by John Lutz
He pulled the list of the past year’s Sunhaven deaths from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. Scanned it twice. There was no James Harrison from Oregon on it, the resident whose death had prompted old Amos Burrel to call Carver after overhearing his conversation with Kearny Williams. An oversight by Birdie? Or had Harrison’s file been removed before she’d searched the records?
“I think a repeat of last night is in order,” Edwina said, finishing her ice cream and fastidiously licking the spoon. She sure was oral tonight.
Carver said, “You’re talking to a middle-aged man.”
“Middle-aged woman doing the talking. It’s logical that something wonderful has to come from all that experience.”
“I agree with your logic,” Carver told her, “but the experience will have to be one night less, I’m afraid. I need to get back to the cottage. Somebody might try to get in touch with me about what happened.”
She shrugged. “Okay, I’ll go with you. We’ll sleep there.”
“Not a good idea.”
“Dangerous, you mean?”
“Yeah. Maybe very dangerous.”
“Then why do you have to be there?”
“Gambling,” Carver said.
She smiled. “I’m your best bet. No way to lose.”
“There’s a way. For both of us.”
She tried not to show she was aggravated, but she was. Finally she said calmly, “Damn you. I love you so much it makes me terrified of losing you. I hate that.”
Carver knew exactly what she meant.
He also knew what it would do to him if he brought her the kind of harm that was possible, even likely, because of where the Sunhaven case had taken him.
He promised he’d make it up to her. Make it up to himself. She seemed unmoved. The earth had cooled. He resisted the urgings of his heart and groin to change his mind and tell her to come with him. Love, perhaps the most basic emotion in the world, could create the most wrenching complications. Could make people the victims of cosmic practical jokes.
When they left the restaurant, he sat in the Olds in the parking lot and watched the taillights of her Mercedes dwindle and disappear down the highway. Then he waited for a tractor-trailer with a hundred red and yellow running lights to roar past. He listened to its howl change to a diminishing high-pitched whine of rubber on pavement. When the sound had almost died, he drove from the lot and hit the accelerator hard.
He followed the wildly speeding truck all the way to the turnoff to his cottage. Warm air crashed and boomed through the car and flying insects bounced off the windshield like stray bullets.
He parked in his usual spot, not being as careful as he might have, still locked in gloom. Ortiz was running now, with Dr. Pauly, perhaps. And with a hostage. Anyway, Carver hoped Birdie was still a hostage and nothing worse had happened to her. Possibly Raffy realized her struggle at Sunhaven had been seen, and to decrease the intensity of the hunt for him he’d set her free.
But Carver knew better. Knew Raffy Ortiz well enough to be sure he wouldn’t simply turn Birdie loose on some deserted road and drive away. He would kill her, or he would kill everything in her. Cruelty lived in him like an animal.
Carver slammed the Olds’s door and limped over to the dark porch.
The tide was high, and behind him the sea was giving the beach a beating. A warm breeze carried to him the smell of things alive and dead that the waves had washed onto the sand. He set the cane firmly on each step with a solid thunk! as he took the stairs.
On the top step he froze in surprise. His heart seemed to swell and began hammering ferociously. Thudding so powerfully he was sure he could hear it—or was that the pounding of the surf on the beach?
In the shadows at the end of the porch was the outline of a man sitting in the webbed lounge chair. Sitting almost casually, with an ankle crossed over a knee, dangling foot pumping rhythmically, nervously.
The dark figure’s right arm rose slowly. The shape in its hand was unmistakable. A gun.
A voice as strained as taut wire said, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
34
THE FIGURE GOT UP FROM the lounge chair and stepped from shadow into moonlight. Dr. Pauly. He held the gun steady on Carver, held it as if he were familiar with firearms and knew how to use them as effective life-and-death instruments; part of his medical training.
The surf breathed in slow rhythm and frogs croaked behind the cottage, but Carver felt as if he and Dr. Pauly were somehow caught in silent suspension of time.
Until Dr. Pauly said, “I don’t want to shoot you, Mr. Carver, but if you try to come near me, I will. I swear it!”
Carver folded his hands over the crook of his cane and leaned on it. Might as well stay where he was for a while.
Dr. Pauly’s deep-set eyes were in shadow. His thin mouth was a tight line arced downward at the corners as if scrawled that way in a child’s crude drawing. He glanced down at the automatic in his hand, back up at Carver. “I don’t want anyone else killed,” he said. “For God’s sake, I’m a doctor! That’s why I came here to warn you.”
“Warn me about what?” But Carver knew what. Knew who.
“Raffy Ortiz. He’s got it fixed in his mind to kill you. Kill us both. You don’t know him the way I do, the things he’s done. He’s sick and vicious! More dangerous than you can imagine.”
Carver tightened his grip on the cane. Kill us both. So that was why Dr. Pauly had bolted—not so much from the law as from Raffy Ortiz. Raffy had exercised an evil control over him, but that also meant the doctor knew some damaging information about Raffy. Which put Dr. Pauly in mortal danger.
“Is that why he snatched Birdie Reeves?” Carver asked. “Because she’d talked to me and gone through the Sunhaven files? Because she knew too much?”
Dr. Pauly appeared startled. Lowered the gun for a moment and gave a trembling, nervous smile that almost blurted into a laugh. Pressure had built in him close to the bursting point.
Then his mouth set again in its hard line, his jaw thrust forward. “Birdie knew too much, all right. She was in this all the way with Raffy and me.”
Comprehension started to seep in on Carver, cold and unsettling.
“All the way in what?” he asked. He knew and dreaded the answer but he wanted to hear it from Dr. Pauly. Hear all of it at last.
Dr. Pauly planted his feet wider, to create a more stable firing stance in case he had to use the automatic. The front of his white shirt was stained with perspiration and plastered to his chest and upper arms.
“When a senior citizen takes up residence at an expensive nursing home like Sunhaven,” he said, “there’s almost always a considerable potential inheritance when that resident dies. Often that inheritance is being rapidly eroded by the cost of the nursing home itself. Now, in most families there’s at least one member who’d profit enormously if the resident died, who might even be in immediate financial need and would like to see the resident expire somewhat sooner than nature intended.”
Carver thought about Jack and Melba Lipp in New Orleans, and their foundering business in the French Quarter. “You’d supply Raffy Ortiz with names of the wealthiest Sunhaven residents with pressing medical problems,” he said, “and it was Raffy’s job to find those family members, feel them out, and proposition them.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Pauly said. “And when the time of the resident’s death was moved to an earlier and more convenient date, we’d later receive a share of the inheritance for . . . expediting matters.”
“Neither you or Birdie was living in luxury,” Carver pointed out.
“I’m a former drug supplier and I have an expensive addiction,” Dr. Pauly said. “Birdie’s a chemically dependent fifteen-year-old runaway. Still, you’d be surprised by certain dollar amounts; only Raffy pulled the strings and he didn’t want attention drawn to us if our life-styles improved dramatically. That was smart of him but tough on us. In a year or so, when we’d made enough money, we were going to stop what we
were doing. That was the plan. Nobody would have any reason to suspect us, and Birdie and I would leave Sunhaven and collect our share of the proceeds.”
“You hoped.”
Dr. Pauly hefted the gun as if it weighed twenty pounds and shook his head sadly. “We had no choice but to hope. Raffy could reveal our backgrounds anytime. When he found out I’d gotten the position at Sunhaven, he brought Birdie up from Miami and made me wangle her the receptionist job. Neither of us had a say in the matter. Birdie had been part of Raffy’s stable of prostitutes in Dade County, and I’d had a close brush with the law. There’s evidence that I’m sure could reopen the case and result in an indictment against me. Raffy was keeping that evidence hidden, but he made it plain to me it might not remain hidden.”
Carver was still trying to adjust his perception of Birdie. Woman-child Birdie, “Raffy and Birdie knew each other in Miami?”
“You shouldn’t be shocked,” Dr. Pauly said. “It’s the way a lot of runaways get money to survive. It’s an indifferent world out there for them; they either sink or they swim. Some of the ones that sink drown, and some learn to live on the bottom of the ocean. Birdie was one of Raffy’s personal favorites, and the favorite of a few of his wealthiest clients. The ones with predilections for very young girls.” Dr. Pauly’s features twisted into a grotesque visual plea for pity. Not for Birdie, for himself. “You’ve got to understand, Mr. Carver, some of us do what we have to in this life.”
“And when Raffy gave you the signal, you had to murder Sunhaven residents and then sign phony death certificates. A flawless setup, with you being the attending physician.”
“I knew the residents’ medical histories,” Dr. Pauly said, “and I’d simply extend what problems they had to the degree that they’d cause cessation of life. It was all plausible, really only a matter of altering the time schedule of mortality.”
“It’s murder,” Carver said, “to give a patient you’re supposed to be helping a lethal injection or the wrong kind of pills, or whatever methods you used. Blow all the smoke you want around it to disguise it, but it still shines through as murder.”
Dr. Pauly moved nearer. He looked angry and injured. “Damn you, I’m a doctor! I save life, not take it. I was referring to the causes of death I listed on official documents. You’ve been made a fool of, Carver. It was Birdie who did it.”
Carver stool paralyzed, not wanting to believe. Not wanting to listen to what Dr. Pauly was telling him,
But the doctor was persistent. Using the truth like a scalpel. “She was the one who agreed to kill them,” he said. “That’s why Raffy worked her into Sunhaven. For that precise purpose. She killed them all.”
“Killed them how?” Carver asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I’d be told when they were going to expire, so I’d be present to handle the details. The corpse would always be without a mark on it to suggest unnatural death. I think only Birdie knows how she killed them. Raffy didn’t care how it was done, as long as it was clean enough that I could make out the death certificate without raising questions and prompting some of the family members or the authorities to request an autopsy. That was no problem; remember, the victims were expected to die while at Sunhaven.”
“Poison?”
“I don’t think so. Most poisons leave some trace. Distinctive odors, or symptomatic signals in the deceased, that are evident even without an autopsy. I’m afraid only postmortem internal examination would reveal how Birdie did her work, and maybe even then it wouldn’t be obvious. There are imaginative ways to do murder that only the most careful and detailed autopsy would reveal. Raffy might very well know those ways, and he might have given Birdie her choice of which method to use. All I know is, I was never told how the residents actually died. And as long as I could state a cause of death consistent with the condition of the corpse and the deceased’s medical history, it didn’t matter to me.”
“You said Raffy was fond of Birdie in Miami.”
“No, Mr. Carver, I said she was one of his favorites. That isn’t good for her, it’s bad. If Raffy has Birdie, there isn’t any way she can be helped. She poses a danger to him. The way you and I do. He caught up with me in Del Moray and almost killed me. I got away only because I managed to reach my car before he got to me. He’s a heavy abuser of drugs himself and he’s high on something now. Methamphetamine and God knows what else. He’s insane, like an enraged tiger. You can’t reason with him.”
“We get in my car and go to the police,” Carver suggested.
“Not the police. Not for me. I need to get clear of the law and of Raffy and start over. I can do that.”
“Sure. Live in the jungle and treat lepers.”
Dr. Pauly cocked his head sharply to the side and stared at Carver. “It sounds farfetched but it’s a possibility.”
“You aren’t talking good sense. Are you high on something, Dr. Pauly?”
“No games, please,” Dr. Pauly said. “Not enough time for them. I came here to warn you, and I have. When I leave, phone the police, but don’t try to come after me.” He motioned with the gun. “Right now, get down off the porch and walk over toward your car.”
“You going to steal it?”
“No, I’ve got my own car parked down near the highway.” Another curt wave of the gun barrel. Somewhere this guy had become very familiar with guns. “I said right now, Mr. Carver. I just want to be assured you can’t follow me when I leave.”
Carver thumped down off the porch and crossed the sandy earth to where the Olds was parked. Dr. Pauly knew what he was doing with the gun, all right; he stayed about five feet from Carver all the way. Not so close that Carver could make a grab at the gun, but close enough so there’d be no doubt about accuracy if the trigger were squeezed. The frogs behind the cottage were croaking up a wild cacophony of protest; they were outraged by what was happening.
Keeping the gun leveled at Carver with one hand, Dr. Pauly stooped low and used the other to feel for the Olds’s hood latch. The latch gave with a squeak and the hood sprang up a few inches in a crocodile smile.
The doctor raised it the rest of the way, reached into the engine compartment, and deftly withdrew the coil wire. All like a neat operation. Dr. Pauly made Mr. Goodwrench look like a klutz.
He hurled the short, rubber-insulated wire into the night. Now the Olds wouldn’t start. Carver had no wheels. Legs were next.
Dr. Pauly said, “Sit down on the ground and toss your cane aside. Aside, not at me!”
Carver did as he was told. Dust or sand worked up the pants cuff of his stiff leg, extended out in front of him, and found its gritty way under the elastic of his sock. The baked ground was hard and uncomfortable beneath his buttocks. He was sweating heavily and felt helpless without the cane.
Dr. Pauly slammed down the Olds’s hood. The sudden collision of steel on steel hushed the frogs. No sound now but the surf. Sighing. Whispering.
The doctor walked over and picked up Carver’s cane, then propped it against the left front tire and stamped on it until it snapped. He threw the two pieces in the direction of the cottage, into darkness. Carver heard one of them clatter off the porch or the front wall. The noise was lost in the night.
He didn’t have another spare cane; he was surprised by how totally vulnerable he felt. He remembered the early days of his physical therapy. Fought down the old panic. Jesus! This was how it was to be crippled! Really crippled!
“You won’t be able to drive, or to come after me on foot now,” Dr. Pauly said. He stared down at Carver with a measure of pity and chewed nervously on the inside of his cheek. His face gleamed white as bone in the moonlight. “Listen, all I want’s a fair head start.”
“Fair?” Carver said. “What the hell are you talking about, fair?”
Dr. Pauly said, “Well, as fair as possible. There aren’t any choices in some lives. None at all. I’m sorry. Good luck.”
He tucked the gun in his waistband, beneath his shirt, then turned and jogged away
in the direction of the highway. He held a steady, moderate pace, like a health buff running to take off a few pounds.
Carver watched the wavering signal of his white shirt until it was absorbed by the night.
Then he crawled toward the cottage.
35
THE COTTAGE’S FRONT DOOR had been forced open. The lock appeared intact, but the interior mechanism had been sprung and the bolt was sheared, as if someone had rammed his shoulder hard into the door. Carver had assumed Dr. Pauly was sitting on the front porch because he hadn’t been able to get in the cottage, but maybe that was wrong. Or maybe someone other than Dr. Pauly had been inside.
Carver supported himself by leaning on the doorjamb. He ran his fingertips over rough plaster, feeling for the wall switch. He found smooth plastic, worked the switch, and the lamp by the sofa winked on.
A glance around told him things were out of place. Whoever had broken the lock had gone through the cottage, either looking for something in particular or merely making an idle search.
Carver stood as straight as he could, balancing with just his fingertips touching the doorjamb. Then he lurched across the room to the chair where he customarily sat after his morning swims. He clutched the back of the chair, swayed this way and that, but managed to stay standing. Using furniture and the walls for handholds, he made his way to where the umbrella he’d used as a makeshift cane was leaning in the corner, near the pieces of the walnut cane Raffy had snapped in half in Del Moray.
When he’d gripped it by its curved plastic handle he felt immeasurably more secure, but he couldn’t put his entire weight on the umbrella or it would bend. He moved gingerly taking short, uneven steps, being very careful where he placed its slender metal tip.
There hadn’t been much attempt to conceal the fact that the cottage had been searched. Carver made his way behind the folding screen that partitioned off the sleeping area. He saw that the mattress had been lifted so someone could check to see if there was anything concealed between it and the bedsprings. The pillow had been tossed to the side against the wall. None of the dresser drawers had been shut all the way after they’d been rummaged through. It looked like a teenager’s room.