John Lutz: Burn

“The tropics,” Brant said, lowering himself into the small, padded chair in front of the desk. “Thank God for air-conditioning, or nobody would live here and I’d be out of business.” He crossed his legs and laced his hands together in his lap, actually twiddling his thumbs nervously. He was wearing prefaded Levi’s today, and a blue-checked short-sleeved shirt with a pen and some kind of slide rule sticking out of the breast pocket. Dressed for business at a construction site, Carver supposed, though he didn’t think people used slide rules anymore, in the age of minicalculators that could compute what you needed to know in seconds and remind you when it was time for lunch. Brant had slept in one position too long and his hair stuck out in a clump on the right side of his head. It made him look boyish. And not at all the sort of lad who’d stalk and murder a woman.

Brant drew a pack of Camels from the same pocket the pen and slide rule were in and glanced at Carver questioningly. Carver nodded, and Brant got out his silver lighter and touched flame to the tip of a cigarette. Then, eyes narrowed to see through the resultant smoke, he looked at Carver inquisitively again.

“I followed her last night,” Carver said.

And he told Brant about Marla Cloy’s evening.

Brant snuffed out the butt of his cigarette in the sea-shell ashtray Carver had pulled from a desk drawer, then lit another immediately. The light streaming through the window invested the smoke he exhaled with a faint but colorful rainbow before the cool breeze from the vent caught it and dissipated it, not quite chasing away the heat and moisture that had permeated the office during the night and early morning. The tropics.

“She got her restraining order,” Brant said.

“Was it in effect last night?”

“No. This morning. I’m not supposed to go anywhere near her or contact her in any manner.”

“Should prove no inconvenience,” Carver said. “I’d give you the same advice.”

“But you must see how this is part of her strategy. The next time she accuses me of threatening her, I’m in deeper trouble. It’s a more serious offense.”

“I don’t think the law will take action unless she has corroboration,” Carver said.

“Hah! Don’t kid yourself. When a woman cries wolf, there’s an immediate hunting party.”

“I was just hearing the opposite argument.”

Brant let out more breath than was necessary to exhale smoke. He glanced around the office as if suspecting the walls were about to close in and crush him. “What am I gonna do, Mr. Carver?”

“It’s Fred. And don’t feel defeated. I’m going to find out more about Marla Cloy and discover why she’s doing this to you.”

Brant bowed his head and studied his cigarette, then looked up at Carver. “You do believe me, don’t you, Fred?”

“I believe you.” But Carver wasn’t certain, the truth being the amorphous and slippery beast Beth had described. As soon as he discovered Marla Cloy’s motive, he’d know for sure that Brant was leveling with him.

Brant reached around for the wallet he carried in his hip pocket and got out a business card. He scribbled something on it with his ballpoint pen, then he stood up and laid the card on the corner of Carver’s desk. “My cellular phone number is on there. I’m going to be out of the office and in the field most of the day, where we’re grading for the extension of Brant Estates. Please call if you have anything at all to tell me.”

“I will,” Carver assured him. “And it would be a good idea for you to stay around people as much as possible, so they can verify your whereabouts in case Marla says you were someplace you weren’t.”

“That isn’t easy to do, with my work,” Brant said. “I spend a lot of time alone, either at the office or driving between construction sites. Anyway, the woman is devious. When she’s ready to accuse me again, I’m sure she’ll make certain it’s for a time when I won’t have an alibi.”

“That won’t be easy for her. And she’ll probably wait a few days before making another accusation, knowing you’re on your guard.”

Brant snuffed out his second cigarette, began to light a third one, then changed his mind and replaced it in the pack. There was a rustling sound as he stuffed the crinkled, cellophane-wrapped pack back in his shirt pocket behind the slide rule or whatever it was. “Stay on this, Mr. Carver-Fred. Find out why she’s doing this to me!”

Carver told him to try not to worry, he’d ferret out Marla’s motive. He thought that right now he’d settle for discovering “if” rather than “why.”

He knew “why” was a tough one.

Nobody knew much about motive, even if they thought they did.

Carver parked the Olds in front of number 21 Cenit Street, picked up the brown vinyl folder containing a yellow legal pad from the seat beside him, then levered himself out of the car with his cane.

He’d bought the folder and legal pad ten minutes ago at a drugstore on Shell to use as a prop. As he stood alongside the car in the sun, he bent the folder back and forth a few times so it appeared well used, then tore out a sheet of lined yellow paper and folded it so it stuck out of the top of the folder, as if it had been hurriedly poked inside. Carver would be a busy insurance agent on his workaday rounds.

Cenit Street ran parallel to Jacaranda Lane, a block east. The backyards of houses on each street were separated by what looked like a long, curving ditch overgrown with weeds but was actually an electric and phone company easement. The backs of the houses on Cenit and Jacaranda faced one another.

As Carver crossed the street to number 21, the morning sun felt heavy and warm on his shoulders. The houses on Cenit looked much like those in the next block on Jacaranda, small, in various stages of recent repair or decades of decay, most of them with the faded red-tile roofs that the builder, years ago, must have gotten at a discount and used as a selling point. A few of the houses made a pass at Spanish architecture, an arched window here, an exposed beam and some curlicued ironwork there. Not at all convincing.

Number 21 had a small porch like Marla Cloy’s house. Around its foundation were rhododendron bushes and a lush and colorful flower bed. Peonies, hollyhocks, and violets were all seemingly planted in no particular order. When Carver got closer he could see bees circling above the blossoms. There were a lot of bees, but they ignored him and concentrated on their task, flying tight patterns then dipping to hover briefly at blossoms before rising and circling again. They had a job to do and so did Carver. It was a world of task and toil, all right.

He was pleased to see a name lettered on the black mailbox affixed to the cream-colored stucco next to the front door: Mildred Fain. The back of number 21 looked directly out on the back of 22 Jacaranda Lane. Mildred Fain might have logged a lot of collective hours glancing out her windows at the house behind her. If Carver got lucky and she was the nosy type, she might have seen quite a bit. She might know something that could give him insight into Marla Cloy and her motives. That was the idea, anyway.

He pushed the button near the mailbox and waited, in the shade but still warm. Out in the bright sunlight, the bees still circled and swooped. He could hear them in the quiet morning, a soft but discontented buzzing whenever the background rush of nearby traffic faded.

There was a creaking noise behind the door, then it opened and a small woman in a pin-striped blue and gray housecoat and fuzzy blue slippers peered out at Carver. She was in her late sixties and had wispy gray hair and sharp, wizened features. The sunken line of her thin lips and the jut of her jaw suggested she wore dentures but didn’t have them in. She seemed wide awake, though; Carver didn’t think he’d rousted her from bed.