But the two Disney Productions executives, David Panacho and Mildred Kern, had somehow stumbled onto what Willis was really doing, and had to be killed. And they had become curious about Carver nosing around in Solarville and had found out his name, possibly what he was doing in town. If they had to die, it now made sense to Willis and Cahill to wipe Carver off the slate, also. And the Marielitos involved in the deal were probably pressing for revenge for Silverio Lujan’s death. They’d already murdered the naturalist Mackenzie, to buy time or his silence.
So Jorge Lujan, or possibly one or more confederates, had killed the Disney executives and faked their accident on the highway. That same night, Jorge tried to murder Carver and wound up dead himself.
Within a few minutes, Carver and Edwina were on the road outside of town. The sun seemed unnaturally large and hot, as if it had slipped a million-mile notch nearer to earth. The stark contrast between light and shadow was vivid enough to cause mental jolts as the car sped through alternating patches of brightness and darkness, as if some of the shadows might be solid enough to cause impact.
Carver pushed the Olds hard on the highway, then along the narrow dirt road that led to Verna’s sanctuary deep in the swamp.
CHAPTER 32
She must have heard them drive up; she was waiting for them on the front porch. Verna was barefoot, as she’d been on Carver’s first visit, only this time she hadn’t yet dressed and was wearing a faded blue robe. Her dark hair was mussed, and her eyes were intent and red-rimmed, as if from lack of sleep. She was carrying the shotgun this time, too, cradling it gently beneath her breasts, almost as if it were an infant.
“Just there’s about right,” she said, shifting the long shotgun so that her finger was on the trigger and the twin barrels swung like bleak fate toward Carver and Edwina.
Carver reached over and touched Edwina’s arm. They simultaneously stopped, then stood motionless on the bare earth in front of the porch. The huge sun pulsated above, its heat weighting them down.
Carver probed the ground with the tip of his cane, found it as hard as it had been the day before, and set the cane and leaned on it.
“We have to talk,” he said.
“I do doubt that.”
Carver was sweating miserably. The humidity had risen. Despite the relentless sun, black clouds loomed high and heavy in the west; a storm gusting in off the gulf. Distant thunder rolled across the shadowed swamp, like the rumbling of dinosaurs roaming where they had lived forever.
“I’m no more interested in what you have to say today than I was the first time you came poking around out here,” Verna said.
“You’ll be interested if you take the time to listen,” Carver said. “Is Willis inside?”
“Willis?” Her voice took on a hollow quality; she was no good at deception. She tightened her grip on the shotgun. Carver watched her right forefinger caress the trigger guard with an odd kind of affection.
“Willis Eiler,” he said. “He’s your husband, Mrs. Eiler.”
Beside him, Edwina took an involuntary step back and to the side, as if Carver’s words had struck her with solid force. Then she moved forward again, beside Carver.
Verna stood quietly, considering. Carver and Edwina stood just as quietly and waited. Insects buzzed and chirped frantically around them in the swamp, sensing the coming storm. The birds that had been singing were silent, as if they’d already taken shelter.
“How’d you find out we was man and wife?” Verna asked.
“Checked the real-estate records at city hall. I wanted to know if you’d really sold your property. There hadn’t been a sale, but the property had been retitled in the names of Willis Eiler and his wife Verna.”
“Why was you interested in my property changing hands?”
“I thought your leaving town might be pertinent to a narcotics case, but I was wrong. About almost everything. I was being led. Now I understand. The object of the game was never drugs, it was real estate. Land. Willis stole money to purchase your property through his partner, Sam Cahill. When you wouldn’t sell to Cahill, Willis courted and married you to get the land.” It probably had been simple for Willis, Carver thought, looking at Verna. Lonely, more easily understood than she imagined, she was easy prey for a handsome, experienced con man with a hundred-thousand-dollar bankroll.
None of this made much sense to Verna. “Is Willis why you’re here?” she asked softly.
“Partly,” Carver said. “But I’m also here because there’s something you should know, Willis or no Willis. The Disney corporation is interested in using this area to create a theme park they’d call Everglades Kingdom, an expansion of Disney World into southern Florida. They’re keeping their intentions as quiet as possible to prevent land prices from soaring. Willis Eiler found out about the project when he was going through his boss’s desk in Del Moray, where he was selling time shares that didn’t exist, and came across some Florida Real-Estate Commission correspondence. Disney plans to drain some of the land here, build up roads, create a scenic waterway and a monorail system serving luxury hotels and tourist attractions.”
Verna seemed vaguely disbelieving of what Carver was telling her. “Tourist attractions, monorails, luxury hotels… here?”
“We’re standing right in the middle of the proposed area,” Carver told her. “Your property. Land Disney will pay a fortune to acquire because they must have it.”
Verna’s jaw set firmly and something cold moved into her eyes. Her hair was brushed down and forward to conceal her disfigurement, but Carver saw the lower half of the scar flush bright crimson. A breeze danced through the leaves, parted the folds of her robe for a moment to reveal one of her fine, bare legs halfway up her thigh.
She knew how to get to the point: “You saying Willis married me for my swampland and this tumbledown place?”
“He knows what it’s really worth,” Carver said. Let her put the pieces in place, figure it out for herself. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes, just someone with the proper slant. Even Watson might have managed it.
“We was keeping our romance and marriage a secret until we’d moved away, because Willis said we could expect trouble from his ex-wife.” Verna motioned smoothly toward Edwina with the shotgun barrels. “This her?”
“No,” Carver said. In the corner of his vision he saw Edwina straighten and stand tensely. “This is a woman he was living with, another woman he took advantage of to get what he wanted. He served prison time for cheating a widow out of her property in Missouri. You’re the latest in a succession of women in Willis’s life, Verna. He uses women then throws them away. He’s using you.”
“He was gonna sell the place and get outa here,” Verna said, “away from Solarville. Sam Cahill was going to handle the deal for us.”
“I told you Cahill is Willis’s partner. He did try to buy this place from you, didn’t he?”
Verna nodded. “Tried every way he could. I wouldn’t sell at any price, though. I couldn’t. I’d have had no place to go then. All alone.”
“And when Cahill couldn’t convince you to sell to him, Willis came here to charm you into marriage and get the property that way. Isn’t that the way it was, Verna?”
There was a faint noise from inside the cabin, like someone walking with a heavy tread.
Carver knew who it was; it would have been unwise to stir from cover so soon after the night before, with so many law enforcement officers still in the area.