Lightning

19

Holding Beth’s oversize valise and the crook of his cane in his left hand, Carver unlocked the cottage door with his right. Beth stood alongside him, looking tired but obviously glad to be free of the hospital. Behind them on the beach the surf roared and dashed itself on land, while off in the distance gulls screamed.

“What was that?” Beth asked, hearing another, faint sound from inside the cottage over the rush of the surf.

“That’s a surprise,” Carver said, opening the door.

He went in ahead of Beth, glanced around, then smiled and stepped aside, leaning on his cane and motioning for her to enter.

She took a few steps inside, then stood still, staring at the medium-size black-and-tan dog that was staring at her with its head cocked to the side.

“What is it and why?” Beth asked, never one to be fond of animals.

“German shepherd,” Carver said. “I got it from the pound this morning before coming in to the hospital. The woman there recommended it, said they were a very territorial breed and he’d be protective of his house and owner almost immediately. And he’s got a good loud bark that’ll scare away any intruders.”

Beth looked more closely at the dog. “Are German shepherds all swaybacked like that? And aren’t both ears supposed to stand up on a German shepherd?”

Carver didn’t know the answer to either of those questions. “Maybe it’s a collie-shepherd.”

“What’s that?”

“Half German shepherd, half collie.”

“But it doesn’t have long hair or a pointed snout like a collie.”

Carver smiled. “That’s because he’s a German shepherd.” Setting the valise on the sofa, he snapped his fingers and whistled for the dog. The dog ambled over to Beth and stared up at her. She bent down and ruffled its fur between the ears, possibly to get it to quit staring.

“His facial markings are odd,” she said. “Makes him look as if he has eyebrows.”

Carver had noticed that at the pound, and on reflection realized it was the eyebrowlike markings that gave the dog the quizzical, intelligent expression that had made him feel confident in the animal as a loyal watchdog and companion.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Al. That’s what the woman at the pound said. And he’s had some training, she said. He’s housebroken and obedient.”

“He looks old.”

“She told me he was a young dog.”

“He’s gray around the muzzle,” Beth said as Al began to lick her hand.

“So am I,” Carver pointed out, “if I neglect to shave for a few days. Al doesn’t shave at all.”

Beth walked over and sat down on the sofa, next to the valise. Al followed and sat quietly at her feet. That didn’t figure to Carver, since he’d been the one who had fed Al this morning. Maybe his previous owner was a woman.

Al rested his head against Beth’s thigh. Carver was getting restless.

Beth ignored Al and unzipped the valise, then withdrew her computer case. She opened the case and removed the computer.

“You should rest,” Carver said.

“I’ve been resting, Fred. I’m going to print out my notes and have you read them, then you can let me know what’s missing.”

She stood up, causing Al to jerk his head back and stare at her questioningly. He followed her over to where her ink-jet printer was set up on a table, watched as if he understood what was going on as she attached the printer cord to the computer. She hooked up the AC adapter and plugged in the computer and printer.

“I don’t think we need to keep Al,” she said. Al raised his sort-of eyebrows and stared at her as if shocked.

“He’s a great alarm system,” Carver said. “He might even fight for you if the WASP breaks in.”

“Al is not a fighter.”

“You can’t tell by looking.”

Al barked. It was a deep, dangerous, German shepherd bark.

Beth couldn’t help looking impressed. She even smiled.

Carver and Al watched as she switched on the computer and keyed into her word-processing program. In less than a minute, she had the printer grinding out paper.

The phone rang. Carver went over and picked it up before Beth could. She was apparently determined to forget her grief and her injuries by throwing herself back into life. That wasn’t what Dr. Galt had in mind when he released her.

“Fred Carver?” a man’s voice asked after Carver said hello. “The private investigator?”

“It is.”

“I went to your office this morning but you weren’t there, so I looked you up in the phone directory. I’m Nate Posey.”

Carver couldn’t place the name and was about to say so when Posey added, “Wanda Creighton’s fiance. You know, from the Women’s Light Clinic.”

The gangly young man in the waiting room the day of the bombing. Almost had to be him. “I think we saw each other at the hospital,” Carver said. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“So am I. For me, for you, especially for Wanda. I want to talk with you. Can I drive to wherever you are? I’m on Magellan about three blocks from your office.”

Carver wanted to talk to Posey, but he didn’t want him here. He wanted the cottage to serve as a haven for Beth to fully recover, and he didn’t want a visit by Posey to disturb her and spur her on to more activity before she was ready.

“Or we could meet someplace halfway,” Posey almost pleaded, reading Carver’s silence as indecision about whether to have a meeting at all.

“Drive north on Magellan about four miles,” Carver said. “There’s a public beach there, some park benches and picnic tables under some palm trees. I’ll meet you there in about twenty minutes.”

“I know where it is,” Posey said. “Thanks, Mr. Carver.”

“You’ll meet who there?” Beth asked when Carver hung up the phone.

“That was Wanda Creighton’s fiance.”

“The woman who was killed in the clinic bombing?”

“Yeah. He wants to talk.”

“Maybe I should go with you,” Beth said. “I mean, maybe it would be safer for me.”

Carver considered that manipulative suggestion. It really didn’t make much sense. Posey might not want to talk in her presence, and she’d wind up sitting alone on a bench or in the car while they conversed out of earshot. For that matter, Carver knew nothing about Posey, or even if the man he was going to meet was really who he said he was. Deviousness seemed to be going around like a virus.

“I don’t think so,” he said, “You’ll be safer here. That’s why I got Al.”

Before she could answer, he went into the sleeping area and pulled the top drawer of his dresser all the way out and laid it on the bed. In a square brown envelope fastened to the back of the drawer with duct tape was his Colt .38 semiautomatic. It was actually an illegal gun for a Florida private detective to carry. The investigator’s G license specified .38 revolvers or nine-millimeter semiautomatics. But Carver had never been called on the matter, didn’t ordinarily carry the gun, and had seldom used it. Besides, at a glance it looked like a nine-millimeter.

He checked the clip in the handgrip, then racked the mechanism to jack a round into the chamber. Making sure the safety was on, he carried the gun in and laid it next to the printer, which had finished its work and was now switched off along with the computer. He didn’t have to instruct Beth in how to use the gun. She was at least as proficient with firearms as he was.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said, “with this, and with Al.”

Beth was frowning at him. “What I might do,” she said, “is use the gun on Al.” Al arched an eyebrow and seemed to smile, knowing she wasn’t serious. He was apparently aware of his charm. Like Carver. Only quite often with Beth, Carver was wrong. He wished he could somehow convey that to Al.

“Lock the door behind me and let no one in,” he said to Beth. “I’ll come back here immediately after meeting with Posey and let you know what it was all about.”

Beth picked up the gun, hefted it expertly in her hand, and stared down at it. “I hope the WASP does come here,” she said.

“Don’t go to sleep until I come back,” Carver said. “Al might go to sleep too.”

He kissed her on the lips so she couldn’t reply, then limped out of the cottage.

On the porch, he stood still in the shade until he heard the snick of the locks on the other side of the door.

Carver parked the Olds with its front tires up against a weathered telephone pole that had been laid sideways and was half buried to mark the edge of the gravel parking area between the coast highway and the rough, grassy slope of ground that led to the beach. The beach itself was deserted. The only other vehicles were a red Jeep with a canvas top, the one that Wanda Creighton had gotten out of before walking into the clinic just before the explosion-Nate Posey’s car-and a silver Honda station wagon with a sun-bleached American flag on its aerial.

Even before Carver climbed out of the car, he saw whom he presumed was Nate Posey sitting on one of the wooden benches beneath some palm trees, facing away from him and staring out at the ocean.

Hearing the car door slam, the man turned slightly, then stood up and watched Carver approach. He was the gangly young man from the hospital waiting room, as Carver had thought. He was wearing a white pullover shirt with a red collar and a wide red horizontal stripe across the midsection, and khaki pants that clung to his legs in the sea breeze and crept up to reveal red socks. The wind molding his clothes to his lean body made him look thin and misshapen. When Carver was close enough, Posey held out his bony hand and smiled.

Carver shook hands with him. “Want to sit back down?” he asked. Despite the bright late-morning sun, it was almost cool in the brisk wind off the water.

“I’d rather walk.” Posey stole a look at Carver’s cane. “If you don’t mind.”

“Let’s stay on hard ground,” Carver said. “Walking with a cane’s kind of tricky on sand.”

Posey strolled slowly and deliberately alongside Carver over the sandy but firm soil, about twenty feet away from where the beach began and parallel to the shore. Several minutes passed and he didn’t say anything, as if the words would have to be forced out and he didn’t yet have the strength. Carver idly studied the ground as he walked, careful not to place the tip of his cane on an uneven or soft spot that might cause him to fall. Like walking through life.

“Wanda’s funeral was yesterday morning,” Posey said finally in a hoarse voice Carver could barely hear. “I know I’m still in shock . . . or something like shock. But at the same time, something in my heart tells me I’m thinking more clearly now than ever before.”

“That’s possible,” Carver said. He knew shock could work that way when it began to wear off, like an electrical jolt that somehow cleared one’s thought processes.

“I’ve been mulling over what happened, Mr. Carver. How I was ignorant and fooled and the world’s never what it seems. One moment everything’s normal. All the pieces are in place and all the machinery of your life is humming away. The future seems almost as predictable and unchangeable as the past. The next moment everything changes.” He wiped his hand down his face, dragging thumb and forefinger over his eyes to staunch any tears. “Wanda was dead as suddenly and unexpectedly as if she’d been struck by lightning, and everything was different, changed forever.”

Carver thought about how close he’d come to losing Beth that morning at the clinic and understood Posey’s state of mind. “None of us sees it coming,” he said. “That’s the nature of lightning-it’s sudden, out of nowhere, a blast of change. It happened with my leg.”

“Your leg?”

“When I was shot. I was an Orlando police officer, happy with my life, assuming the kind of future you mentioned, useful work rewarded by promotion and eventual retirement. Then one day I was off duty and went into a convenience store to buy groceries, and ran into a boy who was holding up the place. I wasn’t playing hero. He was on his way to escaping with the money when he suddenly giggled and lowered the gun and shot me in the leg. I don’t think he even knew he was going to do it. And suddenly there was a muzzle flash and his future and mine were radically changed.”

“That’s why you’re a private investigator?”

“I was a pensioned-off, self-pitying beach bum for a long time, then people who cared about me talked sense into me. I needed something to do, so I got into the only thing I knew well. I had the experience, the contacts, and a case came my way. Then I met a woman who changed my life again.”

“The black woman? Beth?”

“A different woman. She was there when I needed her. So was Beth, but that was later.”

Posey stopped walking and stared down at his dusty loafers. They were the kind with a leather slot on each instep where people used to insert pennies. There was only sand in the slots. “You saying I’ll meet another woman?”

“I’m saying the world will keep turning and your life will change. More slowly than it did the morning of the bombing, but it will change.”

“Maybe, but right now I’m thinking about Wanda.”

“You should be.”

“I want to hire you to find out if Norton really is the bomber, Mr. Carver. And if he is, who if anybody was behind him and involved in planting that bomb.”

Carver looked over at the youthful face made younger by a sun that revealed no mark of experience or hard-earned wisdom. “You want revenge.”

“No. I want to understand what happened, all of it. I need to know why Wanda died; then maybe I can let her go someday.”

“She died because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I can’t just accept that. Why was it the wrong place and time? The days leading up to the bombing, and earlier that morning, I need to know about them so maybe they can provide an explanation for what happened, how it all fit together and why. I can pay you-I’ve got money. I can write you a big retainer check right now.” He reached toward his back pocket.

Carver gripped his arm at the elbow and held it motionless. Posey winced and stared at him, surprised by his strength. A man and woman, probably from the Honda station wagon, were on the beach, he in baggy red shorts, she in a one-piece black swimming suit. They were strolling along the surf line, staring over at Carver and Posey. The woman said something and they looked away.

“I don’t want you to pay me,” Carver said. “I’ll find the answers to some of your questions because I need to know them myself. Beth was carrying our child. She’d decided not to have an abortion and was at the clinic to cancel her appointment. It was only a matter of chance that she was there, just like with Wanda.”

Posey stopped wincing and blinked. “Then maybe you know how I feel. Maybe you feel the same way yourself.”

Carver released his arm. “Same bolt of lightning,” he said.