Scorcher

Chapter 24

What a piece of work was Lloyd Van Meter. Carver had met him when he was an Orlando police officer and Van Meter was searching for the wayward lover of a wealthy New York woman. Carver had arrested the man on a burglary charge, and Van Meter had appeared in a flurry of sound and confusion at police headquarters with a local, high-powered attorney and had the man sprung and back in Manhattan within hours. Red tape ensued, miles of it, and as far as Carver knew the man had never returned to Florida and been tried for breaking and entering. Carver had figured at the time that Lloyd Van Meter had unique talents as a private investigator. He’d been right. The woman in Manhattan had been a wealthy socialite who ran an expensive and exclusive call-girl operation from her mansion on Long Island. She’d rewarded Lloyd Van Meter bountifully for finding her lover and expediting his escape from legal consequences.

And now Van Meter had one of the largest investigative agencies in Florida, with offices in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. Carver liked Van Meter, who claimed to be the illegitimate son of a notorious Prohibition-era gangster, Homer Van Meter. The present Van Meter, more or less on the right side of the law, was an obese man in his fifties, with a head of thick, flowing white hair, sharply defined features despite his weight, and a white beard that, though not all that long, lent him a distinctly biblical air. It was as if Moses had discovered pasta. He wore round glasses with gold wire frames, and he looked younger than he was until he removed the glasses and revealed the deep crow’s-feet at the corners of his shrewd blue eyes. He was always sloppily and peculiarly dressed, as if he bought his clothes at an awning company and settled for bargain fabrics that weren’t moving well. Today he had on a beige suit with darker tan vertical stripes. Van Meter’s tie was gold with brown stripes running diagonally. He was color-coordinated but the effect was dizzying.

He and his operatives had been watching over Edwina and observing members of the Kave family for three days now. Van Meter had phoned Carver and asked him to drop by Van Meter Investigations’ offices for a report.

“We came up zip,” he told Carver, leaning so far back in his creaking desk chair Carver thought the big man might wind up on the floor. But then it was Van Meter’s office, his chair; he should know how far he could stretch things. Leaning backward just far enough was his specialty.

Carver was in a comfortable walnut-and-leather chair near the desk. The office was large and furnished in Danish modern; an atmosphere of comfort and efficiency. He waited for Van Meter to continue, watching the sun’s defeat as it tried to beat its way in through the tinted triple-pane glass and heavy fishnet draperies behind Van Meter’s huge desk. Like many very fat people, Van Meter loathed heat. The office was about sixty-five degrees and might as well have been in Finland as in Florida. From an outer room came the muted chattering and intermittent screeching of a super-speed computer printer, as if a high-strung typist had gone mad.

“Paul Kave didn’t make any attempt to contact his family,” Van Meter said, his blunt fingers toying with the corner of a yellow file folder. There was a massive silver-and-turquoise pinkie ring on his left hand, the kind of jewelry Indians slapped together for twenty dollars and sold for two hundred, gaining some small revenge on white America. “Or vice versa.”

“Might he have phoned?”

Van Meter smiled. “No.”

Carver didn’t ask how he knew that. There were all sorts of wiretap gizmos and electronic listening devices, some of them legal, some of them not.

“Here it all is,” Van Meter said, handing the file folder across the desk to Carver, “but what it says essentially is that Nadine spent most of her time with Joel Dewitt, away from the estate. She did have an argument one night with a young fella named Mel Bingham, about the aforementioned Dewitt. Adam Kave spent his hours involved in business. The wife, Elana, seemed to stay cooped up in her room like a recluse; woman lives in seclusion. Emmett Kave’s the only one that was any fun; he drove to a motel out near the Orlando airport and met an elderly woman registered as Mary Jones. They spent two hours in the room. Hans, my operative who observed all this, says he checked with the maid and the bed had been used, though this was the middle of the day. It was a prostitute-client arrangement, most likely. ‘Jones,’ no less! A lotta Joneses register at that motel; it’s a favorite place with the local pimps and their ladies of all ages.” Van Meter shook his head. “These old folks in Florida never fail to amaze, Carver. Dr. Ruth should be tuned in on what goes on down here; she’d learn something. Hans said the old gal was still a looker, too. Wouldn’t have minded knocking off some of it himself. I gotta talk to Hans.”

“Emmett Kave doesn’t seem the type to visit a hooker,” Carver said. But on second thought, Emmett did. One of those “simple pleasures” he’d mentioned. It was just another difference between Emmett and Adam Kave; Adam would probably consider it a point of honor and business acumen to talk a prostitute into paying him. One brother was all too human, the other not human enough.

“Know anything about Dewitt?” Carver asked. “He’s got a motorcycle-and-car dealership down in Fort Lauderdale.”

“He’s a car dealer, so he’s probably a crook,” Van Meter said.

“Now, now. You’re thinking like Elana Kave.”

“Show me one dealer doesn’t roll back odometers or put on phony promotions. Sell you a car for thousands more than it’s worth, then finance it for you at two percent instead of ten. Bastards!”

“This sounds personal,” Carver said, amused by the big man’s ire.

“I got one of them little foreign piles of crap out there only runs half the time,” he growled. “Tilted sideways and stayed that way the day after I drove it out of the dealer’s. When it ain’t running, I drive a rental. When it is running, I’m usually waiting for some part or other from Southeast Asia so I can keep it running. Got a whale of a deal on it, though. It was whispered to me in confidence that the sales manager hated letting it go for what I paid.”

“So count yourself shrewd.”

“You’re a bastard, too, Carver.”

“I know.”

Van Meter gulped down a deep breath, calmed himself, even grinned. He had a gold-rimmed tooth in front. “Some guy named Nick Fanning spent a lot of time at the Kave estate. Funny-looking little dude with a mop of curly black hair. Reminded me of a chimp dressed up in an expensive suit.”

“He’s the CEO for Adam’s Inns,” Carver said.

“I eat there now and then,” Van Meter said. “They got a helluva barbecued kraut dog.”

Carver had heard enough. He hadn’t expected much other than what Van Meter had told him, but he couldn’t help feeling deeply disappointed. He set the cane in the thick carpet and stood up.

“Want us to stay on the job?” Van Meter asked. “Help you out on this?”

“For another few days,” Carver said. “I don’t think Paul Kave’s the type that can stand pressure for long. He’ll try to contact somebody. And the kid’s a loner; family’s all he’s got.”

“They always say that about a serial killer,” Van Meter said. “ ‘Guy’s a loner. Never caused any trouble, but he’s a loner.’ ”

“They usually are. Paul Kave fits the psychological profile like he was the model. He’ll keep killing, more and more frequently.”

“Sounds so classic,” Van Meter said.

“Maybe it is.”

“I mean, everything fits so snug.”

“That’s what classic’s all about.”

Van Meter adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “You want this one a lot, don’t you, Carver?”

“Worst way, I guess.”

“I can understand that. I mean, with your son and all. But you gotta watch yourself in a situation like this, use good judgment instead of thinking with your gut.”

“You been talking to Desoto?”

“Sure. He and I get together all the time. He said you were all saddled up and charging like the cavalry on this one. He’s worried about you. Guess he remembers General Custer.”

“He oughta remember Cortez,” Carver said. “Incidentally, you know a lieutenant over in Fort Lauderdale name of McGregor?”

Van Meter’s fleshy face writhed in a grimace. He smoothed his Old Testament beard with his hand. “McGregor’s a scum-ball, Carver.” Then he shrugged, his massive shoulders heaving beneath the tentlike suitcoat. “An efficient cop, though, and one that plays a clever game with the higher-ups. Not a guy you want to butt heads with. Desoto told me your son’s murder was his case. Thing about McGregor is he can be a relentless bastard, make the Mounties look like wimps when it comes to tracking down the man on the run. Especially if it means a possible promotion. He’ll get Paul Kave, Carver, any way he can, no matter what it costs other people. Kind of guy he is; it’s in his chromosomes. He’ll probably be police chief of the world someday.”

“The world won’t be a better place when that happens,” Carver said.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe society needs people like Mc shy;Gregor, like it needs spiders to eat the flies. But that don’t stop spiders from giving you the creeps.”

Van Meter stood up to show him out. The vast expanse of striped brown material was startling, a towering mountain of wool and polyester that needed pressing.

“There’s something else in that report,” he said, stepping out from behind the desk. He moved with great smoothness and coordination for such a fat man; somewhere in there was an athlete. “A woman named Laura Nelson visited Edwina last night.”

Carver stood still for a moment, trying to figure what that could be about. “Laura Nelson’s my former wife,” he said.

“Yep,” Van Meter said, studying him. “She’s staying at the Andrew Johnson Motel not far from your cottage. Been there two days and spends most of her time in her room or moping around the pool. She went to your place twice yesterday and once this morning, but you weren’t there. My man latched on to her and followed to find out who she was. I had him nose around awhile. She made a couple of phone calls to a fella named Sam Devine in Saint Louis. She’s taken all her meals at the motel restaurant.” Van Meter hitched up his giant’s pants, giving a glimpse of yellow suspenders. “No charge for the additional shadow, Carver; a personal favor. You got real serious woman trouble, pal, on top of your other problems.”

“What makes you say that, other than the obvious?”

“Long time ago I took part in some parapsychology tests at Duke University. You know, ESP. I could guess cards that were facedown on a much higher percentage basis than any of the other student volunteers. I’d have made a terrific professional gambler, Carver.”

“So why aren’t you betting in Vegas?”

“ ’Cause I had a hunch I’d make an even better detective. My hunches are like my guesses at cards: hardly ever wrong.”

Carver limped toward the door. “I suppose I’d better find Laura and see what she wants.”

“Don’t trip over her,” Van Meter said.