Scorcher

sliding glass doors to outside, as if expecting to see McGregor or one of his men hunkered down and staring in through the crack in the drapes, like a peeping Tom.

“I’m sorry, amigo, but I’ve got something to tell you that will only worsen that fucked-up condition you mentioned. A woman here in Orlando burned to death in her shop a few hours ago. We’re still putting things together, but there’s not much doubt it’s just like the other killings.”

The knot in Carver’s stomach got heavier; his heart moved higher in his chest and fluttered. “Fifteen minutes ago I got a phone call.” He told Desoto what the caller had said. How the man had graphically described a woman burning.

“She was burned that way,” Desoto said quietly.

“Christ!. .”

“Paul Kave’s taunting you,” Desoto said. “Making it a game. Showing he can take the play away from you and be the hunter.”

For an instant Carver saw a tiger. “Why?”

“Amusement, amigo. Twisted kind of sex thing, maybe. We’ve both seen it. This time it’s mixed up with burning people to death. Know what? — I’m afraid for you.”

“I’m afraid for me, too.”

“Ah, but you feel something more potent than fear. And that’s what worries me, Carver.”

“I’ll worry enough for both of us.”

“I sincerely hope.”

“Any witnesses to the last murder?”

“None. What was left of the victim was discovered by customers when they walked into her dress shop over on Orange Avenue.”

“Orange in downtown Orlando?”

“Yeah. Not all that far from police headquarters. You want details by phone, or are you driving here?”

“I’ll check out now and get there soon as possible.”

“I oughta be in my office till late evening,” Desoto said. “Should have an autopsy prelim by the time you get here.”

“That’s fast.”

“There isn’t much left to autopsy,” Desoto said sadly. “This was a thorough job. Not an inch of her wasn’t burned. Sacra Madre!” Soft hissing on the line was the only sound Carver heard for a while. Desoto breathing into the receiver? Carver waited. He knew Desoto was thinking about the dead woman, reliving fresh and vivid impressions. Homicide cops were bedeviled creatures.

“Amigo, you think even Hitler ever did anything like this? I mean, personally?”

“If he didn’t,” Carver said, “I bet he could have worked up to it.”

It was something he thought about most of the way into Orlando, whether a murderer of historic proportion and bureaucratic distance like Hitler was actually as evil as Paul Kave, who stood face-to-face with his victims and watched their blazing agony and death throes. Worked painlessly inside their tortured flesh as an observer and enjoyed. The nature of evil was elusive. Like the truth.

When he reached the Bee Line Expressway on the outskirts of Orlando, he wondered if the white Ford rental behind him was the one that had haunted his rearview mirror all the way up from Pompano Beach.

Chapter 16

Desoto asked Carver, “You wanna see the body?”

“No.”

“I don’t blame you.”

They were in Desoto’s office in the Municipal Justice Building. The air-conditioner behind Desoto’s desk was toiling away, humming up its miniature windstorm and elevating the yellow ribbons tied to its grille. It had its work cut out for it; though it was late evening, the temperature outside was ninety-two and the humidity was thick enough to swim in.

Desoto, in his vanilla-colored suit, white shirt, and pale mauve tie, appeared cool as always. He never perspired; maybe he didn’t have pores. But he must have felt the heat. “It’s the boiling tropics in this part of the country, amigo, despite all those Disney World commercials the tourists see on TV.”

“It’s lots of things despite Disney World,” Carver said. “And that’s a shame.”

“You’re not missing much, not viewing the body,” Desoto told him. “Just something charred that used to be a woman. It was the fire she died from; she was alive when she was torched. Like the others.”

“What about the accelerant?”

“The lab says it appears to be the same concoction that was used in the Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach murders. You surprised?”

“No. But where would Paul Kave get that kind of flammable mixture while he’s on the run?”

Desoto shrugged, an exquisite gesture; elegant man in an elegant suit. “Maybe he took a supply with him. He might think that way. That’s why head-case killers are especially dangerous; no way to know how or what they’re thinking. Not for sure, anyway.”

“Sometimes, if you understand how they tick, they can be the most predictable.”

“That what you been doing?” Desoto asked. “Learning about Paul Kave’s clockwork?”

“Been trying.” Carver watched the yellow ribbons for a moment. “What else do you know about this killing?”

Desoto ran a manicured hand over his dark hair in a gesture of unconscious vanity. Someone not knowing him well would never guess he was a tough cop. They’d see him as a threat to vulnerable females, and nothing more. Carver knew he was much more. Desoto fixed his somber brown eyes on Carver as he spoke: “Adelaide Finney- that’s the victim-was alone in Rags and Riches-that’s the dress shop. She was forty-seven, single, Caucasian. It’s a cubbyhole of a place, amigo, racks of clothes, couple of changing rooms with mirrors. One of the Finney woman’s regular customers went in to buy something and right away sniffed what it smells like after a person’s burned. Some of the dresses were charred, and she saw flames. The sprinkler system started spraying water all over the place, but the fire department hadn’t responded yet to an alarm network the shop’s hooked into. So the customer, a Missie Jeffries who lives out in Longwood, must have got there minutes after the murder. She ran out and phoned the police and fire department. When we got there, we found the remains of Adelaide Finney where she’d crawled under a dress rack. Her family said she was a big woman, but you’d never have guessed it by what was left.”

Carver resisted mental images and concentrated on the facts. “What was Paul Kave doing in a dress shop?”

“I’m afraid that’s obvious, amigo. It was a small shop with a woman alone. Nice and safe. He did this killing just for you, to warn you and to show you his power. That’s why he phoned you about it, to let you know how easy it is for him, how simple it’d be if he decided to make you his next victim.”

“Think he’s trying to get me to back off?”

“No, no, my friend. He knows you can’t back off this one. He wants you to understand what kind of game you’re in, and that eventually you’re going to lose. You’re his plaything. That scare you?”

“Yeah, but not enough.”

“See then, he’s right about you. You’re much better than competent at what you do, amigo, but in this instance you’ve got a perilous blind spot. A kind of Achilles’ heel.”

“Achilles didn’t see with his feet.”

“Better for him if he could have, though, eh?” Desoto flashed a sad, white smile.

The air-conditioner’s thermostat clicked off, then immediately back on. The tone of the unit’s hum didn’t change, and the yellow ribbons remained horizontal. The heat outside didn’t seem to notice that the sun had set. Carver gazed out at the blackness that crowded flat against the windowpanes. “How do you think he found out I’d been tracking him?”

“Could have happened a lot of ways. You’ve been flitting all over Florida like a dazed June bug, asking