Spark (13 page)

“Lunch money’s stolen every day,” Carver said. “What about Brad Faravelli? He’s in a perfect position to steal from the other kids.”

“He seems okay, but who knows? Forty-two years old, married, three kids, Harvard Business School grad, been with Solartown since it began seven years ago. Before that he was a vice prez at a Wall Street investment company that went belly-up over some questionable bond trading. He wasn’t directly involved in it, by the way.”

Carver said, “Harvard. Wall Street. Jesus!”

“Don’t be a reverse snob, Fred. Anyway, I can get a better feel for it all after I interview Faravelli this afternoon. I told him I’m doing a feature story for
Burrow,
but it might be published in some other Florida papers, as well.”

“He believed that?” Carver asked.

“It might be the truth, Fred.” She finished her coffee, then wadded her napkin and stuffed it into the empty foam cup. There was a crescent of red from her lipstick on the cup’s rim. “What about you?” she asked. “You were your usual unbleeding, unconcussed self last night, and you’d talked with Van Meter about him locating Adam Beed. So I’m assuming you didn’t run into Beed yourself, or find out much about him.”

He realized for the first time she’d risked coming to his room because she was concerned about him. Not one of her rash impulses at all.

“Beed seems to have really gotten off drugs while he was in Raiford,” he said. “He’s strictly a boozer now.”

“Same thing, different terminology. He’s an addict, if the booze is running him. He’s as outa control as if he were on coke or heroin.”

“It doesn’t seem to have that kind of hold on him.”

“Not yet. But if he’s drinking regularly, it’ll get him.”

“That a prediction?”

“I’ve seen it plenty of times. A junkie shakes the physical dependency and fancies he’s no longer part of the world of drugs, but it’s okay to have drinks with dinner, or duck into a bar now and then for a couple of something cool. All socially acceptable. Then the alcohol takes the place of whatever else he was on, takes him over body and mind just like any other drug.” She tapped a red fingernail on the desk for emphasis. “An addict’s an addict, Fred. Like a cucumber that’s become a pickle. It can never be a cucumber again. Even longtime users sometimes kid themselves they’re cucumbers again, but if they don’t stay away from drugs altogether, including alcohol, it’ll eventually kill them.”

The air conditioner had gone through a short cycle, then kicked off. Carver, sitting in the sudden silence, hadn’t realized it was running. A child began yammering outside, then car doors slammed and an engine started. Tires crunched over gravel as a vacationing family got an early start.

“Eventually, but
always
,” Beth said.

Carver said, “It’s nice to know that about Beed.”

After breakfast he left Beth preparing for her interview with Brad Faravelli and drove over to see Hattie Evans.

As he was parking, he saw her in the shade of her front porch. She was wearing baggy jeans and an oversize T-shirt with GRAY POWER lettered on it, tending to flowers in a plastic hanging planter she’d taken down from its hook.

“Care to come inside, Mr. Carver?” she asked, not looking at him until he’d limped almost to her.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said. “We might as well enjoy it out here before the sun and the temperature get higher.”

“That won’t take long,” she said, pinching off a dead geranium. “Gotta water these constantly. Florida. It was Jerome’s idea to move down here, not mine.”

“You intend to stay?”

“Not much choice, considering the mortgage arrangement we made with Solartown.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Jerome’s. He handled all our finances. In retrospect, it was dumb of me to let him do that.”

“You’re a capable woman,” Carver said. “You can set things right.”

“Not this house, But then, I suppose I’m happy enough here in Solartown.”

“When you bought the house, did the salesman give you the hard sell on the reverse mortgage?”

“Not really. There was no deception involved.”

“Did Jerome ever look into another form of financing? I mean, do you know if he consulted with a lender in the months before his death?”

She picked up a gray metal watering can with a daisy design on it. “Not that I know of.” She tipped the can so the long, thin spout was out of sight among the remaining flowers, letting water flow into the pot. “That’s not to say Jerome might not have seen a banker without telling me.” She shot Carver a look he couldn’t interpret. “Seems he did other things without informing me.”

Carver said nothing.

Water flowed over the rim of the pot and along the porch rail.

“I might have to leave town for a while,” he told her, “if someone I have working for me locates a man who could be important to us.”

“That Adam Beed?”

He nodded.

Hattie set the watering can down and removed her green vinyl work gloves. The gloves had oversize cuffs with the same daisy design that was on the can. “The people involved in this made a mistake trying to scare you off the case, didn’t they?”

“Looks that way,” he said.

“Can’t say I’m shocked that you’re still on the job. You reminded me immediately of some of my problem students who regarded intimidation as merely a temporary condition. Much as I regretted their presence in my classes, after all the years they’re the ones I remember.”

“Memory’s a strange thing,” Carver said.

“A precious thing,” she said, surprising him.

“Your emotions are showing, Hattie.”

She gave him a sad smile, standing there erect and holding her gloves folded in one hand as if she were a military officer. She said, “I missed out on some things in life, Mr. Carver; I’ve come to accept that because I understand it. Now I need to know about my husband’s death, so I can accept it through understanding and lit it peacefully in my past. So I won’t wake up before sunrise every morning thinking about it for the rest of my life.”

“I see what you mean,” Carver said.

“I believe you do.” She lifted the watering can again and gently doused the blossoms themselves.

“Where’s your neighbor Val Green today?”

She glared at him. “How should I know? Why should I care about the old busybody?”

He almost smiled. “Better not talk that way; you might wilt those flowers.”

“He tells me if I need anything to call him or come get him, as if I need the likes of him to take care of me. As if I need anyone.”

“You’re not being fair to him. He’s not a bad sort.”

“Oh, I suppose he’s all right,” she said. “In his place. I expect he’s sleeping. I think he was driving around last night playing policeman.”

“You don’t think much of the Posse?”

“I think they’re a bunch of old fools who’ve regressed to childhood, playing cops and robbers again. Now Val, he even wants to play doctor.”

Carver laughed. Some of the water sloshed out of the long-spouted can and splashed near his shoe. Not an accident, he was sure.

“Well, it happens to be true.” Hattie put down the can and concentrated hard on rehanging the planter on its eye hook. Either her eyesight wasn’t up to it, or the hook was moving.

Carver thought about offering to help, then decided she might resent it. He waited until the planter was dangling safely on its chain.

“If I have to disappear for a while, I’ll call you,” he assured her.

“You’d better. I hired you.”

She stretched to take down an identical plastic planter from the opposite side of the porch, and he said good-bye and left her there.

As he drove away he glanced over at her. She wasn’t watching him. She was plucking dead blossoms.

O
N THE DRIVE BACK
to the motel, Carver detoured past Maude Crane’s house. There was a red and white Solartown Realty
FOR SALE
sign reflecting sun in the neatly mowed front yard. He wasn’t sure if that meant Maude had bought on the reverse mortgage plan and ownership of her house had reverted to the company. It was something worth looking into.

At the Warm Sands, Carver found that Beth had already left for her interview with Brad Faravelli, and there were no messages either from her or Van Meter.

The room felt cool and he realized he was sweating. He limped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. When he glanced at himself in the mirror he saw that his normally deep tan was even deeper from running around Solartown and environs asking questions. The possibility of future skin cancer leapt to mind, all those TV talk shows and infomercials, and he felt himself moving closer to seriously considering Hattie’s advice about headwear to cover his bald pate. But then, he had Adam Beed to deal with before measuring a future in years instead of days.

He put on a fresh shirt and decided to go see Desoto, offer to buy him lunch and then pump him to find out if he knew anything else about Beed or Solartown. What friends were for.

But Desoto, perched on the edge of his desk and just hanging up his phone, said he was busy. There’d been a homicide out near the Orlando Country Club; he’d just returned from there.

“A shooting that left a hole in one?” Carver asked.

Desoto gave him a fierce and pitying look that let him know this was no time for cop humor, not even the kind that saves sanity. Carver felt microscopically small when Desoto explained what had happened.

A teenage girl had been raped and strangled, not necessarily in that order. Desoto was charging around barking orders, his dark eyes sad and furious. It upset him when any crime of violence was committed against a woman. Something like this, involving a young girl, really set him off. He wouldn’t have time for Carver today. Carver didn’t blame him. Desoto had seen the body.

The day was heating up to near-record temperatures, and Carver hated himself for his insensitivity and was feeling frustrated. He loathed spinning his wheels, and so far today he’d found no traction. He left the Olds parked on Hughey near police headquarters and walked up to South Street to eat lunch at a restaurant he remembered.

Halfway there he realized he was limping along faster than most people were walking, drawing stares and working up a sweat that ran in rivulets. Breathing hard, too. Punishing himself. He made himself slow down, determined not to let the futility of the day get to him. It had been one of the hardest things in life for him to learn, not to be his own enemy. Sometimes he still forgot the lesson.

He had chili for lunch, another wrong decision. When he left the restaurant, he found a public phone at the corner and stood miserably in the exhaust fumes and terrible sun. He called the Warm Sands Motel and asked for Beth’s extension.

Ah! She’d returned from her Faravelli interview.

“Faravelli spent most of our time together bragging about Solartown,” she said. “A real PR guy. He made the most of the interview.”

“You get into the reverse mortgage arrangement?” Carver asked.

“Far as I could, without him suspecting I was targeting it. He gave me some straight information. Made a good case that the purpose of the program was not only to sell more houses, but to improve the quality of life for buyers by providing them with a better home than they might otherwise be able to afford, plus a monthly income for the rest of their natural lives.”

“Sounds good when you say it fast.”

“That’s how he said it. He’s a charmer when he wants to turn it on.”

“Doesn’t it figure?”

“Maybe not. You want my opinion, Fred, the guy seems like a legitimate corporate climber. He might doctor reports or evict old ladies to improve the bottom line, but I don’t see him getting involved in murder unless there’s some kinda blackmail being worked.”

“Always a possibility with such an upright citizen.”

“Such a cynic,”

“I get called that a lot. People are thoughtless that way.”

“Where are you, Fred? You finally buy yourself a car phone?”

“I’m in Orlando talking at one of those outside phones. That’s why you hear traffic. You get any figures on the percentage of houses Solartown repossesses after the owner’s death?”

“Easy,” she said. “A hundred percent.”

“Huh?”

“About half the homes in Solartown are sold on the reverse mortgage plan. The loans are amortized at a thirty-year rate. Virtually no retiree who buys will live the full thirty years. How much profit or loss Solartown makes on the repossessed houses depends on how long the occupants collect the monthly payments and how much the houses appreciate. In effect, Solartown’s buying back the house from the owner, until the owner’s death, which will always occur before the full price is paid.”

“You don’t see that as a motive?”

“I would, Fred, if I could make the numbers add up to the point where the profit was worth the risk of being found out and ruining a much more lucrative legitimate enterprise. It simply looks like a winning situation for both parties, a marketing angle Faravelli boasts about with some justification.”

Carver wondered if Faravelli had been even charming enough to fool Beth. That seemed impossible. But so did the collapse of the Soviet Union, and here we were. He said, “I noticed Maude Crane’s house is for sale.”

“Matter of fact, Faravelli mentioned that one. It’s been taken back by the company, and he admits they’ll realize a large profit on it. Said it was an example of what made it possible for Solartown to lower its profit margin on newer housing and undersell competitors. Good fortune growing from misfortune, he called it.”

“I’m wondering if it’s somebody’s personal fortune,” Carver said.

“Uh-huh. You want me to follow the money, Fred?”

“Can you do it?”

“Won’t be easy. Banks are secretive.”

“But money can always be traced, and I know you have your wily ways.”

“I have those,” she admitted, “but I can’t promise you they’ll work. Banks weren’t computerized, this might not be possible.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything illegal.”

She laughed. “Don’t try to bullshit me, Fred.”

“Okay, I’m asking you not to get caught.”

“That’s my Fred.” She hung up.