When Carver asked him about Marla Cloy, he nodded. “Sure, I remember Marla. I used to talk to her now and then down in the laundry room. I wash stuff pretty often because I work out regularly. She was always down there doing a load, too. Must be one clean woman.”
“She lived in this apartment, didn’t she?”
“Right. There was a fire about three months ago. Burned hell outa this end of the building. She moved out, and when the place got fixed up, I gave up my old apartment on the second floor and moved in here. Another thirty a month in rent, but it’s worth it. Everything’s practically brand-new.”
It occurred to Carver why the other third-floor tenants he’d talked to hadn’t lived at the address very long. They’d all moved into newly renovated apartments after the fire. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Yeah. Three people died. It was a big fire, in the papers, on TV news. The apartments on this floor all had smoke damage, and a couple of ’em were totaled.”
“What about this one?”
“Mostly smoke damage, but the kitchen was wiped out. The fire started in the basement and raced up the ductwork to the apartment right beneath this one. Then it spread through the rest of the place. Not much damage on the second floor other than to that apartment, but the flames came right up the ducts and between the walls and did a job on this floor. Firemen said that’s not unusual.”
“Who lived in the first-floor apartment directly above where the fire started?”
“Guy named Bill Swarthmore. People right across the hall, the Kerns, died in their sleep from smoke inhalation. Woman next to them, Gail Rogers, was found dead right inside her door. They say she suffocated, too.”
“That’s a shame. But Swarthmore survived?”
“Yeah. He was in Colorado skiing, or he probably would have died just like the others.”
“Lucky break. Do they know how the fire started?”
“Not exactly. Last word I heard on it was somebody left some paintbrushes soaking in a can of thinner or gasoline, and it caught fire somehow.”
“Do you know where I can find Marla Cloy now?” Carver asked, fishing.
“Nope. She kept pretty much to herself. Some kinda writer, is what she said she was. You know how they are. Good-looking gal, though, especially when she dressed up. I tried to date her a few times, but she always spun me right around. She was the smile-and-hello type, but didn’t have any close friends I know of in the building. Well, wait a minute. She was friendly with Gail Rogers, I think, what with Gail living right across the hall. But that’s not much help to you, I guess, Gail being dead.”
“Did you know her at all?”
“Gail? Not really. Just to say hello to. I saw her and Marla walking together downtown once, so I’m sure they were friends.”
“What kind of reputation did Gail Rogers have?”
“Reputation? Heck, I don’t know. Never heard anything bad about her.” Thatcher absently adjusted a shirtsleeve, creating ripples in the tight musculature of his arm. Carver figured he worked out a lot, and probably with a fanatic’s dedication.
“Did you ever try to date her?”
Thatcher looked at him curiously, letting him know he was getting too personal. “Gail wasn’t my type. Kinda plain. Seemed nice enough, though. Why do you ask?”
“If I can’t find Marla Cloy any other way, I thought maybe Gail Rogers’s friends or family might know where she is.”
“Could be, but I don’t know how you’d get in touch with them.”
“During the brief contact you had with Marla, did you notice anything unusual in the way she behaved?”
“Can’t say I did. She was standoffish, but not like she was a snob or anything like that. Distant, is all. She acted like a lady who’d maybe been hurt and was healing inside, in her mind.”
“Hurt how?”
“That I couldn’t tell you. I might even be wrong about it.”
A woman’s impatient voice called, “Don? Honey?” from somewhere inside the apartment. Thatcher scratched his flat stomach beneath his taut shirt and smiled at Carver. A conspiratorial, us-men-of-the-world kind of smile.
“I’m interrupting you,” Carver said.
“Sorta.”
He thanked Thatcher for talking with him, then gave him his card and asked him to call if he thought of anything else.
“Hey, you’re a confidential investigator,” Thatcher said, squinting at the card. “That’s neat. A private eye.”
“Shamus,” Carver said with a smile. “But Marla’s not in any kind of trouble.”
“She inherit money or something?”
Why did they always ask that? “No,” Carver said, “people who inherit money are usually easy to find.”
“Don!” The voice was almost desperate.
Thatcher shrugged his massive shoulders and shook his head in apology for having to end the conversation.
Carver nodded wisely, letting him know he understood how women were with a handsome guy like Thatcher, and Thatcher closed the door-leaving Carver leaning on his cane and wondering about the woman who did her wash often and acted as if she’d been hurt.
13
Two blocks away from the Graystone apartment building, Carver found a drive-up public phone on the corner of a service station lot. He managed to maneuver the Olds close enough to reach the key pad through the open window without getting out of the car, then punched out the number of the beach cottage.
Beth was there, as he’d hoped, probably working on a Burrow assignment.
“How do you feel?” he asked, when she’d answered the phone.
“Pregnant.”
“Still?”
“Why did you call, Fred?” She obviously wasn’t amused by his pass at humor.
“I’ve just come from Marla Cloy’s old apartment building in Orlando.” He told her what he’d found out.
“She sounds like a more or less normal woman,” Beth said.
“You wanted to be a part of the investigation. Can you keep an eye on her while I check out things here in Orlando? I’m pushing my luck tailing her close every day; she’s bound to notice I’m in the background too often for coincidence.”
“Okay, I’ll carry the ball for a while. It’ll give her another car and another face to look at if she’s peeking from the corner of her eye. Think she’s home now?”
“Probably. She’s like you: work, work, work.”
“ ’Cause of the bills, bills, bills.”
“You sure you feel well enough to do this?”
“Of course I do. I’m okay. A little queasy in the morning, but after that I’m my usual self.”
“Selves, now.”
“Shut up, Fred.”
He thought she was going to hang up, but she stayed on the line. He could hear her breathing as he stared out over the Olds’s long hood at a row of greasy five-gallon oil drums. A brown and black dog, very fat, waddled out from behind the drums. Carver wondered if it was pregnant.
“Have you thought any more about the baby?” he asked.
“It’s what I think about even when I’m thinking about something else,” she said, evading what he was really asking.
“Are you positive you’re focused enough to follow Marla Cloy without being noticed?”
“I’m positive, Fred.” She sounded irritated now, almost to the point of attacking him. “It’s not at all the way you think, when a woman’s pregnant.”
There was no way he could dispute that. Better stick to business. “Marla carries a paperback novel around with her and reads it from time to time. I don’t think she’s as involved in it as she’d like anyone watching to believe. And she’s cautious by nature. Make sure you keep your distance from her in public places. And when you follow her in your car-”
Beth hung up.
Carver was left with the receiver pressed to his ear, listening to the distant sigh and static of the broken connection.
He had a few further instructions for her, but he decided against calling her back. Instead, he stretched out his arm and replaced the receiver in its cradle, then cranked up the car window and switched the air conditioner to its highest setting.