Burn

34

Carver decided not to drive to the cottage to get the gun he’d forgotten this morning. It might be best if he gave Beth time to cool down. He understood her fear. The breech birth and umbilical-cord strangulation of her child by Roberto Gomez had a grip on her mind.

He drove instead to the taco stand on Magellan and had a burrito, diet Coke, and some sort of odd deep-fried dessert sprinkled with powdered sugar. When he was finished, he planned on driving to Jacaranda Lane to see what if anything was happening with Marla Cloy. Following Joel Brant had resulted mostly in further confusion.

He’d just fired up a Swisher Sweet cigar when a long shadow drifted across his legs and the tray on the table containing the remains of his early supper. A whiff of cheap lemon-scent deodorant and stale perspiration told him who’d cast the shadow even before he looked.

McGregor was standing with his fists on his hips, grinning and gazing over at the pleasure boats bobbing lazily at their moorings in the public marina. He’d cut himself shaving this morning, and from Carver’s low angle a large bead of dried blood on the underside of his jaw could be seen still clinging stubbornly.

“Some day I’ll be able to afford one of those babies,” Mc shy;Gregor said, pointing to the expensive array of boats.

“Yours will be the only yacht with a lifeboat that seats one,” Carver said.

McGregor probed between his front teeth with his tongue, still staring at the boats. “Women and children first, I always say. First into the drink, that is.” Carver didn’t doubt that he meant it. McGregor turned his mean little blue eyes on Carver, then carefully surveyed the cardboard plate and waxed wrappers on the table. “You really like that rat food?”

“Wouldn’t eat here if I didn’t. And it’s a great place to be left alone-usually.”

“Don’t smart off with me, ass-face, or you’ll be carting around a plasma bottle by the time you get the trots from this chow.”

“A threat from a police officer?” Carver asked.

“Uh-huh. Direct threat.”

Carver took a drag on the Swisher Sweet and watched the breeze play with the smoke. He appreciated the sharp scent of the cigar; it alleviated the odor of the habitually unclean Mc shy;Gregor. “How’d you know I was here?”

“I know everything about you, jerkoff. When you weren’t at your office, I called your cottage. Dark meat said you weren’t there and probably weren’t gonna be home for supper. So I figured you’d be here at one of your favorite five-star restaurants stuffing your face, and sure enough, here you are.”

“Do you have some reason to look me up,” Carver asked, “or do you just want to sit around and talk about yachting?”

“I came to tell you that if you know where your client is, I’d better know right along with you. And I mean within ten seconds.”

“Why should I know where he is?”

“Marla Cloy reported a car like Brant’s almost ran her down, then sped away. She’s sure Brant was at the wheel. That’s attempted murder, not to mention violation of a restraining order. I sent a couple of uniforms to pick up Brant for questioning. He blew his cool in their presence and swore he’d kill Marla for what she’s done to him-that’s the way he expressed it, anyway.”

“Then why isn’t he in custody?” Carver asked.

McGregor looked uncomfortable, then angry. The breeze off the ocean whipped the tail of his suitcoat around, revealing his holstered nine-millimeter. He raised a hand and touched its checked butt lightly, as if he longed to draw the weapon and shoot Carver.

“Your client escaped, Carver. That makes things worse for the two of you. He’s a fugitive now, and you’re an accessory if you know where he is.”

“Escaped how?”

“He walked into the kitchen to get his sport coat where it was draped over the back of a chair. The next thing my guys knew, they heard a car engine. By the time it occurred to them there was a door to the back stairs from the kitchen, Brant was hauling ass away in that high-powered sports car of his. Nobody’s seen him since.”

“Your officers give chase?”

“For about a block, then a tree stopped them.”

“Some police work,” Carver said. “Reflects on their immediate superior, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that your ass is in more of a sling than those dumb-fuck uniforms I sent to pick up Brant.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Carver said. “Brant’s my client, not my brother. I can’t tell you where to find him. What you should do, though, is watch Marla Cloy. You said he threatened to kill her.”

“Not the first time,” McGregor said.

“Maybe not. Have you got somebody over at her place on Jacaranda?”

“She’s gone. I called ahead and told her what happened, told her to stay put. What we found when we got to her house was a note saying she’d left town and wasn’t coming back until Joel Brant was in custody.”

“More solid police work,” Carver said, smiling around his cigar. “The way you’re going, you’re never going to be promoted out of your broom-closet office.”

McGregor stuck out his long jaw, almost making the bead of blood fall off. He curled his upper lip up close to his nose. “It would behoove you to find Brant and give him to me, or you’re gonna find yourself in a cell even smaller than a broom closet.”

“I’m not on your payroll.”

“But you are on my shit list. Doesn’t pay as well, but it’s more certain.”

“What else was in Marla’s note?” Carver asked.

“Why? You think if you find her you’ll find Brant?”

“They’ll come together eventually,” Carver said. “We both know that.”

McGregor turned his head to the side and spat between his teeth onto the pavement. A woman at a nearby table paused with her burrito near her mouth and glared furiously at him. “It was a simple typewritten note, nothing more in it than what I told you.”

“Signed?”

“Not in pen or pencil. She typed her name at the bottom, left the note under a ketchup bottle on her kitchen table.” Mc shy;Gregor spat again, near Carver’s chair this time. “There is, of course, the possibility she wrote the note under duress, and your client abducted her.”

“He said he wanted to kill her, not kidnap her.”

McGregor flicked his tongue around between his teeth. “Maybe he wants to kill her slow and milk it for enjoyment. I would.”

“You’re not Joel Brant. You’re not most people.”

“Thank fucking God for that. But don’t get too concerned about who I’m not. You got other worries. The wheels have come off this thing, Carver, and you better help get ’em back on.”

Carver snuffed out his cigar in the hammered tin ashtray sitting on the table. It died hard, with a final, wavering curl of smoke. “I’ll do everything I can,” he said. It was a good thing to say for the record.

“You better do just that,” McGregor said. He used the bulky sole of one of his huge brown wing tips to grind the glob of phlegm he’d expectorated into the concrete.

Carver was beginning to sweat heavily. The heat, McGregor’s body odor and behavior, and the aftertaste of salsa and cigar were making him slightly nauseated. He sat quietly, very still, hoping McGregor wouldn’t notice a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. McGregor homed in on signs of potential weakness like a carnivore on the prowl. Carver moved a hand with deliberate steadiness and took a sip of his cold but watered-down Coke.

“I hope Brant does kill the bitch,” McGregor said. “Then all I gotta think about is how to nail the both of you.” He turned and walked away, his long arms swinging apelike, his shoulders hunched so that his suit coat belled out in the wind.

Carver decided he’d wasted his time speaking for the record. There wasn’t going to be any record of their conversation.

Or if there was, it would be pure fiction written by Mc shy;Gregor.

He piled the greasy wrapper and containers and remains of supper on his red plastic tray and dumped them in one of the trash receptacles.

Then he got in the Olds and drove to Jacaranda Lane.

The house sat partially shaded by a neighbor’s palm trees. It looked the same, sad and in disrepair, its green canvas awnings still drooping over the windows. The sun-browned lawn still hadn’t been mowed and appeared ready to go to seed. The dead plants in their terra-cotta pots remained lined along the railing of the tiny front porch. The gravel driveway was empty.

Carver parked the Olds a few houses down, then climbed out and made his way down the sidewalk toward number 22. He didn’t hesitate; if any of the neighbors happened to see him, they’d assume he had an honest reason for approaching Marla’s house. He hoped.

On the porch, he leaned with a hand on the iron railing and pressed the doorbell button with the tip of his cane. He heard the chimes sound inside.

A full minute passed. He pressed the button again. He was going to take a chance here and had to be positive Marla hadn’t returned.

As he waited he studied the door. It appeared thick and had four tiny, rectangular windows at eye level. Each time he’d seen Marla leave the house, it was by the front way. He could assume the door’s lock was a dead lock, which the security-minded Marla would surely have thrown when she left.

He glanced impatiently at his wristwatch, as if he might be a salesman with appointments lined up and he was in a hurry. Then he went down the two concrete porch steps and walked along the driveway to the back of the house.

No one was out in the yards of the houses on Cenit Street, whose back property butted up to the yards of Jacaranda Lane.

Hoping Mildred Fain, whose house was directly behind Marla’s, wasn’t looking out her window, Carver limped up onto the small wooden back porch, sizing up the door as he went. It wasn’t nearly as sturdy as the front door. Again he didn’t hesitate. He held open the rickety screen door, then braced with his cane and stiff leg. He shot out his good leg so the flat of his sole hit the back door just above knee level.

It sprang open without making much noise, leaving a splintered door frame where the lock was ripped away. A brass chain dangled hardware from which protruded four screws that the force of Carver’s kick had torn from the doorjamb.

He went in quickly and closed the door behind him, sure that it wouldn’t reveal much damage from outside unless viewed close up.

The house’s interior was stifling and smelled of rancid bacon grease. He was in the kitchen: New-looking linoleum made to emulate gray marble tiles; a small gray Formica table with stainless steel legs, a half-empty ketchup bottle and glass salt and pepper shakers forming a triangle in its center; a yellowed sink and a small gas stove with an iron frying pan on one of the back burners. Clean dishes were wedged into a pink, rubber-coated drainer on the sink’s counter. The refrigerator, which was chugging along determinedly in the heat, was so old it had the motor and coils on top. Carver hadn’t seen one of those in years. It often amazed him, what he found when he went where he shouldn’t. Maybe that was really why he went.

He crossed the kitchen and continued into the small combination living and dining room. The overstuffed blue furniture was soiled and worn, he noticed. Marla’s work table by the window held only the plastic in-out trays, the lamp with the dangerous extension cord, and a black rotary-dial phone. The trays were empty. Carver went to a small, maple kneehole desk against the wall with the bookcase shelving and examined its drawers’ contents.

He found nothing of interest-some rent receipts, a few unpaid utility bills, a stack of grocery coupons, and some discount coupons from the fast-food restaurants in the neighborhood. The frayed wicker wastebasket next to the desk was empty except for a used Pepsi can and a frantic cockroach.

Carver glanced in the bathroom. It was tiled in black and white and had a white washbasin, a commode about the same age as the refrigerator, and a wooden vanity whose oak veneer was peeling from the humidity of baths and showers taken in the claw-footed tub with the white plastic curtain bunched at one end of the shower rod. Carver looked in the mirrored medicine cabinet above the basin and saw only an array of over-the-counter drugs, some of them outdated and obvious leftovers from previous tenants. There was a sliver of aqua-colored soap stuck to the bottom of the bathtub. The indentation that served as the washbasin’s soap dish was empty but coated with an aqua residue that Carver touched and found moist.

After wiping soap from his forefinger on a towel, he went to the bedroom. It was small and contained only a single bed, a bureau, and a tall mahogany wardrobe in lieu of a closet. The bed was sloppily made and had a white spread over it that looked as if it had been in the wash with something pink. Carver suspected the wardrobe had some value as an antique. He opened it and found only a few items of clothing hanging from a retractable rod: a red blouse, a denim skirt, a businesslike gray blazer. The clothes were separated by several wire hangers. He went through the blazer’s pockets but found nothing other than lint. The left side of the wardrobe held drawers. They contained the usual assortment of lingerie, folded shirts and blouses, and a tangled wad of panty hose. The bottom drawer contained half a dozen pairs of shoes, some of which were almost worn out.

The bureau drawers also yielded little of interest. A few neatly folded slacks and T-shirts, a coiled extension cord, and some old sweaters suitable for a cooler clime. One of the drawers was empty, and another contained only a milk-glass jar with a peeling cosmetic cream label. The cream was long gone and the jar was half full of pennies.

It seemed to Carver that some of Marla’s clothes were missing. And there had been no toothbrush or soap in the bathroom other than the sliver of soap on the bottom of the tub. She might have packed the washbasin soap bar when she left. A financially struggling woman might do that, either to save money or because she used a particular brand of soap.

Carver returned to the living room. His rummaging through Marla’s desk hadn’t turned up a checkbook. And Marla’s typewriter was missing. It was possible that the Del Moray police had confiscated both, but he doubted it. McGregor seemed sure that Marla had either left of her own volition or been abducted by Brant.

There was no way to be certain, but Carver figured her note was genuine, and that she’d left in a hurry on her own after loading her typewriter into the little Toyota and packing some clothes and incidentals, including her toothbrush.

An enraged and pursued Joel Brant wouldn’t have been concerned about what Marla had to wear if he’d abducted her, and there would have been no reason to take her typewriter with them.

And cavities would have been the least of her problems.

Finding Marla or Brant was Carver’s problem. He decided to start with Brant. Brant had a business to worry about.

A project where they were pouring concrete.