Burn (2 page)

“I think I believe his story,” Carver said.

“You would, being a man.”

Carver didn’t like her saying that. He wasn’t a knee-jerk male chauvinist. Not anymore. “It’s not impossible that a woman would take advantage of the political climate and falsely accuse a man of stalking her.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Could be a lot of motives.”

“Brant said she doesn’t even know him.”

“No,” Carver corrected, “he said
he
didn’t know
her.”

“A difference without a distinction,” Beth said. “He told you he thought they were strangers.” She stared out at the ocean, the sun highlighting her prominent cheekbones, her dark features that hinted at nobility. Crow’s-feet had formed faintly around the corners of her brown eyes. She looked like a high-fashion model put out of work by character lines.

Carver took a sip of coffee, savoring what the package said was its chocolate-cinnamon aroma. “Your reaction might be exactly what Marla Cloy is counting on. She wants to be seen as the typical helpless female victim being threatened and stalked by the typical compulsive male sexual psychopath.”

“There are a lot of female victims and male psychopaths out there, Fred.”

Carver couldn’t deny that. “What would you do if a strange man was stalking you?” he asked.

She glanced over at him with a dark ferocity that let him know she understood the game he was playing. She didn’t view herself as a victim and she didn’t see why so many women cast themselves in that role. She’d said so and written it in
Burrow,
the local alternative-press newspaper that employed her. Carver was on dangerous ground, using her own words to snare her.

“I’d swiftly deball the bastard,” she said calmly. “But then, maybe this Marla Cloy is an old-fashioned girl who doesn’t like the sight of blood.”

Carver thought he’d change the subject. “What are you working on?” he asked. She’d been sitting on the porch, hunched over her Toshiba laptop computer, when he’d parked beside the cottage.

“Story about how the Everglades is going all to hell ecologically, and the rest of Florida’s going with it if we don’t do something soon.”

“Plenty of interest in that,” Carver said.

“Gonna be one giant Disney World if people don’t act.”

“Good for tourism.” Carver couldn’t resist the jab.

“So long as the tourists don’t mind bringing bottled water.”

“Was the Everglades article Jeff Smith’s idea?” Smith was Beth’s editor at
Burrow.

“Smith’s been fired,” she said. “Clive’s doing most of the editing himself these days.” Clive was Clive Jones,
Burrow’s
publisher and managing editor.
“Burrow
is downsizing, as Clive puts it.” Beth tossed the remains of her coffee out over the porch rail. The sun caught it in the instant before it was claimed by gravity and transformed it into a glistening amber arc that hung in the air as if time were momentarily suspended.
Splash!
“That doesn’t keep him from spending half the day riding around on his Yamaha motorcycle, though.”

“He’s the boss,” Carver said. “That’s life.”

“Humph!” Beth said. “Life’s what happens to you while you’re making plans.” She stood up slowly, a tall, tall woman against the blue ocean. “There’s some chance I’m gonna be downsized, Fred.”

“Hard to imagine.”

Whatever the gulls had been circling had disappeared, and they’d flown in to shore to strut in the fringes of the foamy white wash of the surf.

“I could use what comes out of this Brant investigation,” Beth said. “A story like that might make the difference in whether I keep drawing a steady paycheck or become a freelance.”

“Every other time Jones has threatened to fire you, you’ve dared him to go ahead and do it. Why are you so afraid of losing your job this time?”

“I think he might mean it this time.”

Carver figured there had to be something more to it. Beth had been on and off Jones’s hit list several times since she’d been at
Burrow.
It had never seemed to make a dent in her serenity. But he knew when not to press.

“What if it turns out that Brant’s the one being victimized?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Then that’s the way I write it. It’s a good story either way it breaks.”

“I admire your journalistic integrity,” he said. “I’ll keep you clued in.”

She smiled, suddenly sweeter than the heady aroma of the chocolate-cinnamon coffee. “Do more than that. Make me part of the investigation, Fred.” She really did want this story, no matter who was being victimized.

When he didn’t answer immediately she bent low and kissed him on the forehead, then the lips. He felt the warm flick of her tongue, and the brush of her fingers on his shoulder.

“Maybe there is something you can do,” he said, feeling like a victim.

A
FTER LEAVING
B
ETH
, Carver drove to Del Moray police headquarters and asked to see Sergeant Greg Olson.

The desk sergeant relayed his request, but instead of Olson instructing that Carver come into his office, the graying, grossly overweight detective sergeant waddled into the booking area where Carver was waiting. He and Carver weren’t exactly friends, but they trusted each other and had a mutual respect for professionalism. There was little enough of that going around these days.

Olson wasn’t wearing a suit coat or tie. The top two buttons of his white shirt were unfastened and his sleeves were rolled above the elbows. He was sweating heavily. There were large crescents of dampness beneath his arms and his shirt took on a pinkish hue where the thin material was plastered to his flesh.

When he shook hands with Carver, his grip was strong and moist.

“You been exercising?” Carver asked.

“Naw. Damned air-conditioning’s on the blink. It’s not so bad here, but you get back in the offices or squad room and it’s a sauna. What can I do for you, Fred?”

“I need to know a few things about a woman who’s lodged a sexual harassment complaint. Her name’s—”

“Sorry,” Olson interrupted. “I’m gonna have to refer you to Lieutenant McGregor.”

The mention of McGregor’s name made Carver’s flesh creep. “Why’s that? He have a personal interest in the case?”

Olson’s chubby features creased in a sweaty smile. “He’s got a personal interest in you. We got standing orders that whenever you come in here for any reason, you get referred to Mc­Gregor.”

Carver wasn’t really surprised. Lieutenant William Mc­Gregor hated him with a grand and nurturing passion and had warned him more than once that he’d like to nail him with a felony count that carried a prison sentence, even if the charge was false. Maybe especially if the charge was false. Like most of the people who’d had dealings with McGregor, Carver hated him right back. McGregor preferred it that way. In a gloating, candid moment, he’d once confessed to Carver that he wasn’t really comfortable around people without the bond of mutual disgust. The sadistic, deliberately obnoxious lieutenant was the most corrupt human being Carver had ever met, in an occupation where you seldom consorted with angels.

“I suppose he misses you,” Olson said, still smiling. A bead of perspiration dropped from his chin and left a tiny mark like a comma on the front of his white shirt.

“Like mean little boys miss flies when they need something to pull wings from,” Carver said.

Olson exchanged glances with the desk sergeant, who was also smiling and sweating.

“He in his office?” Carver asked.

“Yeah,” Olson said. “You know where it is.”

“Better wait till I call back and tell him you’re on your way,” the desk sergeant said.

Carver stood and watched Olson sweat while the desk sergeant started to make the call. The desk sergeant suddenly began perspiring more profusely, maybe at the prospect of talking to McGregor. The uniforms all hated McGregor, their boss, and hate was impossible without fear.

“Lieutenant says you have permission to slink right in,” the desk sergeant said, hanging up the phone. “His words, not mine.”

“Buzz, buzz,” Carver said. He set down the tip of his cane, turned his back on the two sweaty sergeants, and limped down the hall toward McGregor’s office.

After taking only a few steps, he understood why Olson was soaked with perspiration. The bowels of headquarters were sweltering. A rivulet of sweat trickled from beneath the hair behind Carver’s ear and he felt its dampness as it worked its way beneath his collar. A shrill whine and chatter, like a powerful electric drill meeting resistance, cut through the hall. A muffled voice said “. . . mother-friggin’ bastard!” as the drilling stopped, then was replaced by a loud, metallic hammering that came in irritating, intermittent bursts.

The first thing to hit Carver when he opened the door to McGregor’s office was the stench. The lieutenant was one of those people who believed cheap deodorant was an adequate substitute for bathing. In the sultry heat of the office his perfumed, stale odor was almost unbearable.

McGregor was behind his desk, leaning far back in his swivel chair. For some reason he had his suit coat on, though his tie knot was loosened. His suit was brown and wrinkled and soiled, as usual. His severely parted, lank blond hair hung Hitler-style above one small, cruel blue eye. There was a shaving cut on a prognathous jaw that looked capable of crushing rock. He was a pale and elongated creature, well over six and a half feet tall and with the angular build and disjointed way of moving you often saw with very tall men. Despite his lankiness and concave chest, there was about him the suggestion of strength coiled and waiting.

“I thought the heat and that fucking drilling and hammering would be the worst things about this day,” McGregor said, “until you showed up.”

“I’d rather talk with anybody else,” Carver said. “You’re the one who left orders you wanted to see me.”

“It’s crazy,” McGregor said, “but I just have to see you now and then. In the same way I have to glance at my own shit sometimes before I flush the toilet.”

“Talking with you always makes the world seem cleaner and brighter,” Carver said, as he moved nearer to the desk and leaned with both hands on the crook of his cane. He took shallow breaths through his mouth, trying to ignore the corrupt stench of McGregor. McGregor noticed and smiled. There was a wide space between his yellowed front teeth that he habitually probed with the tip of his tongue, making his smile remarkably evil.

The hammering and drilling began again.
Clang! Clang! Eeeeek!

“You guys interrogating a suspect?” Carver asked.

“I’d like to interrogate the jerks working on that air conditioner,” McGregor said. “They been banging away on it for two hours now and it’s still hot as the inside of a pussy in here.” He swiveled this way and that in his chair, stirring the fetid air and increasing the cloying odor in the tiny office. “So let’s get to the reason you came,” McGregor said. “I got things to do here or I wouldn’t be staying in this sweatbox.”

“A woman named Marla Cloy has filed harassment complaints against one Joel Brant.”

“I’m familiar with that,” McGregor said. “Del Moray’s not so big a city it’d escape my notice. So what is it you need to know?”

“How many of her complaints do you have on file?”

“Couldn’t tell you offhand. Three or four at least.”

Carver knew that was as precise an answer as he was going to get from McGregor. “I understand she’s filed for an order of protection to keep Brant away from her.”

The pink tip of McGregor’s tongue probed and squirmed between his teeth like a writhing worm. “You understand right. Judge’ll probably grant her the order, too. I know him. He’s one of those bleeding-heart, politically correct assholes all hung up on the Constitution.”

“He’s supposed to be hung up on the Constitution,” Carver pointed out, “being a judge.”

McGregor ignored that observation. “Why are you so interested, Carver? This Marla Cloy’s just another dumb cunt some guy’s declared open season on because of something she’s done. What’s the big deal?”

“You’ve met her?”

“Seen her when she came in and filed her second complaint. Ordinary looking bitch, says she’s some kinda writer. Moved here recently from Orlando. Tell you the truth, she doesn’t look worth all the trouble. I mean, why’s this Brant even care about her? Why’s he want to waste his time? You can tell by looking at her she’s a loser that’ll dig her own grave soon enough.”

“I don’t know Brant’s motive,” Carver said. “I’m not even sure he’s actually harassing her. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I figure the guy’s burning and wants to fuck or kill her or both. I seen it before. I also figure she’s the type that did something stupid and’s got it coming to her. Probably deep down she even wants it. Women are like that, you know. Most of them, anyway.”

“I’m dazzled by your psychological insight.”

“It’s from when I worked the sex crime unit, taking statements from rape victims.”

“Have you talked to Brant?”

“Not personally. Couple of uniforms who took Marla Cloy’s calls talked to him. He denies he’s out to get her. They all deny it. Hell, I’d deny it too.”

“Maybe he’s telling the truth.”

“Hah! Maybe I am.”

“What are you doing to protect her?”

“Nothing. If the restraining order comes through, we’ll run a few extra patrols past her house at night. You know we don’t have the manpower to stand guard over every scheming cunt that claims she’s being stalked. What we do is, when the guy pesters her again, we take him into custody and the courts nail him to the wall.”

“What if it’s too late and he’s already done whatever it is he’s planning?”

“Well, that’s how it usually works out. We get the call after it all happens, then we go there and clean up the mess.”

“Seems kind of counterproductive.”

“Yeah, but that’s the kind of trouble women cause in this world. If they learned to dress and act with a little more good sense and respect for their husbands and boyfriends, they wouldn’t all of a sudden find themselves in such deep shit they need the police. But I guess it’s human nature, genetics or some such crap. In my job, you learn to be philosophical about these things or they drive you nuts. You know that.”