John Lutz - Hot

But his sweating hands slipped from the wheel and it spun out of control, bending back his thumb. The Olds shot across the road and skidded sideways on the soft gravel shoulder, met the grade and rocked up on two wheels. Higher, higher, tilting the view out the windshield. Carver hooked an arm through the steering wheel and braced himself.

The car hung poised for what seemed like minutes, while his heart stopped beating and he didn’t breathe.

Too heavy to turn over, the Olds dropped right-side up with a heavy Whump! as the suspension bottomed out. Carver’s teeth clacked together as he bounced from the seat. The safety belt kept him from bashing his head on the roof.

He shook off his disorientation, seeing the black van disappear around a curve on Shoreline. His arm or leg must have hit the transmission lever as he’d been jounced around, forcing it in Neutral. He crammed it into Drive, stomped on the accelerator, and realized the engine had died.

By the time he got it started again, he knew he’d never catch up with the van.

As he pulled slowly back onto the road, he saw that the temperature light on the dashboard was winking red. He drove cautiously and found if he kept the big car at around twenty-five, feeding it very little gas and letting the ocean breeze sift through the grill and play over the radiator and engine, the light blinked less frequently. If it didn’t glow red steadily, he figured he wasn’t doing the engine permanent harm.

He nursed the Olds into Fishback, then down Main to Norton’s Gas ’n’ Go. Norton was nowhere in sight, but a cheerful teenage boy with greasy blue overalls and a thousand pimples replaced a sprung hose clamp that had pulled loose when the big engine had rocked on its mounts. Apparently that was the only reason the Olds was running hot.

Carver splashed cold water over his arms and face while the car was being worked on, then paid the kid with Visa and drove down Main to police headquarters.

The grandmotherly receptionist-dispatcher recognized him and gave him a milk-and-cookies smile. A gangly uniformed cop he hadn’t seen before was bent over at the waist and rooting through a bottom file drawer. His legs were long, his blue uniform pants creased too sharp to touch. Chief Wicke was standing nearby watching him with his fists on his hips, as if he’d just chewed out the skinny cop.

Carver told Wicke he’d like to talk to him, and Wicke glared at the cop and said, “Don’t give up till you find it, Dewey!” He motioned with a jerk of his head for Carver to come into his office.

Wicke listened silently as Carver told him about the encounter with the black van. He rocked far back in his padded chair and stared up at the ceiling, as if maybe pictures accompanying Carver’s words were up there.

“Davy Mathis has such a van,” he said, when Carver was finished. He let the chair fall forward. The breeze from his sudden descent stirred papers on his cluttered desk. “Was it a Dodge?”

“I don’t know,” Carver said. “Production model full-size vans look pretty much alike, and I was busy trying to stay alive. Except for the black-tinted windows and missing license plates, it was just a van.”

“Well, it mighta been Davy’s, all right, but I gotta tell you there are a lotta vans like that running around the Keys.” Wicke stood up out of his chair and paced around the massive desk, dragging his fingertips on its surface as if testing for dust. “I think I better drive out and talk with Davy nonetheless. If it was him driving the van, he’ll have a solid alibi. Probably playing cards with ten people a hundred miles away, or doing charity work for the world’s unfortunates.” Wicke grinned. “I’d say the better the alibi, the more likely it is he was the one in the van.”

Carver said, “I like your approach.”

“What’s your plan now?”

“I’ll try talking to Millicent Bing later today. Other than that, I’m not sure.”

“Millicent was probably home,” Wicke said. “I wouldn’t call her a recluse, but she’s shy.”

“Too shy to answer the door?”

“Sure. It’d be just like her.” Chief Wicke chewed on the inside of his cheek, staring at Carver. “The business with the van don’t scare you, huh?”

“It scares me,” Carver said. “A nautical nasty like Davy’s a scary guy.”

“If it was Davy.”

Carver said nothing.

Wicke played with a massive turquoise ring on the middle finger of his right hand. It looked like cheap souvenir-shop jewelry, but it would be as formidable as brass knuckles if Wicke punched someone. “I talked to a few people I know up north, Carver. Inquired about you.”

“What’d these people say?”

“Not to be fooled by the fact you walk with a cane. That you was one tough sonuvabitch. They right?”

Carver said, ‘”Tough’s relative.”

“Uh-huh.”

Wicke tucked his shirt in beneath his meal-sack stomach paunch and ambled toward the door, a signal that he had matters to attend to and Carver had taken up enough of his time. Fair enough, Carver thought, and braced with his cane and stood up.

Wicke said, “I’ll give you a call after I talk with Davy, let you know what he said.”

“If it was Davy,” Carver told him, “it means there might well be something to Henry Tiller’s suspicions.”

“Could be. Davy’s a real piss-cutter, though. Running interlopers off the road might be his idea of sport.”

“Interlopers?”

“That could be how he sees you. You can bet he knows about your staying up at Henry’s place, getting around the island and asking your questions.”

“It’s the hit and run I’ve been asking about,” Carver pointed out.

“But Davy sees the connection between you and Henry, and he might know about Henry’s suspicion that Walter Rainer’s up to no good. Davy might add that together and figure his employment’s in jeopardy. Or maybe he’d do something crazy like trying to throw a scare into you just because of loyalty to Rainer. After all, Rainer was the one gave him a chance in this world when nobody else’d give him spit.”

“You make it sound like him killing me on the highway would’ve been an admirable act of servitude.”

“Now, now, it ain’t that bad, Carver. But keep in mind we’re standing here just assuming it was Davy in that van to begin with.”

“Davy or the Easter Bunny,” Carver said, remembering what Henry Tiller had said about the likelihood of coincidence.

Wicke knew what he meant. “That bunny don’t have a valid Florida driver’s license, far as I know. In my capacity, I can’t afford to lean on the wrong man.”

Carver wondered if he meant Walter Rainer had too much money and local clout to risk going up against. It was people like Rainer who kept an appointed chief of police like Lloyd Wicke in office, and people like Rainer who could start a political ball rolling that might knock a cop all the way back to civilian. But Carver didn’t know for sure that Wicke was intimidated by Rainer, so he said nothing.

“I’ll just clean up some paperwork here,” Wicke said, “then I’ll go talk to Davy. Maybe we can throw light on this thing.”

Carver thanked him and limped from the office. There was no point getting on the wrong side of Chief Wicke, but he didn’t think he could count on him for a lot of help. The incident had convinced Carver that Henry was on to something. Carver, younger and taken more seriously than Henry, would pose a genuine threat, so Davy, on his own or on Walter Rainer’s orders, had attempted to scare him off the case.

He slid in behind the Olds’s steering wheel and sat with the windows up and the engine and air conditioner off, thinking and perspiring. It would be necessary to move in on the Rainer estate and watch it carefully, and for that he’d need help. It was time to ask Beth to drive down and join him.