Burn

by John Lutz

  “A few people could,” Carver said. “You’re not one of them.”

  “Who I am is part of the problem, too.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The child will be biracial. That carries its own troubles.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he snapped, defending his offspring already.

  “Not to you or me, obviously. But it matters to some people, and the child would suffer for it. I’ve seen people caught in that cold, empty zone between the races. And it ripples through generations. I’ve seen it cause agony and even death.”

  “I’ve seen it work out OK,” Carver said.

  “Yeah, some of the time it does.”

  “Some of the time’s enough.”

  She half turned in her chair and stared at the boats looking white and antiseptically clean in the sunlight, and at the sea beyond them, gone from blue to deep green in the evening light. Night was on the way.

  Then she stood up, very erect, still lean-waisted. “I’ve got to give this a lot of thought, Fred.”

  He shoved his chair back, scraping metal over concrete, and grabbed his cane. He didn’t stand up, though. “Do you want me to be with you tonight?”

  “I’d rather you weren’t,” she told him. “I need to think on it alone.”

  “I’ll drive you back to your car.”

  “No, I’ll walk along the beach awhile, then I’ll take a cab. Do me good.”

  “You sure?”

  She leaned down, careful not to bump her head on the umbrella, and kissed his cheek. “I’m sure.”

  He gathered up all the uneaten food and the wrappers and placed them on the plastic tray, preparing to leave.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  He used his forefinger to push his sunglasses back up where they’d slid from the bridge of his nose. “If she’s home, I’m going to talk to W. Krull.” He stood up and carried the tray to a trash receptacle, dumped its contents, and sat it on top of a stack of identical trays around which several fat flies droned. “I’ve got to do something.”

  He watched Beth walk out of sight before he started the car and pulled out into traffic on Magellan.

  As he drove, he thought about his son, Chipper, who’d been burned to death by a mentally disturbed killer five years ago. The son who would forever be eight years old in Carver’s mind, the age at which he’d died.

  For the first time in years, he found tears tracking down his cheeks.

  He thanked God he was wearing dark glasses.

  10

  AFTER HE PARKED ON Fourteenth Street across from W. Krull’s apartment, Carver peeled off his sunglasses and slid them into his shirt pocket. He’d stopped by the office to get his light gray sport jacket. He removed the jacket from its wire hanger, hooked over one of the convertible top’s steel struts, and shrugged into it, fastening a button: instant officialdom, and the taco sauce stains on his shirt were concealed.

  A young, blond woman and a tall Hispanic man were leaving the building as Carver limped with his cane around the dry pool with its maimed fish fountain. The man thought Carver was staring at the woman and shot him a glance that carried a mild warning. Carver wondered if they were married, or had children.

  He made his way up a narrow flight of wooden stairs and found apartment 2-D halfway down a carpeted hall that smelled of mildew and had low-wattage bulbs in brass sconces every ten feet or so along the walls. At the far end of the hall was a small, square window that grudgingly let in light that fell in a rectangle on the carpet and ventured no farther. The doors lining the hall had been painted dark red years ago. The apartment numbers tacked to them were the plastic, reflective kind made for outside addresses.

  Carver rapped lightly on the door with his cane, and a moment later locks clicked and bolts slid from their casings. A woman’s voice called something he couldn’t make out, then more locks were released. W. Krull seemed to share Marla Cloy’s cautious nature.

  The door opened about four inches and she peered out at him over a taut brass chain.

  “I’m investigating the Marla Cloy harassment,” he said.

  She continued staring at him with her one visible bleary blue eye, like a mouse peeking fearfully from its hole. Carver the cat thought there was nothing friendly or approachable about the eye.

  “Your name came up. I’d like to talk with you.” He gave her his most reassuring smile and flipped open his wallet as if flashing police identification, holding the wallet well to the side so she’d have to strain to see around the vertical plane of the partly opened door.

  “That isn’t police ID,” she said.

  He couldn’t lie about that one. Impersonating the police could be trouble. “No, it isn’t. The court granted Ms. Cloy her request for a restraining order. There’s only so much official manpower. Better than our taxes going up, I suppose.”

  “So you’re employed by the court?”

  He smiled again, tolerantly this time, as if used to the question. “We independent investigators have all sorts of clients,” he said, walking the fine line. “I’ll be glad to come back later, if this is a bad time.” So nonthreatening and reasonable.

  She stared at him for another half minute.

  “Now and then time can turn out to be important,” he told her. “That’s why I came by this evening instead of waiting till tomorrow.”

  “Just a second,” she said at last.

  The door closed, the chain rattled, and she opened the door to let him enter. She glanced at his cane, surprised and reassured. If she had to, she could outrun him, maybe even immobilize him first.

  She was wearing a white blouse with a pale rose design, and navy blue slacks that hung loose on her gaunt, shapeless body. Her thin brown hair was just curly enough to be unmanageable and stuck out in wispy revolt behind her small, protruding ears. “What was your name again?” she asked.

  “Carver. Fred Carver.” He knew she’d probably read it when he’d flipped open his wallet. She would be testing him now. He wished he’d brought his insurance agent’s notepad, now that he wasn’t a cop. “I’ll only take up a little of your time with a few questions.”

  They continued standing just inside the door. She didn’t invite him to sit down. He limped a few feet farther into the room and leaned on his cane. The apartment was cluttered and dusty, with a threadbare oriental rug and meanly upholstered, spindly brown chairs and a sofa. Everything seemed to have been where it was for a long, long time, and there were few bright colors. It was a drab apartment for a drab woman. The place contained the same faint mothball scent he’d first noticed on W. Krull. On one wall was a dime-store print of Moses on the mount, clasping the stone engraved with the Commandments to his breast while sunlight and lightning played simultaneously among the clouds. Above the console television on the adjoining wall was a large crucifix, a pale Christ nailed to a dark plastic cross and gazing down at the TV with pain and pity. Next to the crucifix, also mounted on the wall, was a small glass display box containing a semiautomatic handgun. Florida in a nutshell, Carver thought.

  “That’s a Russian Tokarev 7.62-millimeter,” W. Krull said, noticing him staring at the gun. “It was the official Russian sidearm during World War Two.”

  “Are you a collector?”

  “Only in a small way.”

  “Then you like guns.”

  “I’ve learned to like them. It’s become necessary.”

  He moved to the sofa and sat down without being asked, leaning his cane against the thinly padded arm. The sofa was even more uncomfortable than it looked, and he could feel its frame straining to support his weight.

  “Exactly what is your relationship with Marla Cloy?” he asked.

  “We’re business associates and friends.”

  Carver’s gaze fell on the neat stack of magazines on the table. Shooter’s World lay on top. Its glossy cover showed an attractive woman dressed for a casual suburban barbecue blasting away with a shotgun at a clay pigeon. The subscription mail
ing label, conveniently upside down on the magazine’s cover, was made out to Willa Krull.

  “Do you shoot?” she asked.

  Carver smiled. “No, the sort of work I do isn’t as exciting as it seems in novels or the movies.”

  “I mean, for sport.”

  “Now and then at the police pistol range, to keep my eye.” He tapped Shooter’s World with his cane. “You seem to be quite a gun enthusiast.”

  “I bought my first gun and learned to shoot three years ago. You see, I’m a rape survivor, Mr. Carver. It won’t happen to me again if I can help it.”

  “I don’t blame you for taking precautions,” Carver said. “And you went about things the right way, not just buying a gun, but learning how to use it.”

  “I’ve become proficient,” she said. It sounded like a threat.

  “How long have you known Marla Cloy?”

  “About three months. After she moved here from Orlando, she answered my ad in the Gazette-Dispatch. I’m a proofreader and word-processor operator, and she writes on a typewriter or in longhand. Some of the periodicals she sells to have a policy of requesting the articles on disk. And she needed someone to proofread and prepare manuscripts for her larger assignments, to help her meet deadlines.”

  “Do you work out of your home?”

  “Yes. I’ve turned the spare bedroom into my office.”

  “So your business relationship with Marla blossomed into friendship.”

  Willa seemed to become resigned to the fact that she was stuck with Carver for a while. She moved to a chair and sat down. “We got along well. Then, when that creep started to stalk Marla, we had a special empathy. As I said, I’m a recovering rape victim. I know the kind of terror she feels.”

  “Has she expressed her fear of this man to you?”

  “Several times. I’ve tried to get her to buy a gun for self-defense and take up target shooting, but she doesn’t want to. She will eventually, though. She’s that afraid.”

  “Do you think her fear is genuine? I mean, we have to make sure in a case like this.”

  Willa’s upper lip drew back over small, yellowed teeth, making her appear even more like a rodent. “Of course it’s genuine! I’ve felt the kind of fear she’s feeling now, and I can recognize it when I see it in someone else. My God, why wouldn’t she be afraid? She’s being stalked by a dangerous maniac.”

  “We’re trying to do something about that,” Carver said.

  “But you can’t do anything,” Willa said. “I know how the system works—or doesn’t work. The man hasn’t broken any laws until he’s killed her. Then it’s too late.”

  “There’s a law against stalking people.”

  She distorted her mouth in disdain. “It’s a crime that’s difficult to prove until the victim is dead.”

  “You have a point. I won’t pretend it isn’t a problem.” Carver rested a hand on the crook of his cane. “Just for the record, do you regard Marla Cloy as stable and not the sort of person who might imagine things?”

  “Of course she’s stable! It’s that Joel Brant sicko who isn’t stable. She’s not some kind of nut! This is just the kind of thing a woman can expect—Marla’s the one being persecuted and here you are blaming her for what’s going on. It’s too bad you won’t be able to arrest her for her own murder!”

  “Take it easy, Willa. I agree with you. Nobody’s trying to blame Marla Cloy for anything. It’s just that I have to ask these questions, establish the facts. Maybe someday the law will be changed.”

  “Some of us can’t wait.”

  “What sort of stuff does Marla Cloy write?”

  “Whatever she can sell, I guess. Newspaper and magazine articles, short stories. A poem, once. She’s been trying to sell a book, but that isn’t easy. Marla says you can’t sell a book without an agent, and you can’t get an agent unless you’ve sold a book.”

  “Sounds like a lot of businesses,” Carver said. “But Marla seems to be doing OK.”

  “She makes enough to pay the rent and buy groceries,” Willa said. “Like most of us. It isn’t easy for a woman alone.”

  “I guess not,” Carver said. He shifted his weight over the cane and stood up.

  “Guess is all you can do. There’s no way a man could understand how it is being part of an oppressed minority.”

  “Aren’t there more women than men in the country?” Carver asked.

  Willa smiled, but not in a nice way at all. “You better hope we never all pull together.”

  Carver went over to the crucifix and gun display, trying to imagine Beth and Willa pulling on the same rope. He couldn’t conjure it up.

  The display case looked handmade but was neatly constructed and finished with thick coats of brushed-on varnish. The Tokarev was behind a small glass door and resting on pegs against a gray silk background. It was a blue-steel piece of work with a five-pointed star set into its grooved grip. It looked like too much gun for a woman as slight as Willa Krull.

  “That one’s only for display,” she said, as if reading his mind. “It’s not very valuable, but it’s still something of a collector’s item. I target shoot with a twenty-two revolver and have a small nine-millimeter for protection.”

  “You’re a woman who means business, Willa.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone. And I don’t want to give the impression I’m the kind of simple-minded woman who automatically thinks all men are immoral, testosterone-driven beasts. My victimhood hasn’t become my identity. But next time around, things will turn out differently. I’m absolutely determined about that.”

  “I understand,” Carver told her.

  “I no longer ask for understanding.”

  He thanked her for her time and trouble, then he moved toward the door. She didn’t say goodbye when she showed him out. He didn’t mind.

  He sympathized with her, but she scared him.

  11

  EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Carver drove over to Highway One, then south to the Bee Line Expressway and into Orlando.

  Orlando police headquarters was a long, beige building with vertically pinched windows that gave it the look of a fortress. Desoto was in his office, listening to soft Latin music seeping from the Sony portable stereo on the windowsill behind his desk. He was dressed like a GQ model, as usual, in a cream-colored suit with a pale yellow chalk stripe, white shirt, yellow silk tie with a knot almost too small to see, and gold cuff links, watch, and rings. Desoto seemed to like jewelry more every year. Carver noticed that now he wore a diamond pinkie ring.

  He was an impossibly handsome and collected man, with a classic Latin profile and sleek black hair that Carver had never seen mussed—a tough cop who looked as if he’d missed his calling as a gigolo, but not by much.

  Desoto was seated behind his desk, talking on the phone. “Of course, Miss Belmontrosaigne,” he was saying. “Of course, of course.” He flashed his white, lady-killer smile, as if Miss Belmont—whoever she was—could see him over the phone. Well, maybe the smile came through in his voice. “We’re doing our best for you. That I personally guarantee. It’s not only a duty, it’s a pleasure. Yes, yes, yes . . .” he said soothingly.

  He said goodbye as if he regretted having to break off the conversation, but they’d always have Paris.

  “Who’s Miss Belmontwhatever?” Carver asked.

  “Woman whose shop over on Orange Avenue keeps getting held up. Three times in the past month. She called to complain that nothing’s being done about it. We’ve got the place staked out, but it’s best not to let her know that. She might behave suspiciously and tip whoever comes in. Which could put her in danger.”

  Desoto the chivalrous; he was the only cop Carver knew who might be described as gallant. He truly liked women. Not as conquests or ornaments, but as people. Miss Belmontwhatever was as likely to be a seventy-year-old woman as a young, nubile beauty.

  “What about Marla Cloy?” Carver asked.

  “Ah! Shut the door, amigo.”

  Carver d
id, blocking out the sounds of activity elsewhere in the building. The soft guitar music seemed louder. As Carver lowered himself into the chair angled toward the desk, Desoto reached back and delicately twisted a knob that gradually reduced the volume of the portable Sony.

  “Why do you need to know about this Marla Cloy?” he asked.

  Carver told him.

  “The question is who to believe,” Desoto said, when Carver was finished talking.

  “Right now,” Carver said, “I believe my client.”

  “Because he is your client?”

  “That’s not the entire reason, but it’s a factor.”

  “And if you find out he’s lying?”

  “Then he’s no longer my client.”

  “McGregor won’t help you at all,” Desoto said. “He’s a human reptile and should be shot.”

  “That’s why I called you,” Carver said.

  “Ah, to shoot him?”

  “Maybe someday. He won’t get involved in the Marla Cloy— Joel Brant problem until someone’s dead. But I figured you could help, since she lived in Orlando until about three months ago.”

  Desoto leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. The movement caused his jacket to gap, revealing an empty leather shoulder holster. Carver figured his gun was in a drawer. Desoto had all his suits altered to disguise the bulk of his gun, but he still resented the break in the line of his tailoring.

  “To be stalked like a prey animal is a terrible thing for a woman,” he said.

  “If that’s what’s happening. Why would Brant come to me, if he was really stalking Marla Cloy?”

  “Why would she lie about him stalking her?” Desoto asked.

  “I don’t know. To set him up, maybe.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m not sure. Possibly she wants to kill him and claim self-defense.”

  “That would sound more logical if she had a motive.”

  “I’m trying to find one,” Carver said. “Believe me, I want this to make sense.”

  “Yes, that’s how you are. You need for your little patch of the world to be a just and understandable place.”

  “Call it a character flaw.”