by John Lutz
Catching his breath as he sat behind the steering wheel, he caught sight of a big semi approaching in the rearview mirror. He timed starting the car with the passage of the roaring and whining truck so that it could not be heard by the redheaded man. Letting the idling engine power the car, he put it into drive and the Olds slowly rolled forward and then back up onto the highway.
Carver drove the quarter mile to the cottage road turnoff and continued on his way to join Beth as if nothing had happened and he was unaware of the man watching from cover.
He saw her right away as he parked beside her recently re-paired LeBaron near the cottage. Beth was sitting in one of the webbed aluminum chairs on the porch, her Toshiba in her lap. She was wearing red shorts and a yellow halter top, slumped over and pecking away at the computer’s keyboard. A can of Budweiser sat on the plank floor next to her chair. Her long dark legs glistened with perspiration in the bright sunlight. No wonder the guy parked off the road was using binoculars.
Carver was irritated. He slammed the car door behind him harder than he’d intended. Beth hadn’t looked up. “Where’s Al?” he asked as he limped toward the porch.
Now she raised her gaze from the computer. “I let him out to do what dogs have to do. He went to the door and stood there. Kept staring at me. You said he was trained, Fred, so I figured he knew what he wanted.”
“How do you know he’ll come back?”
“You said he was trained,” she repeated, and began working again with her computer.
Carver clomped up onto the porch and walked past her, entering the cottage. She had the air conditioner on high and it was cool in there.
He pulled Wicker’s card out of his wallet and went to the phone on the breakfast bar.
Wicker answered the phone on the second ring.
“You sound as if you’ve got a pillow over your face,” Carver said.
“Cell phone. I’m in my car. What do you want, Carver?”
“You got an agent about five foot ten, medium build, red hair, drives a late-model cheap blue Dodge, likes animals?”
Silence. Then, “Uh-huh. You spotted him?”
“He’s yours, then?”
“Must be, though I didn’t know about the animals. That’s Anderson. He’s assigned to watch Beth.”
“Without her knowledge?”
“Better that way, Carver. In case our WASP friend tries to pay her a visit. She won’t get careless if she doesn’t know she has protection.”
Carver didn’t know whether to be aggravated with Wicker for posting a watch or to be grateful. What Wicker hadn’t mentioned was that if Beth was unaware she was being guarded, she’d act normally and make more effective bait for the man who’d beaten Lapella. On the other hand, Wicker hadn’t had to assign anyone at all to protect her. Carver decided on gratitude, but he said nothing. That might only encourage Wicker to make more close-to-home moves in secret.
“Does Anderson know that you know?” Wicker asked in his muffled voice.
“No. We can leave it that way.”
“Good. And I assume you won’t tell Beth.”
“It might be better that way,” Carver said, knowing she’d resent being observed. Wicker was right: she might get careless. Might even march down to Anderson, grab him by the shirt, and demand that he leave.
“Fine. Now what’s this business about animals?”
“I’ve got a dog might have torn your man apart,” Carver said. “Luckily Anderson had some meat to throw to him.”
Wicker said something Carver couldn’t understand, fading fast, probably moving between cells or falling victim to some technological glitch beyond Carver’s grasp. He said something else, then the line went dead.
Carver hung up the phone, went around the counter to the refrigerator, and got out a cold can of Budweiser. As he popped the tab, the cottage door opened and Al came in, closely followed by Beth.
Al was licking his chops with a tongue that looked as if it belonged on a larger dog. He glanced at Carver as he followed Beth to the refrigerator. He smelled as if he’d rolled in something.
Beth reached in and pulled out a package of all-beef premium frankfurters.
“What are you doing?” Carver asked.
“I’m going to feed Al. He acts hungry, and you neglected to buy him any dog food.”
Al raised an eyebrow. Carver thought he might have winked.
“You talk with Posey?” Beth asked, using a knife to slice the plastic wrapper on the frankfurters.
“Yes. He wanted to hire me. He’s grieving hard over his fiancée’s death, needs to find out what it was all about. He told me he needs a sense of closure so he can get on with his life.”
“Sounds as if he’s been to a therapist.”
“He probably has.”
“Did you tell him the only definitive closures in life are orgasms?”
Lord, she was tough! “No. It didn’t seem the time or place.”
He watched her slice up half a dozen premium franks on the cypress cutting board, then walk over and dump them into Al’s dish. She stood holding the cutting board and knife, observing with seeming fascination as the dog greedily and noisily devoured his food with the pure and primal gluttony that only beasts possess.
Carver wondered what she was thinking.
How, in her secret heart, was she dealing with her own grief?
21
“YOU NEED TO GET this dog’s nails clipped, Fred.”
He looked down at Al, lying on the cottage floor and recovering from eating six frankfurters. His front nails were plainly visible and looked okay to Carver.
“They wear down naturally,” he said.
Beth stared at him dubiously. “Maybe in the city, when a dog’s walking on concrete most of the time, but not out here on the beach.”
“Sand will wear them down,” Carver lied. He actually had never thought about dogs’ nails and had assumed that nature took care of such things, the way it did beavers’ teeth.
Beth continued staring at him. It struck him that it was good for her to be so nurturing and concerned about Al. It might seem absurd that a dog would in any way take the place of an unborn child, provide an outlet, however misplaced, for a burgeoning maternal care and love, but it was possible. At the very least, Al was a healthy distraction that assuaged grief.
“I’m driving into Orlando to talk to Desoto,” Carver said, “I’ll buy some nail clippers when I stop to pick up dog food on the way back.”
Beth smiled at his sudden change of tack, then bent down and petted the dog. The inert Al made a halfhearted attempt to lick her hand, but it was already gone.
“I phoned the hospital about Linda Lapella while you were gone,” Beth said.
“How is she?”
“Better. They wouldn’t let me talk to her, but they said she could have visitors. We could drive in and see her tonight. I’d like to thank her for what she went through for me.”
“You should stay here and take it easy,” Carver said.
“I’ve taken it easy for too long. I don’t like sitting around thinking. It makes me an easy target for painful recollections.”
“You up on your medicine?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s talk when I get back from Orlando.”
“Bullshit, Fred!”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means you’re not playing fair with me. You’re patronizing me and dancing around whatever I suggest.”
He walked toward her to kiss her cheek, moving suddenly with the cane, and heard a low growl. Al was standing, baring his fangs, his ears back flat against his head and his eyebrows knotted into a tight V of surliness and warning. Carver looked at him in amazement.
Al didn’t settle back down until the now-tentative kiss had actually been planted and Carver had withdrawn.
“Dr. Galt made me your nurse, remember?” Carver said. “You’re in my care, and I say you need more rest.”
She glanced at Al. “Let
’s take a vote.”
“It would be a tie. Al doesn’t have a vote.”
Al knotted his brow again and growled.
Carver glared at Al.
Al glared at Carver.
“Al gets a vote,” Carver said, “if Dr. Galt does.” That seemed to give Beth pause. Dr. Galt was at least human and could reason. Even had made it through medical school.
“Get out, Fred.”
Carver took Interstate 95 to save time, then cut west and drove the Bee Line Expressway into Orlando. It was past two o’clock and he hadn’t eaten lunch, so he found a restaurant downtown on Jackson Street and ordered a hamburger and a frosty mug of draft beer. From his seat in a booth near the window, he could comfortably watch tourists and office workers walk past on the sun-heated streets.
Two attractive women in light summer dresses molded to their bodies by the breeze walked by on the other side of the street, and he found himself admiring their form and grace more than contemplating their sexual possibilities. Was he growing old? A man and woman with two young boys passed on the sidewalk in the opposite direction of the women. One of the boys, about ten years old, ran out ahead of the rest of what Carver assumed was his family. He was a skinny kid in jeans and a souvenir T-shirt with a porpoise on it. Something about the way he ran, taking long, loping strides while flailing the air with his arms, reminded Carver of his son Chipper, who’d died at the age of eight and would be eight forever in Carver’s memory. He wondered if his and Beth’s child would have been a boy, and a rage and despair welled up in him that he knew Beth must feel all the time. He took a long pull of beer and looked away from the window.
After lunch, he was glad to find Lieutenant Alfonso Desoto in his office in the police headquarters building on Hughey. Carver had called and Desoto was expecting him, but police work was as unpredictable as crime, and personnel were often unexpectedly on the move, even lieutenants.
Desoto was sitting behind his desk, talking on the phone, when Carver knocked on the open door. With a wave of his arm that flashed a gold cuff link, Desoto motioned for him to enter. Carver closed the door behind him and sat in a chair angled to face the desk. On the windowsill behind Desoto sat a Sony portable stereo that was usually tuned to a Spanish station. This afternoon it was silent.
“We have a match on fingerprints,” Desoto was saying into the phone. “When the lab work comes in, we’ll have a match on blood.” He sat listening for a while, holding the receiver to his ear loosely with a hand bearing two diamond rings in gold settings, looking at Carver. Then: “Yes, DNA, whatever it takes. He’s ours. Uh-hmm, uh-hmm, uh-hmm.”
Desoto hung up the phone, flashing his matinee-idol white smile. He had a classically Latin handsomeness, moved like a tango dancer, and sometimes dressed like one. But instead of plying the trade of a gigolo, Desoto was a practical and tough cop who had an almost religious respect for women.
“Good to see you, amigo,” he said to Carver. “How’s Beth?”
“Much better.”
Desoto stood up and removed his pale beige suit coat, draped it over a form-fitting hanger, then hung the hanger on a brass hook. He must have been out and just returned to the office when the phone rang. He tucked his white shirt in more neatly, used his hands to smooth the beginning of wrinkles from the elegant material of his pants, then sat back down behind his desk. Automatically he reached behind him with his right hand and pressed a button on the Sony, and soft guitar music wafted from dual speakers into the office.
“I need to know about Martin Freel and Operation Alive,”
Carver said, resting his folded hands over the crook of his cane, finding the rhythms of the guitar restful.
“So you told me,” Desoto said. “Here in Orlando, the police know a great deal about Reverend Freel. Few of us are in his flock.”
“But maybe one in sheep’s clothing?” Carver asked.
Desoto grinned and shook his head. “If there’s infiltration in Operation Alive, it’s from the FBI, or maybe ATF. We don’t have the manpower to send someone to church on a regular basis.” He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his neck. Light from the window glinted off his gold rings, cuff links, and wristwatch and sent reflected light dancing over the walls. He liked gold more every year. “But I can tell you about the good Reverend Freel. He’s more of a con man than an idealist. And a wealthy con man. He nurtures his ego and wallet through his congregation. Operation Alive isn’t one of the genuine and responsible anti-abortion organizations.”
“You think it’s completely phony and exists only to make Freel rich?”
Desoto chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, causing his lips to pucker. “Completely? I’m not sure. These organizations are almost always part religion, part confidence game. They do from time to time show some obligation toward their members—when they’re not tithing them or selling them medallions or plastic figurines. You’re asking me if Reverend Freel personally is a true believer, answer’s no, I don’t think he is.”
“He have a police record?”
“Not much of one. He’s done some things just this side of the law, but there’s wriggle room in the law as well as in the Bible. My feeling is that Freel uses all of that room and then some. Operation Alive’s only been in existence three years. Last year they demonstrated at an abortion clinic here in Orlando. Freel stirred up his picketers with a fire-and-brimstone speech and they stormed the place, started breaking things up inside. They did a lot of damage, made a lot of noise. One of the patients undergoing an abortion at the time went into shock and had to be rushed to the hospital. The same night, somebody fired a shotgun blast into the clinic.”
Carver remembered the shot fired into Women’s Light. A bullet and not shotgun pellets, but still . . . “Were there any arrests?”
“Not on the shooting,” Desoto said. “Freel and seven of his Operation Alive demonstrators were arrested for what happened when they rushed the clinic. Freel’s attorney got them all out on bond within hours, and now the matter’s being ground exceedingly fine in the courts. Demonstrators who did the damage might eventually pay a fine, but none of this will stick to Freel.”
“Is the attorney Jefferson Brama?”
“The same. Obnoxious windbag thinks he’s Perry Mason.”
“He’s representing Adam Norton,” Carver said.
“So I’ve heard. He’ll probably get him a good plea bargain. Brama knows the law and he knows how to spread money around. A formidable combination.”
“Is Brama a member of Freel’s congregation?”
“Probably. Lawyers can rationalize anything.”
“Know anything about a well-dressed big guy with a blond crew cut, black horn-rimmed glasses, likes to beat up people while he’s spouting scripture?”
“Not offhand, and I think I’d remember. Why do you ask?”
Carver told him about the WASP’s attack on Officer Lapella, then described him in greater detail.
“Him we’ll keep an eye out for,” Desoto said grimly.
“I need the address of Freel’s church,” Carver said. “His home, too, if he doesn’t live in some kind of rectory.”
“He separates work from his home life. Freel and his wife have a luxury spread about ten miles out of the city.”
“He’s married?”
“Of course. That’s how he can get by ranting and raving about family values. His wife Belinda Lee, a sort of cotton-candy blond, assists him sometimes at the Clear Connection. That’s what he calls his church. It’s a building with a lot of windows, like a greenhouse only with pews.” He picked up a file folder from the desk and slid it over to Carver. “It’s all in here, just for you, amigo. Everything’s copies, so don’t return it. In fact, don’t tell anyone where you got it. It’s the same information we gave the FBI.”
“You’ve met Special Agent Wicker?”
“Sure. He was in here the day after the clinic bombing, asking the same questions you just asked.”
&n
bsp; “Has the FBI talked to Freel?”
“Probably.”
The guitar music from the radio faded and a soft, syncopated drumbeat began. A woman began singing something mournful in Spanish. Or maybe it sounded mournful because it was in Spanish. Carver picked up the folder and stood up from his chair.
Desoto stood also. “Take good care of Beth.”
His concern struck Carver as odd. Desoto had had reservations about Beth because of her marriage to the late Roberto Gomez, one of the bad guys. A cop thing. But he also had sensitive antennae when it came to women; he must know what it meant to her to have lost a child she’d agonized over and decided to bear.
“The FBI’s got a watch on her at the cottage,” Carver said. “And we’ve got a guard dog.”
“Dog? That doesn’t sound like you, owning a dog. Her dog?”
“It’s working out that way,” Carver said.
“What kind of dog?”
“German shepherd, more or less.”
“Big dog?”
“Big.”
“They’re a breed known to turn on their masters,” cautioned Desoto, who knew nothing about dogs and was in fact a little afraid of them.
“Not Al. I don’t think.”
Desoto looked at him curiously and started chewing the inside of his cheek again.
Carver thanked him for his help and moved toward the door.
“Take care of yourself, too,” Desoto said as Carver left.
22
THE CHURCH OF THE Clear Connection looked as if it had at one time been a discount store. It was a long, low cinderblock building, painted white, with wide windows that had been installed so close together that steel frames rather than cinderblock separated them. What had probably once been a flat roof was now on a shallow pitch with what appeared to be chains of adjoining skylights. Soaring from the center of the roof was a white metal cross that for some reason reminded Carver of a TV aerial. That might have been the idea. Communication was communication.
The grounds around the Clear Connection, probably once a parking lot, were immaculate—grass as smooth and closely mowed as golf greens, palm trees of uniform size lining the wide stone walk to the building’s entrance, colorful flower beds so symmetrically arranged that the blossoms appeared almost artificial. In the center of a round flower bed bordered by low-lying yews was a fountain that made Carver look twice. Looming from the center of a shallow pond was a tall, sculpted crucifix, and from the stone hands of Jesus nailed to the cross flowed water to cause ripples in the pond as it fell and was recirculated by an electric pump to rise in dancing little spurts around the edges of the pond. Colored lights were arranged around the pond to illuminate the spectacle at night. Carver wished he could see that.