Spark (18 page)

Hard resolution brightened her eyes. “Danger or not, Mr. Carver, I’m not leaving here to go into hiding like a fugitive. Regardless of what secret Jerome learned—if any—I’m not about to be chased from my home.”

Carver placed both hands on his cane and stood up. “You’ve convinced me, Hattie. Will you help to put my mind at ease by promising you’ll be careful to keep your doors and windows locked, and leave a light on if you go out at night?”

“I always do both those thing, Mr. Carver.” She stood up and walked with him to the door. “Let me know if you need additional payment. I appreciate the job you’re doing on this. You’ve gone much further than the police would have, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure, too,” Carver said. He opened the front door. “There’s no need for further payment right now.”

“I don’t want you working on this investigation because you feel sorry for an old lady, Mr. Carver.”

He grinned. “You’re anything but an object of pity, Hattie.”

She thought about what he’d said and smiled.

Instead of walking to his car, Carver crossed the green expanse of lawn to Val’s house. He glanced over to make sure Hattie wasn’t observing him, then punched the doorbell with his cane.

It took Val several minutes to come to the door. He was barefoot, wearing dark slacks and an unbuttoned white shirt. The shirt had widely spaced, intersecting creases, as if it had been recently bought and not yet washed and ironed. The house was dim behind Val, and he was squinting into the outside light in a way that made him look more than ever like a leprechaun.

Carver said, “Wake you up?”

“Yeah, but that’s okay; I was gonna get up anyway. Just taking a little nap. Patrol again tonight.” He stepped back. “Wanna come in? Hotter’n a whore in heat out there.”

Carver hadn’t heard that one, but then he hadn’t spent months on Posse patrol on the mean streets of Solartown, as had Rathawk Two. He followed Val into the dim living room and watched him open the blinds enough to let in a bearable amount of light. It illuminated the dust.

“Wanna beer?” he asked Carver. Sure.

Val disappeared into the kitchen. While he was in there clattering around, Carver looked over the living room. It was laid out like Hattie’s, with the door to the left of the picture window, door to the hall and kitchen directly opposite it. The wall-to-wall carpet was predictably green. The furniture was early American and functional; where there was upholstery, it was plaid. A wooden bookshelf contained a row of paperback espionage novels—which explained Val’s knowledge of Russian assassination methods—and a statue of a horse, and a bowling trophy. Near a recliner the remote control for the console TV lay on the carpet, along with a scattering of what looked like popcorn. The fireplace had a small folding screen set up in front of its cavity, on which was a print of that famous painting of dogs playing poker. Carver thought the place could use a woman’s touch.

Val had returned with two cans of Bud Light and caught Carver eyeballing the living room.

“Decor ain’t for shit,” Val said, handing Carver one of the beers, “but it’s clean and comfortable.”

“All you could reasonably require,” Carver said. He wasn’t hypocritical enough to criticize Rathawk Two’s taste in furnishings and accessories. He’d always liked that dog painting and sort of wished he owned one.

He took a sip of beer so cold it must have been within a few degrees of freezing. “Good,” he said, licking foam from his upper lip. “I just came from next door.”

Val sat in the recliner but didn’t tilt it back. “So how’s Hattie?”

“She’s doing okay, but I’m a little worried about her. Maybe the Posse, and you in particular, could keep a watch on her house.”

“Sure. She in some kinda danger?”

“I think so. She doesn’t.”

Val scratched his side beneath the unbuttoned shirt and chuckled. “That’s Hattie for you.”

“I figure maybe Jerome Evans knew something, and maybe he told Maude Crane—”

“And maybe somebody thinks he mighta told Hattie.” Val finished Carver’s sentence. “Anything I can do,” he said, “I will.”

Carver took another pull of beer. “When you’re on patrol at night, you ever find yourself in the medical center?”

“Yep. Now and then we drive folks there when they’re having some kinda problem that’s serious but don’t require an ambulance.”

“It’d help me, and Hattie, if I had copies of their paperwork dealing with one of their suppliers, Keller Pharmaceutical.”

Val leaned back and considered, His sleep-puffed eyes glanced in the direction of Hattie’s house. He said, “You’re asking a lot here, Carver.”

“I know.” He told Val why he needed the information.

“You dead sure this’ll help Hattie?” Val asked.

“No, but it might.”

“Helluva risk.”

“Life’s a helluva risk.”

Val leaned back and pressed his cold Bud can to his forehead, rolling it slowly back and forth, mulling things over. Carver rooted for the power of true love.

“I’m on good terms with one of the volunteers there,” Val said after a while. “She owes me a favor and she might have access to the files. I can ask her, anyways.”

“When?”

“Tonight, I guess.”

“You sure she can keep quiet about this?”

“No need to worry on that account. Be hell to pay if word ever got out. Even if the medical center didn’t prosecute, she’d lose her job same as I’d lose mine with the Posse if either one of us came down with a loose tongue.”

Neither man talked as they finished their beers. Maybe it was that remark about loose tongues.

What have I done? Carver wondered, as he left Val’s cool, dim house and limped through the heat toward where the Olds was parked. His arms were already glistening with sweat, his grip on his cane slippery.

Had he placed two more senior citizens in harm’s way for nothing?

Would he live to become a senior citizen?

A
DAM BEED, WEARING BIB
overalls, was driving a gigantic threshing machine toward Carver, grinning, standing up at the controls so he could look down and watch the blades snare and dismember his prey. Carver was trying to run through the wheat field with his cane, but he kept stumbling, falling, getting up to look back in terror and see that the whirring blades were closer. Beed raised his right hand and flailed the air with it, holding something—a bell! Carver could hear it now above the roar of the thresher’s engine. He tripped and fell, struggled to his feet. The bell . . .

Carver woke up sweating, snatched up the phone to quiet its nerve-grating jangle. He peered at the ghostly red numerals of the clock by the bed: three minutes past midnight. He’d been asleep only a few hours.

“Carver? You there?”

Rathawk Two. “Somewhere,” Carver mumbled, touching the cool plastic receiver to his ear.

“This is Val. I wake you up?”

“ ’S okay. You rescued me. Jesus, I hate farms!”

“Everybody does. You was up late filling out forms?”

Carver blinked his tired, dry eyes. Grimaced at the sandy feel of them. “What’s going on, Val?”

“Rescued you, huh? Well, what I called about, I can’t get Jane to help.”

Insects were droning outside; the air conditioner kicked in and drowned them out with its watery hum. “Jane your contact at the medical center?”

“Yeah, and she tells me what I want’s way too dangerous. She’s scared. Mainly of Nurse Gorham. Shame a beautiful woman like that has to be such a sadistic hellcat.”

“Shame,” Carver agreed.

“Reminds me of a wolverine,” Val said. “Wolverines are beautiful and cruel, kill other animals for no reason, just like we do sometimes.”

“We?”

“Not you and me, people in general.”

Carver slowly wiped his hand down his face. His palm came away slick with perspiration. “Friend Jane know where the files are kept?”

“Yeah. She agreed to help at first, told me all about the layout, before she got thinking too much and the fear set in. The main file room, patients’ records an’ all in folders, is on the first floor and’s in constant use. But she says financial and some duplicate files are computerized and on the fourth floor, in a room down the hall from the main offices. After nine o’clock nobody belongs on that floor, so she’d have no excuse to go up there. Elevator doesn’t even run up there after nine, and the door off the stairs is locked.”

“You were a volunteer worker at the medical center,” Carver said. “You got any idea of how to get around this?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t have asked Jane’s help. All I did when I worked there was escort released patients to the door in wheelchairs so nothing’d happen to them on the way out and the center wouldn’t be sued.”

“Does Jane have a key to the fourth-floor door?”

Val didn’t say anything for a while. “I know what you’re thinking, Carver.”

Carver shifted his weight on the bed. The springs whined. “See if she’ll unlock the door, that’s all. Then she’s out of it.”

“Well, expect I can get her to do that. She does wanna help, and she’d only be away from her station for a few minutes.”

“You near the medical center now?”

“Uh-huh. My unit’s parked right outside.”

It took Carver a moment to realize “unit” was Posse code for “car.” Hoo-boy! “I’m driving over there,” he said. “Leaving soon as I hang up. Meet me in the parking lot?”

“I’ll meet you,” Val said. He blew breath into the phone. “I’m thinking of Hattie.”

“So am I,” Carver said, and replaced the receiver.

He sat for a few seconds while the remnants of sleep faded from his mind completely, then he switched on the lamp and reached for his cane and his pants at the same time. Hurried to meet Rathawk Two.

He parked on the street instead of in the medical center lot, then limped to where Val’s Dodge Aries was squatting unevenly in an end slot near a white van. The night was hot and sticky. The lot was illuminated by overhead sodium lights that cast a sickly orange glow and made the dozen or so parked vehicles look as if they were coated with oil.

Carver opened the Dodge’s door and slid in to sit alongside Val, resting his cane between his thighs. “Talk to Jane again?” he asked.

Val nodded, staring straight ahead at the medical center’s brightly lit entrance. “There’s a side door used by Maintenance she’s left propped partly open so I can get into the building without being seen. Fire stairs are right there. I take ’em to the fourth floor, and that door’s propped open, too. It locks automatically when it closes so it can only be opened from the inside, so once I’m on the fourth floor I can get out okay.”

Carver was surprised. The power of love to inspire foolish deeds seemed to recognize no age limit. He said, “I’m going in, not you.”

“I wanna help Hattie, I told you.”

“I’m working for her, Val. This is my job. I need you to park a little closer to the building, watch the fourth-floor windows. If you see a light go on up there, honk twice then drive away. There’s no need for you to get involved in this any more than is necessary.”

Val said nothing, gnawing his lower lip and staring at the building. Nothing about the building changed.

“My way makes sense,” Carver said.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“What about the file room door? That unlocked?”

“Jane says it’s never locked. She don’t know about the individual file cabinets or whatever’s in there. She said the file room door’s unmarked, but it’s the last one on the left, at the very end of the hall.”

Carver opened the car door. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

“Anybody sees you on the lower floors,” Val said, “try and look like you belong there.”

“I’m good at that,” Carver assured him.

“They see you on the fourth floor, get the hell away fast as you can.” Val glanced at Carver’s cane.

“It won’t come to that,” Carver said, trying to convince himself as well as Val.

He set the cane’s tip outside the car and scooted out to stand up. After shutting the door as quietly as possible, he limped toward the service entrance Val had indicated. It was a small gray door that was barely noticeable in the shadows. His stomach felt hollow. His mouth was dry. He understood habitual, professional burglars; always had. When he reached for the doorknob the real apprehension set in and he began to enjoy himself.

He was inside quickly, standing at the base of a dim stairway that led to a small concrete landing and another door. He picked up the small block of Styrofoam that had been used to prop open the outside door half an inch and stuck it in his pocket. It had a jagged end and seemed to have been broken off a solid form used to pack electronics or some other delicate product. Probably some sensitive medical paraphernalia. Hoping Jane had thought to deal with the door on the landing, he limped up the concrete steps.

That door was propped slightly open with a similar block of foam. Carver eased through and was on a small, square concrete landing. He craned his neck and could see up the zigzag, brightly lighted stairwell all the way to the fourth floor. Since he’d entered the building he’d seen no one, and presumably no one had seen him. His heart was pounding like a mad carpenter’s hammer. Sweating coldly, he smiled and began to climb the stairs.

The fourth-floor fire door was also propped open just wide enough to prevent the latch from catching. Carver edged it open wider and peered into darkness. From his hip pocket he drew the penlight he’d brought and switched it on. The narrow yellow beam jumped out at eye level, and he quickly brought it down to focus on the hall carpet. He wasn’t sure if light could be seen through a window from down in the parking lot or street, but it was wise to minimize risk.

It was quiet in the dark hall. The antiseptic hospital smell from below had permeated the third floor. It was a scent Carver hated; it reminded him of pain and the death of people who’d been integral parts of his life. Some of them were people he’d despised; still, their passing more clearly defined his mortality and in his way he mourned them.

Holding the narrow yellow beam low, he limped along the hall. All the doors were closed. Most of them were lettered with doctors’ names, or words like
ADMINISTRATION or FINANCE
. Carver recognized the door he’d passed through a few days ago to talk to the redheaded receptionist and Dr. Wynn. And Nurse Gorham, the beautiful Marquise de Sade, R.N.