John Lutz - Burn

“Don’t wait by the phone, though,” Schultz said when the noise of the truck had subsided. The sound of the laborers hammering away the wooden forms seemed strangely soft and distant after the din of the truck. “Mr. Brant talked like we wouldn’t be in contact again for quite a while.”

Carver nodded his thanks to Schultz, then left him to supervise the creation of driveways.

A few minutes after he’d turned onto the highway, on his way to talk with Willa Krull, a Del Moray police car passed him traveling fast in the opposite direction. It was likely that Wade Schultz was going to be interrupted on the job again, and one of the first things he’d tell his questioners was that Carver had already talked to him.

That would make McGregor more unhappy.

And even happy, he was a man to avoid.

Willa opened her apartment door on its chain and stared out at Carver with a reddened eye that was little more than a puffy slit in her pinched features.

“Mr. Carver,” she said. “You were the one who was knocking.” As if he didn’t know and had asked.

“For the past five minutes,” Carver said. He’d heard movement in the apartment even before he’d knocked the first time. He thought Willa might need a while to work up nerve before coming to the door.

She didn’t move or say anything.

“Can I come in?” Carver asked. “I need to talk with you.”

The eye suddenly opened wider, as if her mind had drifted and she’d abruptly realized where she was and what was going on.

The door closed and its chain lock rattled, a sound that must be a daily accompaniment to Willa Krull’s life. Then it opened wide.

The scent of gin wafted out into the hall. Willa was wearing a pink rayon robe that made a pass at looking like silk, and pink, fuzzy slippers over a pink nightgown. All that pink only made her puffy eyes appear pinker. Her thin brown hair was uncombed, wildly mussed on one side as if she’d been plucking at it. As Carver made his way past her into the apartment the gin fumes became stronger and he saw a half-empty bottle standing on the floor beside the sofa.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Willa said. She sniffled. “I feel like death warmed over.”

“You look fine,” Carver lied. He moved a Target Shooter magazine out of the way and sat down where she’d know it would be impossible for him to see the gin bottle.

She sat across from him in a spindly wooden chair that looked like something built by Puritans for discomfort. With an ashamed, crooked smile, she raised her thin arms then let them fall back to her lap. “I’d offer you some coffee, but I don’t have any made.”

“Marla Cloy’s disappeared,” Carver said. “She claims Joel Brant tried to run her down with his car.”

Willa didn’t seem surprised. “I don’t know where Marla is.”

“What about Brant?”

She stared at Carver with ferretlike, hostile eyes. “Why should I have any idea where he is? I never laid eyes on the man. All I know about him is what Marla told me. And believe me, that’s enough.”

“You didn’t ask why Marla dropped out of sight.”

“I assume it’s because she’s afraid of Brant-and with good reason.” She stood up suddenly, as if her chair had grown hot. “I don’t understand this. You’re acting like Marla’s some kind of criminal. Didn’t you say Brant tried to run over her?”

“No. That’s what she says.”

“Then it’s the truth.” She remained standing, staring down at him. Her arms and hands were very still at her sides, but the tips of her fingers were vibrating.

Carver gave the closed bedroom door a lingering look. He’d seen it work in Murder, She Wrote. “Are you sure you don’t know where to find Marla?”

Her eyes didn’t follow his glance. “Positive.” She made an obvious effort to relax, breathing in deeply and smoothing her uncooperative hair with the flat of her hand. “You don’t think I’m hiding her here, do you?”

“It’s possible. She’s your friend.”

“My friend,” Willa repeated. She stared down at her fuzzy pink slippers. Then she sat back down, raised both hands to her face, and began to sob.

Carver gripped his cane and stood up. He went over to her and touched his fingertips to her quaking shoulder. She sucked in her breath and drew back away from him. Her sobbing racked her thin body. He was afraid she might drop from the chair onto the threadbare oriental rug and curl into the fetal position. Her despair was genuine and profound. Pity for her swelled in him and lumped in his throat.

He moved away from her, out in front of her, where if she opened her eyes and peeked between her fingers she could see him. But she didn’t peek, didn’t change position.

“You going to be OK?” he asked when her sobbing had subsided to the point where she might be able to answer.

“I think so,” she said, her voice muted, her face still buried in her hands. She expelled air between her hands in a long hiss. “It’s just that I’m worried about Marla. And I told you, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

He laid his card on the sofa arm. “If you hear from her, will you call me?”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s the best thing for Marla,” Carver said.

She began to cry again, her head bowed and her shoulders heaving with increasing violence, her gaunt body riding her out-of-control sobs. Carver glanced at the Russian handgun mounted in its case on the wall and wondered if he should leave her alone.

Then he decided he was being alarmist. The woman lived with the pain and sorrow of being a rape victim and she hadn’t shot herself. It was unlikely she was in any danger now. He knew he could do nothing for her except perhaps leave. And there was the crucifix, mounted on the wall next to the gun. Her religion would sustain her.

“Call me if Marla contacts you,” Carver said. “Please,” he added, and went to the door.

He thought Willa nodded assent, but he couldn’t be sure. She began sobbing louder, still completely out of control, as he stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Willa had been one possible lead in discovering Marla’s whereabouts. Marla’s parents were another.

It was 11:00 when Carver turned the Olds into Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park and drove down Crane to L Street.

The Cloys’ car was parked in the driveway beside their clean white mobile home. The black kettle-style barbecue smoker and webbed aluminum chairs on the lawn at the end of the driveway hadn’t moved. Even the beer can still rested in the coiled metal holder stuck in the hard ground next to one of the chairs. Sleepy Hollow was the kind of place where a barbecue might break out at any moment.

Sybil Cloy answered Carver’s knock and smiled out at him. “Do come in out of the heat, Mr. Carver.”

Her gray-streaked black hair was combed back off her forehead today, emphasizing her strong bone structure. She was wearing dark slacks and a red stretch shirt, black sandals something like Beth’s white ones, with the soles treaded like tires. She had a trim, surprisingly good figure for a woman approaching sixty.

Carver climbed the steel steps and moved past her into the trailer’s oak-paneled interior. It was cool inside. The scent of fresh-perked coffee was sharp and strong. From the kitchen came the relentless watery chugging of a dishwasher on wash or rinse. Now and then glass and utensils dinged together in the churning water with a high, bell-like tone.

Wallace Cloy walked in from the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee in his right hand.

“Mr. Carver again,” Sybil said, as if Wallace might have difficulty identifying Carver.

“Finish your puzzle?” Carver asked. The kitchen table, which Wallace had littered with jigsaw puzzle pieces the last time Carver was there, was visible from where he stood and was bare.