Spark

35

A brilliant sunbeam lanced through the part in the drapes and lay in a gauzy strip of light across Carver’s eyes. He opened his right eye, closed it immediately, then groaned and rolled over in bed. He could feel the warm sunbeam like a weight on his bare shoulder and arm.

He’d gone to sleep within seconds after Beth had left his bed and returned to her room last night. She sometimes had that effect on him. He wondered if Brad Faravelli had earlier that day laid a foundation of arousal in her, then he mentally kicked himself for considering such a thing. He didn’t like to think of himself as a male chauvinist, but he knew that at times he must be, and he was working on the problem. Beth was helping him.

Realizing by the amount of light in the room that it must be later than he wanted it to be, he braved the malicious sunbeam again by rolling back on his left side to peer at the clock.

No clock.

No phone.

No bedside table.

Huh?

Then he remembered hearing Beth’s leg or arm knock the table over as they’d wrestled last night like possessed teenagers on the bed. Some foreplay, that turned over furniture. With Beth, sometimes the earth moved even before penetration.

He scooted sideways on the bed, moving completely out from beneath the sheet and realizing that it was cool in the room; the air conditioner was still on high.

There was the table on the floor, all right, along with what had been on it.

Carver reached out and turned the clock around, then right side up: 9:15. He didn’t like to stay in bed past eight, no matter what time he’d gone to sleep. Made him feel brain-dead the rest of the morning.

He grabbed the table by a leg and drew it nearer, then used both hands to stand it upright. Placed the clock on it, then the white plastic phone base. Reeled in the receiver, resisting like a hooked fish on its springy, coiled cord, and dropped it into its cradle.

Instantly the phone rang and Carver jumped.

When it began its second ring a bolt of pain shot through his head, and he snatched up the receiver and held its cool hardness to his ear.

Beth’s voice said, “Fred?”

“Yeah.” God! What a taste in his mouth!

“Remember me from last night?”

“Vague recollection.”

“Hattie Evans just phoned my room, lover. She said she’d been trying to call you but only got a busy signal.”

“You knocked the receiver off the phone last night,” Carver said. “Knocked the whole damned table and contents over. I just woke up and put everything back together.”

“Whatever. Thing is, Hattie said for me to tell you she found her husband’s prescription bottle.”

Carver came all the way alert and sat up. His bare toe touched his cane where it had fallen on the floor. “She say it was Luridus-X?”

“Didn’t get into that.”

“I’m going to drive over to her place and get the bottle, then take it into Orlando for analysis. Wanna come with me?”

“Sure, but I’m still in bed.”

Where did she think he was?

“So meet me at the lab in Orlando in about an hour. Just a second. Hold on.” He’d spotted the memo pad that had been next to the phone on the floor, and scooted off the bed and down to a sitting position on the carpet. After straightening out the pad’s kinked pages, he found the analysis lab’s address and gave it to Beth.

“Got it,” she said. He knew that with her memory she never had to write down addresses or phone numbers. “See you there in an hour, Fred, and we can have some breakfast while we wait for test results.”

He hung up, hoping she was right and the lab would provide answers about Luridus-X that quickly. Probably they were computerized and could do it. God bless microchips.

Using the mattress and his cane for support, he stood up and waited a few seconds for the room to level out. Then he hurried into the bathroom to step in and out of the shower before getting dressed and leaving for Hattie’s house.

She’d seen him drive up and was waiting for him with the door open.

Hattie was wearing a belted dress that emphasized her waspish midsection and schoolteacher posture. The dress was made of some kind of soft, crinkly material and was white with thin pastel stripes of various colors that gave it a fresh, crisp look that suited her personality. Her perfume was an elusive hint of roses in the warm morning. She was smiling with satisfaction and a kind of eagerness, as if this might be the end of the semester and exam day. In a way, that was the situation.

“I finally found it in here,” she said, leading Carver to the kitchen. The tiles and appliances were gleaming. There was half a pot of coffee in the Braun brewer, permeating the kitchen with an aroma that ordinarily would have made Carver hungry for breakfast. Not this morning.

Hattie opened a cabinet that contained a rack of small spice containers in front and several wine and liquor bottles in back. “It was in with the spices, where I must have placed it by mistake after Jerome left it here in the kitchen. We used this cabinet for nothing other than spices and seldom-served beverages like hard liquor and mixing ingredients. I haven’t had much company or done any fancy cooking for quite a while, so I hardly ever looked in this cabinet. I don’t remember opening the door since Jerome passed, actually. Anyway, I glanced in here this morning without any real hope of finding the medication, and there it was next to the anise.”

“Where is it now?” Carver asked. He was eager to get to the lab in Orlando, anxious for answers.

She reached into a pocket in her dress skirt and handed him a small brown plastic bottle about the size of some of the spice bottles. Only this one had a medical center pharmacy prescription label fastened to it with clear cellophane tape. It was half full of a syrupy liquid that appeared quite dark, even taking into account the color of the bottle.

Carver held the bottle up and squinted at the scrawled lettering on the label. Nowhere did it seem to read “Luridus-X” but the directions were for Jerome to take one half-teaspoonful before bedtime if having difficulty sleeping.

“Sure this is it?” Carver asked.

Hattie said, “It’s not the kind of thing I’d be unsure of, Mr. Carver, or I wouldn’t have phoned you or your, uh, associate.”

Carver slipped the bottle in his pocket and told Hattie he was driving it into Orlando for analysis; he’d call her as soon as he learned what it contained.

Her eyes were bright and grimly determined as she said, “We’re truly going to discover some things about Jerome’s death now, aren’t we, Mr. Carver?”

“One way or the other.” He told her he’d find his own way out, but she followed him as he limped back into the living room and toward the door.

When he dug the cane’s tip into the carpet and stopped abruptly, she bumped into him.

“Something the matter?” she asked.

“That,” Carver said. He pointed with his cane at the sun-washed view out the living-room window.

A Winnebago motor home was parked across the street, and Adam Beed had climbed out and was buttoning his dark suit coat. He was staring at Hattie’s house with a nasty little smile Carver had seen before.

Carver told Hattie who he was.

She stared out the window and stood even more erect, jutting out her chin. “Leave by the back door, Mr. Carver,” she said firmly. “Make it to your car and deliver that bottle to the police or the laboratory in Orlando.”

Carver watched Adam Beed stride toward the house. He was carrying an attache case and looked like a prosperous, muscular insurance agent on his way to bore prospective clients. But he wasn’t that at all.

“You’re my employee, Mr. Carver, so please obey my instructions this instant.”

He didn’t move.

“You’re being recalcitrant.”

“I won’t leave you alone,” he said. “I’m going into the kitchen. If Beed asks about me, tell him I left fifteen minutes ago with Lieutenant Desoto, in Desoto’s car.”

She looked up at him with fear in her eyes, but also resolve. Carver thought she was about to speak, but she remained silent.

He limped to the kitchen and got busy, and within seconds heard the door chimes pealing like alarm bells.