, some of the old command back in his bullfrog voice.

  “The accelerant-what was used to start the fires and keep them burning. Why this mixture of naphtha and chemicals, when plain old gasoline or kerosene would have been just as deadly? And if the object was to cause maximum suffering, there must be other, less traceable ways to make flammable liquid gelatinous, ways using common, over-the-counter products. I think an amateur chemist like Paul would have known them. Why a homemade flamethrower in the first place? It’d be easy and effective enough simply to throw a can or jar of flammable liquid on a victim, then follow it with a lighted match. And would Paul be careless enough to use his car for the murders, and later leave evidence of his involvement to be found in the trunk? A schizophrenic operating under delusions of persecution isn’t necessarily illogical in every way. Especially one as intelligent as Paul. And his symptoms were under control; he was rational enough to request his medicine, and Nadine took it to him.”

  Adam removed his squarish, silver-rimmed glasses from his shirt pocket, polished them absently with his tie, then slipped them back in the pocket instead of placing them on the bridge of his nose. As if he’d decided not to look closely at Carver after all. “You’re right,” he said, “Paul isn’t stupid or careless, whatever his frame of mind.”

  “You don’t have to be either of those things to be set up.”

  Adam rubbed his wide jaw and squinted dubiously at Carver. He had a straw to clutch. And how he wanted to believe! But he knew the potential pain of false hope. He was reluctant to embrace what couldn’t be proved, and Carver didn’t blame him. This affair had already produced enough agony. What had Jerry Gepman said at his door in Chattanooga? Some families, tragedy just haunts them. Won’t let up.

  “The murders were more elaborate than was necessary,” Carver said.

  “Do you seriously think someone burned those people to death just so Paul would be blamed?” Adam asked. More of a challenge than a question. Prove it, the blood-rimmed dark eyes pleaded, while the curbstone jaw remained unyielding.

  “I don’t know. Who’d have reason to do this to him?”

  Adam thought for a moment, then shrugged. “No one, I’m sure. Oh, he inspired some petty grudges with his occasional temper tantrums, but not to the degree anyone would want to do this. It would take an insane person to commit murder so Paul could be blamed. No, no, it doesn’t make sense strategically at all. Even to someone with a sick mind.”

  A sick mind, Carver thought, remembering his conversation with McGregor. “Maybe there’s a strategy at work neither of us understands,” he said.

  “Whether there is or not,” Adam said, “I want you to stay out of the matter. I can’t and won’t accept what you’ve done. I’m going to do everything possible to see to it you never practice your sorry profession in Florida again. Or anywhere else where I can stop you. You’ve got my solemn promise.”

  “I don’t suppose you could understand how it feels to lose your only son to a maniac with a makeshift flamethrower,” Carver said. But he wondered. Nick Fanning had said Adam loved his son; it was proving true.

  “It’s my son I’m thinking about. And my daughter. I want you to stop following her.”

  “Huh? Nadine thinks I’m watching her?”

  “Mel Bingham saw you spying on her at the tennis club and told her about it.”

  “How much do you actually know about Bingham?”

  “Enough to believe him.”

  “What about Nick Fanning? How long’s he been with your company?”

  “What significance does any of this have?” Adam asked.

  “Maybe none, maybe a lot.”

  “It doesn’t matter to you,” Adam said. “You’re off the case. And I’ll see that it was your last.”

  There was nothing more to say. At least nothing to which A
dam would respond. He was staring down cold-eyed at Carver, waiting for him to leave. He seemed to have recovered most of his sobriety and was plainly glad the unpleasant conversation was ended.

  Carver levered himself to a standing position with the cane, then turned and started for the door.

  “You should have listened to your former wife,” Adam said. “She had your best interest at heart.”

  Without moving his legs or the cane, Carver twisted his torso and glared back at Adam. Then he limped from the room.

  Outside, in the shade of the portico, he was about to lower himself into the Olds when a soft voice called his name.

  He looked up to see Elana Kave beneath the palm trees near the house. She was wearing a silky gray flowing robe and was barefoot. She glided lightly through brilliant sun and into shadow to stand beside Carver. He couldn’t hear her feet on the driveway. The top was down on the Olds; he took the strain off his good leg and finished lowering his body in behind the steering wheel. He closed the door slowly, with only a muted double-click, and stared at Elana. She looked haggard and very sad. It deepened her fragile beauty into something soul-wrenching. There was a burning in her eyes smaller but brighter than the sun.

  “Paul’s innocent,” she said quietly. “I know it.”

  “How do you know?” Carver asked. He found it difficult to look directly at her, sensing that he was seeing the uncanny flare of life preceding imminent death. She was suffering in soul and flesh, and he felt guilty and soiled at being a part of it.

  “I’m his mother,” she said simply. “I’m-” She stopped herself from saying more, as if the words once uttered would deflate the will that kept her alive.

  “What is it?” Carver asked gently. “What?”

  “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  He felt sweat bead on his forehead though it was cool there in the shadows.

  She sensed the sudden compassion in him and smiled eerily. Maybe winning him over at least temporarily was all she’d wanted. It suggested hope, and she existed on hope and not much more. She turned and floated back across the patch of bright sunlight and into the shadows of the palm trees. Then she disappeared around the corner of the house without glancing back.