John Lutz - Scorcher

Small-talk time. As if Edwina had gone inside merely to cool off.

“Want some juice or coffee?” Carver asked, letting Desoto work up to the purpose of his visit in his own fashion.

“Neither.” Desoto turned and looked out at the sea and sky beyond the rise on which the house was built. The land was graded, so there was a drop to the ocean. From the veranda you could hear the waves breaking on the rocks the Army Corps of Engineers had piled there to keep the beach from eroding. “You’re in the midst of true beauty here, Carver. Tranquility. I hope you appreciate your situation. It could make you stronger.”

Carver started to get up.

“Stay down, amigo ,” Desoto said gently.

Carver had heard that sad tone in Desoto’s voice before. He settled back in his sun-heated metal chair and waited. Desoto sat down across from him, where Edwina had been sitting.

“This world,” Desoto said, shaking his head, “I don’t know what it all means. Two weeks ago, down in Pompano Beach, a souvenir-store owner was found burned to death in his shop. There were two tourists at the back of the place, out of sight. They heard a man argue with the shopkeeper about some item the man wanted to return. Then they heard a kind of whoosh and a scream. One of them looked toward the front of the shop and caught a glimpse of someone using what looked like a scuba diver’s air tank for a flamethrower. A gelatinlike material, on fire, was all over the shopkeeper. He leaped over the counter, ran three steps, and died. He was still burning when the police arrived. The man with the scuba tank got away without anyone getting a close enough look at him to give a description. A hell of a thing, amigo .”

“I read about the case,” Carver said edgily. He was growing impatient to get to what he feared. “We subscribe to the papers and watch the news here in Del Moray, just like you folks in Orlando.”

“Of course,” Desoto said softly, instead of responding to Carver’s sarcasm. That scared Carver. Desoto was making conversation about interesting cases instead of telling him something was wrong. That someone was hurt-or worse. Or that Carver’s beach cottage had burned down, or the department was cutting off Carver’s disability pension for the bad leg.

“I’m tired of twisting on the hook,” Carver said.

Desoto expelled a lot of air and smiled sadly. “I don’t mean to leave you twisting. I insisted on being the one to come here and tell you, so you’re right: I should tell. Last evening in Fort Lauderdale a woman let her son run back into a small restaurant to retrieve her purse, which she’d left behind. When he didn’t come out, she went in to find him. The restaurant’s only employee on duty was behind the cash register, burned to death and still smoldering. On the floor was the woman’s son, in the same condition.”

Desoto paused and Carver watched the gulls circling way out at sea. A couple of sailboats lay beyond them, tiny white objects pinned against the brightening water. Far beyond the sailboats, ghostly in the mist of distance, a giant oil tanker, seemingly motionless, was making its ponderous way down the coast. The breeze gained strength, carrying the fresh yet rotted scent of the ocean to Carver and making him realize by its coolness on his face that he was perspiring heavily.

“Get to it,” he said.

Desoto swallowed, and for the first time since Carver had known him, his voice broke. “The woman is your former wife, amigo. The boy was your son.”

The gulls continued to circle. The sailboats and oil tanker remained unmoving. The tireless sea slapped at the rocks below the veranda. The sun hammered down. All the way it had been a moment ago, yet not the same. Nothing could ever again be the same.

From far away, Carver heard Desoto say, “I’m sorry.”

“I told you, you didn’t have to,” Desoto said to Carver. “Sometimes it’s like you hate yourself.”

They were at Wolfie’s on East Sunrise in Fort Lauderdale, where Desoto liked to eat whenever he was in the vicinity. It was a hall-like place with lazy ceiling fans, a hundred tables, and an excellent reputation it deserved. There were about a dozen other diners, seated along the walls. Desoto was helping himself to sweet rolls from the wicker basket on the table. Carver wasn’t eating.

“I guess I did have to,” Carver said, trying not to think about the blackened thing he’d seen curled on the table at the morgue. But Desoto was right; it had been stupid of Carver to insist on viewing the body and putting himself through the horror. Masochistic. There was little enough left of Chipper to identify other than by dental work. Carver knew how that was done postmortem; he tried not to think about that, either.

“I feel helpless,” Desoto said. “I don’t like seeing this dumped on you, amigo, and there’s nothing I can do to change what happened.”

“And no way I can change it,” Carver said. He ran his hand down his face. His eyes felt dry, his cheeks stiff, as if he’d been crying and had passed beyond tears. Or had screamed himself beyond emotion. He caught sight of his reflection in a wall mirror: average-sized guy, in his forties, gleaming bald on top but with a thick mass of curly gray hair over his ears and in back. Sun-bleached eyebrows; blue eyes like a cat’s against a tan, almost swarthy complexion. Nose long and straight, lips full and stubborn. Features not handsome, but strong, maybe cruel, because of the boyhood scar that gave a slight twist to the right corner of his mouth. No hint in the reflection of what had happened to the inner man. No sign that a universe had shifted.

“Laura seems to be coping okay,” Desoto said, spreading butter on a roll. Some of it melted and dripped golden onto his plate.

“She’s in shock.”

“She’s also going to be joined in a few hours by Sam Devine.” Devine was the lawyer Laura was living with in Saint Louis. “Maybe you should see her first.” Desoto, wise in the ways of women, even women numbed by grief.

“I want to see her,” Carver said. He’d spoken to Laura only briefly after Chipper’s death, outside Fort Lauderdale police headquarters, and he’d been stunned by how much smaller and older his one-time vital, dark-haired bride had become. She was still beautiful, but in a different way, as a middle-aged woman. Maturity and grace had supplanted the healthy, almost feverish quality that had first attracted Carver. He wondered if grief over Chipper had diminished and aged her overnight, or if it had been the usual gradual process become suddenly visible.

“How do you feel about Laura?” Desoto asked.

“Right now, I feel sorry for her.”

“I’d talk with her, comfort her, amigo , then I’d leave her with this Sam Devine.”

“She’ll return to Saint Louis with him anyway,” Carver said, “when she has Chipper shipped back there for burial.”

“Muumph,” Desoto said, around a mouthful of sweet roll. A towering teenage waitress wandered by, noticed the basket on the table needed replenishing, and returned within a few seconds with more rolls. Their aroma was deliriously pungent, but right now it made Carver slightly nauseated. The lanky waitress, who had a name tag lettered Tanya pinned to her uniform blouse, poured more coffee for Desoto and then loped away. Tall Tanya.

“What do you have on this guy who burns people?” Carver asked.

“I was worried you might ask.”

“Why?”

“You seem as calm as Laura, only in a different way.”

“Maybe I’m in shock, too.”

“No. Something else. Something that makes me afraid for you.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me?”