Burn

4

This was one of those times when Carver loved the wind. It seemed to scatter troubles like leaves in its wake, though he knew that was only fancy. Trouble could hang on through a hurricane.

But he drove with the canvas top down on his ancient Oldsmobile convertible until he neared Marla Cloy’s address on Jacaranda Lane. Then he pulled over to the curb and raised the top, but he left the windows down. The old car’s air conditioner worked only slightly better than the one at police headquarters, and since it was now late afternoon some of the heat had gone out of the day. The breeze that swirled in the car when he began to drive again felt cool when he got up enough speed.

Jacaranda Lane was lined with scruffy-looking palm trees and untrimmed foliage, but there were no jacaranda blossoms in sight. The houses were small, relatively cheap, and not in very good repair. Most of them were stucco and some had faded red tile roofs. What residents were visible suggested the neighborhood was a mixture of whites, African-Americans, and Hispanics. Some of the houses had freshly painted shutters or well-tended lawns or flower beds, and one of them appeared to have a new porch roof. Though the area had declined, it was a long way from being a slum. It still had a chance.

Carver drove past the Cloy house to look it over before parking and settling in to wait for Marla Cloy to make an appearance. He kept the Olds’s speed steady so as not to attract attention and took in the house with one long glance out the side window. It was small, like the rest of the houses in the block, cracked yellow stucco with a tiny concrete front porch shaded by a slanted roof. The grass needed mowing. There were several large terra-cotta pots nestled against the porch’s black iron railing. The plants in them were all brown and dead. Some of the house’s side windows had fringed green canvas awnings that drooped low to resemble half-closed eyelids. One of them was ripped and hanging crookedly. The house next door had a FOR RENT sign stuck in the front yard. Carver thought it was a good guess that many of the houses were rented, including Marla Cloy’s.

There was no garage, but in the narrow gravel driveway that ran alongside the modest house, Carver saw a rusty maroon Toyota Corolla sedan, five or six years old, with a caved-in front fender. If Marla Cloy was a financially successful writer, she must be putting most of her earnings in CDs or mutual funds. She might also be home, since her car was there.

After circling the block of similar houses, Carver parked a discreet distance down from Marla’s on the other side of the street. He was in the sparse shade of a palm tree, and because of the curve of the flat street would be barely visible from the house. At the same time, he could see the front porch and most of the small front yard from where he sat. The few folks he’d seen on the sidewalks hadn’t paid much attention to him. It was that kind of neighborhood; everybody had plenty of trouble and didn’t consciously look for more. And it was still too hot for many people to be walking around in the sun.

He leaned back on the warm vinyl upholstery and relaxed, his eyes half closed like Marla’s awninged windows, slipping into the half-awake but hyperalert mode of the reptile on the hunt and the experienced cop on a stakeout.

It was almost five o’clock before the house’s front door opened and a medium-height, slender woman wearing black slacks and an orange and white striped T-shirt stepped onto the porch. She was carrying a large brown purse with its strap slung diagonally across her chest and over her shoulder, the way women do sometimes when they fear purse snatchers. From this distance she seemed a fairly attractive woman. Not at all the dreary number McGregor had described. But who knew what kind of female McGregor would find attractive? Something of another species, perhaps.

After rattling the doorknob to make sure the lock was set, she bounced nimbly down the three porch steps and disappeared as she walked around to her car.

Carver sat up straight and started the Olds’s rumbling old V-8 engine. He was ready to follow when she backed out of her driveway and headed away from him down Jacaranda Lane toward Shell Avenue.

She didn’t drive far. The maroon Toyota turned right into a McDonald’s on Shell, jounced over a yellow speed bump, then stopped in a parking space near a Dumpster, facing a picket fence. Carver parked the Olds in a slot farther from the restaurant’s entrance and watched Marla carefully lock her car before walking inside. He couldn’t decide if she was acting like a woman whose life was in danger.

Since she had no idea who he was, Carver climbed out of the Olds and limped with his cane across the heat-softened blacktop and into McDonald’s.

It was bright and cool inside; he was glad Marla had come here. She’d just paid for her food and was carrying a tray toward the seating area. Carver ordered a Big Mac, fries, and diet Coke, then carried them to a booth where he could see Marla. There were about a dozen other customers scattered about the seating area: An old man, three teenage girls having a delicious confab, two guys in white coveralls loudly discussing the new Dodge pickup trucks, a harried-looking mother with three small children-the usual McDonald’s crowd. Even the single woman sitting alone, glumly and methodically chewing her food then sipping soda through a straw, fit right in. Marla Cloy. She didn’t look like a psychopath who’d try to ruin an innocent man’s life.

In the harsh light of the low evening sun streaming through the window, Carver decided she was rather pretty, with delicate features and eyes that were probably dark blue rather than brown-it was difficult to tell from where he sat. Her medium-length black hair framed a round but not fleshy face with cheeks that were either rouged or naturally flushed to give her a healthy, hearty look, like a robust skier who’d just clomped inside from the cold. She moved her head as if sensing she was being stared at, and Carver looked away and concentrated on salting his fries.

When he chanced another glance at Marla she was twisted sideways in the booth and was drawing something from her large brown purse.

It was a paperback book. She opened it to a middle page that was bent at the upper corner, then became engrossed in it, eating slowly and automatically without looking at her food. Now and then, also with her eyes still trained on the book, she moved her head sideways to sip from the straw protruding from her drink. Carver stared hard and tried to catch the paperback’s title. Marla’s fingers covered most of it, but he could make out that the book was written by a novelist named Ruth Rendell.

He finished his supper while Marla was still eating and reading, then he went outside to wait for her.

Within ten minutes she emerged, carrying her purse with its strap slung diagonally across her body again, and walked to her car without glancing in Carver’s direction, He wondered if she thought someone might try to snatch her purse between the restaurant door and the little Toyota. What might she have in there besides the paperback novel? Mace? A gun? This was Florida, land of sun, sand, and the occasional homicide. Not a few purses contained guns.

He followed her to a combination gas station-grocery store on Shell, where she filled the Toyota’s tank with low-octane gas and bought a half-quart carton of milk. Then she drove the short distance back to her house on Jacaranda and parked in the driveway. She was disappearing inside and shutting the door behind her as Carver drove past.

He circled the block again and parked in his previous spot, but a few feet nearer the house this time so he could see the front and one of the side windows.

That didn’t make much difference. Only faint movement was visible for a few seconds in the side window, then a pale hand as the shade was lowered. The front drapes were already closed.

A few minutes after seven-thirty, Marla came out of the house again and climbed into the Toyota. This time she was wearing a simple green dress with bare shoulders and had on black patent leather high heels.

Carver followed her to a lounge called Willet’s Bullet on Tenth Street and watched her stride inside.

He sat in the heat and waited until it was almost dark before going in after her.

Willet’s Bullet was crowded, which was no surprise to Carver, who for more than an hour had watched more people enter than leave. It was one of those bars that served finger food. Half the folks at the tables along the wall opposite the long bar were eating as well as drinking. An old man with stooped shoulders was acting as bartender while two women in black-and-white outfits were serving the tables. An all-female rock group with skull makeup, wearing black plastic trash bags cut to serve as dresses, was writhing around on a large video screen and moaning loudly and rhythmically about cancer and death and hell. Apparently girls didn’t just want to have fun.

Carver saw Marla sitting alone at a small table in back, near the entrance to the rest rooms, staring at the video and sipping what looked like a glass of white wine. He sat at the bar where he could see her in the mirror and ordered a draft Budweiser.

“How long you walked with that cane?” the man next to him asked. His words were slightly slurred, and Carver figured he was only a little drunk. Just enough to be a pest, if he was talkative.

“Few years,” Carver said, studying the man in the mirror. He was about sixty-five, with a wrinkled white shirt open at the collar and red suspenders. His hair was gray and bald on top like Carver’s. But his face was pale and jowly and he had bags beneath his eyes. The much younger Carver was tan and the fringe of hair around his ears and down the back of his neck was tightly curled. His blue eyes were alert and slightly uptilted at the corners, giving him an oddly feline expression. His upper body, clad in a black pullover shirt, was lean and muscular from walking with the cane and swimming. He looked like a feral cat. The older man exchanged glances with him in the mirror, and Carver hoped he’d be sober enough to sense this wasn’t a welcome conversation.

No chance.

“I used to walk with a cane,” the man said. “Had this broken leg that just wouldn’t heal. Doctors said it was something wrong with my bone. I mean all my bones. Like in the marrow. Never drank enough milk or ate enough bananas when I was a kid.”

“That’s too bad.”

Carver was watching Marla in the mirror. She looked lonely there, a solitary drinker hypnotized by the glowing video.

“My name’s Bernie,” the man said.

Carver didn’t answer. Hint, hint.

“How’d your leg get fucked up?” Bernie asked.

“I got shot.”

“No shit? Vietnam?”

“Orlando.”

“What are you, a cop?”

“Used to be. Till I got shot.”

A tall man with slicked-back dark hair and tight Levi’s had swiveled around off his bar stool and was approaching Marla. He had a sharp profile, pouty lips, and might have done OK as an Elvis impersonator. Marla continued to stare at the video and seemed oblivious of him, but Carver suspected she knew he was there.

“You stuck with that cane forever?” Bernie asked.

“Nothing’s forever.”

“My first marriage seemed like forever,” Bernie said. “Time didn’t start to move again till after my divorce sixteen years ago. Then it went in a hurry, and all of a sudden I was old. It’s OK, though. I still enjoy sex and good food, though it’s getting harder to tell the difference. I all of a sudden got six grandchildren, too. A guy with six grandchildren has to be very near death.”

The man was standing close to Marla now, talking to her. She was looking right at him and smiling, but shaking her head no. He reached out as if to touch her and she turned away from him. The man shrugged and returned, grinning, to the two guys he’d been drinking with at the bar. It didn’t appear that Marla had come to the bar for male companionship. Unless she was waiting for someone.

“Ever consider acupuncture?” Bernie asked. “That’s what finally got me back on two sound legs. They stuck pins in my ears. I can run five miles now without breathing hard. You believe that?”

“Sure.”

“Then you must have been one piss-poor cop.”

Carver laughed. “I wouldn’t believe you if I was still a cop.”

Bernie sipped his drink. “How ’bout them Marlins?”

“They might win a pennant in ten years.”

“You don’t sound like a baseball fan.”

“I am, though. That’s the problem.”

Bernie lowered his voice. “I notice you’re more interested in that gal in the mirror than in what I’m saying.”

Carver turned to face him, catching a whiff of alcohol fumes. Bernie was drinking bourbon on the rocks and there were three swizzle sticks on the napkin next to his half-full glass. “You know her?”

“Nope. Just seen her come in a few times.”

“She ever in here looking for male company?”

“Nope. Willet’s ain’t what you’d call a meat market. Mostly working folks drop in here, just want to relax and be left alone.”

“That how she is? A loner?”

“I think so. Now and then some guy tries to get next to her, but she always sends him away. Polite, though. Seems nice enough.”

“Ever talk to her yourself?”

“Not me. She’s too young for me. Anyway, I got this prostate condition, and what it does-”

“Maybe she likes alcohol too much,” Carver suggested.

“Doubt it,” Bernie said. “She usually nurses a drink or two along, then she leaves. I think she just wants to come in here and take time out from the world like the rest of us. She don’t play the video games or nothing, and she don’t seem interested in even talking to the other women in here. A person that drinks alone has got problems, usually. It ain’t good. That poor girl’s most likely got problems.”

“Or is one,” Carver said. He planted the tip of his cane on the tile floor and stood up. “Nice talking to you, Bernie.”

“Don’t run off. Hang around, friend. I’ll buy you one.”

“Thanks,” Carver said, “but I gotta get home to the wife.”

“Hey,” Bernie said, “I know how that goes.”

Carver laid a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “Next one’s on me, Bernie.”

“Next two,” Bernie corrected, smiling broadly.

Carver made for the door.

He waited outside until Marla left alone, then he followed the Toyota back to the little house on Jacaranda Lane.

She stayed inside this time, and at 10:27 the lights winked out. He waited another twenty minutes before driving away down the winding street, enjoying the flow of air through the windows.

Her actions had all seemed innocent enough, he thought. An ordinary woman having an ordinary evening.

Almost as if she suspected someone other than Joel Brant might be watching her.