by John Lutz
“I hope Brant does kill the bitch,” McGregor said. “Then all I gotta think about is how to nail the both of you.” He turned and walked away, his long arms swinging apelike, his shoulders hunched so that his suit coat belled out in the wind.
Carver decided he’d wasted his time speaking for the record. There wasn’t going to be any record of their conversation.
Or if there was, it would be pure fiction written by McGregor.
He piled the greasy wrapper and containers and remains of supper on his red plastic tray and dumped them in one of the trash receptacles.
Then he got in the Olds and drove to Jacaranda Lane.
The house sat partially shaded by a neighbor’s palm trees. It looked the same, sad and in disrepair, its green canvas awnings still drooping over the windows. The sun-browned lawn still hadn’t been mowed and appeared ready to go to seed. The dead plants in their terra-cotta pots remained lined along the railing of the tiny front porch. The gravel driveway was empty.
Carver parked the Olds a few houses down, then climbed out and made his way down the sidewalk toward number 22. He didn’t hesitate; if any of the neighbors happened to see him, they’d assume he had an honest reason for approaching Marla’s house. He hoped.
On the porch, he leaned with a hand on the iron railing and pressed the doorbell button with the tip of his cane. He heard the chimes sound inside.
A full minute passed. He pressed the button again. He was going to take a chance here and had to be positive Marla hadn’t returned.
As he waited he studied the door. It appeared thick and had four tiny, rectangular windows at eye level. Each time he’d seen Marla leave the house, it was by the front way. He could assume the door’s lock was a dead lock, which the security-minded Marla would surely have thrown when she left.
He glanced impatiently at his wristwatch, as if he might be a salesman with appointments lined up and he was in a hurry. Then he went down the two concrete porch steps and walked along the driveway to the back of the house.
No one was out in the yards of the houses on Cenit Street, whose back property butted up to the yards of Jacaranda Lane.
Hoping Mildred Fain, whose house was directly behind Marla’s, wasn’t looking out her window, Carver limped up onto the small wooden back porch, sizing up the door as he went. It wasn’t nearly as sturdy as the front door. Again he didn’t hesitate. He held open the rickety screen door, then braced with his cane and stiff leg. He shot out his good leg so the flat of his sole hit the back door just above knee level.
It sprang open without making much noise, leaving a splintered door frame where the lock was ripped away. A brass chain dangled hardware from which protruded four screws that the force of Carver’s kick had torn from the doorjamb.
He went in quickly and closed the door behind him, sure that it wouldn’t reveal much damage from outside unless viewed close up.
The house’s interior was stifling and smelled of rancid bacon grease. He was in the kitchen: New-looking linoleum made to emulate gray marble tiles; a small gray Formica table with stainless steel legs, a half-empty ketchup bottle and glass salt and pepper shakers forming a triangle in its center; a yellowed sink and a small gas stove with an iron frying pan on one of the back burners. Clean dishes were wedged into a pink, rubber-coated drainer on the sink’s counter. The refrigerator, which was chugging along determinedly in the heat, was so old it had the motor and coils on top. Carver hadn’t seen one of those in years. It often amazed him, what he found when he went where he shouldn’t. Maybe that was really why he went.
He crossed the kitchen and continued into the small combination living and dining room. The overstuffed blue furniture was soiled and worn, he noticed. Marla’s work table by the window held only the plastic in-out trays, the lamp with the dangerous extension cord, and a black rotary-dial phone. The trays were empty. Carver went to a small, maple kneehole desk against the wall with the bookcase shelving and examined its drawers’ contents.
He found nothing of interest—some rent receipts, a few unpaid utility bills, a stack of grocery coupons, and some discount coupons from the fast-food restaurants in the neighborhood. The frayed wicker wastebasket next to the desk was empty except for a used Pepsi can and a frantic cockroach.
Carver glanced in the bathroom. It was tiled in black and white and had a white washbasin, a commode about the same age as the refrigerator, and a wooden vanity whose oak veneer was peeling from the humidity of baths and showers taken in the claw-footed tub with the white plastic curtain bunched at one end of the shower rod. Carver looked in the mirrored medicine cabinet above the basin and saw only an array of over-the-counter drugs, some of them outdated and obvious leftovers from previous tenants. There was a sliver of aqua-colored soap stuck to the bottom of the bathtub. The indentation that served as the washbasin’s soap dish was empty but coated with an aqua residue that Carver touched and found moist.
After wiping soap from his forefinger on a towel, he went to the bedroom. It was small and contained only a single bed, a bureau, and a tall mahogany wardrobe in lieu of a closet. The bed was sloppily made and had a white spread over it that looked as if it had been in the wash with something pink. Carver suspected the wardrobe had some value as an antique. He opened it and found only a few items of clothing hanging from a retractable rod: a red blouse, a denim skirt, a businesslike gray blazer. The clothes were separated by several wire hangers. He went through the blazer’s pockets but found nothing other than lint. The left side of the wardrobe held drawers. They contained the usual assortment of lingerie, folded shirts and blouses, and a tangled wad of panty hose. The bottom drawer contained half a dozen pairs of shoes, some of which were almost worn out.
The bureau drawers also yielded little of interest. A few neatly folded slacks and T-shirts, a coiled extension cord, and some old sweaters suitable for a cooler clime. One of the drawers was empty, and another contained only a milk-glass jar with a peeling cosmetic cream label. The cream was long gone and the jar was half full of pennies.
It seemed to Carver that some of Marla’s clothes were missing. And there had been no toothbrush or soap in the bathroom other than the sliver of soap on the bottom of the tub. She might have packed the washbasin soap bar when she left. A financially struggling woman might do that, either to save money or because she used a particular brand of soap.
Carver returned to the living room. His rummaging through Marla’s desk hadn’t turned up a checkbook. And Marla’s typewriter was missing. It was possible that the Del Moray police had confiscated both, but he doubted it. McGregor seemed sure that Marla had either left of her own volition or been abducted by Brant.
There was no way to be certain, but Carver figured her note was genuine, and that she’d left in a hurry on her own after loading her typewriter into the little Toyota and packing some clothes and incidentals, including her toothbrush.
An enraged and pursued Joel Brant wouldn’t have been concerned about what Marla had to wear if he’d abducted her, and there would have been no reason to take her typewriter with them.
And cavities would have been the least of her problems.
Finding Marla or Brant was Carver’s problem. He decided to start with Brant. Brant had a business to worry about.
A project where they were pouring concrete.
35
BETH WAS EATING a tuna salad sandwich and drinking a glass of lemonade when Carver entered the cottage. She gave him a sideways glance, then took a vicious bite of sandwich and chewed.
“Chips would be good with that,” Carver said.
“Don’t make feeble small talk, Fred.”
“OK.”
He limped over to the sofa and sat down, leaning his cane against a cushion. “McGregor came to see me. Marla accused Brant of trying to run her down, told the law, and when they tried to pick up Brant he bolted. Marla’s gone, too. She’s afraid of Brant and left a note saying she was clearing out of the area until he’s caught.”
; Beth stopped chewing and swallowed. “She left a note, but nobody actually saw her leave alone and by choice?”
It intrigued Carver that Beth’s mind was working the same way as McGregor’s, but he thought he’d keep that to himself.
“How do you know Brant didn’t abduct her?” Beth asked.
“Before I came here, I let myself into her house. Indications are that she packed and left of her own volition, taking her toothbrush and probably a bar of soap. Her car is gone. And her typewriter’s gone. Brant wouldn’t have let her take that with her.”
Beth nodded, then sipped some lemonade. Carver saw what looked like a sprig of parsley floating among the ice cubes in her glass. Well, maybe they always made lemonade that way where she’d grown up in the slums of Chicago.
“What about you?” he said. “You doing OK?”
He saw her fingers stiffen, then relax. It was still no good talking about the baby, about what, if anything, she’d decided. Carver felt a hot coal of anger start to glow in his gut. It was up to her, sure. She was the one who was pregnant. What was he, only the father. Damn it, he should have some say in the matter!
But he knew that if he were a woman he’d think differently. Beth was the one who had to carry the child to term or had to undergo an abortion. Beth was the one who carried the fear and burden of a previous pregnancy that ended tragically. And Beth was the one who had to live with her decision in a blood-and-body way Carver could only guess at.
His flush of anger had left him, and he felt ashamed. “Whichever side of the fence you come down on,” he said, “I want you to know it’s all right with me. We’ll be OK.”
She swiveled down from the stool at the breakfast counter. She was wearing a cream-colored shirt with net sleeves and faded Levi’s, and had her hair pinned back. Not much makeup. She slid her feet into her white leather sandals, then bent gracefully and fastened the straps. Carver, who almost always wore shoes without straps or laces, wished he had that kind of mobility.
“I’m going to walk along the beach for a while,” she said.
He thought she’d invite him to accompany her, but she didn’t. She didn’t say anything else as he watched her stride across the room and walk outside into the hot night.
The wooden screen door slammed behind her like a gunshot.
Early the next morning, Carver drove the Olds along the curved main street of Brant Estates to where cement trucks were pouring driveways for framed-in houses in a cul-de-sac. Five of the bulky, dusty, and mud-caked trucks were lined up, waiting their turn. A dozen laborers and cement finishers were hard at work, either spreading and smoothing the freshly poured cement or using hammers and pry bars to remove wooden forms from driveways poured within the last few days.
Wade Schultz was standing off to the side watching the proceedings, his red hard hat tucked beneath his arm like a football. He had on jeans and a white T-shirt with a breast pocket stuffed with one of those plastic pocket protectors full of pens and pencils. A cigarette pack was rolled into the left sleeve of his shirt, forming a neat rectangular lump on his shoulder, as if some sort of transmitter or receiver had been surgically implanted beneath his skin.
When he saw Carver approaching, he casually plopped his hard hat on his head, as if preparing for trouble.
“Seen Joel Brant this morning?” Carver asked.
“No,” Schultz said, turning his head to watch a gravelly mass of concrete slide down a metal chute into a driveway. Immediately, two muscular laborers began shoveling it out to the sides and up against the wooden forms. There was a metallic chunk! each time their shovel blades slid into the wet concrete. “Mr. Brant’s not gonna be in today. The sales office over there is where you might wanna go. You are interested in buying a house, aren’t you?” he said sarcastically. Apparently Schultz and Nancy Quartermain had talked.
“Right now I’m interested in talking to Joel Brant. It’s only seven-thirty. How do you know he won’t show up here today?”
“He told me last night on the phone. In fact, he said he was gonna be gone for a while. Left me instructions to keep this job running on schedule.”
“He say where he was going?”
“Didn’t say he was going anywhere. Just said he wasn’t coming here.” Schultz touched a hand to Carver’s arm and motioned for him to step aside and make room for one of the huge mixers to maneuver in close so its swinging steel chute could reach the shallow driveway excavation. “Look at that,” he said, pointing to a spot on the other side of the driveway. “Some asshole was riding around here on a motorcycle this morning. Left ruts across this yard, and tire marks on concrete that hadn’t set yet on a driveway down the street.”
Carver looked and saw deep tread marks from an obviously heavy motorcycle. He wondered if Achilles Jones had stolen another Harley. “Anybody see the cycle rider?”
“Naw, but it’s sure obvious he was here. Or maybe there was more’n one of ’em. I never checked to find out. Don’t make much difference now.”
“If Joel Brant contacts you again,” Carver said, “tell him he needs to phone Fred Carver immediately.”
“Sure.” Schultz began waving his sunburned arm in a wide circle, signaling for the mixer to ease back closer to the driveway. The truck’s diesel engine roared and its air brakes hissed and squealed as the driver worked the vehicle backward in a series of lurches, no more than a foot each, eyes glued to Schultz’s hand signals in the side mirror.
“Don’t wait by the phone, though,” Schultz said when the noise of the truck had subsided. The sound of the laborers hammering away the wooden forms seemed strangely soft and distant after the din of the truck. “Mr. Brant talked like we wouldn’t be in contact again for quite a while.”
Carver nodded his thanks to Schultz, then left him to supervise the creation of driveways.
A few minutes after he’d turned onto the highway, on his way to talk with Willa Krull, a Del Moray police car passed him traveling fast in the opposite direction. It was likely that Wade Schultz was going to be interrupted on the job again, and one of the first things he’d tell his questioners was that Carver had already talked to him.
That would make McGregor more unhappy.
And even happy, he was a man to avoid.
36
WILLA OPENED HER APARTMENT door on its chain and stared out at Carver with a reddened eye that was little more than a puffy slit in her pinched features.
“Mr. Carver,” she said. “You were the one who was knocking.” As if he didn’t know and had asked.
“For the past five minutes,” Carver said. He’d heard movement in the apartment even before he’d knocked the first time. He thought Willa might need a while to work up nerve before coming to the door.
She didn’t move or say anything.
“Can I come in?” Carver asked. “I need to talk with you.”
The eye suddenly opened wider, as if her mind had drifted and she’d abruptly realized where she was and what was going on.
The door closed and its chain lock rattled, a sound that must be a daily accompaniment to Willa Krull’s life. Then it opened wide.
The scent of gin wafted out into the hall. Willa was wearing a pink rayon robe that made a pass at looking like silk, and pink, fuzzy slippers over a pink nightgown. All that pink only made her puffy eyes appear pinker. Her thin brown hair was uncombed, wildly mussed on one side as if she’d been plucking at it. As Carver made his way past her into the apartment the gin fumes became stronger and he saw a half-empty bottle standing on the floor beside the sofa.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Willa said. She sniffled. “I feel like death warmed over.”
“You look fine,” Carver lied. He moved a Target Shooter magazine out of the way and sat down where she’d know it would be impossible for him to see the gin bottle.
She sat across from him in a spindly wooden chair that looked like something built by Puritans for discomfort. With an ashamed, crooked smile, she raised her thin arms th
en let them fall back to her lap. “I’d offer you some coffee, but I don’t have any made.”
“Marla Cloy’s disappeared,” Carver said. “She claims Joel Brant tried to run her down with his car.”
Willa didn’t seem surprised. “I don’t know where Marla is.”
“What about Brant?”
She stared at Carver with ferretlike, hostile eyes. “Why should I have any idea where he is? I never laid eyes on the man. All I know about him is what Marla told me. And believe me, that’s enough.”
“You didn’t ask why Marla dropped out of sight.”
“I assume it’s because she’s afraid of Brant—and with good reason.” She stood up suddenly, as if her chair had grown hot. “I don’t understand this. You’re acting like Marla’s some kind of criminal. Didn’t you say Brant tried to run over her?”
“No. That’s what she says.”
“Then it’s the truth.” She remained standing, staring down at him. Her arms and hands were very still at her sides, but the tips of her fingers were vibrating.
Carver gave the closed bedroom door a lingering look. He’d seen it work in Murder, She Wrote. “Are you sure you don’t know where to find Marla?”
Her eyes didn’t follow his glance. “Positive.” She made an obvious effort to relax, breathing in deeply and smoothing her uncooperative hair with the flat of her hand. “You don’t think I’m hiding her here, do you?”
“It’s possible. She’s your friend.”
“My friend,” Willa repeated. She stared down at her fuzzy pink slippers. Then she sat back down, raised both hands to her face, and began to sob.
Carver gripped his cane and stood up. He went over to her and touched his fingertips to her quaking shoulder. She sucked in her breath and drew back away from him. Her sobbing racked her thin body. He was afraid she might drop from the chair onto the threadbare oriental rug and curl into the fetal position. Her despair was genuine and profound. Pity for her swelled in him and lumped in his throat.