John Lutz - Hot

After a while Carver decided he wasn’t gaining any insight, then left the office. In the hall he noticed a thermostat, switched it to Cool and rolled the setting back to seventy. Nothing happened. The utilities had been turned off.

Carver had been inside longer than he’d thought. The sun was dropping fast and the house’s interior was already dim. He’d better finish here soon as possible.

The rest of the house was much like the office. The essential furniture was there, chairs, end tables, pieces far too large to pack, even a few knickknacks. But the place was like a recently vacated hotel suite; all signs of its previous inhabitants had been removed.

In the master bedroom Carver slid open a mirrored closet door and found that Dr. Sam’s clothes had been removed as well as Millicent’s. There was some indication of previous occupancy here, however. A wire hanger on the floor. Another wedged where it had fallen into an old pair of rubber boots. In a dusty corner lay some wadded panty hose. Carver ran his hand over the closet shelf, hoping something there had been overlooked, but found nothing but a dog leash. It was leather and looked almost new. He tossed it back up on the shelf and was about to leave the house when he remembered another door off the hall. A third bedroom. In the fading golden light he limped to the door and opened it.

The room was small and contained no furniture other than a straight-backed antique wooden chair of the sort designed by puritans to entertain nonbelievers. The window faced west, so this room was brighter than the main bedroom. Carver checked its closet and found it empty. Even its shelf had been removed. He was about to close the door when he noticed two thick steel eye hooks mounted on the back closet wall. A few inches beneath them the paint had been scraped from the plaster. Near the floor were similar scraped areas, and two more eye hooks.

Carver shut the closet door and looked around the room carefully. There were no marks from picture frames or decorative hangings on the pale beige walls, but a few feet from the ceiling were areas of scratched paint, and several round holes about a quarter inch in diameter, approximately the diameter of the eye hooks in the closet. Carver noticed plaster dust on the brown carpet beneath the holes. Something had recently been unscrewed from the walls. He found similar round holes, and more white dusting of plaster, down low along the baseboard. In this room there were numerous stains on the carpet that weren’t in evidence anywhere else in the house, a few stains on the walls. Considering it contained no furniture, the room showed a lot of wear.

Carver limped back to the master bedroom and looked around for similar holes and plaster dust, but found none. Then he examined the brass headboard of the king-sized bed.

He remembered a Key Montaigne phone directory on top of the oak file cabinets in the office. He got it and looked up Katia Marsh. Her number was listed for an address on Kale Avenue in Fishback. He tore the page from the directory and stuffed it into a pocket, then he got out of the dim and stifling house, leaving by the front door and letting its lock click loudly and decisively behind him. Millicent Bing must have heard that same sound, her past locking shut as she walked away from it. No going back; a new life lay ahead, ready or not.

He drove down Shoreline and turned the Olds into the research center driveway. Dusk was dying, and a gigantic tropical moon had taken over the sky. There were no lights showing in the low, angular building, and the Fair Wind rode darkly at her moorings.

Carver sat for a moment with both hands on the steering wheel, staring out at the ocean fading from green to black, breathing in the scent of the sea brought to him by the warm breeze wafting in through the car’s open windows. Around him nocturnal insects had begun their constant and cacophonous scream that might last till dawn. Down near the shore tall palm trees were swaying their fronds like lean, elegant women tossing their hair to dry it in the wind. He didn’t like the suspicion that was taking root in his mind. It only served to make matters more complicated and mystifying. Or maybe simply less related.

He drove from the parking lot and aimed the moonlit hood of the Olds toward Fishback.

Kale avenue was a narrow street that ran off of Main two blocks down from the Key Lime Pie. Katia’s address turned out to be a huge gray Victorian home that had been converted to apartments. The darkly shadowed face of the three-story house was almost invisible behind banana and oleander trees.

Carver limped up onto the wide front porch. Two old women were perched on a long bench that was probably an ancient church pew, but neither of them looked at Carver. On the porch ceiling a paddle fan with a schoolhouse light slung below it slowly rotated, creating a slight breeze and enough illumination for Carver to study the bank of brass mailboxes and find Katia’s apartment number. Dozens of moths circled the light beneath the fan, their frantic arcing and darting causing faint shadows to flit over the porch. He opened a screen door and climbed a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor, found a door marked 2-C, and turned a brass crank that made a rasping noise inside the apartment. He stood waiting. Someone was cooking Italian somewhere in the house. The garlicky aroma prodded Carver’s appetite.

Floorboards creaked, and light in the door’s fish-eye peephole rolled like a wild pupil, then was steady. He knew Katia was studying his distorted image in the hall.

Then the door opened and she smiled out at him. She was wearing a faded pink robe and was barefoot. He saw that her toenails were painted bright red. Her features seemed puffy and her hair was mussed, as if she’d been sleeping, but her blue eyes were alert. “Mr. Carver!” she said in a surprised voice, as if he were an unexpected gift.

“Evening, Katia.” He returned her smile. “I know it’s past business hours, but I drove by the research center and you weren’t there, and I need to talk to you again about Dr. Sam’s death.”

She appeared doubtful for a moment, then she said, “Well, I don’t see why not.” She opened the door wider and stepped back to let him in.

Her apartment had high ceilings but was small. The living room was crowded with Victorian furniture suited to the house. Some of it was threadbare, but other pieces had been refinished or reupholstered. Oval mahogany frames hung on the walls from gold-braided cord hooked over crown molding. Each of them held antique photographs of the sort that made their subjects appear either hopelessly stern or zanily cross-eyed. Either way, people you’d just as soon not meet. On a coffee table with Queen Anne legs that were no compliment to Queen Anne, half a dozen glossy Smithsonian magazines were scattered about, but not for show; they were dog-eared and well read. In a tall window, a round-cornered air conditioner that might date back to Victorian times was spitting out cold air along with flecks of ice that caught the light from an ornately shaded marble and brass floor lamp. The room smelled musty but was cool, almost cold.

Katia motioned with her arm, inviting Carver to sit on a plush maroon sofa with a lot of carved wood on it. He sat down, finding it comfortable, and leaned his cane against the wood and velveteen arm. From where he sat he could see into a tiny kitchen with yellowed stove and refrigerator. The refrigerator had round corners like the air conditioner.

Katia lowered herself into a dainty chair across from him. Her robe rode up on her bare legs, better than Queen Anne’s. She asked Carver if he cared for anything to drink, but he declined. That took care of the amenities.