He decided to do that himself.
It was dark when he parked beside Beth’s car outside the cottage. He had stopped for chili and a beer, and his stomach was in minor rebellion. The evening had cooled and he’d driven with the top down, smoking a Swisher Sweet cigar. He could still taste chili and tobacco as he raised the top.
The weather forecast he’d heard on the car radio had hinted hopefully at rain. Probably it was only another futile prediction and the storm clouds that blew in periodically from the Gulf would soar over Florida to vent their moisture in the Atlantic, but Carver didn’t want to take a chance on getting the old car’s interior soaked. Though it seemed impossible now, sooner or later it would rain again in sun-punished central Florida; what was summer without steam?
It took him awhile to get the top fastened down and the windows cranked up. The sky had become darker and the breeze was rattling the palm fronds. Maybe tonight was the night. He was acting wisely here, battening down the hatches on the rusty old land yacht.
Beth wasn’t in the cottage. Neither was Al.
Carver opened a can of Budweiser, then went out onto the porch and stood leaning on the wooden railing, looking toward the ocean. Lightning fractured the sky far out at sea, the promise of an off-shore storm, and he was sure he saw the forms of Beth and the dog walking along the beach.
He wiped moisture from the beer can off his fingers onto his shirt, got a firm grip on the crook of his cane, and went to join them.
Beth smiled at him through wind-whipped strands of hair when he approached. She didn’t have to adjust her pace to his as he fell in beside her; she was already walking slowly. Al ignored Carver and ran through the surf, picked up something in his mouth, then dropped it as a wave broke late and bowled him over.
“He likes the surf,” Carver noted. The breeze grabbed his voice and tried to whisk it away, but he was sure Beth had heard him.
She looked over at Al as he leaped into an oncoming wall of foam. “He even likes to swim,” she said. “Maybe he’ll go out with you some morning.”
Carver wasn’t sure what he thought of that idea. He stared at the damp sand, careful about where he placed the tip of his cane. “I talked with Jefferson Brama today.” He had to raise his voice above the breeze and surf.
“He assure you of Norton’s innocence?”
“Not so much Norton’s as Freel’s. In his lawyerly way, he warned me not to delve any further into a possible romance between Freel and Adelle Grimm.”
Beth paused, picked up a lumpy piece of driftwood, then hurled it into the sea for Al to retrieve. “He might be right about Freel’s innocence,” she said, “but not about Adelle’s.”
Here was something new. Carver stood next to her and watched Al fling himself into the surf and search fruitlessly for the chunk of driftwood.
“I had Adelle’s house staked out as usual tonight and I saw a man enter,” Beth said. “He approached the house on foot and was inside almost before I knew he was there.”
Carver continued watching the dog. “Freel?”
“I don’t know. I think so. But he seemed larger than Freel.”
“Was he let in?”
“Yes, I’m sure of that. He was inside so fast, he wouldn’t have had time to use a key. A light came on in the rear of the house, and I saw that the drapes weren’t closed all the way in one of the windows. I got out of the car and moved onto the property, sure I could sneak a peek inside.” She started walking slowly again along the surf line, keeping her bare feet on the firm, wet sand. “Then Al barked.”
“Barked at what?”
“I don’t know, a squirrel or something. Maybe the breeze blowing a leaf. Or maybe something else. I thought I heard somebody moving in the bushes, saw someone’s shadow, but I can’t be sure. I know I was spooked. I ran. We ran. Back to the car. When I was halfway there, I heard an engine and turned around and saw that big black car of Adelle’s come roaring out of the garage and tear away down the street. I’m sure there were two people in it, and a man was driving. There was no time to follow. They were out of sight even before the automatic garage door lowered, and I saw that all the lights in the house were off.”
“Blue,” Carver said.
“What?”
“Adelle’s car is dark blue.”
Al was barking now, standing and staring out at the ocean, angry that it had appropriated his driftwood. Lightning made the sky glow yellow again out over the sea, and thunder rolled softly like low celestial laughter, nature putting on quite a show to taunt the simmering land.
“What did you mean about Freel being innocent and Adelle guilty?” Carver asked.
“I’ve been making contact with people, asking about Adelle Grimm. Her maiden name was Neehaus. She came from a wealthy family in Philadelphia who more or less disowned her after she stole some money and was thrown out of Vassar. She went through half a dozen jobs before she married Harold Grimm, who was already practicing medicine at the time, and regained financial solvency.”
“How did you find out about this?”
“By modem.”
Carver, who was barely computer literate, must have looked puzzled.
“Using the Internet. Someone even faxed me a copy of the fourteen-year-old newspaper item about the embezzlement from the university. Adelle claimed she stole the money out of love for one of her professors. He was a married man and denied any involvement. She was convicted and given probation. Even after that, she came close to going to prison because she continued her claims on the professor and almost destroyed his marriage.”
“Fourteen years is a long time ago,” Carver said.
“Maybe, but it provides some insight into Adelle. She can be a possessive woman. I think it’s possible she killed her husband to be with Freel, and Freel might know nothing about it. Now she’s emotionally distraught and financially strapped again, but she isn’t opting for an abortion because it’s Freel’s child she’s carrying and not her dead husband’s.”
“Which would give her considerable leverage over Freel.”
“It would if she needed it.”
“If she was from such a wealthy family, why would she have to embezzle money when she was in college?”
“She was on a meager allowance, and her parents were strict disciplinarians determined not to let their daughter be spoiled by wealth. Adelle didn’t adhere to their philosophy. She’d had trouble before with money.”
“I doubt if she’s poor now. Grimm was doing okay financially, and he probably had life insurance.”
“He did, for two hundred thousand dollars. But that isn’t much to a woman who has roots in obscene wealth and might want to recapture it. Reverend Freel has major-league wealth, and she might be pregnant with his child.”
They reached the rocky area of beach and turned around to walk back the way they’d come. “That’s a lot of conjecture,” Carver said. “You might be making it all too complicated. Seems more likely to me that Freel wanted Adelle and used his band of pro-life fanatics and Norton to kill Grimm and cover his true motive.”
“What about his alibi?”
“Desoto isn’t as sure as Wicker that it’s solid.”
“Adelle had access to the clinic. She could have planted the bomb there anytime, possibly days before it went off.”
“How could she know she’s carrying Freel’s baby and not Grimm’s?”
“The point is, how could Freel know?”
Carver realized Beth had given this hypothesis considerable thought. It was amazing what a labyrinth had to be negotiated to reach the truth. It was so difficult to be sure of anything.
Al trotted up to them and shook his entire body violently, spraying water over Carver and Beth. Carver was irritated, but Beth leaned down and hugged the still-soaked dog, then kissed the top of his nose. What could Carver say. She’d lost a child and gained a pet. It was the sort of trade that wasn’t really a trade, that made him want to cry.