Lightning

34

The lights were on and Beth was awake when Carver entered the cottage. She was wearing a black top and yellow shorts and was barefoot, seated on the sofa with her computer in her lap. There was a dreamy expression on her face and she was busily pecking away at the keyboard, as if she were playing a musical instrument only she could hear.

“Al didn’t bark,” he said.

She didn’t look up. “He knows your step. The cane.”

Carver wasn’t sure Al was that smart. “What are you working on?” he asked, limping over and settling into a nearby chair.

“Piece on the clinic bombings. Jeff wants something for the next issue.” Jeff was Jeff Smith, Beth’s often demanding editor at Burrow.

Carver heard a crunching sound coming from behind the breakfast bar. He figured Al must be back there, scarfing down a late snack.

“He hasn’t had anything to eat since we stopped by a McDonald’s and got cheeseburgers and shakes,” Beth explained. She continued working away again at her computer, not looking at Carver.

“Here’s something not for Burrow,” Carver said, trying not to think about Al eating as well as he, Carver, usually did. He told Beth about Adelle Grimm and Reverend Freel meeting at the Blue Dolphin Motel. After the first few words, she ignored her computer.

“That’s quite a ways out of town,” Beth said. “They must have wanted to keep their meeting secret.”

“My impression is that it wasn’t the first time they’d met there.” He went on to tell her his theory about Freel using Adam Norton to get rid of Dr. Grimm so he could have Adelle to himself.

“Adelle the Jezebel,” Beth said absently.

“Something you and she have in common.” Carver made sure he was smiling when he said this.

“What about Freel’s wife?” Beth asked. “That nauseating blond with the big mouth and all the makeup. He’d have to get rid of her, too, if he wanted to save his reputation as a family values firebrand and keep TV contributions and local congregation money rolling in.”

“That might be the next step.”

Beth saved what she had on the computer, then switched it off and lowered its lid. “Could be,” she said. “But maybe you’re taking something simple and making too much of it.”

“Simple?”

“Possibly Adelle Grimm and Freel have been romantically involved with each other, but maybe it has nothing to do with the clinic bombing that killed Dr. Grimm.”

“Hell of a coincidence,” Carver said dubiously.

Beth smiled. “And you don’t believe in coincidence, do you, Fred?”

“I don’t like how it affects my work. It gets in the way of the truth.”

“And truth is your religion.”

“Maybe. If it is, I’m more loyal to it than Freel is to his religion.”

“And possibly more obsessed.” She smiled up at him. “But that’s okay, Fred. I like men who are a little mad.”

Carver was about to tell her why that might be so, when Al wandered out from behind the breakfast bar, gave him an uninterested glance, then sat leaning against Beth, with his muzzle flat on her bare thigh.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about Nate Posey?” Beth asked.

“I assumed he had another early night,” Carver said, “or you wouldn’t be here ensconced on the sofa with old dog Al.”

“He did, but that’s not why I’m here instead of watching him. Turns out somebody else is following Posey.”

Al arched an eyebrow and glanced up at Beth. Carver wondered if she meant Anderson. He had no idea what Al was wondering.

“That insurance investigator, Gil Duvalier, is tailing Posey. I saw him sitting in his car, thinking he was parked out of sight, so I confronted him. He’s known from the beginning I was following Posey.”

“He must be thinking along the same lines as you and trying to get evidence of insurance fraud,” Carver said. “If that’s his game, he won’t give up until his company decides to pay the claim on Wanda Creighton’s policy.”

“I don’t see the point in both of us watching Posey,” Beth said. “I can spend my time in better ways.”

Carver wasn’t so sure. He believed now more than ever that Posey had nothing to do with the clinic bombing, and Beth still wasn’t completely herself.

“Fred, I-” She stopped talking as they both heard the sound of tires crunching on the gravel drive outside the cottage.

Carver looked at his watch. Almost eleven o’clock. He stood up and went to the window as Beth laid her computer aside on the sofa.

A car was now parked outside. It was too dark to make out what kind, but there appeared to be two people inside it. The driver’s side door opened and the dome light came on for a moment, illuminating the car’s interior. A woman sat on the passenger side; Carver could see an untucked white blouse, a flowered skirt. In the few seconds before the car’s interior went dark again, he recognized the man climbing out of the driver’s seat as Special Agent Sam Wicker.

Carver opened the cottage door for Wicker as the FBI agent walked up onto the porch. He looked beyond Wicker at the shadowed form of the woman in the car, but she wasn’t moving and was obviously not coming in.

“Surprise,” Wicker said with his thin little bureau smile.

As he entered the cottage, he widened his smile and nodded to Beth, who was still on the sofa. Al, who was lying down now, spotted him, struggled to his feet in sections, and ambled over to lick his hand. Wicker patted the top of Al’s head. Al’s pupils jiggled but he didn’t seem to mind.

Carver closed the door, looking more closely at the rumpled FBI agent. There was something even more unbusinesslike than usual about Wicker tonight, not so much in his unkempt appearance-which was normal for him-but in his oddly awkward yet cheerful bearing.

“Ordinarily a visit from the FBI at this hour means somebody’s under arrest,” Beth said. Al moved back across the room to collapse in sprawling and complete comfort in his previous position at her feet.

“Not in this instance,” Wicker assured her. “I had something to tell you two, and we were out driving around, so I figured it wasn’t all that late and you might still be awake.”

“We?” Carver said.

Again Wicker’s thin smile invaded his features despite his obvious effort to remain straight-faced. “Delores and I,” he said. “She’s been released from the hospital except as an outpatient, and I’m, er . . .”

“Helping her in her recovery,” Beth finished for him.

Wicker brightened. “Something like that.”

“She should come in,” Carver said.

“No, no. She still needs a wheelchair. Soon she’ll be fitted for a prosthetic foot, then she’ll get around on crutches for a while as she learns to walk again. Believe me, she’s got the spirit to do it! The doctors say within a year she might even be playing tennis. She used to love tennis. Still loves tennis, I mean . . .”

Beth stood up from the sofa. “I need to get away from this gibberish. I’m going out and talk with Delores.” Al stood up, too.

Both men stood silently until woman and dog had gone out the door into the night.

Carver offered Wicker something to drink, but Wicker declined, saying he had to leave soon. His glance slid toward the door, toward Delores Bravo. Carver walked around the counter and got a Budweiser out of the refrigerator, pulled the tab, then leaned on the counter and waited.

“We’ve found parts from the Coast Medical Services bomb,” Wicker said. “Bits of material from the container, some wire splices and plastic connectors. It looks like the same kind of bomb that went off at the Women’s Light Clinic. The bomber’s signature’s the same.”

Carver knew that “signature” was bomb squad talk for the distinctive method each bomber employed to construct his or her deadly packages. He set his beer can on the counter and stared at it, then at Wicker. “You’re saying Norton couldn’t have been the Women’s Light Clinic bomber? That the real bomber’s still at large?”

“No, I’m saying someone-maybe Norton-made both bombs. The explosives were sticks of dynamite set off with blasting caps, a battery, and a timer, all contained inside a large hollowed-out Bible.”

“Your lab can tell all that?”

“You’d be surprised how much is left of an exploded bomb,” Wicker said, “if you know where and how to look. Sometimes we can even lift the bomb maker’s fingerprints.” He made a helpless gesture with both hands. “Not this time, though, at the site of either clinic.”

“You going to keep holding Norton?”

“Sure. He could have been the Women’s Light bomber and made both bombs. The Coast Medical clinic explosion might have been the work of another Operation Alive fanatic, taking up where Norton left off.”

“Or trying to make Norton look innocent.”

“We’re taking that possibility into account, too,”

“What about Norton’s wife, Carrie? Might she be the second bomber?” Carver found it hard to imagine even as he made the suggestion. Frail and shy Carrie Norton, who would look twelve until she was forty.

“Not her. She’s been under surveillance since the bureau entered the case.”

Carver came out from behind the bar, leaned on his cane, and said, “I’ve got some information for you, too.” He told Wicker about Adelle Grimm’s motel meeting with the Reverend Martin Freel.

“Unlikely lovers,” Wicker said.

The sound of women’s laughter drifted into the cottage on the ocean breeze. Beth and Delores. Carver and Wicker looked in the direction of the melodious laughter. Beautiful, Carver thought; he loved hearing the laughter of women. He’d mentioned that once to Desoto, who had agreed with him. Then Carver recalled the shrill giggler in the Deep Water Lounge. Some women’s laughter was beautiful.

“The fact is,” Wicker said, “Freel’s got a solid alibi for the days before and after the time of the Women’s Light bombing. He was with half a dozen people in Orlando at the time of the detonation. And we’ve investigated him thoroughly and found no indication of an affair with Adelle Grimm.”

“They would have been careful,” Carver said.

Wicker rubbed his cheek, thinking about it. “She must know Freel might have been behind her husband’s death, Carver. Are you saying . . .”

“Maybe they were both behind Dr. Grimm’s death. Or maybe Freel acted on his own and Adelle didn’t know about it ahead of time. Maybe she doesn’t believe now that he had anything to do with the bombing. Freel could easily convince her that Norton acted alone.”

“There’s still Freel’s alibi,” Wicker said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly restless. He wanted to leave, to get back to Delores. “I think you’d better tell McGregor about this, Carver, stay on the legal side of the line.”

“I will, but tomorrow’s good enough.”

Wicker grinned. “Okay, but do it first thing in the morning. I’ll wait until tomorrow afternoon to notify him. Give him a chance to act smug.”

“Smugness is one of the few things about him that isn’t an act.”

Carver reconsidered waiting until tomorrow to phone McGregor. Maybe he should call him tonight, possibly waking him up. Hadn’t he insisted on information as soon as possible?

He went with Wicker out to the blue FBI sedan. It looked like the one Anderson had parked in to watch the cottage. Its engine was off and was ticking in the heat; or maybe that was Wicker.

Carver said hello to Delores Bravo, who flashed a white smile and looked much better than she had in the hospital. Her long dark hair was combed back, flowing over her shoulders, and her brown eyes gave back the moonlight.

Beth came around from the passenger side, where she’d been talking with Delores through the window. Wicker gave his guilty little smile again as he got in the car and started the engine.

Beth moved closer and stood next to Carver, and they watched the blue official car drive away. Al took a few steps in the direction it had gone, as if considering chasing it, then trotted back and sat on his haunches next to Beth.

“Surprise, surprise,” Carver said as the taillights disappeared in the darkness around a curve in the road to the coast highway.

Beth looked over at him. “You mean you didn’t see that coming?”

“Sure, but not to such a feverish degree until the investigation was ended. Wicker’s a pro. An open and obvious affair with a crime victim isn’t very professional.”

Beth laughed and shook her head. “Come off it, Fred. Poor love-struck guy didn’t have any choice. It happened to him, maybe in an unguarded instant. One day everything’s normal, next thing he knows, he has no appetite and his sleep is disturbed.”

She was right, Carver knew. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe not even by Adelle Grimm and Martin Freel.

Beth leaned over and kissed his perspiring cheek. “Sometimes love even disturbs your sleep, Fred.”

They walked back toward the cottage.

“Before it does tonight,” he told her, “I’m going to finish this can of beer. Then I’m going to phone McGregor and disturb his sleep.”

“Then?” she asked.

“Then I’m going to disturb your sleep. Or at least delay it.”

She veered toward him and let her bare arm brush his. “Sounds like a good night’s work.”

As they opened the cottage door, Al barked loudly. “I think he’s still hungry,” Beth said.

“No,” Carver said, “I recognize that bark. He’s trying to tell us he wants to spend the night on the porch.”

And he nudged Al outside with his cane and shut the door.