Scorcher

Chapter 5

Carver spent the next two days doing as Desoto had predicted, making the rounds of charterboat docks and shops that specialized in diving equipment, asking about a dark-blue-and-white late-model Ford. He felt like the Ancient Mariner, stopping one in three. Only he didn’t want to tell a story; he wanted to hear one.

Many of the people who hung around the marinas and boat owners’ haunts had heard about the burnings and sympathized with Carver, but no one knew anything that might help. It was as if salt water eroded memory.

At Scuba Dan’s, on Route A1A just south of Fort Lauderdale, Dan Mason, who ran the shop, told Carver that he did recall a young guy who drove a blue-and-white Ford-at least Mason thought it was a Ford-and bought diving and snorkeling equipment now and then. And sure, the car might have had a dented right front fender. It had been awhile since the guy had been in, though, so it was difficult to be hardrock sure of anything.

Scuba Dan’s, a mock-driftwood building that was larger and more modern than it appeared from outside, had the facilities in back to recharge diving tanks, and Mason said that the man with the Ford had had a twin tank setup refilled there several times. Bought some flippers once, too. But he hadn’t charged them, and Mason had no record of the sale, no receipt that might give Carver a name. He could only describe the customer as young, maybe in his early twenties, with sandy hair and dark eyes, average height and weight but muscular. There was nothing distinctive about the man, Mason said, and apologized for not being able to help Carver more.

That afternoon Carver phoned Desoto from his cottage and told him what he’d learned.

“We talked to Dan Mason yesterday,” Desoto said, rather laconically.

That got Carver irritated; the deal had been to share information. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t think it was solid enough to pass along. Probably nothing. Mason’s uncertain about what he remembers. Don’t grab hold of things and twist them into more than they really are, amigo. That’s the danger of working a case where you’re so intimately involved.”

“You people who aren’t so intimately involved,” Carver said, “what are you doing?”

“We’re still checking area residents with histories of mental illness, and we’re tying that in with the white-over-blue Ford, matching names with auto registrations.”

“Looking for the homicidal maniac with the right car.”

“Exactly. Which is also what you’re doing, amigo, only we’re going about it more systematically and efficiently. Our wheels grind slowly but very fine.”

“What about places that sell the chemicals used to thicken the flammable solvent? Or stores that sell the naphtha itself?”

“We’re investigating along those avenues, too, Carver.” Desoto suddenly sounded impatient, harried. He pitied Carver, but Carver was being a pest. “The naphtha is sold a lot of places as a household cleaning solvent. The thickening-agent chemicals might provide more of a lead. We’re talking to manufacturers and suppliers. Trouble is, a good amateur chemist could fool around in a well-equipped lab and concoct a lot of this stuff himself. And that’s something else we’re investigating.”

“Can some of the chemicals be bought by mail order?”

“Yeah. In small quantities. That makes our job tougher, but not impossible. You know we have the machinery to conduct this kind of investigation, amigo, so why don’t you try to relax as best you can and let us do the job? Get your tax dollars’ worth.”

“This is me relaxing,” Carver said, “trying to find the man who killed my son.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry for you.” Desoto wasn’t being sarcastic; he meant it.

Carver hung up the phone, then limped behind the folding screen that divided the sleeping area from the rest of the cottage.

He stood for a moment, feeling a pressure deep within him build until his body shook. It took a while for the trembling to stop. Weeping might be the only way he could find temporary relief from how he felt, and he chose not to weep.

He began packing to go north for his son’s funeral.