John Lutz - Hot

Carver was aware he tended to be too independent, to become obsessive and develop tunnel vision to go along with what Desoto often referred to as his dog-with-a-rag neuroses. Once committed to anything, he found it very difficult to give up, even when logically he should. Obsession could be his weakness as well as his strength; a dog tugging on a rag sometimes lost a tooth and the rag.

He was sure he wanted Beth on Key Montaigne because he needed somebody reliable to spell him staking out the Rainer estate. It couldn’t be because he missed her and needed her in ways other than professional. Sitting there on the sweat-moistened upholstery and suffering in the heat, that kind of need must be the farthest thing from his mind.

Right.

That settled, he started the engine and got what he could from the laboring air conditioner.

It was late the next morning before Carver was able to contact Beth. She’d been at the library working on a paper for a postgraduate communications class at the University of Florida, but she told him it would be no problem to set it aside and help him in Key Montaigne. She’d leave soon as possible, she said, and should be able to drive south and join him by that evening. “You and I got a dinner date,” she told him.

He said he’d make reservations at the Key Lime Pie.

“I gotta dress up for that place?” Beth asked.

“Casual clothes are de rigueur there,” he assured her, wondering what Fern the waitress would think if Beth strolled into the Key Lime Pie on Carver’s arm, looking like a high-fashion model for Ebony.

“Bring the infrared binoculars,” he added. “Some of what we’ll be doing’s at night.”

“I’ll just bet.” He liked her tone of voice.

“Incidentally,” he added, “bring my gun, too.”

“‘Incidentally,’ huh? You step in something nasty down there, Fred?”

“I’m not sure yet. The gun’s in a brown envelope taped to the back of my top dresser drawer.”

“I know where it is, and I’ll bring it with me. You just try’n stay alive till I get there to take care of you.”

Carver said, “Bring along some extra ammunition.”

“Never leave home without it.”

After hanging up on Beth, Carver rummaged through Henry’s refrigerator and came up with the ingredients of lunch: some oat bran health bread Henry kept in there so it would stay fresh longer, extra-lean sliced turkey that smelled edible enough, some Heartline low-cholesterol cheese, a half-used jar of vitamin-enriched diet mayonnaise. Henry apparently feared slipping physically as well as mentally in his old age.

Carver built a sandwich that was probably no more than two or three calories, then washed it down with three beers from the six-pack of Budweisers in the back of the refrigerator. He reminded himself he’d better stop by the Food Emporium Supermarket in town and pick up some more beer and food. He and Beth might get tired of romping through the culinary delights of Fishback’s eateries.

Before returning to the Bing residence, he decided to give Millicent Bing a call. Shy as Chief Wicke said she was, she might be more likely to answer the phone than the doorbell.

The Bings were listed in Key Montaigne’s thin phone directory. It took ten rings, but finally Millicent picked up the receiver and uttered a tentative hello.

Carver told her who he was, then said, “Katia Marsh over at the research center assured me you’d talk with me.”

“Katia said that?”

“Just this morning.”

“Talk with you about what?” She had the wary voice of a hostile witness at her own trial.

“Henry Tiller.”

“You mean his accident?”

“If it was that.”

A pause while she thought things over. “You’re not from an insurance company, are you? Trying to trick me?”

He laughed at the absurd notion that he might be devious; maybe he’d sell her some magazine subscriptions while he was at it. “No, no, honestly, I’m just a friend of Henry’s who promised him I’d look into what happened. I can be at your place within fifteen minutes, Mrs. Bing, and I won’t take up much of your time at all. I thought I’d just stop by for a few minutes before lunch, while I was out.”

The connection was silent for so long he wondered if she’d hung up. Then: “Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right, if it’s soon as you say.”

“It will be, Mrs. Bing. Thank you.” He hung up before she could change her uncertain mind. She seemed the type who reconsidered everything, always combed her hair twice.

Less than fifteen minutes later he was standing on the shaded porch of the Bings’ house by the sea, hoping the dozen or so bees circling among the bougainvillea wouldn’t get it into their collective mind to swarm in his direction before his knock was answered. One of them made a darting, circling pass at him, like an armed reconnaissance plane.

Before the bee had a chance to return with friends, the door swung open and Carver saw that Millicent Bing was indeed the sharp-faced woman in the research center brochure. She was thin, and slightly stoop-shouldered despite the disguising oversized shoulder pads beneath her silky gray blouse. She had narrowed and suspicious blue eyes and a marvelous pale complexion. Her sharp, elongated nose and receding chin gave her the look of a pretty but nervous ferret.

“Mr. Carver?” Her voice sounded even more tentative in person than on the phone.

He smiled at her and confirmed who he was, then thanked her again for letting him take up her valuable time. That seemed to make her feel guilty, and she hastily invited him inside.

“I notice you’ve got a bee problem on the porch,” Carver told her.

“They’re like sentries,” she said. “They discourage unwelcome visitors.”

She could sure put a guest at ease.

It was almost cold in the living room. The severe modern furniture and chrome-framed, surreal-looking color photographs of sea life didn’t add one degree of warmth.

Millicent invited Carver to sit down, and he shifted his weight over his cane then lowered himself into a white vinyl chair with bleached wood arms. It was hard as cold concrete, but it enabled him to extend his bad leg out in front of him comfortably. He could get up out of the chair easily, too, which was always a consideration for a man with a cane.

Millicent perched on the edge of the low vinyl sofa as if poised for the start of a race. She would have tripped and fallen at the sound of the starter’s gun, though, because her beige skirt was wound like a shroud around her legs. Carver asked her a few perfunctory questions about Henry to put her at ease, then said, “Henry seems to think something might have been going on over at the Walter Rainer estate. I noticed there was a clear view of the grounds from the research center, and I wondered if you or your husband ever observed anything there worth mentioning.”

She looked flustered for a moment, then puzzled. “What on earth do you mean by ‘something might have been going on’?”

“Well, Henry wasn’t specific, so I thought I’d ask you and your husband.”

“Dr. Sam’s in Mexico,” she said, “buying specimens that can only be found along the coast in that area.”

“Katia Marsh told me that’s where he is,” Carver said, wondering if she called her husband “Dr. Sam” in bed. “About the Rainer estate-”

“Neither my husband nor I are nosy people, Mr. Carver,” she interrupted. She raised her pointed but almost nonexistent chin in a futile effort to look haughty. “Nor would we like anyone nosing into our business.”

“I’m not asking you to be nosy,” he assured her. “Or to gossip. Henry’s been run down and almost killed, and the car sped away. A crime’s been committed.”