couldn’t make sense of it, but it was sad.
About a dozen customers were scattered about the Egret, four of them slouched on stools in the habitual drinker’s posture of relaxed despondency at the bar. Brant’s foreman was sitting alone at a table, staring at a full mug of beer in front of him. It must have just been drawn, because it had a thick, foamy head. The foreman looked as pensive as the melancholy lost souls at the bar. Maybe because of the music.
Carver approached the table, and the foreman looked up at him. Without his hard hat he had a head of bushy red hair that curled wherever it wanted. Unruly red eyebrows, too. His face was sunburned so that his nose was peeling; he had the kind of skin that would never tan. He squinted blue eyes at Carver, as if trying to recognize him.
“Howdy,” Carver said, also maybe because of the music. “You’re the foreman over at Brant Estates, aren’t you?”
The man nodded.
Carver used the crook of his cane to pull back a chair. “Fred Carver,” he said, extending his hand. “I noticed you over where they were building this morning.”
“Wade Schultz.” Schultz’s grip was strong, dry, and callused.
“I’d offer to buy you a drink,” Carver said, “only that one looks fresh.”
“It is,” Schultz said. He seemed neither friendly nor unfriendly, and not particularly curious.
“I was thinking about buying at Brant Estates, and when I saw your truck parked outside, I thought it might be wise to drop in and talk with you. My theory is, talk to the foreman if you really want to find out how sturdy a house is built. What do you say?”
“About what?”
“Those houses good and sound?”
“I’d say so. We’re a company that doesn’t scrimp on materials, and I can guarantee you the building codes are followed right to the letter.”
“The houses are only half of it,” Carver said. “The company itself, Brant Development, is it as sound as the houses? A guarantee’s no good if the company goes out of business.”
“Company’s sound. Brant’s been building houses in Florida for a while now, and we don’t get many complaints.”
“What about those you do get?”
“We jump on them and fix what’s broke,” Schultz said promptly.
“How about the guy that owns the company? Joe Brant, is it?”
“It’s Joel. Joel Brant.” Schultz toyed with the handle of his beer mug. Muscles and tendons danced in his bulging forearm.
Carver leaned in closer to Schultz, speaking confidentially. “This won’t get back to your boss, but. . well, is he a reasonably honest man?”
Schultz smiled. “He’s my boss. What am I gonna do, tell you the truth if he’s a crook?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“He’s honest enough,” Schultz said.
“Just enough?”
Schultz took a pull of his beer and wiped a foam mustache away with the back of his hand. “You buy in Brant Estates, Mr. Carver, and you won’t be sorry. Those houses are a solid product and they’re priced right. And the honest to God truth is, Joel Brant’s as straight as any builder you can buy from.”
Carver smiled. “Sounds good to me. So he’s an honest businessman. And you tell me he’s solvent, or at least his company is. But what about his personal life? I mean, I knew a fella bought into a subdivision and the builder ran away with one of the saleswomen. Place went all to hell in no time while they were winning limbo contests in Hawaii. This Brant married?”
“Not anymore. His wife died a while back in a car accident.” Another pull of beer. “He isn’t going to run away with anyone, Mr. Carver. He’s not the irresponsible type.”
“Wife died? That’s a shame. He a young man?”
“Fortyish.” Schultz tilted back his head and drank his mug of beer down past the halfway point.
“I’d like to think that’s young,” Carver said. “It can hit a man hard, losing his wife so suddenly. Make him somebody other than himself for a while, if you know what I mean.”
“Some men.”
“Is Brant one of them?”
“Listen, I been on an extended lunch hour, waiting on some lumber deliveries.” Schultz glanced at his watch. “They oughta be there by now.” He stood up. “Been nice meeting you, Mr. Carver. I hope to be building your house one of these days.”
“It’s possible,” Carver said.
He watched as Schultz swaggered from the Egret, opening the door and disappearing from dimness in a blast of sunlight that made it appear he was walking into a stoked furnace. The door swung back quickly, cutting short the rude interruption of the outside world.
When Carver turned back around in his chair, a woman was sitting at the table.
She was in her early forties, with gray hair cut short as if for summer and surf, even though it wasn’t flattering. Her face, pretty with a kind of cheerful eagerness about it, was browned and seamed, as if she’d spent a lifetime in the Florida sun. She was wearing a light gray blazer with shoulder pads, but it was obvious that her shoulders were plenty broad without help from the pads. The neckline of her blouse beneath the blazer was low enough to reveal a lot of freckles and the very beginning of cleavage. Her hands were feminine but strong-looking. In the dimness and haze of tobacco smoke, she was strikingly tan and healthy looking, like an Olympic swimmer in the autumn of life.
She raised a cigarette from beneath the level of the table and took a long drag, shattering her Olympian image. Turning her head slightly to the side and exhaling, she smiled and said, “I overheard you talking to Wade about Brant Estates.”
“I’m thinking of buying there,” Carver explained. Lie, lie, lie.
“I work there. My name’s Nancy Quartermain.”
Great. Someone else who might talk with Brant and mention the man with the cane who’d inquired about a house. “Oh? Are you a salesperson?”
“No, the bookkeeper. I just wanted to make sure Wade didn’t. . well, scare you off. He’s a good foreman, but he’s not the best at dealing with potential customers.”
“That’s OK,” Carver said, “it’s not his job.”
A waitress came over and Carver asked Nancy Quartermain if he could buy her a drink. She asked for a diet Coke with a lemon wedge, and Carver ordered a draft beer like the one Schultz had been drinking. Two men in work clothes came in and joined the lineup at the bar. “Fish sandwich, Lorraine,” Carver heard one of them say to the waitress, even though it wasn’t listed on the menu.
“From time to time,” Nancy said, “Wade and Joel Brant get into violent arguments. It happened this afternoon.”
“Really? Over what?”
“It doesn’t make any difference. All of their arguments are over work matters. You know, financing, or completion dates, that kind of thing. They always blow over fast. Like storms out of the Gulf. But I wanted to make sure Wade didn’t say anything derogatory about Joel Brant. He’s a fine builder, a fine man.”
“You know him well?”
She took a final drag on her cigarette, then snuffed it out in the glass ashtray as she exhaled a faint trace of smoke. “Just as a boss who’s only in the office occasionally.” She stared at Carver. “No romantic interest whatsoever, if that’s what your question meant.”
It hadn’t meant that, and he was surprised she would think it had. Was she protesting too vigorously?
“Schultz told me Brant was involved with a woman named Gloria Bream,” Carver lied again. It had been Charley Spotto who’d ferreted out that piece of information.
“That’s none of my business. Or Wade’s.” The waitress came with their drinks, and Nancy was silent until she’d gone. “I can tell you this, though. Mr. Brant’s wife was killed in an auto accident about six months ago. Mr. Brant was driving when their car was hit by a drunk driver. He sort of blames himself, though he shouldn’t. The
