John Lutz - Spark

“That a prediction?”

“I’ve seen it plenty of times. A junkie shakes the physical dependency and fancies he’s no longer part of the world of drugs, but it’s okay to have drinks with dinner, or duck into a bar now and then for a couple of something cool. All socially acceptable. Then the alcohol takes the place of whatever else he was on, takes him over body and mind just like any other drug.” She tapped a red fingernail on the desk for emphasis. “An addict’s an addict, Fred. Like a cucumber that’s become a pickle. It can never be a cucumber again. Even longtime users sometimes kid themselves they’re cucumbers again, but if they don’t stay away from drugs altogether, including alcohol, it’ll eventually kill them.”

The air conditioner had gone through a short cycle, then kicked off. Carver, sitting in the sudden silence, hadn’t realized it was running. A child began yammering outside, then car doors slammed and an engine started. Tires crunched over gravel as a vacationing family got an early start.

“Eventually, but always ,” Beth said.

Carver said, “It’s nice to know that about Beed.”

After breakfast he left Beth preparing for her interview with Brad Faravelli and drove over to see Hattie Evans.

As he was parking, he saw her in the shade of her front porch. She was wearing baggy jeans and an oversize T-shirt with GRAY POWER lettered on it, tending to flowers in a plastic hanging planter she’d taken down from its hook.

“Care to come inside, Mr. Carver?” she asked, not looking at him until he’d limped almost to her.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said. “We might as well enjoy it out here before the sun and the temperature get higher.”

“That won’t take long,” she said, pinching off a dead geranium. “Gotta water these constantly. Florida. It was Jerome’s idea to move down here, not mine.”

“You intend to stay?”

“Not much choice, considering the mortgage arrangement we made with Solartown.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Jerome’s. He handled all our finances. In retrospect, it was dumb of me to let him do that.”

“You’re a capable woman,” Carver said. “You can set things right.”

“Not this house, But then, I suppose I’m happy enough here in Solartown.”

“When you bought the house, did the salesman give you the hard sell on the reverse mortgage?”

“Not really. There was no deception involved.”

“Did Jerome ever look into another form of financing? I mean, do you know if he consulted with a lender in the months before his death?”

She picked up a gray metal watering can with a daisy design on it. “Not that I know of.” She tipped the can so the long, thin spout was out of sight among the remaining flowers, letting water flow into the pot. “That’s not to say Jerome might not have seen a banker without telling me.” She shot Carver a look he couldn’t interpret. “Seems he did other things without informing me.”

Carver said nothing.

Water flowed over the rim of the pot and along the porch rail.

“I might have to leave town for a while,” he told her, “if someone I have working for me locates a man who could be important to us.”

“That Adam Beed?”

He nodded.

Hattie set the watering can down and removed her green vinyl work gloves. The gloves had oversize cuffs with the same daisy design that was on the can. “The people involved in this made a mistake trying to scare you off the case, didn’t they?”

“Looks that way,” he said.

“Can’t say I’m shocked that you’re still on the job. You reminded me immediately of some of my problem students who regarded intimidation as merely a temporary condition. Much as I regretted their presence in my classes, after all the years they’re the ones I remember.”

“Memory’s a strange thing,” Carver said.

“A precious thing,” she said, surprising him.

“Your emotions are showing, Hattie.”

She gave him a sad smile, standing there erect and holding her gloves folded in one hand as if she were a military officer. She said, “I missed out on some things in life, Mr. Carver; I’ve come to accept that because I understand it. Now I need to know about my husband’s death, so I can accept it through understanding and lit it peacefully in my past. So I won’t wake up before sunrise every morning thinking about it for the rest of my life.”

“I see what you mean,” Carver said.

“I believe you do.” She lifted the watering can again and gently doused the blossoms themselves.

“Where’s your neighbor Val Green today?”

She glared at him. “How should I know? Why should I care about the old busybody?”

He almost smiled. “Better not talk that way; you might wilt those flowers.”

“He tells me if I need anything to call him or come get him, as if I need the likes of him to take care of me. As if I need anyone.”

“You’re not being fair to him. He’s not a bad sort.”

“Oh, I suppose he’s all right,” she said. “In his place. I expect he’s sleeping. I think he was driving around last night playing policeman.”

“You don’t think much of the Posse?”

“I think they’re a bunch of old fools who’ve regressed to childhood, playing cops and robbers again. Now Val, he even wants to play doctor.”

Carver laughed. Some of the water sloshed out of the long-spouted can and splashed near his shoe. Not an accident, he was sure.

“Well, it happens to be true.” Hattie put down the can and concentrated hard on rehanging the planter on its eye hook. Either her eyesight wasn’t up to it, or the hook was moving.

Carver thought about offering to help, then decided she might resent it. He waited until the planter was dangling safely on its chain.

“If I have to disappear for a while, I’ll call you,” he assured her.

“You’d better. I hired you.”

She stretched to take down an identical plastic planter from the opposite side of the porch, and he said good-bye and left her there.

As he drove away he glanced over at her. She wasn’t watching him. She was plucking dead blossoms.

On the drive back to the motel, Carver detoured past Maude Crane’s house. There was a red and white Solartown Realty FOR SALE sign reflecting sun in the neatly mowed front yard. He wasn’t sure if that meant Maude had bought on the reverse mortgage plan and ownership of her house had reverted to the company. It was something worth looking into.

At the Warm Sands, Carver found that Beth had already left for her interview with Brad Faravelli, and there were no messages either from her or Van Meter.

The room felt cool and he realized he was sweating. He limped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. When he glanced at himself in the mirror he saw that his normally deep tan was even deeper from running around Solartown and environs asking questions. The possibility of future skin cancer leapt to mind, all those TV talk shows and infomercials, and he felt himself moving closer to seriously considering Hattie’s advice about headwear to cover his bald pate. But then, he had Adam Beed to deal with before measuring a future in years instead of days.

He put on a fresh shirt and decided to go see Desoto, offer to buy him lunch and then pump him to find out if he knew anything else about Beed or Solartown. What friends were for.

But Desoto, perched on the edge of his desk and just hanging up his phone, said he was busy. There’d been a homicide out near the Orlando Country Club; he’d just returned from there.

“A shooting that left a hole in one?” Carver asked.

Desoto gave him a fierce and pitying look that let him know this was no time for cop humor, not even the kind that saves sanity. Carver felt microscopically small when Desoto explained what had happened.