John Lutz - Burn

The building’s foyer was small, also done in blue tile, but in better repair than the pond and fountain outside. There was a faint medicinal smell to it, or maybe the lingering scent of mothballs from the mousy woman’s passage. Some of the tiles were cracked and some were replacements that were a brighter blue outlined in the pristine white of fresh grout. There was a bank of fancy brass mailboxes and buzzer buttons, old and slightly tarnished.

Carver saw that the building contained twelve apartments. The name above 2-D was W. Krull.

He thought about going upstairs and talking to W. Krull, trying to discover what was in the envelope Marla had given her, then decided against it. He doubted that she’d be cooperative or unsuspecting. Possibly it was his imagination, but there seemed to have been something vaguely furtive about the meeting in the Holiday Inn lounge and the exchange of the envelope. W. Krull might suspect he’d followed her from the hotel and be a good enough friend to tip off Marla.

Better to wait a while before approaching her.

Mildred Fain said he was a talented guy. He should be able to think up something more convincing than that insurance agent act.

Carver had met with attorneys at four o’clock to give a deposition concerning a woman who’d hired him to find her missing teenage daughter, whom he’d found living with her forty-year-old uncle in Orlando. The girl had been fourteen, but she looked and acted like a twelve-year-old. After the daughter’s return to her parents, statutory rape charges had been filed against the uncle. Carver’s deposition would be instrumental in the ongoing plea bargaining process. Despite the prosecutor’s tough talk, Carver figured the uncle’s attorneys would whittle away the sentence so that the man would receive a short jail term and be placed on probation. Carver was thinking about the uncle’s walking when he saw Beth’s white LeBaron convertible pull into the lot and park in front of the office.

She entered the office smiling, wearing a gauzy tan blouse and a flowing darker brown skirt hemmed down around her ankles. Three-piece, square onyx earrings, loose-fitting gold and black bracelets, and a necklace of large black and green stones dangled and clicked and clacked as she walked.

She sat down in front of Carver’s desk, her back rigid and not touching her chair, yet she seemed totally relaxed. Her hair was combed back to a bun and she wore a black headband. He thought she looked particularly regal today. She wore dark red lipstick and had her eyes skillfully made up so that they seemed faintly oriental. Her rigid posture caused her breasts to challenge the thin material of her blouse.

The air conditioner clicked on. Carver didn’t blame it.

“I was in town for an appointment,” she said, “so I thought I’d drop in.”

“I’m glad.”

“Give your deposition?” she asked.

He nodded. “I think the uncle’s going to walk.”

“Should he?”

“No. Where he’ll walk is straight back to that kid, if it isn’t prevented. She doesn’t look old enough to trust with the toaster.”

“Nothing you can do about it,” Beth said. “It’s up to the court. Maybe you should concentrate on what you can do something about.”

“Marla Cloy?”

“Uh-hm. What have you learned?”

He told her about this morning’s conversation with Mildred Fain. Then about Marla’s meeting W. Krull at the Holiday Inn and handing over the envelope.

“Doesn’t sound so suspicious to me,” Beth said. “Maybe they met on business.”

“I’m wondering what kind,” Carver said.

“You’d like to catch her in a narcotics exchange, wouldn’t you?”

“It would make things simpler. And it’s not so illogical. After all, there’s snow as well as sand in Florida.”

Beth stared at him. “Maybe the meeting was for a payoff-a down payment, anyway-and Marla hired the woman to kill Brant before he makes good on his threat and murders her.”

“I thought of that. This woman wouldn’t strike you as a hired killer.”

“You know better than that, Fred.”

He did.

“Are you going to talk to W. Krull?” Beth asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“What lie are you planning to tell her? That pathetic insurance agent thing?”

“No,” he said. “I’m going to tell her the truth, that I’m investigating the matter of Joel Brant threatening Marla Cloy.”

“Going to say you’re with the police?”

“Of course not,” Carver said. “I’ll let her decide that on her own.”

Beth gazed out the window for a moment, then turned to face him with a somber, oddly pained expression he was seeing for the first time. It transformed her features so that at a glance he might almost have thought he was looking at another woman. She was always doing things like that, revealing new and unexpected facets of herself. Carver had the feeling her capacity to surprise him was infinite; she was a puzzle he would never quite solve. It bothered him when he couldn’t get to the truth and meaning of things he cared about. It also kept him intrigued.

“I told you I had an appointment today,” she said. “It was with a doctor.”

There was something in her voice that scared him. He felt his heart accelerate. His mind whirled and searched for hints that she might be ill, symptoms he should have noticed. He knew he could be blind to such things.

“You’re OK, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. It depends.”

“On what?”

“I’m not sure of that, either.”

“You feel all right?”

“Yes and no.”

“Damn it, Beth!”

He was shocked to see the flesh beneath her eyes dance. A look of wonder and fear crossed her face before she bowed her head and began to sob almost silently.

This was not her. Not her at all.

Using the desk and chair for support, he went to her and lowered himself to kneel on one leg beside her chair, his bad leg extended in front of him. He balanced himself with one hand on the chair while he held her with his free arm.

“Whatever it is,” he said, “don’t panic. These things are hardly ever as serious as they seem at first. We’ll get second and third opinions, find a specialist.”

She stopped sobbing, then she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, using fresh oxygen to compose herself. She dabbed daintily at her eyes with a tissue, smearing her mascara. She sniffed, and wiped her nose.

“I’ve already got a specialist, Fred. An obstetrician.”

Carver sat across from Beth at one of the small, round, white-enameled tables clustered around Poco’s taco stand on Magellan, where he often ate lunch. They’d just left his office and he’d automatically driven her to Poco’s, not remembering until they were already seated and he’d brought the food to the table that she didn’t like to come here, as she hated the food. He was still in something of a daze from hearing her tell him she was pregnant.

A kind of instinct had taken over. He didn’t want to talk to her about the pregnancy until he’d had time to assimilate the news and figure out how he felt about it. The wrong words spoken now could haunt them later.

He watched her looking at him calmly, her eyes still swollen with her tears. The white hulls of pleasure boats moored at the dock bobbed gently and in perfect unison behind her, as if in a subtle dance, the evening sun glancing off their brightwork.

“I’m still trying to digest the news,” he said.

“It should be easier than digesting that taco,” she told him, motioning with her head toward the greasy wrapper in front of him on the table.

“I got you a burrito,” he said.