John Lutz - Hot

He felt Beth’s fingers on his shoulder. “To your right,” she whispered, as if they might be overheard.

Carver ranged that way with the binoculars and saw Davy’s black van creeping like a distant dark beetle along the tree-lined driveway. It disappeared beyond the house for a while, then emerged on the side nearest Carver and stopped in front of the garage. After a brisk but smooth maneuver, it backed into the shadows of the garage. So dark was the garage’s interior that Carver couldn’t see anything going on inside it. A minute or so passed, then all four overhead doors slowly descended simultaneously. They were painted the same wedding-cake white as the house and had no windows.

“Think we oughta set up an observation point someplace over here?” Beth asked, sounding like a military strategist.

Now that the car was sitting still, the sun felt hot on Carver’s bald pate and the back of his neck. He lowered the binoculars and shook his head no. “Better to stay where you were last night.” The hunter’s blind he’d constructed by bending branches and fronds and tying them together with twine ensured that no one would see Beth or him even in daylight unless they were only a few feet away. “The view’s not as clear there, but we’re closer.”

He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. Near the side of the house he saw a brief glimmer of light, like the setting sun glancing off a lens. Were Carver and Beth themselves being observed?

“Ready to go back?” Beth asked.

He said he was and slid the binoculars back into the glove compartment.

When they drove up to the cottage it was dusk. Carver saw Effie’s rusty Schwinn bike leaning against the porch.

“What’s the deal?” Beth asked, spotting the bike.

“Effie’s,” he told her.

Beth looked sideways at him and pursed her lips.

“She’s a fourteen-year-old kid who comes in a couple times a week and cleans for Henry Tiller. Lives down Shoreline and pedals back and forth on her bicycle.”

Beth parked the LeBaron and got out. As Carver set the tip of his cane and straightened up from the car, the porch’s screen door opened and Effie stepped out. She jumped down the three wooden steps to the ground, letting the door slam and reverberate behind her.

“Mr. Carver!” she said, sounding relieved. “I saw your car and figured you was home, but when I went inside and called, you didn’t answer. I was afraid maybe something’d happened to you.”

“Like what?” Carver asked.

“Well, like what happened to Mr. Tiller.” She was wearing black shorts and a tan knit pullover shirt with a collar. Her oversized jogging shoes made her skinny legs look as if they belonged on a newborn colt. When Carver didn’t answer right away, she stared curiously at Beth, who smiled at her.

“This is Beth Jackson,” Carver said simply. “She’s staying with me.”

Effie’s green eyes widened, then she put on a blase expression and said, “Okay,” as if Carver had sought her approval. “She gonna clean, too?”

Beth said, “Too?”

Carver laughed. “You still got a job, Effie. Beth’s my assistant as well as my significant other, but detergent is no friend of hers.”

“I don’t deny it,” Beth said.

“Hey, neat!” Effie was grinning at Beth. It was a grin meant for orthodontic braces, though her teeth were straight. She might outgrow it by the time she was thirty. “This mean you’re a detective, too?”

“Sort of,” Beth said, “whenever Carver bothers to deputize me.”

Effie looked puzzled, not quite sure if she was being put on. “I thought I’d ride my bike here and see if you heard anything about Mr. Tiller,” she said.

Carver told her about Henry’s brain injury and coma. For an uncomfortable moment he thought she might dissolve into sobs. Beth moved close to her and rested a hand on her skinny shoulder.

“But he’s maybe gonna be okay?” Effie said.

“The doctors think he might be,” Carver told her. “Right now they don’t know too much about what’s actually wrong with him. They’re gonna do some more tests.”

“You find out anything about what he thought might be going on here?” she asked.

“Not much. But I’m sure something is going on, Effie, so I think you better be careful about who you talk to and what you say.”

“I promised Mr. Tiller I’d be quiet about this,” she said, “and I will.”

Beth backed away and looked down at her. “You seem the sort who keeps promises,” she said.

“You ever been a model?” Effie asked her.

Beth chuckled. “No, not me. Not even a model citizen.” She looked at Carver. “I like this girl, Fred.”

“Another reason I came here tonight,” Effie said, gaining confidence, “is to offer to help you find out what’s going on with Walter Rainer and those creeps he’s got working for him. I mean, nobody pays any attention to a kid with a bike. I can hang around in Fishback, watch and listen and report to you.”

“Yeah, your mom and dad would love that.”

“My dad’s at the station all day. My mom . . .” She stared hard at the ground and made a face by scrunching up her lips. “My mom stays around the house. She drinks some.”

Carver and Beth glanced at each other.

Carver said, “Effie, I appreciate the offer, but this might be plenty serious, and I can’t take the responsibility of putting you in any kinda danger. You come here and clean on your regular days, and I’ll tell you anything you wanna know about Mr. Tiller, but that’s about as involved as I can let you get.”

“But living here on Key Montaigne, I know I can help!”

“Damnit no, Effie! I mean it.”

“But-”

Beth raised a long forefinger to her lips and shook her head. “Best listen to him, honey. He gets in these uncompromising moods.”

Effie nodded. Gulped. She looked as if she wanted to speak but didn’t trust her voice. Jesus! What was the big deal here? Uncompromising mood? Like Charles Manson? Carver felt as if he’d just shot her dog.

She spun away angrily and stalked to her bike. Threw a freckled leg over it without looking at him.

“Why don’t you hang around awhile?” Carver asked. “Have a soda?” He shifted his weight awkwardly over his cane and didn’t know what else to say to her.

She shook her head violently, still facing away from him. Her red hair bounced and what appeared to be a bobby pin flew out, catching sunlight.

“Listen, Effie-”

But she didn’t listen. Instead she gripped the handlebars as if trying to throttle necks of geese, stood high on the pedals and rode away fast.

Beth watched the dust behind the bike settle in the dying light and said, “Don’t worry, she’ll forgive you by tomorrow.”

“I didn’t know what else to tell her,” Carver said, still feeling small enough to get lost in one of his shoes. He wondered if he’d have similar conversations with his own daughter, Ann, who was only eight now and lived with his former wife, Laura, in St. Louis. Probably not; it was Laura who’d have to deal with a teenage Ann on a daily basis. Carver wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“Nothing else you coulda told her,” Beth said. “You did right, Fred.”

“Then why’s it feel so wrong?”

“C’mon into the cabin or cottage or whatever the fuck it is, and I’ll change that.”

And she did.

Later they microwaved and ate two of the frozen macaroni-and-cheese dinners he’d picked up at the Food Emporium, then watched the national and local news on television. The world was in a hell of a shape, but Key Montaigne seemed to be faring okay.

Except for whatever it was the fat and rich and influential Walter Rainer was doing that required somebody like Davy to run interference for him.