John Lutz - Burn

He made his way up a narrow flight of wooden stairs and found apartment 2-D halfway down a carpeted hall that smelled of mildew and had low-wattage bulbs in brass sconces every ten feet or so along the walls. At the far end of the hall was a small, square window that grudgingly let in light that fell in a rectangle on the carpet and ventured no farther. The doors lining the hall had been painted dark red years ago. The apartment numbers tacked to them were the plastic, reflective kind made for outside addresses.

Carver rapped lightly on the door with his cane, and a moment later locks clicked and bolts slid from their casings. A woman’s voice called something he couldn’t make out, then more locks were released. W. Krull seemed to share Marla Cloy’s cautious nature.

The door opened about four inches and she peered out at him over a taut brass chain.

“I’m investigating the Marla Cloy harassment,” he said.

She continued staring at him with her one visible bleary blue eye, like a mouse peeking fearfully from its hole. Carver the cat thought there was nothing friendly or approachable about the eye.

“Your name came up. I’d like to talk with you.” He gave her his most reassuring smile and flipped open his wallet as if flashing police identification, holding the wallet well to the side so she’d have to strain to see around the vertical plane of the partly opened door.

“That isn’t police ID,” she said.

He couldn’t lie about that one. Impersonating the police could be trouble. “No, it isn’t. The court granted Ms. Cloy her request for a restraining order. There’s only so much official manpower. Better than our taxes going up, I suppose.”

“So you’re employed by the court?”

He smiled again, tolerantly this time, as if used to the question. “We independent investigators have all sorts of clients,” he said, walking the fine line. “I’ll be glad to come back later, if this is a bad time.” So nonthreatening and reasonable.

She stared at him for another half minute.

“Now and then time can turn out to be important,” he told her. “That’s why I came by this evening instead of waiting till tomorrow.”

“Just a second,” she said at last.

The door closed, the chain rattled, and she opened the door to let him enter. She glanced at his cane, surprised and reassured. If she had to, she could outrun him, maybe even immobilize him first.

She was wearing a white blouse with a pale rose design, and navy blue slacks that hung loose on her gaunt, shapeless body. Her thin brown hair was just curly enough to be unmanageable and stuck out in wispy revolt behind her small, protruding ears. “What was your name again?” she asked.

“Carver. Fred Carver.” He knew she’d probably read it when he’d flipped open his wallet. She would be testing him now. He wished he’d brought his insurance agent’s notepad, now that he wasn’t a cop. “I’ll only take up a little of your time with a few questions.”

They continued standing just inside the door. She didn’t invite him to sit down. He limped a few feet farther into the room and leaned on his cane. The apartment was cluttered and dusty, with a threadbare oriental rug and meanly upholstered, spindly brown chairs and a sofa. Everything seemed to have been where it was for a long, long time, and there were few bright colors. It was a drab apartment for a drab woman. The place contained the same faint mothball scent he’d first noticed on W. Krull. On one wall was a dime-store print of Moses on the mount, clasping the stone engraved with the Commandments to his breast while sunlight and lightning played simultaneously among the clouds. Above the console television on the adjoining wall was a large crucifix, a pale Christ nailed to a dark plastic cross and gazing down at the TV with pain and pity. Next to the crucifix, also mounted on the wall, was a small glass display box containing a semiautomatic handgun. Florida in a nutshell, Carver thought.

“That’s a Russian Tokarev 7.62-millimeter,” W. Krull said, noticing him staring at the gun. “It was the official Russian sidearm during World War Two.”

“Are you a collector?”

“Only in a small way.”

“Then you like guns.”

“I’ve learned to like them. It’s become necessary.”

He moved to the sofa and sat down without being asked, leaning his cane against the thinly padded arm. The sofa was even more uncomfortable than it looked, and he could feel its frame straining to support his weight.

“Exactly what is your relationship with Marla Cloy?” he asked.

“We’re business associates and friends.”

Carver’s gaze fell on the neat stack of magazines on the table. Shooter’s World lay on top. Its glossy cover showed an attractive woman dressed for a casual suburban barbecue blasting away with a shotgun at a clay pigeon. The subscription mailing label, conveniently upside down on the magazine’s cover, was made out to Willa Krull.

“Do you shoot?” she asked.

Carver smiled. “No, the sort of work I do isn’t as exciting as it seems in novels or the movies.”

“I mean, for sport.”

“Now and then at the police pistol range, to keep my eye.” He tapped Shooter’s World with his cane. “You seem to be quite a gun enthusiast.”

“I bought my first gun and learned to shoot three years ago. You see, I’m a rape survivor, Mr. Carver. It won’t happen to me again if I can help it.”

“I don’t blame you for taking precautions,” Carver said. “And you went about things the right way, not just buying a gun, but learning how to use it.”

“I’ve become proficient,” she said. It sounded like a threat.

“How long have you known Marla Cloy?”

“About three months. After she moved here from Orlando, she answered my ad in the Gazette-Dispatch. I’m a proofreader and word-processor operator, and she writes on a typewriter or in longhand. Some of the periodicals she sells to have a policy of requesting the articles on disk. And she needed someone to proofread and prepare manuscripts for her larger assignments, to help her meet deadlines.”

“Do you work out of your home?”

“Yes. I’ve turned the spare bedroom into my office.”

“So your business relationship with Marla blossomed into friendship.”

Willa seemed to become resigned to the fact that she was stuck with Carver for a while. She moved to a chair and sat down. “We got along well. Then, when that creep started to stalk Marla, we had a special empathy. As I said, I’m a recovering rape victim. I know the kind of terror she feels.”

“Has she expressed her fear of this man to you?”

“Several times. I’ve tried to get her to buy a gun for self-defense and take up target shooting, but she doesn’t want to. She will eventually, though. She’s that afraid.”

“Do you think her fear is genuine? I mean, we have to make sure in a case like this.”

Willa’s upper lip drew back over small, yellowed teeth, making her appear even more like a rodent. “Of course it’s genuine! I’ve felt the kind of fear she’s feeling now, and I can recognize it when I see it in someone else. My God, why wouldn’t she be afraid? She’s being stalked by a dangerous maniac.”

“We’re trying to do something about that,” Carver said.

“But you can’t do anything,” Willa said. “I know how the system works-or doesn’t work. The man hasn’t broken any laws until he’s killed her. Then it’s too late.”

“There’s a law against stalking people.”

She distorted her mouth in disdain. “It’s a crime that’s difficult to prove until the victim is dead.”

“You have a point. I won’t pretend it isn’t a problem.” Carver rested a hand on the crook of his cane. “Just for the record, do you regard Marla Cloy as stable and not the sort of person who might imagine things?”