“More domestic hell,” Desoto said. “Sometimes I’m grateful to God that I never married.”
“Suicide?” Carver asked.
“Yes, I see matrimony that way.”
“I mean the woman in the van. Did she shoot herself?”
“Not likely. There were five bullet holes in her back.” He shook his head, his dark eyes sad. “Such a beautiful woman. A young mother, no doubt. Vacationers from up north. We’re searching for the husband.” He sat up straighter and adjusted his cuffs. “But it’s police business, and you should be thankful it’s none of your concern. What is your concern today, my friend?”
“Another shooting.” Carver told him about the encounter with the Oriental man and asked if Desoto had any idea as to the assailant’s identity.
“I might have,” he said. He asked Carver to wait, then got up and left the office. Carver knew he wasn’t going far; he’d left his cream-colored suit coat draped neatly on its hanger.
Carver sat patiently without moving. The portable Sony on the windowsill was silent, and sounds from outside filtered into the office. People arguing, joking, laughing. Occasional footsteps in the hall outside. “I mean it,” a woman said loudly somewhere outside the office. “It’s true. I really mean it.” Trying hard to be believed.
Ten minutes later Desoto returned with a mug book. His place had been marked by some fan-fold computer paper inserted between the pages. He laid the book on the desk where Carver could see it easily from where he sat, then opened it, withdrawing the computer printout and pointing to full-face and profile photographs of Carver’s Oriental attacker.
The man’s name was Beni Ho, and the photos were three years old, from when Ho had done brief prison time on an assault charge. His height was listed as five feet even, his weight 119.
“Him,” Carver said. He tapped the photo with his forefinger.
Desoto leaned over Carver’s shoulder. “You’re sure this man did what you describe?”
“I’m sure.”
“He isn’t very big, amigo.”
“Well, he’s wiry.”
Desoto handed the printout to Carver. Beni Ho had a long record of assaults and had done two prison stretches.
“There’s no need for you to be ashamed,” Desoto said. “This is a dangerous man, as several police departments would tell you.”
Carver didn’t recall saying he was ashamed of anything.
“Ho never uses a weapon,” Desoto said. “That and his diminutive size have impressed jurors and prevented him from taking up more or less permanent residence behind the walls. But he doesn’t need a weapon, apparently; he’s said to possess every color martial arts belt and even some suspenders. He’s injured several men severely, and rumor has it he’s killed more than one. He jumped parole in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, six months ago. The Baton Rouge police say he’s half Japanese, half Hawaiian, and all dynamite. An extremely lethal little package.”
“What about Gretch?” Carver asked. “Anything else on him?”
“No. Gretch, from his record and what you’ve told me, isn’t in Beni Ho’s league.” Desoto went back behind his desk. He switched on the Sony portable and tinkered with the dials but got only static. Apparently his favorite Spanish station was temporarily off the air. He turned off the radio and sat down, looking disconsolate. The beautiful, melancholy music was an important part of his days and his perspective.
“Maybe lightning struck the station’s tower,” Carver said.
“It hasn’t rained in a week. Which of Beni Ho’s legs did you shoot?”
“His right.” Carver wondered what were the odds of a five-foot Oriental man checking into a hospital shot in the left leg and causing confusion.
“I’ll run the routine check of medical clinics and hospitals,” Desoto said, “and phone you if Ho seeks treatment. But from what you said, and what we know about him, he might be able to tough it out without hospitalization. He’s a psychopath, and they sometimes have amazingly high pain thresholds.”
“He was walking,” Carver said, “when most men would have stayed on the ground.”
Desoto smiled. “You admire him, hey?”
“The way I admired Hurricane Andrew.” Carver moved the tip of his cane in a tight circular pattern on the floor. “What more do you have on Mark Winship’s death?”
Desoto raised a dark eyebrow in puzzlement. “He’s dead-what more is there? It was a suicide.”
“Are you completely convinced? I think there are unanswered questions.”
“They often are. People who commit suicide are usually more interested in getting out of this world than in any questions they might leave behind.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“But you’re not suicidal. Not right now, anyway.”
“I understand all the evidence points to suicide, but there’s no way to completely rule out murder.”
“True. But there’s not nearly enough there to prompt an official homicide investigation.” Desoto rubbed his chin with his thumb. “You really think Mark Winship was murdered?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“It feels like suicide. I wouldn’t question it. I’m surprised you would.”
“I didn’t at first. But now I think there’s a chance he was shot by someone else.”
“A very slim chance, amigo. But no doubt enough of one for you to take for a ride. Who do you like as his killer?”
“What about Beni Ho?”
“He would have used his hands, then pushed Winship off a bridge or out a window to make it look like suicide. He’s not a gun kind of guy. It’s against his religion. Makes him feel less than a man. Machismo, face, whatever you want to call it-it’s more important than life itself to a martial arts fanatic like Ho.” Desoto talked as if, on a certain level, he understood and approved.
“What about Carl Gretch?”
“I couldn’t rule him out. All we really know about him is that he doesn’t like you. But it takes more than that to figure a man with a hole in his head and a gun in his hand was murdered.”
“I’ve seen Maggie Rourke, the woman Mark Winship was involved with, and not many men would voluntarily leave her for the state of being dead. Not many men would leave her to step outside for a minute to pick up the paper. She’s lovely and then some, the sort of woman whose beauty dominates her life and the lives of others.”
“And that’s what makes you suspect he was murdered? Because it strikes you as odd that he’d kill himself and leave a woman as beautiful as his lover?”
“Not entirely,” Carver said. “It strikes me as odd that Maggie Rourke assumes he would.”
Desoto cocked his head to the side and looked pensive.
Carver smiled. “I thought that was something you’d understand.”
“I do,” Desoto said, absently caressing a sleeve of his soft white oxford shirt, “but that doesn’t change the evidence.”
14
Carver drove to Gretch’s apartment to see if Beth was still there. He found her parked in her white LeBaron convertible half a block down from the building. Her head moved slightly as she checked his approach in the rearview mirror.
He parked the Olds behind her car, climbed out, and limped to the LeBaron. Invisible mosquitoes droned around him in the dusk, and he swatted one away from his eyes. Swatted at the faint, lilting buzzing, anyway.
The LeBaron’s white canvas top was raised but the windows were rolled down. Despite the heat, Beth looked cool. She was seated motionless and unbothered; mosquitoes knew trouble when they saw it and stayed well clear of her.
She was reading something. Carver put his weight over his cane and leaned down to peer into the car.
She was studying a glossy mail-order catalog. Stacked next to her on the seat were more catalogs. He recognized them as the catalogs from the closet floor in Gretch’s apartment.
“I already looked at those,” he said. “There’s nothing unusual about them. If they meant anything, Gretch wouldn’t have left them behind.”
“That’s what Oliver North thought when he punched the delete button on his computer.” Beth had this thing about Iran-Contra. She’d done a series of “Ends Don’t Justify Means” articles for Burrow. Carver had seldom seen her work so hard on anything.