John Lutz - Scorcher

“Not long. The computer can be a marvelous tool as well as a pain in the ass.”

“You’ll keep me tuned in on this?”

“I don’t want to, Carver, because you’re my friend. But I will, because you’re my friend. Life is complicated; something for you to remember.”

“Sometimes life can be simple,” Carver said. “Sometimes knowing what you need to do is easy.”

“Or seems that way.”

“I need the names of the witnesses in the Pompano Beach souvenir shop,” Carver said.

Reluctantly, Desoto jotted the information on a sheet of memo paper and handed it to Carver. “A man and his wife,” he said, “Jerry and Margaret Gepman. Vacationing here from Chattanooga. They were upset by what they saw and returned home the day after the murder. They won’t help you much, I’m afraid, even if you travel to talk to them.”

“They the ones saw the Ford driving away?”

“No, they stumbled on the crime scene right after the murder. The shock put them in a fog; they won’t add to your knowledge.”

Carver stuffed the paper into his shirt pocket. It made a crackling sound going in. “As you pointed out, we can’t be sure of anything.”

Desoto swiveled inches this way and that in his chair, holding up the pen he’d used to write the witnesses’ names and staring at it. As if something printed on it intrigued him. “Has Laura returned to Saint Louis with Sam Devine?”

“I don’t know. She’s going to call me about the funeral.”

“You think she loves this Devine?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

Desoto dropped the pen on the desk. “Well, that’s a good thing for her, maybe.”

Carver got his cane, placed its tip on the floor, then folded his hand over the curved handle and levered himself to a standing position. The air-conditioner breeze played coolly over his arms.

“Where to now, vigilante?” Desoto asked.

“Haven’t made up my mind.”

“Ah, Carver. We both know you’re going to check out places that sell or rent diving equipment, hangouts for scuba divers along the beach. You’re going to ask about a white-over-blue late-model Ford with a dented fender, and who owns it. Don’t you know the police are doing that? Do you think you can do it better?”

“Maybe. I’m more motivated.”

“I won’t try to stop you,” Desoto said. “Or even remind you that interfering in an open case can endanger your investigator’s license and your rather precarious way of earning a living.”

Carver released a long breath and decided he’d better try not to be such a hardass here in the office. Desoto really was a friend. “I’m sorry if I cause you trouble. I mean that.”

Desoto’s liquid brown eyes were sympathetic. “I know. But this line of work is trouble. And remember our conversation cuts both ways, amigo ; keep me informed about whatever you learn.”

Carver promised that he would and limped to the door.

“As soon as you learn it, Carver,” Desoto said behind him in a firmer, cautioning tone. “The Fort Lauderdale police, they won’t be enthused about your participation in this.”

Carver turned at the door and leaned heavily with both hands on his cane, his back stiff and his shoulders slightly shrugged, like a song-and-dance man about to do a number. “Anything else?”

“Yes. Where might I send flowers?”

Carver spent the next two days doing as Desoto had predicted, making the rounds of charterboat docks and shops that specialized in diving equipment, asking about a dark-blue-and-white late-model Ford. He felt like the Ancient Mariner, stopping one in three. Only he didn’t want to tell a story; he wanted to hear one.

Many of the people who hung around the marinas and boat owners’ haunts had heard about the burnings and sympathized with Carver, but no one knew anything that might help. It was as if salt water eroded memory.

At Scuba Dan’s, on Route A1A just south of Fort Lauderdale, Dan Mason, who ran the shop, told Carver that he did recall a young guy who drove a blue-and-white Ford-at least Mason thought it was a Ford-and bought diving and snorkeling equipment now and then. And sure, the car might have had a dented right front fender. It had been awhile since the guy had been in, though, so it was difficult to be hardrock sure of anything.

Scuba Dan’s, a mock-driftwood building that was larger and more modern than it appeared from outside, had the facilities in back to recharge diving tanks, and Mason said that the man with the Ford had had a twin tank setup refilled there several times. Bought some flippers once, too. But he hadn’t charged them, and Mason had no record of the sale, no receipt that might give Carver a name. He could only describe the customer as young, maybe in his early twenties, with sandy hair and dark eyes, average height and weight but muscular. There was nothing distinctive about the man, Mason said, and apologized for not being able to help Carver more.

That afternoon Carver phoned Desoto from his cottage and told him what he’d learned.

“We talked to Dan Mason yesterday,” Desoto said, rather laconically.

That got Carver irritated; the deal had been to share information. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t think it was solid enough to pass along. Probably nothing. Mason’s uncertain about what he remembers. Don’t grab hold of things and twist them into more than they really are, amigo. That’s the danger of working a case where you’re so intimately involved.”

“You people who aren’t so intimately involved,” Carver said, “what are you doing?”

“We’re still checking area residents with histories of mental illness, and we’re tying that in with the white-over-blue Ford, matching names with auto registrations.”

“Looking for the homicidal maniac with the right car.”

“Exactly. Which is also what you’re doing, amigo, only we’re going about it more systematically and efficiently. Our wheels grind slowly but very fine.”

“What about places that sell the chemicals used to thicken the flammable solvent? Or stores that sell the naphtha itself?”

“We’re investigating along those avenues, too, Carver.” Desoto suddenly sounded impatient, harried. He pitied Carver, but Carver was being a pest. “The naphtha is sold a lot of places as a household cleaning solvent. The thickening-agent chemicals might provide more of a lead. We’re talking to manufacturers and suppliers. Trouble is, a good amateur chemist could fool around in a well-equipped lab and concoct a lot of this stuff himself. And that’s something else we’re investigating.”

“Can some of the chemicals be bought by mail order?”

“Yeah. In small quantities. That makes our job tougher, but not impossible. You know we have the machinery to conduct this kind of investigation, amigo , so why don’t you try to relax as best you can and let us do the job? Get your tax dollars’ worth.”

“This is me relaxing,” Carver said, “trying to find the man who killed my son.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry for you.” Desoto wasn’t being sarcastic; he meant it.

Carver hung up the phone, then limped behind the folding screen that divided the sleeping area from the rest of the cottage.

He stood for a moment, feeling a pressure deep within him build until his body shook. It took a while for the trembling to stop. Weeping might be the only way he could find temporary relief from how he felt, and he chose not to weep.

He began packing to go north for his son’s funeral.

Chipper’s funeral was held on a sunny day in south Saint Louis. Laura had decided Ann was too young to attend. There was a stiff and tearful ceremony at a chapel in Clayton, where most of Laura’s family chose not to speak to Carver, then the long drive in the funeral procession to a cemetery scattered with old tombstones and ancient trees. A tall, ornate iron fence bordered the acres of graves, and jays and sparrows cavorted and chattered in the green, overhanging limbs of the spreading elms. Carver liked the cemetery. It was the only thing about the morning that he did like.