“There’s a Lieutenant William McGregor in Fort Lauderdale who resents you snooping around over there,” Desoto said. “It’s his town, his department, he’s in charge of the investigation, and he’s got this idea that makes it his case.”
“My son,” Carver said. “Fuck McGregor.”
“Hmm,” Desoto said. The breeze from the air-conditioner ruffled the dark hair over his left ear. Behind him, on the radio, a woman with a sad voice began singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.” “Did you stop over in Chattanooga and talk to the Gepmans?”
“The husband told me he was sure he saw a white-over-blue Lincoln parked near the restaurant the day of the murder.”
Desoto seemed interested, but he said nothing and sat there wearing his stoic Latin mask. He’d have looked at home on an Aztec coin.
“An older model,” Carver said. “They look like Fords of a later vintage. Gepman restores cars for a hobby, so he knows Lincolns from Fords. He also remembers a dent in the right front fender.”
“Could mean nothing, amigo.”
“It’s your optimism I like most about you.”
“I can’t be optimistic about that envelope and matchbook,” Desoto said. “It means you’re in danger now. You’ve stirred the beast in his lair. It also suggests that whoever killed your son is methodical and aggressive, a difficult combination.”
Carver held his cane vertically with both hands and absently rotated it between his fingers, its tip revolving on the tile floor like a blunt drill bit. “Why not gasoline or kerosene?” he said. “And why go to the trouble to mix thickener with the naphtha? If our man is careful, wouldn’t he have used some more common flammable liquid by itself, something more difficult to trace?”
“I’ve thought about that,” Desoto said. He hesitated. “It could be he wanted something sticky that burned longer so it would cause more suffering.” He regretted his words immediately and bit his lower lip with his very white teeth. Then he frowned. “I’m sorry, amigo.”
“I came to the same conclusion,” Carver said softly, trying not to remember his son’s blackened body on the morgue table, trying not to picture the yawning grave waiting for the casket after the funeral back in Saint Louis. Yesterday. My God, that had been only yesterday. Time could torture as well as heal.
“The man who did this,” Desoto said quietly, “I feel the way you do about him, Carver.”
“Yeah, but it’s a matter of degree.”
“Like most things in life.”
“Maybe he isn’t warning me with the matchbook,” Carver said. “Maybe he doesn’t want me to back off. He might be taunting me.”
“That’s even worse,” Desoto said. “Cats do that with mice. Mice usually lose.”
“The guy who sent that matchbook thinks I’m a cat.”
“You’re not, though. He wants you to think that so you’ll get confident and careless. Old cat trick. What better way to corner a mouse?”
Carver stopped rotating the cane, shifted his weight over it, and stood up. It was a relief to be out of the straight-backed chair. “I’ll check with you this afternoon about the matchbook and envelope.”
“And in the meantime you’ll drive down to the Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach area and continue your search along the shore for the driver of a blue Lincoln, despite this message from a killer.”
“That’s where I’ll be,” Carver confirmed.
Desoto sighed. “Mice should learn when to lay low in their holes,” he said, “but they don’t. They keep finding the cheese irresistible.”
Chapter 8
Around three in the afternoon it began to rain, as it often did at that time in Florida in midsummer. A squall had drifted in off the sea, churning water and bending palm trees and sending the swimmers and boaters with good sense scurrying for shore.
Carver put up the top on the Olds and raised the windows just enough to keep rain from blowing in. He sat quietly, occasionally switching on the wipers for a couple of swipes so he could maintain a clear view of Scuba Dan’s. The rain pattered like fingers drumming impatiently on the canvas top.
He was parked down the road, on the ocean side, near a line of tall palm trees whose long fronds were whipping wildly in the wind like the hair of madwomen tossing their heads. Scuba Dan’s hadn’t done much business in the past three hours; Carver had seen only half a dozen customers entering and leaving the low building with the roof-mounted air-conditioner and aluminum gutters. Scuba Dan’s phony antique wooden sign was swinging lustily now in the storm like that of an eighteenth-century pub’s, a pirates’ hangout. Even with the car windows rolled halfway up, and parked as he was some distance from the place, Carver could hear the sign creaking as it fought to free itself from its mountings and fly through time back to the days of the Jolly Roger.
A new gray Pontiac swung in ahead of Carver’s Oldsmobile and parked on the highway shoulder. A very tall, stooped man got out and trudged back toward the Olds. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and his wrinkled tan suit was getting water-spotted from the rain off the ocean. He walked slowly to the driver’s side of the Olds, as if it weren’t raining on him. He seemed too preoccupied to care about mere moisture.
Carver cranked the window all the way down and felt cool drops on his face.
He wasn’t surprised when the man fished a Fort Lauderdale police lieutenant’s shield from a pocket and said, “Mind if I come in?”
Carver rolled up the window and leaned over to unlock the passenger-side door. He watched the tall man walk around the front of the car, estimating his height at maybe six-foot-six. Though he was thin, almost skinny, there was an unmistakable strength in the coiled, controlled way he moved. Pro basketball centers moved like that.
“I’m McGregor,” the man said, as he lowered himself next to Carver in the Olds and slammed the door closed. He gave off a mingled, musty scent of wet clothing and cheap, perfumy cologne. “You’re Fred Carver.” He said this as if there might be some doubt in Carver’s mind as to his own identity. “Gray day, huh?”
“It just got grayer.”
“Still damned hot, though. But I guess that’s what you can expect this time of year. And the sun’ll be banging down on us again within an hour, I’d bet. Fuckin’ steambath!”
Carver wasn’t in the mood for diversion. He stared out at the dull gray ocean churned into whitecaps by the wind, then he looked directly over at McGregor. McGregor’s name suggested Scottish ancestry, but he looked Swedish. Ruddy, rawboned, lantern-jawed. Straight, lank hair so blond it was almost white. Pale blue eyes, set too close together. He had to bow his head slightly to keep it from bumping the canvas roof. There was something about him that suggested he could be mean. “How did you figure out I was here?” Carver asked.
“Didn’t figure. Desoto told me.” McGregor felt like getting to the point now himself. “That envelope and matchbook told us nothing except that whoever handled them last wore gloves. Cheap envelope that can’t be traced, and addressed with an IBM Selectric typewriter. They’re selling a couple of million of those even while we sit here and chat.”
“And maybe right now the guy who killed my son is killing somebody else’s.”
“Maybe. But we on the Lauderdale force haven’t exactly been standing around with our thumbs up our respective asses.”
“What have you been doing?”
“You know the answer to that; you used to be a cop. And a good one, according to Desoto, and he oughta know. He’s an old friend of mine. Solid guy.”
“He never mentioned you.”
“I hardly ever mention him.” McGregor lit a cigarette without asking if Carver minded. The car hazed up with smoke; the windshield fogged near the top. “How long you been sitting here?” he asked.
“Awhile.”
“Looking for a white-over-blue Lincoln?”
“Yeah. I haven’t seen it.”