Spark

by John Lutz

  “I think I’ve heard of Keller Pharmaceutical,” Carver said.

  “Sure, they’re headquartered here in Florida and they’re listed on the big board.”

  “You thought a company on the New York Stock Exchange might be laundering money from Solartown?”

  “I can name you two big-board companies that launder drug money,” she told him with a direct stare, “so why not money from con-job real estate repossessions? Or whatever else is going on here?”

  “Why not indeed,” Carver said.

  “Anyway, Keller Pharmaceutical’s annual report shows regular payments to a number of companies, including Mercury Laboratories.”

  “That unusual?” Carver asked.

  “Nope. They fund several research laboratories. Here’s what’s interesting about Mercury.” She swiveled the laptop computer so he could see the screen. The organizational chart of Mercury Laboratories was displayed there. “The president and chief executive officer was Dr. Jamie Sanchez.”

  Carver said, mostly to himself, “Same guy?”

  “Figures to be. Mercury Laboratories is located in Fort Lauderdale.”

  “Figures to be,” Carver agreed. He dragged the phone over and punched out Fort Lauderdale directory assistance. When he asked for the number of Dr. Sanchez and gave the address of the house where Roger Karl had left the briefcase, the operator informed him that Dr. Sanchez’s number was unlisted. So the address was correct. Carver hung up and nodded.

  “I’ll do some checking around,” Beth said, “make sure the two men really are one and the same. But I think we can proceed on the premise that they are.”

  “Dr. Sanchez is moving money through a bagman,” Carver said, “for whatever reason.”

  “Might not be Solartown money, though. Or it might not have anything to do with Keller Pharmaceutical. And who’s the final recipient of whatever was in that briefcase if it went farther than Dr. Sanchez?”

  “I don’t know,” Carver said. “What I do know is Roger Karl sure as hell didn’t want me to find out. That’s why he panicked and sent the giant in overalls to convince me I should forget about any more snooping.”

  Beth switched off her laptop and snapped the case closed. “Way I see it, Fred, you were hired to look into an old man’s death, and now you’re into something unrelated and plenty dangerous.”

  “Maybe not unrelated.”

  “Why would Solartown, Inc. or anybody else want to do away with an old gent like Jerome Evans? I just can’t buy the idea it’s Solartown trying to set up his widow so they can reclaim their property. What do you think, lover, there’s oil under that house?”

  He wished it could be that simple. Poke a stick in the ground, find a motive. “Maybe it has nothing to do with the property. Maybe Jerome found out something he shouldn’t have known. And maybe somebody was afraid he’d told Maude Crane.”

  “If that’s true—”

  “Right,” Carver said. “He might also have told his wife.”

  Beth frowned. “You best move that woman outa that house, Fred. Soon as enough time passes so it won’t look so suspicious, Hattie’s liable to wind up a suicide like Maude.”

  “If she’ll leave,” Carver said. “I doubt anyone ever ran her out of the classroom in her life.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. I’ll talk to her.”

  “When?”

  He rolled onto his side, reaching for his cane. “Now.” His headache flared when he stood up.

  Beth idly ran her hands across her bare midsection, up over her rigid nipples. She said, “A lot came outa this business meeting, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t feel like crossing words with her; his head hurt.

  “Not gonna answer, huh? Gonna play the strong silent guy in charge?”

  He told her to wait exactly five minutes after he was gone before she left his room, and to be sure nobody saw her.

  She told him to leave the shower running for her.

  26

  HATTIE EVANS SAT WITH her hands clasped in her lap, her knees pressed tightly together, her haunches on the very edge of the sofa. Carver didn’t think she looked persuadable.

  He was right.

  “Nothing you’ve said changes my mind,” she told him. “I’m still not going anywhere. I refuse to leave my home. When you reach my age, certain possible consequences don’t scare you, so you don’t easily abandon what’s dear to you.”

  “This house?”

  “This home,” she corrected.

  “I had the impression you didn’t even like living here.”

  “It doesn’t matter where home is, Mr. Carver. Or how much you like it. What matters is that no one should be able to uproot you from the place where you’ve sunk roots and grown memories. That’s very important. The concept of home becomes less portable as we grow older.”

  Carver shook his head. “You’re stubborn, Hattie.”

  “You would know about stubborn, Mr. Carver.” Maybe she’d been talking some more to Desoto. Or to Beth. “The names I mentioned—Roger Karl, Dr. Jamie Sanchez—do you remember Jerome mentioning either of them?”

  “Of course not. He had no reason.”

  Carver decided there was no way to get through to her on this issue. It reminded him of when he’d once tried to talk an unwilling octogenarian into a hearing aid. “I’m uneasy about you remaining in this house,” he told her. “Or anywhere you can be easily located.”

  “You’ve made that clear. But there’s no need for you to feel that way. Jerome didn’t have any secret information, or he would have told me.” A faint smile crossed her features like a shadow. “He could never keep anything from me.”

  “What about Maude Crane?” It was cruel, but he had to say it, had to convince her she might actually be in danger.

  “That woman was no secret,” she said, lifting her chin high.

  “I mean, he might have told Maude what he knew, and that’s the reason she’s dead.”

  “The woman hanged herself.”

  “As far as we know.”

  She smiled tolerantly, as if he were a pupil who’d spelled “Albuquerque” wrong. “Believe me, Mr. Carver, Jerome wasn’t the type of man to get involved in conspiracy or illegal money transfers. He was an old fool I happened to love too much, but I knew him. He might well have been killed because he possessed some dangerous knowledge. But if so, he didn’t realize he had it.”

  “The people who killed him, and possibly Maude Crane, wouldn’t know how much he understood, or who he might have talked to about it.”

  “Use your reasoning ability,” she said sternly. “If what you say was true, I’d have been murdered by now.”

  “No, whoever killed Jerome and Maude would almost surely wait. A man dies, then his grief-stricken mistress hangs herself. Okay, that’s believable enough. But if his widow also commits suicide, or dies an even slightly suspicious accidental death, credulity is stretched and the law might investigate and find enough threads to weave a rope.”

  “So I’m not in any danger, even if your theory happens to be correct.”

  “I think you might be in danger. There’s some indication the people involved in this don’t always behave rationally. And who knows what they’ll consider a reasonable amount of time?”

  Hard resolution brightened her eyes. “Danger or not, Mr. Carver, I’m not leaving here to go into hiding like a fugitive. Regardless of what secret Jerome learned—if any—I’m not about to be chased from my home.”

  Carver placed both hands on his cane and stood up. “You’ve convinced me, Hattie. Will you help to put my mind at ease by promising you’ll be careful to keep your doors and windows locked, and leave a light on if you go out at night?”

  “I always do both those thing, Mr. Carver.” She stood up and walked with him to the door. “Let me know if you need additional payment. I appreciate the job you’re doing on this. You’ve gone much further than the police would have, I’m sure.”

  “I�
�m sure, too,” Carver said. He opened the front door. “There’s no need for further payment right now.”

  “I don’t want you working on this investigation because you feel sorry for an old lady, Mr. Carver.”

  He grinned. “You’re anything but an object of pity, Hattie.”

  She thought about what he’d said and smiled.

  Instead of walking to his car, Carver crossed the green expanse of lawn to Val’s house. He glanced over to make sure Hattie wasn’t observing him, then punched the doorbell with his cane.

  It took Val several minutes to come to the door. He was barefoot, wearing dark slacks and an unbuttoned white shirt. The shirt had widely spaced, intersecting creases, as if it had been recently bought and not yet washed and ironed. The house was dim behind Val, and he was squinting into the outside light in a way that made him look more than ever like a leprechaun.

  Carver said, “Wake you up?”

  “Yeah, but that’s okay; I was gonna get up anyway. Just taking a little nap. Patrol again tonight.” He stepped back. “Wanna come in? Hotter’n a whore in heat out there.”

  Carver hadn’t heard that one, but then he hadn’t spent months on Posse patrol on the mean streets of Solartown, as had Rathawk Two. He followed Val into the dim living room and watched him open the blinds enough to let in a bearable amount of light. It illuminated the dust.

  “Wanna beer?” he asked Carver. Sure.

  Val disappeared into the kitchen. While he was in there clattering around, Carver looked over the living room. It was laid out like Hattie’s, with the door to the left of the picture window, door to the hall and kitchen directly opposite it. The wall-to-wall carpet was predictably green. The furniture was early American and functional; where there was upholstery, it was plaid. A wooden bookshelf contained a row of paperback espionage novels—which explained Val’s knowledge of Russian assassination methods—and a statue of a horse, and a bowling trophy. Near a recliner the remote control for the console TV lay on the carpet, along with a scattering of what looked like popcorn. The fireplace had a small folding screen set up in front of its cavity, on which was a print of that famous painting of dogs playing poker. Carver thought the place could use a woman’s touch.

  Val had returned with two cans of Bud Light and caught Carver eyeballing the living room.

  “Decor ain’t for shit,” Val said, handing Carver one of the beers, “but it’s clean and comfortable.”

  “All you could reasonably require,” Carver said. He wasn’t hypocritical enough to criticize Rathawk Two’s taste in furnishings and accessories. He’d always liked that dog painting and sort of wished he owned one.

  He took a sip of beer so cold it must have been within a few degrees of freezing. “Good,” he said, licking foam from his upper lip. “I just came from next door.”

  Val sat in the recliner but didn’t tilt it back. “So how’s Hattie?”

  “She’s doing okay, but I’m a little worried about her. Maybe the Posse, and you in particular, could keep a watch on her house.”

  “Sure. She in some kinda danger?”

  “I think so. She doesn’t.”

  Val scratched his side beneath the unbuttoned shirt and chuckled. “That’s Hattie for you.”

  “I figure maybe Jerome Evans knew something, and maybe he told Maude Crane—”

  “And maybe somebody thinks he mighta told Hattie.” Val finished Carver’s sentence. “Anything I can do,” he said, “I will.”

  Carver took another pull of beer. “When you’re on patrol at night, you ever find yourself in the medical center?”

  “Yep. Now and then we drive folks there when they’re having some kinda problem that’s serious but don’t require an ambulance.”

  “It’d help me, and Hattie, if I had copies of their paperwork dealing with one of their suppliers, Keller Pharmaceutical.”

  Val leaned back and considered, His sleep-puffed eyes glanced in the direction of Hattie’s house. He said, “You’re asking a lot here, Carver.”

  “I know.” He told Val why he needed the information.

  “You dead sure this’ll help Hattie?” Val asked.

  “No, but it might.”

  “Helluva risk.”

  “Life’s a helluva risk.”

  Val leaned back and pressed his cold Bud can to his forehead, rolling it slowly back and forth, mulling things over. Carver rooted for the power of true love.

  “I’m on good terms with one of the volunteers there,” Val said after a while. “She owes me a favor and she might have access to the files. I can ask her, anyways.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight, I guess.”

  “You sure she can keep quiet about this?”

  “No need to worry on that account. Be hell to pay if word ever got out. Even if the medical center didn’t prosecute, she’d lose her job same as I’d lose mine with the Posse if either one of us came down with a loose tongue.”

  Neither man talked as they finished their beers. Maybe it was that remark about loose tongues.

  What have I done? Carver wondered, as he left Val’s cool, dim house and limped through the heat toward where the Olds was parked. His arms were already glistening with sweat, his grip on his cane slippery.

  Had he placed two more senior citizens in harm’s way for nothing?

  Would he live to become a senior citizen?

  27

  ADAM BEED, WEARING BIB overalls, was driving a gigantic threshing machine toward Carver, grinning, standing up at the controls so he could look down and watch the blades snare and dismember his prey. Carver was trying to run through the wheat field with his cane, but he kept stumbling, falling, getting up to look back in terror and see that the whirring blades were closer. Beed raised his right hand and flailed the air with it, holding something—a bell! Carver could hear it now above the roar of the thresher’s engine. He tripped and fell, struggled to his feet. The bell . . .

  Carver woke up sweating, snatched up the phone to quiet its nerve-grating jangle. He peered at the ghostly red numerals of the clock by the bed: three minutes past midnight. He’d been asleep only a few hours.

  “Carver? You there?”

  Rathawk Two. “Somewhere,” Carver mumbled, touching the cool plastic receiver to his ear.

  “This is Val. I wake you up?”

  “ ’S okay. You rescued me. Jesus, I hate farms!”

  “Everybody does. You was up late filling out forms?”

  Carver blinked his tired, dry eyes. Grimaced at the sandy feel of them. “What’s going on, Val?”

  “Rescued you, huh? Well, what I called about, I can’t get Jane to help.”

  Insects were droning outside; the air conditioner kicked in and drowned them out with its watery hum. “Jane your contact at the medical center?”

  “Yeah, and she tells me what I want’s way too dangerous. She’s scared. Mainly of Nurse Gorham. Shame a beautiful woman like that has to be such a sadistic hellcat.”

  “Shame,” Carver agreed.

  “Reminds me of a wolverine,” Val said. “Wolverines are beautiful and cruel, kill other animals for no reason, just like we do sometimes.”

  “We?”

  “Not you and me, people in general.”

  Carver slowly wiped his hand down his face. His palm came away slick with perspiration. “Friend Jane know where the files are kept?”

  “Yeah. She agreed to help at first, told me all about the layout, before she got thinking too much and the fear set in. The main file room, patients’ records an’ all in folders, is on the first floor and’s in constant use. But she says financial and some duplicate files are computerized and on the fourth floor, in a room down the hall from the main offices. After nine o’clock nobody belongs on that floor, so she’d have no excuse to go up there. Elevator doesn’t even run up there after nine, and the door off the stairs is locked.”

  “You were a volunteer worker at the medical center,” Carver said. “You got any idea of how to get
around this?”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t have asked Jane’s help. All I did when I worked there was escort released patients to the door in wheelchairs so nothing’d happen to them on the way out and the center wouldn’t be sued.”

  “Does Jane have a key to the fourth-floor door?”

  Val didn’t say anything for a while. “I know what you’re thinking, Carver.”

  Carver shifted his weight on the bed. The springs whined. “See if she’ll unlock the door, that’s all. Then she’s out of it.”

  “Well, expect I can get her to do that. She does wanna help, and she’d only be away from her station for a few minutes.”

  “You near the medical center now?”

  “Uh-huh. My unit’s parked right outside.”

  It took Carver a moment to realize “unit” was Posse code for “car.” Hoo-boy! “I’m driving over there,” he said. “Leaving soon as I hang up. Meet me in the parking lot?”

  “I’ll meet you,” Val said. He blew breath into the phone. “I’m thinking of Hattie.”

  “So am I,” Carver said, and replaced the receiver.

  He sat for a few seconds while the remnants of sleep faded from his mind completely, then he switched on the lamp and reached for his cane and his pants at the same time. Hurried to meet Rathawk Two.

  He parked on the street instead of in the medical center lot, then limped to where Val’s Dodge Aries was squatting unevenly in an end slot near a white van. The night was hot and sticky. The lot was illuminated by overhead sodium lights that cast a sickly orange glow and made the dozen or so parked vehicles look as if they were coated with oil.

  Carver opened the Dodge’s door and slid in to sit alongside Val, resting his cane between his thighs. “Talk to Jane again?” he asked.

  Val nodded, staring straight ahead at the medical center’s brightly lit entrance. “There’s a side door used by Maintenance she’s left propped partly open so I can get into the building without being seen. Fire stairs are right there. I take ’em to the fourth floor, and that door’s propped open, too. It locks automatically when it closes so it can only be opened from the inside, so once I’m on the fourth floor I can get out okay.”