John Lutz - Lightning

“Fourteen years is a long time ago,” Carver said.

“Maybe, but it provides some insight into Adelle. She can be a possessive woman. I think it’s possible she killed her husband to be with Freel, and Freel might know nothing about it. Now she’s emotionally distraught and financially strapped again, but she isn’t opting for an abortion because it’s Freel’s child she’s carrying and not her dead husband’s.”

“Which would give her considerable leverage over Freel.”

“It would if she needed it.”

“If she was from such a wealthy family, why would she have to embezzle money when she was in college?”

“She was on a meager allowance, and her parents were strict disciplinarians determined not to let their daughter be spoiled by wealth. Adelle didn’t adhere to their philosophy. She’d had trouble before with money.”

“I doubt if she’s poor now. Grimm was doing okay financially, and he probably had life insurance.”

“He did, for two hundred thousand dollars. But that isn’t much to a woman who has roots in obscene wealth and might want to recapture it. Reverend Freel has major-league wealth, and she might be pregnant with his child.”

They reached the rocky area of beach and turned around to walk back the way they’d come. “That’s a lot of conjecture,” Carver said. “You might be making it all too complicated. Seems more likely to me that Freel wanted Adelle and used his band of pro-life fanatics and Norton to kill Grimm and cover his true motive.”

“What about his alibi?”

“Desoto isn’t as sure as Wicker that it’s solid.”

“Adelle had access to the clinic. She could have planted the bomb there anytime, possibly days before it went off.”

“How could she know she’s carrying Freel’s baby and not Grimm’s?”

“The point is, how could Freel know?”

Carver realized Beth had given this hypothesis considerable thought. It was amazing what a labyrinth had to be negotiated to reach the truth. It was so difficult to be sure of anything.

Al trotted up to them and shook his entire body violently, spraying water over Carver and Beth. Carver was irritated, but Beth leaned down and hugged the still-soaked dog, then kissed the top of his nose. What could Carver say. She’d lost a child and gained a pet. It was the sort of trade that wasn’t really a trade, that made him want to cry.

When she straightened up, Carver hugged her to him, then kissed her on the lips. She smiled at him, sad in the faint light, and leaned back away from him, staring at him with her dark eyes.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m getting okay, Fred. Isn’t that what life’s all about, getting over things, all the way if you’re lucky, before something else happens?

“Seems that way,” he said.

She stared out at the lightning-illuminated clouds on the horizon. “We’ve all got to learn to do that. Otherwise the past will pull us under.”

He kissed her again. “Not you,” he said.

“No, not me.”

When they returned to the cottage, the phone was chirping. Beth answered it, looked puzzled and concerned, then said simply, “Yes,” and held the receiver out for Carver.

He pressed it to his ear and said hello.

“This is Archie Anderson,” a man’s voice said.

It took Carver a few seconds to realize who was speaking.

“FBI Agent Archie Anderson,” the voice said before Carver could reply. “The agent who had your cottage under surveillance,” Anderson sounded more than tense, almost enraged, as if barely holding himself in check. “You might want to drive out here, Mr. Carver. Oliphant Road, about five miles out of town, a big orange grove with a white rail fence running alongside it.”

“I know where it is,” Carver said. “What’s wrong?”

“Wicker’s here,” Anderson said. “McGregor’s here, too. You’d better come.” Emotion had a grip on Anderson’s throat, choking off his words. Not at all like someone connected with the bureau; lawyers and accountants with guns.

Carver said he’d be there in less than twenty minutes and hung up.

When he told Beth about the conversation, she insisted on going with him.

“All right,” he said reluctantly, already moving toward the door. “But leave the dog. I don’t know what this is.”

They took Carver’s car and were on Oliphant Road in less than fifteen minutes. Beth had been quiet during the drive, and Carver had said nothing to interrupt her thoughts. The Olds’s windows were down and the air rushing into the interior made the taut cloth top slap against its steel struts while the pressure of the wind whistled and drummed.

The flat, paved road narrowed and ran between acres of orange and grapefruit trees. The trees were all of uniform size and aligned in neat rows that seemed to run together just before they disappeared in the night, like an art class study in diminishing perspective. They must have been recently irrigated. The wind caroming about the inside of the car carried a fresh, fertile smell of damp leaves and rich earth.

A white wooden fence appeared on the right, running alongside the road. It was made of thick posts about ten feet apart, to which were nailed two rows of parallel horizontal boards, one about a foot above the ground, the other a foot lower than the tops of the posts. Except for the occasional orange and yellow dots of citrus fruit among the clumped, shadowy branches of the trees, the white fence was the only bright object on a bleak landscape.

Then Carver saw flashing red-and-blue lights ahead and tapped his foot on the brake pedal, leaning forward to peer through the windshield.

Several cars were parked on the gravel shoulder, along with what appeared to be an ambulance. Carver braked harder as he saw a Del Moray police cruiser parked sideways in the middle of the road. A uniform was standing by its front fender, prepared to stop and divert any traffic on the little-traveled alternate route between two state highways.

The uniform walked toward the Olds as soon as it stopped,

A young blond patrolman without a cap leaned down to peer into the driver’s side window. His gaze flicked to Beth, back to Carver. “You’ll have to turn around, sir, or proceed slowly and carefully on the left shoulder.”

“Anderson sent for me,” Carver said. “Name’s Fred Carver.”

The uniform didn’t move for a long moment, as if weighing what Carver had said. Finally he nodded, then walked toward a knot of people visible beyond the cars parked on the right shoulder. The ambulance’s rear doors were open and a white-uniformed paramedic and a man in civilian clothes were dragging a collapsible wheeled gurney out. Alternating blue and red light glinted off its steel frame, then its spoked wheels as they dropped down and locked into place. The uniform who’d stopped Carver walked back out into the road and waved his arm, signaling him to drive forward and park on the right shoulder.

“You’d better stay here,” Carver told Beth when he’d braked the Olds to a halt and turned off the engine.

“Think again, Fred,” She already had the door open and was climbing out of the car.

But she did lag behind as Carver limped along the shoulder toward the shadowy forms huddled around a section of the white fence, the tip of his cane occasionally flicking pieces of gravel. When they were about a hundred feet away, the tallest figure detached itself from the knot of people and came toward them.

McGregor.

“What the fuck are you two doing here?” he demanded.

“I called Carver,” Anderson said. He’d been a yard or two behind McGregor, blocked from Carver’s vision by the tall, loose-jointed man with his flapping suit coat.