“My name’s Edwina Talbot,” she said.
“Why did Lieutenant Desoto send you to see me, Edwina?”
“Because I was pestering him. And because he thinks you need something to do.”
“Doesn’t he know I’m independently wealthy now?” Carver said. He’d received a fat insurance claim along with his disability pension after being shot in the left knee during a holdup six months earlier, when he was a detective sergeant in the Orlando Police Department. The knee was ruined, locked at a thirty-degree angle for life. Eighty thousand dollars and a pension wasn’t much compared to being able to walk without a cane. Not the jackpot some of the damned fools in the department actually congratulated him on. Carver didn’t feel lucky.
“Being wealthy isn’t the same as having something to do,” Edwina said.
“Being wealthy isn’t the same as what I am, either.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not financially fixed for life, Edwina, unless I wean myself from food.”
“Then that’s probably another reason Lieutenant Desoto sent me here. He said you were a private investigator now. I want to hire you. I want you to find someone.”
Carver decided to be honest with her. Besides, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to take on a job just yet. It might be better to hang around there, work on the leg, learn to move as well as possible with what the doctors had left him. “I’m a one-man business,” he said. “Larger agencies with more resources are better able to trace missing persons.”
“I don’t trust larger agencies. Desoto says I can trust you.”
“That means something only if you know you can trust Desoto. Who do you want found?”
“His name’s Willis Davis.”
“A friend? Relative?”
“My lover.”
“You’ve been to the police, obviously,” Carver said. “They’re good at what they do. Why can’t they find Willis Davis?”
“They don’t think he’s missing; they think Willis is dead.”
Carver looked closely at her. It was strange how her angular face seemed so tranquil yet contained such quiet force. “If they think Willis is dead, they must have their reasons.”
“If I think he’s alive, I must have mine. Want to hear them?”
Carver looked away from her, back out to sea. Desoto was right; he did need something to do. His last case, an industrial espionage matter that had led to the computer operator everyone, even the computers, suspected, had been over a month ago. He’d been loafing since. That was no way to nurture a business, or a sense of accomplishment. His energy had been building rapidly for the past several weeks; he felt frustrated, trapped by his immobility. He’d even occasionally found himself feeling sorry for the new, lame Fred Carver. He didn’t like himself very much when that happened.
“I’ll listen,” he said. “I won’t promise to do anything else. Not even to commiserate with you.”
She smiled thinly. It was a weary sort of smile, but not at all resigned. It suggested that she had reserves of strength, yet at the same time an odd vulnerability. “Sure,” she said, “you can’t know what to do until you’ve listened to what I have to say.” There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice, as if she knew he’d already decided to help her and she was humoring him.
She watched him as he planted the cane in the soft sand and pulled himself to his feet. Again she made no move to help. She had him figured out by now.
“I guess I am finished swimming for the day,” he said. “Come on into the house.”
Edwina took off her high-heeled shoes and walked alongside him without speaking, up the beach onto firmer ground. She was still smiling slightly, knowingly. She had cast her line into the sea and he’d taken the hook. Maybe he wasn’t a record catch. Or maybe he was.
CHAPTER 2
“Interesting place,” she commented, as Carver let her walk ahead of him into his cottage.
“Only one room,” he told her, closing the door, “but it’s all mine and all I need.”
“One large room,” Edwina said, looking around appraisingly. “Private. And with a great view.” The cottage was mostly glass on the sea side and afforded a wide view of the Atlantic, an airy scene broken only by potted plants dangling on chains from the window frame. When seas were high, the ocean appeared to be above the level of the cottage’s flat roof. Sometimes Carver had the feeling that any second he and the beach and the cottage would be engulfed and washed away, torn from the land and lost forever in the sea.
A breakfast counter separated the small kitchen area from the rest of the cottage, and a latticed room divider partitioned off space for a bed and dresser. Beyond the sleeping area were two doors: one to a tiny bathroom, the other to the outside.
“Even though it’s on the beach,” Carver said, “the land juts out so that the cottage is pretty much concealed from sunbathers or from the road.”
Edwina turned her attention from the cottage to Carver. “Why do you live here? Do you want to be concealed?”
Carver wished she’d give up asking probing questions whose answers were none of her business. “I bought the place with part of my insurance settlement so I could be near the ocean. Swimming being recommended therapy for my leg.” He limped around the Formica counter into the kitchen area, playing host. “Can I get you something to drink?”
She was still standing just inside the door; there was something mocking in that hipshot stance. “No, thank you,” she said. “I want to talk about Willis.” She shook sand from her feet, then slipped her shoes back on and walked to the center of the room. It was something to see, that walk.
Carver opened the refrigerator and got out a can of Budweiser. He popped the pull tab and stayed behind the counter while he talked to Edwina. “Willis Davis, wasn’t it?”
“ Isn’t it.”
He took a sip of cold beer and gazed at her over the rim of the can. “That’s right, he’s alive. And he’s your lover.”
She didn’t differ with him on that. The ocean rolled and sighed outside, beyond the wide windows and silhouetted dangling plants.
Carver put down the beer can and leaned forward, supporting himself with both hands on the counter. “So tell me about you and Willis.”
“Willis is a salesman,” she said. “I’m in sales, too. Real estate. We met six months ago at a direct sales convention in Orlando.” She paced, not far, just a few elegant steps, then looked straight at Carver. “We met in the hotel lounge, I let him buy me a drink, and we talked for a while. We liked each other. It was late; I’d had too many whiskey sours; I went with him to his room.”
Carver nodded. It wasn’t called a direct sales convention for nothing. He understood. He knew how it was at conventions. Private investigators held conventions, too, but he’d never been to one.
“I’ve got a place on the beach, too,” Edwina said. “Down the coast in Del Moray. That’s where I live and work, in Del Moray. A month after we met, Willis moved in with me. He still worked in Orlando for a while, before he got a job where I was working at the time. He commuted.”
“A long commute,” Carver said, “but I can understand why he thought it worth his while.”
Edwina’s features registered no reaction to the compliment. Hers was a face that seemed to have already run the entire range of emotions and was weary of responding. He took another look at her crisp gray business suit. It was tailored and expensive. Del Moray was a wealthy little community with a high percentage of rich retirees. Probably it was a great place to sell real estate.
“Willis enjoyed driving back and forth,” she said. “He was happy. I was happy. Neither of us had anyone else. Do you have anyone, Mr. Carver?”
“No,” he said, thrown for a moment by the question. Resenting it.
“A month ago,” Edwina went on, “Willis began acting strangely, moodily. He hadn’t been moody before.”
“You hadn’t known him very long,” Carver pointed out.