Hot (27 page)

“Evening, Katia.” He returned her smile. “I know it’s past business hours, but I drove by the research center and you weren’t there, and I need to talk to you again about Dr. Sam’s death.”

She appeared doubtful for a moment, then she said, “Well, I don’t see why not.” She opened the door wider and stepped back to let him in.

Her apartment had high ceilings but was small. The living room was crowded with Victorian furniture suited to the house. Some of it was threadbare, but other pieces had been refinished or reupholstered. Oval mahogany frames hung on the walls from gold-braided cord hooked over crown molding. Each of them held antique photographs of the sort that made their subjects appear either hopelessly stern or zanily cross-eyed. Either way, people you’d just as soon not meet. On a coffee table with Queen Anne legs that were no compliment to Queen Anne, half a dozen glossy
Smithsonian
magazines were scattered about, but not for show; they were dog-eared and well read. In a tall window, a round-cornered air conditioner that might date back to Victorian times was spitting out cold air along with flecks of ice that caught the light from an ornately shaded marble and brass floor lamp. The room smelled musty but was cool, almost cold.

Katia motioned with her arm, inviting Carver to sit on a plush maroon sofa with a lot of carved wood on it. He sat down, finding it comfortable, and leaned his cane against the wood and velveteen arm. From where he sat he could see into a tiny kitchen with yellowed stove and refrigerator. The refrigerator had round corners like the air conditioner.

Katia lowered herself into a dainty chair across from him. Her robe rode up on her bare legs, better than Queen Anne’s. She asked Carver if he cared for anything to drink, but he declined. That took care of the amenities.

He said, “I had a look around inside the Bings’ house this evening.”

She arched a surprised eyebrow. “Millicent was there?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She nodded, understanding. “Is that legal?”

“I found the door unlocked.”

Katia smiled, knowing he was lying and an unlocked door wouldn’t make trespassing legal anyway, but she didn’t press him on it. She looked like a teenager in the soft lamplight. “I imagine Millicent cleaned out most everything but the furniture.”

“She did a good job of that,” Carver said.

“But you found something, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I didn’t exactly find anything, but I saw evidence of something. Why do you suppose Millicent left so abruptly, and in such a way that she wouldn’t have to return?”

“Well, she had to go north to her husband’s funeral, so why shouldn’t she try avoiding another trip down here to settle her affairs? Makes sense to me.”

Carver watched the light play over the flecks of ice shooting from the air conditioner, wondering if a rainbow might be possible. He said, “You touched on another reason last time we talked.”

Katia didn’t have to search her memory. “You mean when I said she seemed scared?”

“Uh-huh.” Carver waited.

“That was just a feeling I had. Nothing definite.”

Time to broach the subject. “Katia, would you have any idea if Dr. Sam and Millicent engaged in what might be called kinky sex?”

She looked surprised but not shocked. Then she laughed nervously. “Well, they sure wouldn’t tell me about it, would they?”

“Not intentionally. What I mean is, do you remember anything slipping out about the subject during conversation?”

“No, I don’t think so. Anyway, this is a conservative part of Florida, so what exactly do you mean by kinky sex? Anything other than the missionary position?”

“Sadomasochism. Chains, whips, leashes, that sort of thing. Happens even in Florida.”

An incredulous expression passed over her young face. “Dr. Sam? Millicent? You’ve got to be kidding!”

Carver gave her a minute to let the idea settle in. “People tend secret flames, Katia, and sometimes the heat consumes them. They lead private lives that are often unlike the ones they present to the world. Sort of existing on two levels. You get a little older you’ll realize that, if you don’t know it already.”

“Sure. And whatever two consenting adults do, especially if they’re married, is their own business.”

“Couldn’t agree more. I’m a little kinky myself.”

She squinted at him, unable to quite figure him.

“We’re not talking about a crime here,” he told her.

“We might be, in Florida,” she said. “But that doesn’t matter a fig to me. It’s just that with Dr. Sam and Millicent I think the idea’s way, way off the mark. He was obsessed with his work and there wasn’t room for much else. And Millicent never struck me as . . . well, the carnally adventuresome type. I don’t recall Dr. Sam ever saying anything even remotely sexual. God, this was a middle-aged couple, Mr. Carver.”

Ah, the young, he thought. He said, “Maybe their sex life had gone stale and they were experimenting.”

“Oh, sure, maybe. But how would I know, even if it was any of my business? And how would you know?”

“I
don’t
know,” Carver said. “Not for sure. I found some eye hooks, and some holes drilled in the wall that were spaced as if they were used to constrain somebody. There were marks on the paint that might have come from chains or manacles being scraped over the plaster. Discoloration from perspiration. I found a leather leash in the closet.”

Katia pressed her knees together tight enough to whiten the flesh. She looked thoughtful. Said, “The Bings didn’t have a dog.”

“You wouldn’t guess it by looking at the carpet where I found most of the drilled holes,” Carver told her.

She seemed confused, and passed a hand down her cheek vaguely, as if feeling for an injury, and shook her head. “Listen, even if what you found does mean anything, so what? I mean, Dr. Sam and Millicent’s sex life couldn’t be relevant to what you’re investigating: Henry Tiller’s death, whatever you think’s going on over at the Rainer place.”

“Don’t forget Dr. Sam’s suicide,” Carver said.

She frowned. “I don’t see the connection.”

“Could be there isn’t any. That’s one of the things I’m trying to determine.”

Katia stared at the dark window as if she could see out of it. Then she stood up and clutched her robe around her. “I keep getting images of Dr. Sam and Millicent,” she said, making a face as if she’d found a roach in her stew. “I don’t like what I see. If you don’t mind, I think I’ve had about enough of this conversation.”

Carver set his cane in the flowered Victorian carpet and gained his feet. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I don’t like asking you about it, but you were the one who might know.”

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, neither Dr. Sam nor Millicent ever said or did anything that gave me any insight into their sex life. They simply didn’t talk about that kind of thing. Not that I was curious. I didn’t consider it any of my affair when Dr. Sam was alive, and I consider it even less my business now that he’s dead.”

“I wouldn’t argue,” Carver said. “Whatever they did in the privacy of their home, it’s most likely irrelevant.” He limped across the faded flower pattern to the door and opened it.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” she said behind him.

He braced with the cane and twisted around to face her, one foot out in the hall. The pungent scent of spicy Italian cooking wasn’t so appetizing now. “I don’t know what to believe,” he said. “I honestly don’t know.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t dirty Dr. Sam’s memory by speculating with the wrong people about his sex life.”

“You have Chief Wicke in mind?”

“Yes, among others. Talking to him might make any nasty rumor sort of semiofficial and lend it credibility. I mean, the idea’s nauseating. It isn’t dignified, and Dr. Sam was a dignified scientist. Let’s leave him with that.”

“And Millicent’s still alive,” Carver said. “We wouldn’t want to drag her private life out for everyone to see.”

“Of course not.” Katia looked angry for a moment. “I wasn’t forgetting Millicent.”

“I trusted you to tell me the truth,” Carver said. “You can trust me to do what I can. But I can’t promise, because I don’t know where this’ll lead.”

“What you suspect about Dr. Sam and Millicent,” she said confidently, “won’t lead anywhere at all. It’s simply not
them.”

“I expect you’re right.”

She gave him her young, naive smile, the girl who knew more about sea life than life on land.

B
ETH WAS IN THE
kitchen eating a tuna salad sandwich and drinking beer when Carver got back to the cottage. He pulled a Budweiser from the refrigerator and sat down across the table from her. She was wearing a gray Florida State T-shirt and faded Levi’s, dressed to take her turn in the blind and keep up surveillance on the Rainer estate. He didn’t want her back in the blind, was getting worn-down from fearing for her. Obstinate, heedless woman.

A hard-shelled bug of some kind flew against the window and bounced off, sounding like a thrown pebble. Carver took a sip of beer and said, “There’s no point in watching the Rainer place any longer. We’ve seen all we’re going to see.”

She swallowed a bite of sandwich. “I wasn’t sure what you had in mind. Thought I better be ready.”

The sandwich smelled good. He noticed a brown ceramic bowl containing tuna salad on the sink counter and limped over to it, got two slices of white bread and set about constructing a sandwich of his own. “Call Forest, Ohio?”

Beth nodded. “Turns out to be a little town out in the middle of farm country. Everybody knows everything about everybody. Key Montaigne north.”

“Only without Walter Rainer.”

“Yeah. Anyway, there’s only one Sandy listed, and her last name’s Bing. I called a gas station near Forest, said I was looking for the address of somebody named Bing to send some money lent me to get a flat tire repaired some weeks ago. Guy at the station liked to hear himself talk, so I kept quiet and let him run on fast-forward. He told me there were lots of Bings in and around Forest, family’s prominent in the town. There used to be a large Bing farm, but now it’s been parceled out for homes and a feed store. Sandy and Sam Bing are the daughter and son of Bings who still work the land. That was just the way the gas station guy put it, ‘work the land.’ Dr. Sam’s death’s the talk of Forest, as you might expect; his funeral’s tomorrow and most of the locals are attending. Sandy was married to a guy named Merchant, but they got divorced last year and she’s back to using her maiden name.” Beth drained beer from her glass. “I got her phone number and the number of the Bing farm.”

Carver grinned, amazed as he often was by her ability to ferret out information. “You did better than okay.” He sliced the sandwich in half diagonally and sat back down at the table, hooking the crook of his cane over the back of the chair next to him.

“Thanks. Speaking of cars, some bastard went at mine under the hood and made a mess of the engine. I got a call in for Effie’s father to tow it to his station for repairs.”

“Davy or Hector,” Carver said. “Trying to decrease our mobility. Or maybe just more fun and fright tactics. The Olds’ll probably be next, if they get a chance at it.” He subdued the heat of his anger so he could eat.

“I didn’t figure it was mischievous kids,” Beth said. “How’d you do at the house?”

Between bites of sandwich, he told her about what he’d found in the Bing house, and his conversation with Katia Marsh.

“Katia’s right,” Beth said. “The fact the good doctor and his wife were likely doing S and M probably doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Lotsa uptight conservatives and fundamentalists in Florida. They’re heavy into this kinda thing, but their consciences won’t allow them to get involved in honest crime. A night now and then with ropes and nipple clamps is all they need to let off steam.”

Carver studied her, trying to figure if she was putting him on. He decided she was serious. Not for the first time he wondered about her life with Roberto Gomez. Maybe it was best she hadn’t told him everything and never would.

“You think you’re getting anywhere with all of this?” Beth asked.

“Either that or I’m being taken somewhere.” Carver finished his sandwich, then looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. Not too late to call Ohio. “You got those numbers handy?”

“They’re written on the tablet by the phone.”

Carrying his beer can, he limped into the living room and sat down by the phone. The air conditioner was off in there, and the ratchety clamor of cicadas in the lush foliage outside was shrill and loud, almost as if it were coming from inside the cottage. He decided to punch out Sandy’s number instead of that of the Bing farm. She’d written to Millicent and inquired about her brother; Sandy and Dr. Sam had been at least that close at the time of his death.

She answered on the third ring. Her voice was slow, dragging, as if she might be tired or drugged. Grief pulling her down.

Carver told her his name, said he’d been a friend of Dr. Sam’s and that he sure hoped he hadn’t gotten her out of bed. He was assured he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said.

“We all are. Everybody who knew him’s sorry.” She spoke with a slight midwestern lilt, not unpleasant.

He said, “I’m trying to get in touch with Millicent.”

“She ain’t here.”

“Oh? She said she was flying in for the funeral.”

“Yeah, but she ain’t got here yet. Had a long layover in Atlanta. Plane had a mechanical problem and couldn’t take off till it was fixed. Dave drove to the airport to pick her up.”

Carver didn’t ask who Dave was. “When Millicent gets there,” he said, “will you give her a message from me?”

“Don’t see why not.”

“Ask her to phone me about Dr. Sam. Tell her I’m a friend, that this has to do with his work and how he’ll be remembered here in Key Montaigne and it’s vitally important. She needs to talk to me for his sake and for hers.” He gave her the phone number of the cottage.

“That the entire message?” Sandy asked, obviously curious.

“That’s it. She’ll understand.”

“Wish I did.” She sounded wistful, not as if she was just talking about his message for Millicent, but maybe life in general. And death.