Burn (22 page)

After dinner and coffee, they drove back to the cottage and found a message from Joel Brant on the answering machine. He wanted Carver to call him as soon as possible, and he sounded upset.

“I’ve gotten a couple of phone calls,” he said when Carver contacted him. “I say hello and nobody answers. I can hear somebody breathing on the line, then they hang up.”

“How many calls?” Carver asked, trying to digest this new piece of information. “And when did you receive them?”

“One this afternoon on my car phone. Two early this evening in my condo, only about an hour apart.”

“Doesn’t seem like Marla’s style,” Carver said. “She’d be more likely to claim
you’ve
been calling
her.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling myself. And wondering who else it could be. Do the police ever do something like that? Phone a suspect?”

Carver was surprised. “Why do you ask that?”

“I went with my attorney this afternoon to try to convince the police that I’m the one being harassed. It didn’t help. That Lieutenant McGregor is a horrible human being.”

“Everyone who knows him would agree. I can’t see him badgering you with anonymous phone calls, though. It takes the fun out of it for him if his victims don’t know he’s responsible for their misery,”

“He seems capable of anything. He told my attorney we were wasting his time, that he doesn’t care who’s stalking who, and that his job begins when one of the players dies. My lawyer’s so pissed off he’s going to complain to McGregor’s superiors and write the news media.”

“It won’t help,” Carver said. “McGregor will deny the conversation. He’s better at covering his backside than anyone you’ll ever meet. It’s his way of life. What did your lawyer tell you when he calmed down?”

“He advised me to leave the state, or at least the city, for a while. But I can’t do that—I’ve got my business to run, and this would be a devastating time to ignore it. Anyway, that might not solve anything with Marla Cloy, only delay it. I haven’t felt so trapped since Portia died. I’ve got a psychotic killer after me, and she’s the one everybody believes.”

“Not everybody.”

“Listen, Carver, can you talk to McGregor?”

“I have talked to him. He threatened to charge me as your accomplice after you kill Marla.”

“God! I tell you, I’m getting desperate!” He sure sounded desperate. “I’m convinced that woman’s got me set up and might kill me at any time under circumstances that make it appear to be self-defense. Maybe then the police will question her more extensively and realize she’s crazy, but by then it’ll be too late.”

“It doesn’t have to come to that. Have you ever heard of a woman named Gail Rogers?”

“No.”

“What about Achilles Jones?”

“Hercules, did you say?”

“No. Achilles. He of the vulnerable heel.”

“Only in high school literature class. Why do you ask?”

“It doesn’t matter. This whole business is tangled with wires that don’t connect.”

“What doesn’t connect are the wires in Marla Cloy’s head. She’s deranged and dangerous, and I’m her target.”

“There seems to be nothing in the past to link you and Marla,” Carver said, “but what about Marla and your late wife?”

“Portia?” Brant was incredulous, but Carver had seen a lot of incredulous husbands. “Believe me, this can’t have anything to do with Portia.”

“Are you sure you never heard her mention Marla’s name? Or any of the other names that have come up during the past week?”

“I’m sure. Portia’s got nothing to do with this. If you knew her, you’d understand that. Women like Portia and Marla Cloy have absolutely nothing in common. It’s impossible.”

Carver didn’t differ with him. He knew Brant wouldn’t be receptive to dissent. Dead wives often attained sainthood status as time wore the rough spots from memory.

“I’ll talk to a friend with the Orlando police,” he said. “He has no jurisdiction in this instance, but he might know someone on a state level who can help.”

“Help how?” Brant asked.

“Maybe put some pressure on McGregor to act more like a public servant.”

“McGregor seems too much like a public parasite for that to work.”

Carver agreed with that assessment but didn’t say so. He assured Brant he’d keep working on Marla Cloy, and that often seemingly unrelated pieces of information fell into place to reveal pattern and motive.

“Those kinds of neat explanations only happen in movies and mystery novels, not in real life,” Brant said dismally before hanging up.

Carver thought he sounded remarkably like Beth, who was standing leaning on the open refrigerator door, gazing longingly at a shelf containing only beer, pickles, and yogurt.

Carver silently bet on the pickles and won.

“Y
OU KNOW THE PROBLEM
,” Desoto said when Carver met him for lunch the next day in Orlando. “McGregor’s right when he says there’s a limit to what he can do to prevent stalking from becoming assault or murder. It’s something law enforcement hasn’t quite figured out how to deal with yet.” He talked as if it were an administrative problem and not life or death.

They were in Ruggeri’s, an Italian restaurant on Washington, not far from Church Street Station. It was small and cool, with red carpeting, lots of dark wood, and more booths than tables. It lent itself to private conversations and was a place where deals were struck over the pasta. Carver and Desoto were in a booth next to a window, but it was stained glass and they could see only vague, shadowy forms of passersby. “What I had in mind,” Carver said, “was possibly familiarizing someone with the situation who might put pressure on McGregor by at least making him aware he’s being watched.”

Desoto paused in artfully coiling spaghetti strands around his fork. “But what exactly is the situation? Is it Marla Cloy trying to set up Brant for whatever action, for whatever reason? Or is it a simple case of a closet psychopath stalking a defenseless woman?”

“I wish I knew for sure,” Carver said. He sipped his draft Budweiser. He’d ordered only a stuffed mushroom appetizer and a side salad and was finished eating. The pungent aroma of spices and cooked garlic in Rugerri’s was almost enough by itself to satisfy his hunger. He watched Desoto fork in spaghetti and wondered how he stayed in such excellent physical condition. Desoto dined freely on sumptuous main dishes, with copious quantities of wine and rich desserts, and as far as Carver knew didn’t exercise beyond vigorously brushing lint from his elegant clothes.

Pols from City Hall frequented Ruggeri’s. One of them Carver recognized, an assistant to the mayor, noticed Desoto and nodded to him. A police lieutenant in a city the size of Orlando did have some political pull. Outside the city limits, it might be a different proposition. But Desoto wasn’t a man to view as a handsome clothes horse and underestimate. Carver had seen him in action; he was hardly flash without substance.

“I do know a circuit court judge who might drop a word in the right ear,” Desoto said. “But if McGregor is made aware that the Del Moray department’s handling of Marla Cloy’s complaint is being watched and evaluated, he’s going to guess why. He might come down even harder on you if and when he can.”

“He’ll do everything possible anyway,” Carver said, “so I don’t see making him mad as much of a risk.”

Desoto sipped Chianti and smiled. “You often have a purely pragmatic way of looking at things,
amigo.”

“It works with McGregor. He’s a pure pragmatist who’ll always act in his own best interest.”

“True. But he might think destroying you is worth considerable inconvenience. You’re only a pragmatist some of the time. You have an integrity that at times causes you to act in ways McGregor sees as irrational. In fact, you sometimes act in accordance with your heart or your gut and
are
irrational, not to mention obsessive. People like you puzzle and irritate Mc­Gregor because you’re unpredictable. For instance, your client is Joel Brant, but you don’t discount the possibility he might actually be stalking Marla Cloy just as she claims. It’s inconceivable to McGregor that you might be genuinely concerned about Marla Cloy’s fate as well as Brant’s, because she’s not paying you. Yet you sometimes appear to act in her behalf. He sees altruism as a dangerous imponderable.”

“He’s right about that,” Carver said.

Desoto finished his spaghetti, sipped some more wine, then dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “You have never learned to be flexible, my friend.”

Carver was becoming annoyed. “There’s nothing wrong with having values. They give the world weight and worth. You talk as if they’re some kind of affliction.”

“People sink to the bottom of the sea clinging to their values. Are you going to have dessert?”

Carver told him no, but to go ahead and order and he’d have coffee.

Desoto settled on the spumoni, and when the waiter had left with the order said, “We managed to get a clear fingerprint from the trunk lid of Spotto’s car. We’ve run it through local computers and VICAP for comparisons, but nothing matches. It isn’t the print of any of the car rental agency employees, and we’re going to see about comparing it with prints of previous drivers. But my guess is it belongs to Achilles Jones. Lab whizzes say the finger that left it is huge.”

Carver thought about the attack in his office.

Desoto must have been thinking about it, too. “We’d like to dust your office for prints,” he said. “We might be able to determine if Spotto’s killer and your assailant are the same man.”

“It should be done,” Carver said, “but as soon as Jones came through the door he got right to work, and I don’t think he touched anything other than me. He did snap my cane in half, but Beth threw it away when I was in the hospital. If this had happened earlier, we could have compared the prints from the car with my welts.”

The waiter arrived with coffee and Desoto’s spumoni. Desoto assured Carver he’d talk to the circuit court judge about the Marla Cloy case, then carefully laid his napkin back in his lap. Carver knew that if any sort of stain marred Desoto’s clothes, there was a complete change of wardrobe waiting in a locker at police headquarters to restore him to his usual pristine condition.

“Are you still wearing the support around your ribs?” Desoto asked.

“No, I removed it yesterday.”

Desoto seemed to savor his spumoni. “Time heals everything eventually.”

“I’d like to think that,” Carver said, “but I’m not so sure.”

“Me neither, I suppose,” Desoto said. “Having been raised Catholic.”

They’d met at the restaurant and had separate cars, so Carver finished his coffee then left Desoto to enjoy the sin of gluttony.

Carver got into the Olds and started the engine, then the air conditioner. The meeting with Desoto hadn’t been the only reason he’d driven into Orlando. Beth had told him which adoption agency the Brants had visited before the fatal accident, and it had an Orlando address.

It was only ten minutes away from the restaurant on Washington.

T
HE
E
DGEWORTH
A
GENCY
was in a modern glass-and-steel building that reflected the sun with an eye-aching blue brilliance and whose lobby directory boasted several law offices. Carver supposed that juxtaposition of services made good sense, as he rode a gleaming steel elevator like a rocket to the fifth floor.

Despite the sleek modernity of the building, the offices of the Edgeworth Agency were comfortably cluttered. A young man with unruly dark hair and a harried expression sat behind a desk that was almost invisible beneath various pieces of electronic office equipment, fanned-out papers, and a sheet of crinkled aluminum foil on which rested a half-eaten turkey sandwich. His white shirt was rumpled, his tie was loosely knotted, and when he looked up and saw Carver he appeared startled.

“It’s not always like this around here,” he said, smiling uneasily as if he’d been caught reading pornography. “I’m, uh, trying to get some paperwork in order.”

The name plaque on the desk said he was Jim Martinelli. Carver introduced himself.

“I’d like to ask some questions concerning a woman who came here about six months ago and inquired about adopting a child,” he said.

Martinelli looked worried, then immediately relieved, “You’d want to talk to Ms. Atkinson. I’ve only been here a little over three months.”

Carver nodded, waiting.

“Oh!” Martinelli said. “Just a moment. Please.” He backed to a door, opened it, and disappeared into an inner office.

A minute later he came out. “She’ll see you—Ms. Atkinson will.” He stood aside, holding the door open for Carver but not leaving him much room to pass. Carver considered bearing down with the tip of his cane on Martinelli’s toe, then decided there was probably nothing wrong with the flustered lad that a few years without a sore foot wouldn’t cure.

Ms. Atkinson’s brass desk plaque said her first name was Ellen. She was in her forties, with a tightly sprung blond hairdo, bright red lipstick, and a smile as wide as a clown’s. As soon as Martinelli had closed the door and gone back to his wild paperwork, Ms. Atkinson shook her head with weary tolerance.

“Jim tells me you want to know about something that happened here six months ago,” she said. She’d stood up when Carver entered. She was slender and wonderfully proportioned. Her crisp gray business suit, white blouse, and fluffy blue polka-dot bow tie seemed styled and tailored just for her and reminded Carver of Desoto. Now she sat back down. Her office was as neat as Martinelli’s was sloppy. She motioned an invitation for Carver to sit in a light oak and brown leather Danish chair in front of her desk.

Carver sat leaning forward slightly with both hands resting on the crook of his cane. He said he wondered if she remembered Portia Brant.

She studied him with bright and intelligent gray eyes. Though she wore little makeup other than the glaring lipstick, her complexion was smooth and unblemished except for a mole slightly off-center on the point of her jaw. “It’s our policy not to reveal information about any of our clients,” she said. “Confidentiality is taken seriously here.”