“I believe you.” He worked on his beer for a minute. “Speaking of people dying, have you heard about Carl Gretch?”
No visible reaction. “Who?”
“Enrico Thomas. Donna’s lover.”
Now she blinked. Her hand stopped moving. “That guy? He’s dead?”
“Died sometime last night,” Carver said. “Died hard.” Pushing it, watching her.
“What? How?”
“He was rolled up tight in a carpet and beaten to death.”
She swallowed, then lifted her glass and took a huge gulp of her drink so she’d have something for her throat to work on. Delicately, she dabbed at her lips with the backs of her knuckles, making it seem like a gesture taught at finishing schools. “I never met him, so why should I care?”
“He knew you. You were fellow clients at the Walton Agency.”
She swiveled slightly on her stool and stared at Carver, looking genuinely confused.
“He said he met you at a lung shoot,” Carver explained.
“What the hell is that?”
“It was a photographer’s shoot for a cigarette advertisement. You and Gretch were playing volleyball on the beach with some other models.”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, probably shredding it without feeling what she was doing to herself. “Yeah,” she said finally, “I remember that job. Gretch. Little guy? Latin?”
“He’s the one.”
“He was Enrico Thomas? Donna’s lover?”
“They were the same man.”
“I’ll be damned.” She swiveled back to face the bar and her drink. “And you say somebody beat him to death?” Trying to get it all straight in her mind.
“I think Beni Ho did it.”
“Isn’t that a Japanese restaurant?”
“He’s the man I shot in front of your cottage.”
“Really? Police gonna arrest him?”
“No. There’s isn’t proof, and there won’t be. Ho’s very much a professional who takes everything into account.” He leaned closer to her. “Is everything all right with you?”
“ ’Course not. That’s why I’m here doing what I’m doing, because of Mark. Trying to get over how goddamn unfair it all is.”
“I mean, has anyone threatened you in any way?”
She shook her head no firmly. “Why should anyone threaten me? Donna’s dead, now Mark is.”
“And Gretch.”
“I didn’t-I hardly knew him.”
“Think about it,” Carver said softly. “Try to focus. First Donna, then Mark, and now Gretch.”
After a moment she said, “I see what you mean. All three sides of a love triangle.” She slowly stirred her drink with the tip of her finger, red nail swirling amber liquid in the soft light from behind the bar. “But I don’t get it. Why? Why did any of it happen?”
“I was hoping you could give me some insight.”
“Uh-uh, I can’t. You know more’n I do about it, that’s for sure. Maybe . . . maybe it’s just fate. You believe in fate, don’t you?
“Sometimes. I believe in geometry, too.”
She cocked her head as if listening to music coming from her glass and looked puzzled. “Meaning?”
“It’s why I asked you if you’d been threatened. It wasn’t a love triangle, it was a square. And there’s one side left.”
She bowed her head, then moved a hand to caress her stomach. Swallowed several times noisily. “S’cuse me!” she said, and almost fell off her stool, using it for support while she stood and got her balance. “Might be a little sick . . .”
He watched her stumble on numbed legs toward the rest-rooms at the rear of the bar. They were only about ten feet away or she might not have made it. The door marked GULLS slammed shut behind her. The other door was marked BUOYS. Carver had seen that a few times in Florida.
She’d left her purse, so he was reasonably certain she wouldn’t try to leave through a back exit or window. He wasn’t sure if it mattered much anyway. Where could she go?
When she came out of the restroom ten minutes later she was still walking unsteadily and was very pale. The stocky bartender gave her a look. Gave Carver a look.
Carver picked up Maggie’s purse from the bar.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, leaning with one hand on the bar’s padded edge.
He planted his cane and got down off his stool. “I’m gonna drive you home.”
“I don’t need anyone to do that.”
“You do if you want to stay alive.”
The bartender leaned over the bar so her black hair hung down over one side of her face. With her sturdy build and lack of makeup, it somehow made her seem ominous. “I can’t let you walk outa here and drive, ma’am. It could mean my job, and maybe a lot worse for you.”
Maggie looked as if she might argue some more. But she sighed and licked her lips with a disgusted expression, then grabbed her purse from Carver and wove toward the door. Every man at the bar turned to stare. A few of them smiled. Carver followed her.
He thought she might make for her own car and continue to object, but she was waiting for him outside the door, holding her purse clutched to her stomach with both hands. She was swaying slightly and had a look on her face as if she might be nauseated.
“Which?” she said.
Carver pointed to the Olds parked across the street, then gripped her elbow and helped her steer a straight course to the car. She smelled of alcohol and vomit, yet beneath that was an oddly appealing and persistent scent of perfume. Lilacs, Carver thought. He’d had his rough time with alcohol after Laura had left him and he’d been shot, and again after his son had died. He wondered how long Maggie would remain a beautiful woman if she stayed wed to the bottle.
On the highway she fell asleep with her head propped on his shoulder. By the time they’d reached her cottage, she was impossible to rouse.
He climbed out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and opened the door. He shook Maggie’s shoulder, shouted at her.
She blinked at him and smiled, then closed her eyes again.
There was no other way to carry her, walking with a cane. After fishing her keys from her purse, he wrestled her out of the car, slung her over his shoulder, and limped with her to the cottage door. She didn’t weigh much, and it was little effort once he’d gotten her up and balanced.
When he’d unlocked the door and opened it he found a light switch and flicked it upward. A lamp on one of the tables came on. He carried Maggie to her bed and laid her down where the dismembered doll had been, then worked her remaining shoe off her nylon-clad foot. The other shoe must have dropped off somewhere between the car and the bed. She moaned in her sleep and rolled onto her side, drawing her knees up as if her stomach ached.
Carver lifted one side of the bedspread and covered her up to the shoulders with it, then returned to the living room.
The missing shoe was on the floor just inside the door. He picked it up and closed the door, then walked back and dropped it beside its mate next to the bed. Maggie hadn’t moved and was breathing evenly with her mouth open, making soft little snoring sounds. Her face was unlined, her expression blank. The alcohol had brought her some peace; the price would be paid later.
After walking around the cottage and making sure the sliding glass door and the windows were locked, he placed her purse on the table with the lamp and left, locking the door behind him.
When he reached the highway, he cranked down the Olds’s windows and let the wind chase the mingled scent of her from the car’s interior.
28
Beverly Denton was eating lunch in the park across from Burnair and Crosley the next afternoon. Carver passed through dozens of foraging pigeons waddling about on the grass and pecking for morsels among the coarse green strands. They took to the air all at once with a great whirring and flapping, causing Beverly to look up from the book she was reading and see him. She smiled, but it was an uncertain smile.
“I thought I might find you here,” Carver said, as she glanced at his cane and scooted over on the bench to make room for him. He didn’t like that and remained standing.