John Lutz - Scorcher

Carver nodded. “My style. My price range.”

Dewitt smiled. “Don’t be so sure. Come on in and see me and I’ll convince you otherwise. Put you on a cycle and show you what you been missing.”

Adam stood up. Fanning took the cue and stood also.

“Well, Nick and I’ve got a ton of work to do,” Adam said. He looked at Carver. “Be in touch soon, eh?”

Carver said he would.

“Bring your coffee, Nick,” Adam said, and he and Fanning disappeared into the cool dimness of the house, Adam leading the way. They were reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant Igor.

“They’re going to talk for hours about goddamn wieners,” Nadine said. “One time they had a four-hour nationwide conference call about how many sesame seeds should be on the bun of something called the Ali-Baba Dog.”

“I’ve tried that one,” Dewitt said. “It’s not bad. Probably made lots of money for your dad, too.”

A large pleasure boat veered in toward shore, moving at a fast clip just outside the breakers and tooting its air horn, as if it knew the Kaves and was saying hello. Carver watched it continue close to the beach, then angle into the waves seaward, spreading a trough of white foam and unsettled water in its wake. Fantasy was lettered on its stern. Neighbors, maybe. The boat was similar to the one moored down at Adam Kave’s private dock. Nadine gave no indication that she’d noticed it.

“Any news on Paul?” Dewitt asked her. Carver found it odd that he’d ask Nadine that in front of him.

“Not much,” she said. “He’s still missing. Mr. Carver’s trying to locate him.”

Dewitt shot Carver an appraising, cold blue look. “Any way I can help. .” he said. His words trailed to silence as he caught sight of the figure to his left.

Elana was standing in the doorway to the house. “Nadine, Mel Bingham is here to see you.” She didn’t acknowledge Dewitt’s presence-a queen enduring the company of a fool.

Nadine flushed slightly and squeezed Dewitt’s hand. “I won’t be long,” she said in a tight voice. She got up and followed her mother into the house. Dewitt twisted in his chair and watched them. Maybe he was looking at Nadine’s legs. Carver was.

“How well do you know Paul?” Carver asked.

Dewitt swiveled back to face the table, then idly nudged around a bowl with a squashed half-grapefruit in it. He was nervous; possibly he didn’t like Nadine talking to Mel Bingham, whoever Bingham might be.

“Paul and I got along okay,” Dewitt said. “He’s kinda odd, but not a bad kid. It’s rough seeing this happen to him.”

“Think he’s guilty?”

“Don’t really know.” Dewitt touched the ruined grapefruit with his forefinger, then pressed the fingertip to his tongue, as if to ascertain that the taste was sour. He grimaced slightly. Genuine grapefruit, all right. “The police seem to think Paul’s the one.”

“You know this Mel Bingham?” Carver asked.

Dewitt’s ears reddened. “He’s some asshole pesters Nadine, is all. Thinks she should go for him. Elana’s all for the idea, I can tell. What are you, a private detective or something? I mean, if the family hired you to find Paul, that’s what you must be. Right?”

“That’s it,” Carver said. “That doesn’t mean you have to answer my questions. I’m not the police, just a guy making conversation.”

“Hey, I know. Listen, I’d like to help Paul, if for no other reason than he’s Nadine’s brother. Fact is, Fred, I didn’t see him all that much when I came around. The mother, Elana, she isn’t so hot on this marriage. So it’s uncomfortable for Nadine and me here. We generally don’t hang around. Paul never did either. So, you see, our schedules didn’t overlap much.”

“Why do you think Elana’s against the marriage?”

Dewitt turned his hands palms up and raised them a few inches in a helpless gesture, or as if he might be trying to levitate the table. “She doesn’t like me. Hell, I don’t know why. Chemistry, maybe. Or maybe she’s got this idea car dealers are all swindlers. You’d be surprised the kind of prejudice there is against some occupations. Or maybe you wouldn’t, being a private detective.”

Carver hadn’t been off the force and in private practice very long, but he’d already been called a keyhole peeper, a sleaze bag, and assorted things even less nice. Joel Dewitt had a point. But Elana didn’t seem the sort to tag people that way. There was a sadness and wisdom to her that suggested understanding gained the hard way and not forgotten.

He gave Dewitt one of his cards and asked him to call if he had anything to say about Paul Kave. Dewitt handed Carver a card with a Fort Lauderdale address and told him he should come in and see if maybe he really was the cycle type. “Never too old,” he said. Carver didn’t care for that, but what the hell, Dewitt might still be in his twenties. Go-getter making it in his youth and about to marry into more of it. Full throttle, kid.

“Tell Nadine I said good-bye,” Carver said. He leaned on his cane and straightened up. The cane had been beneath the table, so Dewitt had to be seeing it for the first time, but there was no change of expression in his eyes. “I’ll go out this way and walk around the side of the house.” Carver limped toward a door in the aluminum screen.

“Remember what I said about that motorcycle,” Dewitt said behind him. “Cane don’t make any difference.”

“Might even be a good thing to use on sharp corners,” Carver said, and went out. The screen door clicked solidly closed behind him; it didn’t slam and reverberate like the one on Carver’s beach cottage. The fit and finish of big money.

When he’d almost reached the Olds, he heard a spat-out oath and saw a lanky young man stalking toward a mud-spattered red Jeep parked in the shade of the portico. His elongated face was creased with anger and his white jogging shoes seemed to want to pause of their own accord and kick pebbles and bits of bark, causing him to lurch. Forces he couldn’t comprehend had control of him.

He spotted Carver and glared; might have been able to burn a hole in paper with that look. “Fuckin’ Dewitt!” he said. “When you see him, you tell him I know he’s a crook!”

This must be Mel Bingham, and he must be connecting Carver and Dewitt because Carver was standing near the car parked next to the Olds, a new, deep blue Jaguar sedan with tinted windows. Bingham probably thought Carver was waiting for Dewitt.

“I might not see him again,” Carver said. “I just met him. You better tell him yourself.”

“Oh, I’ve told him before,” Bingham said. He had flame-red hair to match his temper and his splotchy, freckled complexion. He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt with Have a Shitty Day lettered in black across the front. His caved-in chest was trembling and his hands were white-knuckled fists that seemed to want to strike and burrow and pluck out vital organs. He’d followed the advice on his T-shirt and he was mad.

“I’d like to talk to you for a minute,” Carver said, wondering if Bingham could calm down enough for coherent conversation.

Carver wasn’t going to find out today.

“Later!” Bingham snarled. He swung his long body up into the Jeep, fired up the engine, and probably got a lot of satisfaction from the screeching of the knobby tires on the driveway.

Carver watched the Jeep two-wheel it around a corner and out of sight behind some palm trees. He wondered if the automatic barrier at the base of the drive would be triggered soon enough to rise before the Jeep reached it. Bingham was furious enough to drive through the barrier. Through brick walls, maybe.

The Rejected Suitor Blues, Carver figured.