“But you don’t figure like a man who’d blow up his fiancee for money-like Posey. He had the motive, and as far as we know, the opportunity,”
“So find out from Wicker where Posey was at the time of the bombing.”
“I already did that,” Beth said. “Talked to him yesterday. Posey was working at his job at Second Sailor, a place that refurbishes yachts, when the bomb blew at Women’s Light. His boss and fellow employees confirm that.”
Carver finished chewing a bite of toast, then washed it down with coffee. “You think he planted the Women’s Light bomb earlier, with a timing device?”
“Exactly. He doesn’t have an alibi for the night before the bombing, claims he was alone in his apartment. And Wicker said a few pieces of clockwork were found in the debris near the point of detonation.”
Gears with missing teeth, Carver thought. “They might have found what’s left of a timing device that allowed Norton half a minute to get clear. It might have nothing to do with Posey.”
Beth spread strawberry jelly on a slice of toast she’d already coated with butter, not looking at him, apparently not worrying about calories or cholesterol, either. Culinary daredevils.
“World’s full of mights, Fred. I think Posey’s worth watching. Folks at Second Sailor say he’s using vacation time and he’ll be off work for another week. If I drive into Del Moray, I should be able to find him and tail him.” She put down her knife and bit into the toast. “Don’t worry, I won’t approach him,” she said as she chewed. Eating fast. She was revved up about this, eager to rejoin the world after declaring herself healed. He remembered what Dr. Galt had said and hoped she really was healed.
“What do you expect to learn by following him?” Carver asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s possible he has more than money as a motive. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s another woman in his life.”
“This kid acted like he was grieving and still in love with his dead fiancee. I can’t imagine another woman in his life.”
“We’ve run across a lot of convincing actors, haven’t we?”
Carver couldn’t deny it.
“I thought you were the great cynic, Fred. Here you are believing everything ‘this kid’ told you.”
He knew he wouldn’t be able to talk Beth out of this. And maybe he shouldn’t try. If she was thinking about Nate Posey, she wouldn’t be thinking about what she’d lost. Also, while she was watching Posey, Anderson would be watching her.
“Why don’t you take Al with you,” he suggested.
She laughed. “Al’s trained in protection and attack, not in surveillance.”
‘Al’s trained in ingratiating himself and in mooching.”
Al, who’d been sprawled as if dead in a corner, rotated his one erect ear as he gazed from the corner of his eye at Carver without moving his head.
“If you won’t take the dog,” Carver said, “take the gun.”
“I won’t need a gun.”
“Take it anyway,” he urged. “Join everyone else in Florida. It’s a social thing. There’s jelly on your chin.”
She used a napkin to wipe her chin clean, then finally agreed to take the gun and not the dog. She got dressed and fed Al a large bowl of Bow-Wow-WOW! nuggets that had been marinated in beef broth, then she drove away in her LeBaron.
Carver was worried about her, but it made him feel good to watch her enthusiasm. She had the car’s top down, taking advantage of the healing sun while the morning was still bearable, if not cool.
Al continued to eat, glaring up at Carver as if suspecting an imminent raid on his bowl.
Carver poured himself a second cup of coffee and decided to drink it on the porch, then drive into Del Moray and talk to Benedict either at the hospital or the doctor’s home. It might be interesting to get Benedict’s slant on last night’s bombing, and to see if he was taking his recent spate of death threats more seriously.
The phone rang as he was moving toward the porch. He turned around, hobbled quickly to it, and answered it on the third ring.
It was Wicker.
“Beth’s gone into Del Moray to tail Nate Posey,” Carver told him. “She thinks he’s good for the clinic bombings.”
“Plural, huh?” Wicker said. “Then you already heard about the Coast Medical Services bombing last night.”
“Saw the tape on TV. What do you know about it?”
“Not much yet. But it appears dynamite was the explosive. Same as in the Women’s Light bombing.”
“Could have been the same bomber.”
“We haven’t ruled anything out,” Wicker said.
Carver told him about his conversation with Dr. Benedict yesterday, and Benedict’s belief that Operation Alive was mailing and phoning threats to him to make Norton seem innocent.
“We already talked to Benedict about that. He might be right, but there are a lot of crackpots out there who’d get a charge out of shaking him up so soon after the Women’s Light bombing. I don’t see Posey as much of a danger, though, so if Beth has to follow anyone, he’s a good choice.”
“That’s the way I look at it,” Carver said. “But I’m still glad Anderson’s watching over her.”
“That’s the main reason I called you,” Wicker said after a pause. “Because of the bombing last night, I had to pull Anderson and use him in the field investigation. Beth’s on her own.”
Carver didn’t say anything. He felt flushed with worry and fear, and a sense of betrayal he knew wasn’t justified. He’d known all along that Anderson wouldn’t be around the entire time until the WASP was apprehended.
“She’ll be fine,” Wicker said, interpreting Carver’s silence correctly. “We’ve checked Posey’s background and he’s pure. And he has no connection with Norton or Operation Alive. There’s no reason to be following Posey, so no one will even know that’s where Beth is and what she’s doing.”
“I hope you’re right,” Carver said.
“What about that dog you got her, the one looks like he’s got eyebrows . . . what’s his name?”
“Al.” At the mention of his name, Al stopped licking the bottom of his bowl long enough to curl a lip and glare at Carver. “She wouldn’t take him with her. He’s here with me.”
“Well, no matter. She’s in a backwater of the investigation and will be safe.” Wicker laughed. “Anderson sure likes that dog. He told me to let you know if you ever want to get rid of Al, he’d be glad to take him off your hands.”
“Don’t let anything happen to Anderson,” Carver said, and hung up.
He hadn’t told Wicker about the gun in Beth’s purse.
29
The hospital had informed Carver that Dr. Benedict wasn’t seeing his first patient that day until two o’clock. Carver didn’t phone Benedict to see if he was home. Better to surprise the doctor than to reveal the day’s prognosis.
As he turned the corner and drove down Macon Avenue toward the Benedict house, he saw about a dozen pickets in front of the driveway, another half dozen or so across the street. He pulled over to the curb half a block away and studied them. They were ordinary enough looking people, many of them women. They were dressed for casual comfort in the heat, wearing short-sleeved shirts or pullovers, shorts, and athletic shoes or sandals. A few of them wore plastic water bottles slung around their necks, the kind with thin plastic tubes protruding from their caps, like athletes use when they want to tilt back their heads and squirt water into their mouths as if it were wine from a goat bladder. One of the women, blond, heavyset, in her twenties, carried an infant in a sling so that the child sat facing her ample chest. Carver saw that several other women carried infants as well, and there were two girls of about twelve among the pickets. One of the preteen girls carried a sign showing the universal circle-and-slash “No” signal superimposed over what looked like an enlarged photo of a bloody fetus. Some of the other demonstrators carried the familiar white wooden crosses, resting them on their shoulders military fashion at a forty-five-degree angle, as if they were the rifles of troops on the march. Christian soldiers.