“Sure.” Carver wondered if the cancer was why Dewitt didn’t particularly care whether Elana approved of his engagement to Nadine. In another year or so, how she felt wouldn’t matter.
“I feel sorry for Elana,” Dewitt said, “though she’d never believe it if I told her.”
“Would Paul run away without telling Nadine where he is?” Carver asked.
“No, that doesn’t ring right.”
Carver hadn’t thought it would. He noticed the short woman with the bangs seated at a desk in a small office with the door open, talking on the phone and jotting something on a note pad with a long yellow pencil. Talking, erasing, talking, jotting. A salesperson making it all possible for someone with a dream of new paint and chrome. Out on the lot a man in a blue suit, with a skinny teen-age boy wearing a black sleeveless muscle shirt, was looking over the cars. The boy yanked on a door handle and found it locked. The man kicked a tire. Actually kicked a tire.
“How close to the family is Nick Fanning?” Carver asked.
“Not close to the family at all, but close to Adam. Fanning’s the guy who makes the day-to-day decisions for Adam’s Inns. He’s a damned sharp executive. Brains up the ass. Adam trusts him.”
“Think he should?”
Dewitt shrugged. “Sure. Don’t see why not. And Adam isn’t the sort to trust anyone without good reason.”
“He might have something on Fanning?”
“He might. But that’s not what I meant. I was only saying Adam’s nobody’s fool. He couldn’t be, to have made it the way he has.”
“He doesn’t seem to have been very bright where his children are concerned.”
“True enough. But Nadine turned out all right. Paul. . well, he’s a nice enough guy but kinda odd. A genuine loner. I guess somebody like me doesn’t really understand that, huh? Maybe Nadine doesn’t really understand it either. Tell you, Carver, Nadine’s the cream of that clan.”
“
Dewitt grinned. “Already did. She said yes.”
“I mean, every once in a while, will you ask her if she’s talked with Paul? Find out for me where he is?”
“No, I can’t do that,” Dewitt said, shaking his head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Your decision.” A loyalty point for Dewitt. “But anything you do feel you can tell me,” Carver said, “I’d appreciate it.”
“All right,” Dewitt said, “that’s a deal. But Nadine’s gotta know.”
“We’re talking about murder,” Carver told him, pressing again.
“Nadine’s gotta know,” Dewitt repeated, unmoved.
Carver nodded. “Okay, if that’s how it has to be.”
“That’s it. I guess I’m a little bit stubborn like Nadine.”
“No,” Carver said, “not like Nadine.” He limped across the neat square showroom toward the glass doors to the lot, thinking Elana should get to know Dewitt better. Nadine could do worse.
As he pushed out into the sun he glanced back. Dewitt was watching him and held out his hands palms down and fingers curled, as if he were riding a motorcycle. He twisted his right hand, the throttle hand, and said, “Vroom! Vroom! Sure you’re not interested?”
“You ride a cycle?” Carver asked.
“Not me,” Dewitt said. “I got too much to lose.”
Chapter 22
Carver drove to Edwina’s house but she wasn’t home. A call to Quill Realty established that she was out selling real estate. She was holding open a house on the good side of town; going for a big commission. The job Edwina had originally taken as therapy after a disastrous marriage continued to lend sustenance to flesh and mind. All Carver really knew for sure about her former husband was that his name was Larry and he’d beaten her on a regular basis. Every few weeks, usually after making love with Edwina, thoughts about Larry disturbed Carver’s sleep.
He helped himself to cold cuts with sliced olives in them, and lettuce from the refrigerator. Then he laid two slices of wheat bread on a paper towel, and put together a sandwich with too much Miracle Whip, the way he liked sandwiches. He’d never tasted a cold slab of processed meat that wasn’t stomach-turning anyway, so why not overpower the loathsome stuff with condiments? Make assuaging his hunger bearable as well as quick.
Eat to live, he told himself, not the other way around. The sandwich was gone in four or five bites; that oughta hold him for a while. He suspected the strange meat might have been tasty if he’d taken time to notice.
He washed down the sandwich with a glass of ice water, then went out on the veranda and sat in a webbed lounge chair, looking out to sea and smoking a Swisher Sweet cigar. Though the sky was blue in the direction he was facing, there were low, dark cumulus clouds creeping in behind him, lead-colored and laden with rain. The kind of clouds weather forecasters loved because they were so obvious.
The seabirds had already found cover, and small boats were making for shore into the brunt of the wind. Carver watched a tiny sailboat sporting black-and-yellow canvas tack laboriously toward the marina on the other side of Del Moray. The craft described a slow, zigzagging pattern, using the wind to propel it at angles toward its destination. The boat’s dogged antics reminded him of his progress in finding Paul Kave.
Where was Paul now and what was he thinking? Planning? Where had he gotten the rifle to take a shot at Carver? Was he driving a stolen car? Was that how the police would trace him before Carver could get to him? And was Joel Dewitt leveling? Was a barbecue-sauerkraut hot dog really as scrumptious as Adam Kave implied?
The last was the only question Carver could easily answer to his satisfaction, and the one that provoked the least curiosity.
Suddenly the veranda was in shadow and a few cool raindrops struck his bare forearms. He looked down at the moisture glistening like dew among the dark hairs above his wrist.
The veranda stonework was spotted with rain now, and the wind was kicking up feisty and cool at Carver’s back. It was pleasant sitting outside and observing the increasing number of whitecaps among the blue-gray incoming waves, but the rain would get serious within a matter of seconds. The long fringe on the umbrella over the table by the swimming pool swayed seaward. The water in the pool rippled and danced like a miniature ocean. He could hear it lapping like laughter at the sides of the pool.
Carver felt his back getting wet as the rain gradually fell harder. He stayed outside until the little sailboat had tacked out of sight to safety, then he stubbed out the unsmoked half of his cigar in an ashtray with a tiny puddle in it. The wind quickly carried the acrid scent of the wet, smoldering tobacco out to sea. He stood still for a moment, relishing the coolness of the storm, then he limped into the house.
He removed his wet shirt and his shoes and stretched out on the sofa. The rain was beating on the west windows now, and wind was playing a comfortable low tune on the tile roof. The inside of the house smelled musty and close but not unpleasant. Cozy, in fact. Shelter from life’s bad weather.
Carver glanced at his watch. Three-fifteen. This was the usual July late-afternoon Florida storm that blew in suddenly from the Gulf and would just as abruptly bluster out into the Atlantic. Edwina would probably be home before long. Carver’s car was in the garage, out of sight and dry with its canvas top down. If Gibbons had been at least temporarily pulled from the task of shadowing him, no one knew he was here. The world was on hold, and without Muzak.
Something metal was snatched by the wind and clanked across the veranda or driveway. Outside; nothing to do with Carver. What was happening beyond the walls didn’t concern him.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to sleep.
He awoke to Edwina’s kiss on his lips. His body jerked and she leaned back where she was kneeling beside him. Then she smiled and kissed him again, taking her time about it. He had an erection. How long had she been there and what had she been doing?
Carver blinked. Not a bad way to wake up. The room was dim.
