John Lutz - Spark

She drove silently for a few minutes. Then she said, “Since it’d be safer if you found Beed rather than vice versa, I can put out the word with some of my old contacts in the drug business, maybe learn where he can be found these days. He wouldn’t have to know who’s doing the asking.”

“I thought of that,” Carver said. “It can’t be a hundred percent safe. I’ll find Beed on my own. He’s on alcohol now, anyway, not part of the illegal drug scene.”

“That’s a maybe. If he was doing heroin or crack in a major way, alcohol’d only be so much water to him.”

“Solartown information’s all I want from you,” Carver said. “Or all I want that it’s smart for you to give.” He realized he was pressing the tip of his cane into the car’s floor, feeling road and engine vibration running through the shaft. “You’ll be safest if you’re simply a journalist who happens to be staying at the Warm Sands.”

“Want it or not,” she told him, “there’s something else I’m gonna do for you. I’m gonna drive into Del Moray and bring back your gun.”

He considered trying to talk her out of that, then thought about Adam Beed and said nothing.

He settled back in the vinyl upholstery, closed his eyes, and let his bruises heal.

This time Carver refused lemonade, then sat down across from Hattie in her quiet living room. He was in an upholstered chair with dark wood arms. She was perched primly on the edge of the cream-colored sofa. On a table not far from the door, a tall cut-glass vase held half a dozen roses. In the bowels of the house a blower clicked on. Cool air began to whisper through the vents.

“Did Jerome ever mention a man named Adam Beed?” Carver asked. He laid his cane across his lap to avoid leaving a circular depression in the deep carpet. He’d been told about that.

Hattie gazed off to the side, thinking. She said, “No, I’m sure he never mentioned the name.” She peered more closely at Carver. “Are those bruises on your arms?” Her tone of voice suggested he’d been fighting in the cloakroom and would be kept after class.

“They are,” Carver confirmed, for some reason feeling guilty. Hattie hadn’t lost her schoolteacher ways; she could strike to vulnerability like a barbed arrow.

“Something to do with Mr. Beed?” she asked.

“I had some trouble with him. You’re sure your husband didn’t know Beed? He’s an accountant.”

She smiled. “The sort of accountant I’d like to take with me for a tax audit. But neither Jerome nor I have had any dealings with the man.” Her back remained perfectly rigid as she folded her hands in her lap. “Why did he strike you, Mr. Carver?”

“He suggested I stop looking into Jerome’s death.”

“Ah!” Her shrewd eyes got a faraway look. She’d grasped immediately what that meant. “That means there must have been something irregular about what happened to Jerome.”

“Means there probably was,” Carver said. “Doesn’t mean it can be proved.”

“Isn’t proving it why I hired you?”

“Yes, but I can’t manufacture evidence out of suspicion. Though it’s been done.”

She stood up and began to pace, glancing at him now and then, making him feel he’d better not get caught cheating on an exam. “I’m more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this,” she said, “but I think you should take your leave of the case. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting seriously hurt.”

“You can’t pursue this yourself,” Carver pointed out.

She stopped pacing and faced him squarely. “What about the police? Considering what happened to you, won’t they take up the investigation?”

Carver explained to her what Desoto had explained to him, that there wasn’t enough concrete evidence to justify diverting manpower for what still was officially a natural death. The war on drugs was the great consumer of police time, especially in Florida.

She sat back down, looking thoughtful. Worried. “You mean they’re not interested in a possible homicide if the victim was old and nearing death anyway?”

“No,” Carver said, “Desoto doesn’t think that way.” He didn’t tell Hattie that certain of Desoto’s superiors might follow that line of reasoning.

She rubbed a finger along her chin. “Nevertheless, they won’t investigate.”

“I will,” Carver said. “Things are getting too interesting for me to quit.”

“I can’t ask that of you.”

“Hattie, you can’t get me to stop.”

She refolded her hands in her lap and stared at him. “No, I can see that you’re not persuadable on that point. But are you continuing down this road for the wrong reasons, Mr. Carver?”

“Right reasons or wrong, the destination is the same.”

“If you reach it.”

“Someone will be helping me,” he said, “but don’t mention her. She’s Beth Jackson, a tall black woman. She’s a journalist doing a piece on Solartown. I’m telling you this only so you’ll know who she is if she contacts you.”

“I believe I talked to her on the phone,” Hattie said. “She seemed a capable woman. I’m assuming knowledge of any connection between you two might place her in danger.”

“From Adam Beed,” Carver said, “as well as other sources.”

“There’s no shortage of people here who spread tales. I won’t mention her to anyone. Wagging tongues will be no problem.”

Carver stood up. “I’ll keep you informed.”

“Do you need more money, Mr. Carver?”

“Not now. I’ll let you know.”

“Please do.” She smiled sternly at him. “You’re making fine progress.”

Carver got out of there before she pasted a star on his forehead.

Instead of going to where the Olds was parked, he hobbled across sunbaked lawn to the house next door, VAL GREEN RESIDENCE was stenciled in green paint on a black mailbox. In the center of the door was a V-shaped brass knocker. Carver punched the doorbell button with his cane. Heard nothing from inside. He used the knocker, three brittle cracks of sound that had to be heard throughout the house.

Still no answer.

Val figured to be home; he’d driven as part of the Posse last night and probably had duty again tonight.

Carver decided maybe he was sleeping and limped down from the porch. He was about to walk down the driveway to his car when he heard a faint popping sound coming from behind the house. Instead of heading for the street, he hobbled over rough ground along the side of the house.

The sound was getting louder. It was now a series of chonks! with intervals of a few seconds between each one.

Chonk!

Carver peered around the corner of the house.

Chonk!

He saw a machete flash in the sun. A man with his back to him was chopping something on the ground. Fear slithered through Carver, to the core of him. He wished Beth had returned from Del Moray with his Colt .38 automatic and he had it with him.

The man turned around and wiped his forehead with a red handkerchief.

It was Val.

He saw Carver and grinned, dropping the machete as if commanded to at gunpoint.

As Carver limped toward him he realized what Val was doing. He’d been hacking the bottom fronds from a large palm tree, leaving only the upper branches and creating something that would resemble a giant pineapple. At the base of the tree were the fronds Val had removed, and he’d been chopping them into small sections he could bundle and tie to be hauled away.

“Too hot for that kinda work,” Carver said.

“Ain’t gonna get much cooler this evening.” Val used both hands to twist the red handkerchief tight, then stretched it and tied it around his head as a bandana to catch perspiration. “Besides, I gotta go back on duty at eleven.”