“Paul’s gone haywire a few times in the past couple of years and broke up some things. Threw a stool through an ice cream shop window over in Cocoa Beach. Kicked in the side of a car when its driver stole his parking space. After times like that, I’d see his shiny old Lincoln drive up afore long, and he’d come in to see me and we’d talk over what happened. We’d have a few beers, and he’d say it was just this pressure that built up in him and needed release, but that folks really did pick on him sometimes. But he never hurt people, Carver, only things.”
Or maybe to Paul Kave people are things, Carver thought. And it was only a question of time before his outbursts of violence included flesh and blood. “Did he tell you he was a diagnosed schizophrenic and was seeing a psychiatrist?”
“Sure,” Emmett said. “Paul and I have the same opinion of shrinks: bunch of phonies getting rich off other people’s misery. Paul only went to that doctor because he had no choice. Hell, he’s smarter’n any shrink.”
“Then he didn’t think his therapy was helping him?”
“Course not. Didn’t think he needed it in the first place. Despite all his mental mix-up and occasional bouts of aggression,” Emmett Kave said firmly, “Paul’s a fine young man. Can’t say for certain he wouldn’t hurt somebody, but I sure don’t see him setting folks on fire.”
Carver glanced through a side window and noticed an orange tree not far from the house. It was brightly dotted with fruit, and darkened oranges littered the ground beneath it, rotting. “Does Paul talk much about Nadine?” he asked.
“No, sir. But from what little he has told me, she’s got pretty much the same problems he has. I get the idea she’s a rebel, though, and I wouldn’t describe Paul as that. I guess she’s gone on the offense, and Paul fights defensively.”
Up until a few weeks ago, Carver thought.
He said, “If Paul does contact you, will you call me?” He drew a business card from his pocket and stretched to hand it to Emmett.
“If you want me to be honest,” Emmett said, taking the card and laying it in a puddle next to the beer can, “that’d depend on what Paul has to say about them killings.”
“Whatever he has to say, it’ll be easier for him if I find him before the police do. I want to help him, Emmett. And he’s not the type to give himself up easily, is he?”
“No, he’s not that. He’d be scared and angry and get himself hurt or killed-or maybe even kill somebody else out of fear. In his way, he’s gut-deep stubborn. All us Kaves are.”
Carver had gathered that. “Thanks for your help,” he said, and stood up. “Can we talk again about Paul sometime?”
“Sure thing.” Emmett got up and walked with him to the door. “You do me and Paul a favor and don’t mention to Adam that Paul’s dropped by here now and then the past several years. Paul was always scared Adam’d find out. I figure Paul’s innocent, and when all this trouble dies down, I don’t want him thinking I ratted on him and got him in deep shit with old Adam.”
Carver almost refused. After all, Adam Kave was his client and he had a professional obligation of loyalty.
But that was ridiculous, an automatic twinge of obligation and nothing more. An illusion of professionalism. He was already deceiving his client, using him. And under the circumstances his behavior was justified. An eye for an eye, a son for a son.
“Okay, Emmett. Our secret.”
Emmett held out a bacon-scented hand and they shook on the deal, leaving Carver’s fingers greasy. The screen door creaked shut, and Emmett faded into interior dimness.
As Carver made his way across the desert of the yard and back to his car, he was sure the old man was grinning behind the dark screen.
Emmett got off on sharing secrets his brother didn’t know.
Chapter 13
The next day dawned red and mean, as if Mother Nature bore a grudge against mankind. Well, maybe she did. Carver looked out the car window at the rows of expensive homes and high-rise condominiums cluttering the majestic shore and supposed she had reason enough.
He found the Kave family eating breakfast on a screened-in veranda overlooking the ocean. A rust-colored awning had been rolled out overhead to block the sun. The screen was silver, unlike the dark mesh of Emmett’s front door, and the view through it somehow made the Atlantic seem brighter and more shot with sun. Occasionally a hot breeze would kick up off the ocean, causing the awning to flap like a sail. The air that morning was thick and felt silky on Carver’s bare arms and face.
Adam sat at the head of the rectangular glass-topped table, Elana at the opposite end. Nadine had answered Carver’s ring and, after leading him to the veranda, took her seat again before a partly eaten half-grapefruit with a sprinkling of sugar over it. Carver tried to imagine Paul seated opposite his sister but couldn’t.
“Care for some breakfast, Carver?” Adam Kave asked. He was wearing a white-on-white shirt and blue-striped tie today, as if he might be going somewhere or was prepared to meet someone. The breeze tried to ruffle his slicked-back graying hair but couldn’t manage; a victory for Brylcreem.
Carver declined the offer of breakfast, but he sat down at the table, where Paul might have sat had he been there. The proximity of his quarry in space if not time felt eerie. “I’ve been to see Emmett,” he said.
Elana dabbed nervously at her lips with her pink cloth napkin. She had on the same delicately laced robe she’d worn yesterday. Adam sipped his coffee from a dainty cup that looked lost and imperiled in his big hand, and peered at Carver over the rim. There was a pink flowery design on the cup, traversed by a hairline crack. Carver for some reason remembered vaguely a line from an Auden poem memorized in school, something about a crack in the side of a teacup being a lane to the land of the dead.
“Guess you had to go there,” Adam said. “I don’t like Emmett involved in family matters, though.”
“Sometimes it can’t be helped,” Nadine said. “There’s no changing the fact he’s your brother.”
“Stay out of this,” Adam said casually but with unmistakable authority.
Carver thought Nadine might snap an answer at her father, but three beautifully pitched, melancholy chimes sounded from nearby. The doorbell. End of this round.
Nadine glared at Adam, then rose and left the veranda. She was wearing a white tennis outfit with shorts, and her tanned legs were thick but surprisingly shapely. Calf muscles rippled above her soft-soled court shoes, and the firm flesh of her thighs danced with each step. She would probably be strong at sports, Carver thought. Strong at a number of things.
Adam said, “I suppose Emmett asked you not to tell me Paul’s been in the habit of driving over to Kissimmee and seeing him.”
Carver was surprised. His face must have shown it.
Adam smiled and took another nibble of coffee from the dainty cup. “I won’t put you on the spot and ask if you promised him you wouldn’t mention it. Maybe you traded that promise for some useful information.”
“I traded it for Emmett’s further cooperation,” Carver said. “If what he says is true-and you seem to confirm it-Paul might well contact him for help. Emmett promised to call me if that happened.”
“Emmett’s promises are about as solid as that sand,” Adam said, sweeping a backhand motion toward the ocean breaking on the beach below. A large, errant night moth, lost and dazzled by the light, pinged off the screen twice, then flitted away across the bright green lawn toward an uncertain future.
Elana stood up and smiled at Carver. The smile was out of context, as if she hadn’t been present during Carver and her husband’s conversation. Maybe people looking squarely at death did so from their own intensely personal and narrowed worlds.