John Lutz - Torch

Carver wondered if she’d ever considered becoming a mother. They never talked about that.

He showered, dressed in light gray slacks, a black tee shirt and gray socks, black loafers. Beth was still standing at the stove when he came back. It was getting warm in the cottage. When she saw him, she walked over and switched on the air conditioner. His coffee was already poured and a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage links was on the breakfast counter. He sat on one of the high stools and sipped coffee. Beth disappeared behind the folding screen that partitioned off the cottage’s sleeping area, then returned and sat across from him, wearing his blue terrycloth robe now. She was carrying her oversized mug with the newspaper captions on it. Carver could see Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing. Maybe this was the real news, that the world made no sense. Steam rose from the mug and caught the morning light like a prism, playing faint colors over the counter.

She said, “Anybody show at Gretch’s apartment last night?”

He buttered a slice of toast and shook his head no. “What about the missing pages in the catalogs? They tell you anything?” He was sure they hadn’t, or she would have told him by now.

“I’m still working at it,” she said somewhat curtly. “So far, I’ve only been able to find two of the current catalogs. I’m driving in to Orlando today and visit a mail-order maniac I know, see if he can get me the other, older ones.”

“What’s on the missing pages you managed to match up?” he asked.

“Men’s sport coats and accessories on one, beachwear on the other.”

“Natty clothes, like a gigolo might wear?”

“Depends on how you view silk jackets with eelskin elbow patches.”

“So maybe the missing pages contain items Gretch ordered from the catalogs.”

“Except the order forms are intact in every catalog that was in his closet. And most of the catalogs look as if they’ve barely been leafed through. I think there’s some connecting thread, and I’ll know it when I see the other catalog pages.”

“Maybe he’s building a secret weapon out of tie clasps and sunglasses,” Carver said.

“Maybe.”

“More likely, he simply ran out of toilet paper now and then.”

Beth lowered her coffee mug and looked thoughtful. It was an explanation she hadn’t considered. She’d been raised desperately poor, and it was a possibility she might take quite seriously.

“Keep matching catalog pages,” he said.

“I intend to.”

“I’m going to give up on Gretch’s apartment for a while and watch Maggie Rourke.” He took a bite of toast and chewed while Beth gazed at him.

“Because she’s fun to watch?” she asked.

He washed down the toast with a long pull of coffee that was still hot enough to burn the back of his throat. “Because, unlike Gretch, she can at least be found.”

Beth turned her back on him and stood up. Leaving her mug sitting on the counter, she walked slowly over to the stove and lifted a sausage from the pan and began nibbling at it, still not looking at him.

Letting him know she didn’t completely believe him.

He wasn’t certain of the truth himself.

Nagging Wife Critical After Hammer Attack , he read on the mug.

Carver didn’t bother to knock on the cottage door. He headed for the stepping-stone walkway around the north wall, leading to the beach. When he noticed the dark brown bloodstain on the ground where Beni Ho had bled, his stomach lurched and his grip on his cane tightened. Getting shot in the leg or anywhere else and surviving was also getting shot in the mind, and in a place that never quite healed.

The webbed aluminum lounge chair was still on the beach facing open sea, but beautiful Maggie Rourke wasn’t gracing it today.

Carver returned to the front of the cottage and knocked on the door. He stood in the sun, waiting, listening to the faint tuneless music of brass wind chimes. He was going to tell Maggie about Beni Ho being shot in front of her cabin while she was working on her tan, see how she’d react. Then he’d say goodbye and leave, but he wouldn’t go far. Just to where he could watch the cottage unseen. Maybe she’d go someplace, and he’d follow. Either way, he’d see her again, look into those luminous gray eyes. Who knew what might be learned from that?

No one answered his knock.

He glanced around. The black Nissan Stanza that had been parked in the shade yesterday was nowhere in sight. He knocked again, louder, then tried the door.

It was locked.

He hobbled to a front window and peered inside. He could see through dimness to the sliding glass door that looked out on the ocean. The cottage appeared to be empty. He straightened up and watched a large bird that looked like a blue heron flap overhead toward the sea, gaining grace as it gained speed.

Carver got in the Olds, started the engine, and eased the big car over in the shady parking spot previously occupied by the black Stanza. He lowered the canvas top and sat in the faint sea breeze, waiting for Maggie to return. Probably she’d be back soon, he told himself. Maybe she’d run out for a loaf of bread or more sun block, or a good mystery novel in which to lose her grief.

She didn’t return. Occasionally a car would approach out of sight on the coast highway and seem to slow as it neared her driveway, and Carver would reach for his cane leaning on the seat. Then the car would speed past.

When it was almost noon, and getting hotter by the second, he backhanded sweat from his forehead and climbed out of the Olds. Secluded as the cottage was, he didn’t consider it much of a risk to see if he could slip the lock.

He went back over to the front door and tried to slide his Visa card between latch and doorjamb. When he’d succeeded, the door still didn’t open. Apparently the deadbolt above the simple knob lock was holding it firm. He wasn’t surprised. Failure was the usual result of the credit card technique. A set of lockpicks wasn’t much more efficient unless in expert hands, and he wasn’t an expert.

Carver gave up on the front door and went around to the back of the cottage and the sliding glass door overlooking the beach. He saw immediately that there was a sawed-off broomstick resting in its metal track, preventing it from sliding even an inch. The most effective way to lock a sliding glass door.

Leaving the exposed, ocean end of the cottage, he tried the two windows on the south wall to see if they were locked. The second one wasn’t. He managed to slide the window open, then held gauzy lime-green curtains aside and leaned in.

He was looking at a bedroom with pale green walls and furnished with white wicker furniture. Even the ceiling fan was wicker. The bed wasn’t, though. It was a white-enameled four-poster with a fringed canopy and sheer white curtains that draped gracefully to the floor to surround the mattress and act as mosquito netting.

Carver drew in his breath. Someone appeared to be sleeping behind the gauzy white material.

He leaned his cane carefully against the inside wall, then used his powerful arms to work his body far enough inside for him to touch the floor. Walking out away from the window with his arms, he dragged his body across the sill, using his good leg to break his fall so he dropped silently to his hands and good knee on the deep green carpet.

After waiting a few minutes, staring at the still figure in the bed, he levered himself to his feet with the cane. He stood still for a while, then moved quietly to the bed.

He edged closer and extended his free hand to move aside the diaphanous white curtain.

It took a few seconds for him to realize what he was looking at. Pillows and the white sheet had been arranged to make it appear there was someone lying on the bed. There was a hank of auburn hair visible on the one pillow that was resting crosswise on the bed, but there was simply no room for a head beneath the sheet that had been pulled halfway up the pillow.