Burn (12 page)

A smile was slow to form but quick to disappear on her fresh-scrubbed features. “He wants money, right?”

“Not any more than the rest of us. His story is that he never heard of you until you began filing complaints about him with the police. He’s puzzled, and he hired me to find out why you’re harassing him,”

A wasp was buzzing around the dead potted plants. The morning was beginning to heat up and get uncomfortable.

“May I come in?” Carver asked. He knew the sun wasn’t doing his bald pate any good.

She stared appraisingly at him, at his stiff leg and his cane.

“I’m allergic to wasp stings,” he lied.

She came to her decision about him and nodded, then stepped back to make extra room for him to pass, since he walked with a cane.

There didn’t seem to be any air-conditioning running, but the house was still cool from last night. The living room was dim and full of overstuffed blue furniture clustered around an oval, woven rug that contained every known color and so went with any decor. On one wall was a crude bookcase fashioned from cinder blocks and unfinished pine boards. It held a small stereo and a lot of tattered paperback books. A wooden table stood near the window. On it were an old portable Smith-Corona electric typewriter, a stack of vegetarian magazines, a thick paperback combination dictionary and thesaurus, a bottle of liquid white-out, and two plastic in-out trays that contained typing paper and long sheets of yellow paper from a legal pad. The top sheet had writing in pencil on it. There was a lamp with a black shade on a back corner of the table, plugged into a long, frayed extension cord that ran across the floor beneath the window and disappeared behind the bookcase. A fire hazard.

“I see you’re a writer,” Carver said, lowering himself into the soft, sprung sofa.

“I’m sure you already knew that,” Marla said. She walked over and opened the drapes so light flooded in over the worktable and made the room much brighter.

“I’d heard,” he admitted. He pointed at the magazines with his cane, remembering her devouring a hamburger at Mc­Donald’s. “Are you a vegetarian?” he asked, giving her a chance to lie.

“No, I’m doing an article on it, though. Some people theorize that since humans are omnivorous by nature, being a vegetarian might hold hidden long-term health hazards.”

“Oh? That’s interesting. What do you think?”

She smiled. “I’m omnivorous.”

She sat down in a bulging blue chair that matched the sofa and crossed her tan legs, pumped a perfect foot a few times. Deep inside him Carver felt a tugging sensation, as if something in him were attached to her toe by a string. He was undeniably attracted to this woman and wondered if in some complex way it had to do with Beth’s pregnancy. Or maybe it was because she might be extremely dangerous. Beth had once pointed out to him that he was drawn to dangerous women. Well, he wasn’t the only one with that failing; there were a lot of victims strewn along the landscape between Delilah and Lorena Bobbitt.

“Why are you doing this to Joel Brant?” Carver asked.

“I’m not. He’s doing it to me.”

“Why would he? He says he doesn’t even know you.”

“He knows me now. As to why he’d harass me, it’s well known how some men become fixated on a woman. She doesn’t have to be beautiful or behave in any particular manner. It all originates in the stalker, not in the object of his compulsion. She only has to strike some chord in his sick mind, and he chooses her for his victim.”

“Most men aren’t like that,” Carver said. “Joel Brant doesn’t strike me as an exception.”

Again the smile, confident, superior. “I’m not surprised you don’t believe me. You’re a man. Only women really understand this kind of all-too-common oppression and victimization.”

“I didn’t say I disbelieved you.”

“Yes, you did. Indirectly.”

She might be right; he couldn’t recall. “I came here to listen to your story,” he said. “That means I must have harbored some tiny doubt about Joel’s.”

“My story is that I turned around one day and Brant was there, and I was in the crosshairs, where I’ve been ever since. He’s stalking me. It’s a familiar story, but too often the woman being stalked isn’t believed until she’s proved her point by dying.”

“You’re an enigma,” Carver said.

“Maybe I am. Men can’t stand an enigma. They have to try to figure it out, to master it so they can discard it and move on.”

He was getting tired of her talking like a 1970s militant feminist, but he didn’t tell her so. “It sounds as if you’ve had some bad experiences.”

“Some. They made me realistic, but they didn’t make me paranoid or delusionary. I’m not imagining Joel Brant is a threat to me. He showed me a knife and said he was going to kill me.”

“He denies that.”

“Can he say where he was at the time it happened?”

“Yes. He was at the grocery store the same time you were, but that could be because you made it a point to be there at the same time he was.”

“Uh-huh. As I said, I’m not surprised you don’t believe me.”

Being a man, Carver thought. “It’s not a gender thing,” he said.

“Sure it isn’t.”

Trying not to show his irritation, he decided he could never convince her that he wasn’t a misogynist. “Are you writing about this?”

“This what?”

“You and Joel Brant.”

She laughed bitterly, “Sure, I’m persecuting an innocent stranger so I can do an article.”

“A book, maybe.”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Carver. But I’m not at all shocked that you’d think so. Did you ever consider that Joel Brant might be writing a book? You don’t have to be a pro to be published.”

Carver smiled. “You’ve got me.” He tapped soundlessly on the woven rug with the tip of his cane. From the rear of the house he could hear a soft humming now, probably a window air conditioner. “Do you feel safer now that a restraining order’s been issued?”

“Safer,” she said, “but not safe.”

“If Brant were really stalking you, why would he hire me?”

“That’s a question he might want asked in court some day.” She stood up and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I was just about to settle down and try to do some work.”

Carver leaned his weight over his cane and fought his way up out of the deep, deep sofa.

“Something bothers me,” he said. “You don’t seem frightened.”

She moved a step closer to him and her face got hard. Her dark eyes sparked with pinpoints of light as she moved into the sun pouring through the window. “I’m frightened, all right,” she said, “but I’m also determined. I won’t be brutalized or die a helpless victim who didn’t fight back. I intend to defend myself if I must.”

Carver remembered Willa Krull telling him she was trying to talk Marla into buying a gun. “Defend yourself how?”

“Any way I can.”

“Do you own a gun?”

“Does Joel Brant?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Neither did I.”

Carver made his way to the door, walking slower than he had to with the cane. She walked ahead of him and held the door open.

Heat moved in as he moved out. Marla didn’t flinch or move her body an inch as he edged past her onto the porch.

He turned to face her. “Believe it or not, I agree with you about how women are at a disadvantage in something like this,” he said. “I’m only trying to get a sense of what’s really going on.”

“Thanks for you sympathy.” She said it with a faint curl of her upper lip. “I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure you won’t be expressing it at my funeral.”

He looked directly into her deep blue eyes and found nothing he could read. She stared back at him with no sign of discomfort, only calm determination. He didn’t hear the door close behind him until he was almost to the street.

When he’d started the engine and switched on the air conditioner, he sat for a while in the car before driving away. It was unsettling to him that he felt himself drawn to Marla Cloy even though she was no less a dilemma and a danger than when he’d rung her doorbell.

And something else was unsettling. He had the feeling that despite her brittle and wary talk, she might be attracted to him.

Of course, he could be dead wrong about that. He’d been wrong that way before. Male ego, Marla would probably say.

Beth would probably say the same.

He drove.

A
FTER LEAVING
M
ARLA
, Carver drove to Brant’s address, which turned out to be in Warwick Village, a luxury condominium complex on the east side of town, not on the ocean but with an ocean view if you were on a high floor.

Half a dozen identical white brick buildings made up Warwick Village. They had powder blue shutters and decorative blackiron balconies. A network of pale concrete sidewalks connected the buildings, all emanating from a fancy white gazebo as if it were the hub of a wheel. Flowers were planted around the gazebo, and it had a rooster weather vane on its roof. The rooster’s head was tossed back and its beak was spread wide as if it were crowing. Someone had painted an oblong eye on it that looked like the eye of a human.

On a cedar board near the gazebo was a directory of Warwick Village, under a sheet of Plexiglas to protect it from the weather. There was also a small sign directing prospective buyers to Red Feather Realty, the agency that apparently handled all Warwick Village listings.

A man wearing plaid slacks, a white shirt, and a white cap emerged from one of the buildings, walking a short-legged, grayish dog of indeterminate breed. The dog was in a bigger hurry than the man and kept the leash tight while all four legs churned on the grass just off the sidewalk. It was sniffing around, searching almost in a panic for the precise spot to relieve itself, the way dogs did when they’d been indoors too long and had finally found hope for relief.

Carver made his way casually over to the gazebo so the dog walker couldn’t avoid passing him.

It was easy enough to act interested in the place and strike up a conversation with the man, who told him that the condo was five years old and had been built by Brant Development. He didn’t know Brant personally, but he knew which of the white brick buildings he lived in, and that Brant was on the condominium board. “That means a lot,” the man said, “that the condo builder thinks enough of the place to live in one of the units.” The little dog wasn’t interested in any of this. It was yanking around on its leash, acting desperate and staring intently at Carver’s cane. Carver thought it was time to end the conversation.

He drove to Red Feather Realty, whose main office was in a small strip shopping center not unlike the one where Carver’s office was located, and pretended to be a prospective buyer of a Warwick Village condo.

The agent handling Warwick Village, a middle-aged and ferocious woman named Hilda who wore an obvious wig, said she knew Joel Brant and used the fact that the builder himself lived in one of the units as a selling point. “Very important,” she said. Apparently she’d talked to the man with the desperate little dog. Brant had moved in nearly six months ago, after his wife died in an auto accident, Hilda said. He was a nice man.

Could be, Carver thought.

Hilda loaded him up with glossy and colorful brochures about Warwick Village and gave him her card, took his. She reminded him that membership in the Warwick Village Racquet Club was built into the monthly maintenance fee, then asked Carver when he wanted to tour the display units.

He wasn’t positive he was ready to move, he admitted, but he assured her that if that was his decision, Warwick Village would be the first place he’d look.

Out in the heat, he made sure no one was looking out the window of the realty company, then dropped the sales brochures into a curbside trash receptacle. He got in the Olds, feeling the heat pulsing down on the top of his head through the canvas top, and started the engine. He switched on the air conditioner before maneuvering around the black minivan parked in front of him and pulling out into the stream of traffic.

In his office, Carver called Brant’s cellular phone and reached the developer at Brant Estates. They were pouring concrete for a side street and foundation slabs today, Brant told him, so he’d be at the site for a while. Carver told him about his conversation with Marla.

“Did she strike you as crazy?” Brant asked.

“No. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Have the newspapers or any of the local publications ever done a piece on Brant Development? Or on any of your projects?”

Brant thought for a moment while Carver listened to a loud grinding sound in the background, probably a cement mixer gearing up to pour.

“Other than paid advertising, there’ve been a few articles in the paper. Once a feature on a beachside condo development.”

“Warwick Village?”

“No,” Brant said, “one farther down the coast.” More of the grinding sound of the mixer, an engine being revved up. “Were you at my condo looking for me?”

“Earlier,” Carver said. A half truth. “Do you remember the author of the piece on the other condo project?”

“No, but I think the byline on the feature article was a woman’s.”

“How long ago?”

“I’d say about four years. In the
Gazette-Dispatch.
I’ve got copies somewhere back at the office.”

“Could it have been written by Marla Cloy?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, but I suppose it’s possible. I’ll look.”

“Let me know what you find,” Carver said.

He hung up, then lifted the receiver again. Ordinarily he would have called Beth. Instead, he punched out the number of Lloyd Van Meter in Miami.

Carver didn’t remember much about Laura’s pregnancies. Anyway, Laura wasn’t Beth. He wasn’t sure how much he should call on Beth to do. Not that she wouldn’t do it; she was tough and, as she’d said herself, in denial sometimes about her condition. But threats had been made. Or a double game was being played by Marla, which could be even more dangerous. He had to remember that with Beth he might be putting two lives in danger.

Van Meter, who was perhaps the most successful private investigator in Florida, had offices in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. His headquarters was in Miami, but he wasn’t there. His secretary told Carver she’d have Van Meter call him from his car phone.