She drove east toward the ocean until she connected with Magellan, then took it south to the coast highway. Obviously, she was finished working for the day.
Carver stayed well back from the black Stanza and listened to a clergyman and a female state representative argue about the French abortion pill. He knew where the car and the argument were going.
He continued past the driveway of Maggie’s cottage after the Stanza had turned into it. Then he made a U-turn and parked on the shoulder behind some palms and decorative shrubbery dotted with tiny multicolored blossoms, where Beni Ho had been parked to watch the cottage when Carver had visited it the first time. He twisted the ignition key and switched off the engine and the radio.
The parking place didn’t provide much of a view, actually. Carver could see the front of the cottage through the bushes, but not the door or the stepping-stone path to the rear of the place and the beach.
He decided to knock on the cottage door and try getting Maggie to talk with him while she was loosened with alcohol. She should be more cooperative and revealing thanks to her time spent in Shellie’s. Besides, Carver had done enough sitting in the heat for one day.
Leaving the Olds parked where it was, he got out and walked along the road shoulder, then down the driveway to the cottage.
He rapped on the door with his cane and waited. There must have been a beehive somewhere close by; several honeybees droned past in the same general direction and made wide circles to disappear around the corner of the cottage. Worker bees knocking off for the day. A few of them buzzed close but didn’t seem to pay much attention to Carver. They had more important business. It was time to check in with the queen.
The door opened and Maggie stood staring out at him. She was still wearing the blue skirt but not the blazer and was in stockinged feet. Carver’s gaze started at her nylon-clad painted toenails and rose to her face. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and she looked mildly annoyed at being ogled. Used to it, though. A woman like her knew that some men’s eyes traveled on their own.
Carver said, “You told me you might want to talk some more, said to come calling later.”
She smiled at his pathetic attempt at subterfuge. “We both know I said ‘call later,’ not ‘come calling.’ ”
He said, “Well, to tell you the truth, I phoned you again at work about an hour ago and they said you’d left for the day.”
“So you thought you’d drive here and pester me in person?”
“I thought it might help both of us if we talked some more about Mark Winship.”
“Not about Donna?”
“Donna, too.”
Maggie ran her palms down her cheeks, dragging at the corners of her bleary eyes and distorting her features, the way kids do when they want to make a face. It amazed Carver that she was sexy even when she did that. What a temptation she must have been for Mark Winship. For any man who’d ever met her. She said, “I took a sleeping pill about an hour ago and it’s kicking in, I’m afraid. We’ll have to talk some other time, if at all.”
Carver said, “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are when you’re tired?”
“Countless times.”
“Add my observation.”
In a bored voice, she said, “Are you coming on to me, Mr. Carver?”
“No, I don’t think so. Anyway, I suppose you’d say I’m spoken for.” He smiled at her, making it reassuring, letting her know that sure, he found her attractive, but he wasn’t going to be pushy about it, wasn’t in the market.
She stared at him, gnawing hard on her lower lip. He wondered if alcohol had numbed the lip so she couldn’t feel what she was doing.
Sensing she was weakening, he said, “Let’s drive to a restaurant and get some coffee, put off that nap for a while. If you go to sleep now, you’ll wake up at four A.M. and be tired all day tomorrow.”
Wheels seemed to be turning inside her lovely head. Persuasive Carver. She was considering, all right. He was sure of it.
She said, “Fuck off, Mr. Carver,” and slammed the door.
Carver stared at the blank surface of the door for a long moment, then placed the tip of his cane to the side and turned around. More bees droned past him, low to the ground, as if humiliated by the prospect of having to take crap from the queen.
He said, “I know how you feel,” and followed the sun-washed driveway to where the Olds was parked on the gravel shoulder.
He wondered if Maggie had been in her bedroom before answering his knock. She’d given no sign of having found the dismembered doll on her bed.
As he drove away, he decided it might be a good idea to find out who owned the cottage.
18
A stop at the county courthouse told Carver the cottage where Maggie was staying was deeded to Dredge Industries, Inc. He’d had a go at finding the company’s address, but without luck. Dredge Industries had owned the property for three years.
It was a few minutes past seven when he pulled the Olds into the gravel lot of the Happy Lobster and turned his car over to the same young parking valet who’d been on duty the day of Donna Winship’s death. If he recognized Carver, he showed no sign. He parked a lot of cars for a lot of people. Carver watched him leave the Olds in a space at the edge of the lot, near where Donna had died, then went inside to meet Beth for dinner.
She was seated at a table near the window, two tables down from where Carver had listened to and failed to help Donna. Her hair was tamed by a headband and her strong profile was silhouetted against the wide window and glimmering sea. He stood in the archway leading from bar to restaurant and admired her for a few seconds, then she saw him and smiled.
The restaurant was crowded, and several men stared at him with veiled surprise and envy as he made his way among the tables, kissed her, and sat down. Central Florida wasn’t the easiest place for a white man and a black woman to be in love. It was an area where God and citrus and Mickey Mouse were sometimes worshiped to extremes. Maybe it had to do with the heat.
Three sun-browned, fortyish guys in shorts and identical gray tee shirts with alligators on their chests were still staring at Carver and Beth. They had a pitcher of beer at the table, and two of them were wearing caps lettered GATOR BAITER above the bills. There was hostility in their gazes, and the thin edge of envy Carver had seen in some of the other eyes that had followed him to the table.
Beth said, “Wonder what those swamp turkeys are thinking.”
Carver thought about his bad leg, then Beth’s two beautiful good ones showing beneath her light tan skirt, and said, “Probably they figure I must know some tricks.”
Beth smiled. “You do, Fred, you do.” She turned slightly and aimed her smile at the swamp turkeys, and they looked uncomfortable and concentrated on their drinking. Beth could be intimidating.
Then one of the men grinned and said something to a man at the next table, all the while looking at Beth. Carver knew what he was doing. He’d made a remark to the other man to fish for agreement on whatever he’d said about Beth. Bigots always sought, even sometimes demanded, confirmation of their beliefs. They needed that reassurance. But the man at the adjoining table simply turned away, as if he hadn’t heard.
A pert blond waitress arrived and announced she was their server and rattled off a litany of specials, then asked if she could get them something to drink while they were making up their minds. Beth ordered a martini, Carver a scotch, rocks.
Carver made up his mind right away and set his lobster-shaped menu aside. Beth chewed the inside of her cheek and contemplated.