John Lutz - Spark

A teenage girl had been raped and strangled, not necessarily in that order. Desoto was charging around barking orders, his dark eyes sad and furious. It upset him when any crime of violence was committed against a woman. Something like this, involving a young girl, really set him off. He wouldn’t have time for Carver today. Carver didn’t blame him. Desoto had seen the body.

The day was heating up to near-record temperatures, and Carver hated himself for his insensitivity and was feeling frustrated. He loathed spinning his wheels, and so far today he’d found no traction. He left the Olds parked on Hughey near police headquarters and walked up to South Street to eat lunch at a restaurant he remembered.

Halfway there he realized he was limping along faster than most people were walking, drawing stares and working up a sweat that ran in rivulets. Breathing hard, too. Punishing himself. He made himself slow down, determined not to let the futility of the day get to him. It had been one of the hardest things in life for him to learn, not to be his own enemy. Sometimes he still forgot the lesson.

He had chili for lunch, another wrong decision. When he left the restaurant, he found a public phone at the corner and stood miserably in the exhaust fumes and terrible sun. He called the Warm Sands Motel and asked for Beth’s extension.

Ah! She’d returned from her Faravelli interview.

“Faravelli spent most of our time together bragging about Solartown,” she said. “A real PR guy. He made the most of the interview.”

“You get into the reverse mortgage arrangement?” Carver asked.

“Far as I could, without him suspecting I was targeting it. He gave me some straight information. Made a good case that the purpose of the program was not only to sell more houses, but to improve the quality of life for buyers by providing them with a better home than they might otherwise be able to afford, plus a monthly income for the rest of their natural lives.”

“Sounds good when you say it fast.”

“That’s how he said it. He’s a charmer when he wants to turn it on.”

“Doesn’t it figure?”

“Maybe not. You want my opinion, Fred, the guy seems like a legitimate corporate climber. He might doctor reports or evict old ladies to improve the bottom line, but I don’t see him getting involved in murder unless there’s some kinda blackmail being worked.”

“Always a possibility with such an upright citizen.”

“Such a cynic,”

“I get called that a lot. People are thoughtless that way.”

“Where are you, Fred? You finally buy yourself a car phone?”

“I’m in Orlando talking at one of those outside phones. That’s why you hear traffic. You get any figures on the percentage of houses Solartown repossesses after the owner’s death?”

“Easy,” she said. “A hundred percent.”

“Huh?”

“About half the homes in Solartown are sold on the reverse mortgage plan. The loans are amortized at a thirty-year rate. Virtually no retiree who buys will live the full thirty years. How much profit or loss Solartown makes on the repossessed houses depends on how long the occupants collect the monthly payments and how much the houses appreciate. In effect, Solartown’s buying back the house from the owner, until the owner’s death, which will always occur before the full price is paid.”

“You don’t see that as a motive?”

“I would, Fred, if I could make the numbers add up to the point where the profit was worth the risk of being found out and ruining a much more lucrative legitimate enterprise. It simply looks like a winning situation for both parties, a marketing angle Faravelli boasts about with some justification.”

Carver wondered if Faravelli had been even charming enough to fool Beth. That seemed impossible. But so did the collapse of the Soviet Union, and here we were. He said, “I noticed Maude Crane’s house is for sale.”

“Matter of fact, Faravelli mentioned that one. It’s been taken back by the company, and he admits they’ll realize a large profit on it. Said it was an example of what made it possible for Solartown to lower its profit margin on newer housing and undersell competitors. Good fortune growing from misfortune, he called it.”

“I’m wondering if it’s somebody’s personal fortune,” Carver said.

“Uh-huh. You want me to follow the money, Fred?”

“Can you do it?”

“Won’t be easy. Banks are secretive.”

“But money can always be traced, and I know you have your wily ways.”

“I have those,” she admitted, “but I can’t promise you they’ll work. Banks weren’t computerized, this might not be possible.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything illegal.”

She laughed. “Don’t try to bullshit me, Fred.”

“Okay, I’m asking you not to get caught.”

“That’s my Fred.” She hung up.

Carver called the Warm Sands again, this time identifying himself, and asked if there were any messages for him.

There was one: He was supposed to call a Mr. Van Meter as soon as possible.

Ah, traction! That would mean direction. The day’s prospects were improving.

Not minding the heat and exhaust fumes now, or the persistent aftertaste of the chili, he fished in his pocket for change.

Van Meter said a contact in a detox center in Jacksonville reported that a woman with delirium tremens had muttered Adam Beed’s name. Beed had done something to her, but she wouldn’t say what, and when she’d regained her composure she wouldn’t talk about him at all. She was scared sober, the detox guy had said. But while drunk she’d mentioned being with Beed near the ocean in a tall pink building in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, and she kept holding up her right hand with two missing fingers and saying something that sounded like “Hen power.”

“You sober yourself?” Carver asked, watching a pickup truck towing a trailer thread dangerously through traffic at high speed. Idiot! Where was a cop when you needed one? Out by the golf course.

“There’s a tall pink building on Ocean Boulevard in Lauderdale called the Heron Tower,” Van Meter said.

“It’s flamingos that are pink.”

“Sure, but try to make ‘hen power’ out of ‘flamingo.’ ”

“Is Beed listed at that address?”

“No, but he wouldn’t be using his real name. I don’t know if it all means anything, Fred. Up to you if you wanna drive over and check.”

“What’s your gut tell you?” Carver asked.

“Besides that I’m hungry?”

“Besides.”

“Hen power,” Van Meter said.

He gave Carver the address.

Carver rented a plymouth from Budget Rent-a-Car in Fort Lauderdale and drove to nearby Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

There was the Heron Tower at the address Van Meter had given him, a sleek building about twenty stories high that was constructed mainly of cast concrete embedded with what looked like pink seashells. The front of the building faced North Ocean Boulevard, the back looked out on the Atlantic. Pink-tinted glass doors flanked by columns resembling busty mermaids formed the entrance. Off to the side was a narrow concrete driveway that led to ground-level parking beneath the building, a shadowy cavern with concrete pillars that acted as piers supporting the entire structure.

After sitting in the parked blue Plymouth for fifteen minutes, Carver decided there was no doorman. He waited another fifteen minutes, until dusk had become darkness, then he climbed out of the Plymouth, hobbled quickly across North Ocean Boulevard to beat the traffic, and entered Heron Tower.

The lobby was mostly a checkered pattern of gray and black marble veined in pale pink. It was swank, but it reminded Carver of a marble chess set he’d bought years ago in Mexico. The pawns cracked easily.