John Lutz - Lightning

Beth couldn’t remain silent. “Anybody who’d think that has buffalo chips for brains!”

McGregor didn’t bother to turn and look at her, only grinned and probed between his front teeth with the pink tip of his tongue, gratified by her anger, not knowing how close he’d come with the hot coffee.

“If you’re finished with your prairie philosophy,” Carver said, “we were about to have breakfast.”

“Oh? You’re inviting me to join you?”

“Inviting you to leave.”

McGregor got off his stool and stretched his long body. “Okay, I already had breakfast. Couple of guys like you.” He ambled toward the door with his lanky, disjointed stride. Then he turned. “Another interesting thing is Adelle Grimm, the late doctor’s grieving widow. Turns out she’s pregnant.”

Carver didn’t know what to make of that.

Beth said, “What’s she going to do?”

“Do?” McGregor looked puzzled. “Oh, you mean is she going to go ahead and have the kid? She’s-how’d she put it?-agonizing over it. Those were her exact words. Now that the doc’s dead, maybe she doesn’t want this kid or can’t afford it, or figures it’ll cramp her style in looking for another source of cash with a dick. So she’s agonizing like crazy, poor thing.” He laughed. “It’s ironic, ain’t it? Hubby short-circuits rugrats by the dozen every day, then gets killed by some dumb fuck with nothing better to think about or do with his time. Then it turns out the late doc’s own widow’s got one in the oven.” He waved a long arm. “Life’s just fucking grand!”

After McGregor had gone, Carver went to the door and opened it.

He let it stand open for a while. Clearing the air.

It was late afternoon when Desoto called Carver’s office. Seated at his desk, Carver had finished billing for the second time a client whose son had joined a paramilitary unit training in the Everglades. Carver had managed to talk the boy into coming home by persuading him that communism was dead or dying and his own government wasn’t plotting against him, thus taking away the reason and dignity of training in blackface for combat among the mangroves and making it a child’s game. So persuasive had Carver been that within days after returning home, the boy had joined the U.S. Marines. Now the boy’s parents, Carver’s clients, were refusing to pay him, on the grounds that Carver hadn’t recovered their son for them but had merely effected a transfer from one military unit to another. Even the uniforms were similar. Carver had included a threatening letter with their latest itemized bill, but he, and probably they, knew his threats were futile, what with the expense of actually following up with legal action. Official red tape! Sometimes Carver thought it was a government plot against him.

“You’ve come up with a real pip of a bad guy, amigo,” Desoto said as Carver sat back in his desk chair, pressing the cool plastic receiver to his ear. He gazed out the window at the traffic on Magellan baking and glinting in the tropical glare as it waited in the shimmering heat of exhaust fumes for the traffic light at the corner to change. “This photo you sent me was all I needed to get a quick trace. Your thug is one Ezekiel Masterson. He’s a former leg breaker for the union.”

Carver could hear Spanish guitar music faintly in the background, from the Sony portable stereo in Desoto’s office. “Which union?”

“Whichever needed him at the time. Ezekiel seems to be more of a tough guy for hire than a dedicated union man-unless there’s a skull smashers union. Thirty-five years old, blond and blue, 230 pounds, he’s from Miami originally, got a sheet there featuring three assaults and one attempted murder. Only one conviction, but it was for the attempted murder. Did six years and found religion somewhere in his cell or the weight-lifting room before he was paroled two years ago. That’s when he hooked up with Reverend Martin Freel and Operation Alive.”

“Hmm, you think he’s really found religion?”

“No, I think he’s found a new employer.”

“Norton’s a religious man, even though he killed. Or allegedly killed and is at least willing to do so, judging by what his wife says. She thinks it’s admirable to let blood for the Lord, too. Ezekiel Masterson might be the same kind of fanatic. He did spout scripture while he was killing Lapella.”

“No, what you just described is not my idea of religion.”

“If Ezekiel’s connected with Operation Alive, maybe Freel would go so far as to kill, and Norton was acting on the reverend’s orders. And Ezekiel was acting on Freel’s orders when he beat up and killed Lapella at the hospital in front of Beth.”

“I think it’s likely,” Desoto said. “But it’ll be impossible to get anything on Freel. He was here in Orlando when the deaths occurred in Del Moray.”

“Do you think they’re set-up alibis?”

“I don’t know. We’re going to look into them more closely and see if Freel can provide a lead so we can find Masterson. There’s a murder warrant out for Masterson now, for Lapella’s death. I’ve notified the FBI and the Del Moray police. He’s a cop killer, and we want him in the worst way.”

“He won’t be easy to find. Lapella’s death was in the news, and he knows he’s good for a murder charge. He’s got to be running hard.”

“Whichever direction he’s running, it’s toward a cop.”

Carver knew what Desoto meant. The fraternity of police made justice top priority when one of their own was murdered. And efforts weren’t restricted only to the police force to which the victim belonged. When a cop was killed, all police departments became one.

“Something else about Masterson,” Desoto said. “About a year ago, he wrote a letter to the Del Moray Gazette-Dispatch editorial page criticizing Dr. Harold Grimm. It contained nothing technically libelous or otherwise illegal, which is why he signed his name so the paper’d print his letter. It was part of a letter-writing campaign to discredit Grimm and the Women’s Light Clinic. When I talked to Wicker this morning, he said a similar letter was in Grimm’s mail postmarked last month, this one unsigned.”

Carver looked away from the bright light outside and thought about that one. “Maybe Norton didn’t plant the bomb. Maybe Masterson’s good for that one, too.”

“We’ll certainly ask him about it,” Desoto said, “and in the harshest possible way.”

“If you find him.”

“ When we find him. And until then, you’d be smart to stay out of that particular hunt, try not to meet this guy again. Masterson might have found his version of religion, but the word is that he’s psychotic and an extremely volatile combination of steroids and Christian zeal. Probably sees himself as King David slaying the heretics.”

Carver was impressed by Desoto’s biblical knowledge. He knew Desoto was Catholic but couldn’t remember him ever going to church. On the other hand, Carver, an occasional Protestant, wouldn’t have seen him there.

“You need to exercise great care, my friend.”

“I will,” Carver said, “but with Lapella dying, Masterson’s probably fled the state.”

Desoto laughed softly, a sound as tragic as the music seeping softly from the Sony behind his desk.

“He won’t run that far, amigo. Remember, he knows he’s right.”

After hanging up on Desoto, Carver finished his paperwork, then drove by the post office and dropped the mail in an outside box for early pickup. He could feel heat emanating from the metal mailbox and wondered if glue would melt and the flaps on his envelopes would come unsealed. Nothing to be done about it now.