John Lutz - Scorcher

Gepman thought back, rubbing his bristly chin again. Sunlight glinted off his beard stubble, showing a little gray though he was only in his mid-thirties. “That I can’t tell you. I mean, we were too shook up over what happened to notice much of anything. And I was worried about Maggie, the way she was crying and all.”

“Is there anything else you can think of that might have slipped your mind down in Florida?”

“No, there isn’t. I mean, I hope they catch the crud who did that to your son. We read about it in the papers, and we tried to think of some detail that might help. The first night we were home, me and Maggie prayed. Then we sat at the kitchen table after the kids were in bed and talked over what happened. I mean for hours, since we couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Anything you might not have mentioned to the police about the killer’s description?”

“No. Listen, I’m sorry, but we really been over this. We just saw what we said we saw and nothing else. The Florida cops were great at helping us remember.”

Carver gave Gepman his card and told him to call collect if he or his wife did happen to think of anything new.

“Something jogs my memory,” Gepman promised, “I’ll call.” He slipped the card smoothly into the pocket of his wrinkled plaid sport shirt. Probably it would be forgotten there and run through the wash with miniature socks and jeans.

Carver thanked him for his time. “You’ve been a help.”

“I hope so. You want to stay around, have some supper with us?”

“Thanks,” Carver said, “but I’ve got a plane to catch. Tell your wife I said good-bye.”

“Sure will.” Gepman got up to show him out, walking slowly as Carver limped to the door. “Some families,” he said, “tragedy just haunts them. Won’t let up. It’s too bad.”

Another healthy young scream erupted from the kitchen. Carver understood why the din failed to bother Gepman. For an instant he envied the man almost painfully.

“Too bad,” he agreed, and he made his way down the walk and beneath the magnolia tree to his rental car.

When Carver stepped into his cottage, cool, dry air hit him and he knew Edwina was there waiting for him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

She was in the chair by the wide window that looked out on the ocean, sitting with her legs crossed. Apparently she’d been showing property or doing floor duty today; she was wearing a pale blue skirt and blazer and what appeared to be a man’s black silky bow tie. Her business look. She said, “How was the funeral?”

Carver let the door swing shut behind him and struggled in with his carry-on suitcase. “Grim and too long,” he told her. He dropped the suitcase near a wall, where it would be out of the way until he was ready to unpack it, then he limped to the refrigerator behind the counter that separated the tiny kitchen from the main room and got a cold can of Budweiser.

“Are you coming home now?” Edwina asked.

“It wouldn’t be a good idea,” Carver said. The refrigerator clicked on when he shut its door. He popped the tab on the can, fizzing beer onto the back of his hand, then leaned on the counter and sipped. The beer stung his dry throat but felt good going down. There was a point, in a case like this, where hunter might become hunted. Whoever had burned Chipper might go on the offensive and come looking for Carver, to stop him from closing in, and might find Edwina. Carver didn’t want her hurt or killed. He’d made it no secret that he’d moved out of Edwina’s home and was staying at the cottage.

She knew what he was thinking. “You didn’t change your mailing address,” she said. She got up, languidly crossed the room on her high heels, and handed him a white envelope.

It was addressed, typewritten, to “Fred Carver, Curious Cat.” Carver had a good idea who it was from. A killer who liked to joke.

Though the address was that of Carver’s beach cottage, the envelope had been forwarded to Edwina’s house. It bore a Fort Lauderdale postmark. “I found it in the mailbox this afternoon,” she said. “Right in there with the seed catalogs and offers to virtually steal nylon luggage.”

“You tell Desoto about it?”

“No, I wasn’t sure you’d want that. I handled it as carefully as I could. Can they get fingerprints off of paper?”

“They can sometimes,” Carver said. “They can even lift prints off human flesh now.”

“Science,” Edwina said, and crossed the room again and sat down. She stared at Carver, waiting for him to open the envelope, not wanting to show too much interest and intrude in what to him was an intensely personal matter. He could share with her what was inside, or he could choose not to, her blase expression told him.

Carver got a sharp knife from beneath the counter, held the envelope gingerly by the edges, and slit the top open. It was a cheap envelope, dime-store quality, and it parted easily and smoothly with a soft tearing sound.

Inside was a matchbook that read Casey’s Wings and Yummy Things. There was nothing else. Carver suddenly felt ice in his stomach.

Lifting the matchbook carefully at the edges, lightly between thumb and forefinger, he held it up for Edwina to see.

She squinted at it but didn’t rise from her chair. “What is it?”

“A matchbook from the restaurant where Chipper died.”

“You think the killer sent it?”

“Yeah. A warning to me to stop asking questions. Or I go the same way.”

“What curiosity did to the cat, huh? Subtle but to the point.”

“If curiosity killed all cats,” Carver said, “dogs would lead dull lives.”

“Interesting reasoning. If it’s reasoning at all. You going to heed the warning?”

“Think I should?”

An enraged, reckless kind of light glittered for an instant in her gray-green eyes. “No. I’m scared for you, worried, but if it’s what you need, I think you should keep at it.”

“It’s what I need.”

“But I think you should give the matchbook and envelope to Desoto, or to the Fort Lauderdale police.”

“I will,” Carver assured her. He didn’t understand why he’d received the matchbook. How did the killer even know Carver was after him?

He replaced the matchbook in the envelope and took a swig of beer. Out the window, beyond the dead potted vines, the sky was beginning to darken as the sun made contact with the horizon behind the cottage. A pelican skimmed gracefully inches above the sea, flying a final search mission for dinner before nightfall. On the beach the surf rolled and foamed in lacy white ribbons, but Carver couldn’t hear it because of the hum of the air-conditioner. “Have you eaten?” he asked Edwina.

“No. I’ve been showing property to a retired couple from New York. They wanted to look at one condo after another.”

“They’ve come to the right state,” Carver said. “Florida’s got one condo after another.”

“You’ve changed the subject. When are you going to tell the police about that envelope?”

“Morning’s soon enough. Let’s drive somewhere and get supper.”

“How was Laura at the funeral?”

“She held together.”

“You see her afterward?”

“No.”

“You do know I love you?”

“I know. I don’t take it lightly. Right now, all I can think about is finding my son’s killer. And supper.”

“Two kinds of hunger.”

Carver stared at her silently.

Edwina started to say something else, then thought better of it. She got up and followed him out to where the Olds sat ticking in the heat.

In the morning Carver drove into Orlando and gave the envelope to Desoto. The lieutenant, sitting behind his desk, manipulated his shoulders so that the sleeves of his elegant dove-gray suitcoat rode up on his arms, out of the way, before he examined the envelope and its sparse contents.