Free Tropical Heat by John Lutz Page B

is the surest way I could get to talk to you,” Carver explained. “My name really is Fred Carver. I’m a detective.”
    “Police?”
    “No, private.” Carver got out his wallet and showed her his investigator’s license.
    Still dubious. He hoped she wasn’t the type who carried Mace.
    “I’m working for a friend of yours,” he said. “Edwina Talbot. I think you might be able to help me help her. You can tell her about this conversation when we’re finished.”
    “We could have met in a more conventional way, Mr. Carver. I’d say that the reason we didn’t was that you didn’t want me to know beforehand that the conversation was going to be about Edwina.” Perceptive lady. “Were you afraid she and I might agree on some sort of lie?”
    “No,” Carver said. “It’s true that I didn’t want you and Edwina to talk before I met you, but only because what she told you might color what you’d tell me.”
    “Is it so important to you that I don’t have any preconceived notions?”
    “It is. I’m probing for nuances as well as hard information.”
    “I thought detectives dealt only in facts.”
    “We do, but first we have to catch the slippery things. That’s why I need your help.”
    Alice breathed in and out noisily, got a filter-tipped cigarette from her purse, and began to pace. Beneath one of the stained-glass windows, she turned. The softened light made her twenty again. “You’re trying to find poor Willis.” She flicked a dainty silver lighter and touched the bluish tip of its flame to her cigarette in a lingering way that suggested the cigarette might enjoy it.
    “Do you think he’s findable?”
    “No, I don’t.” She dropped the lighter back in her purse. “What specifically do you want to talk about?”
    “I want to know more about Willis Davis.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as why is he Willis? Why doesn’t anybody ever call him Willie?”
    Alice smiled—not as bright as her saleswoman smile but definitely more genuine. “A Willie is more casual than a Willis. A Willie might wear a shirt even though it has a stain on it, or he might miss a belt loop. A Willis wears laundered, starched shirts and has a matching belt to go with each pair of pants and never misses a loop. Believe me, Willis was a Willis. He was a fastidious dresser, fastidious about everything he did.”
    “How many times did you see him?” Carver asked, remembering the ketchup stain on the sport jacket. “And for how long?”
    “Oh, a dozen times, I guess. Social get-togethers. Or he’d be there when I went to Edwina’s house to see her. Willis was an okay guy; I liked him. And you could tell he cared a lot about Edwina.”
    “Did Edwina care a lot about him?”
    Alice looked closely at Carver, gauging him. “Edwina cared everything about him. She’s had a tough time with the men in her life, with her former husband. She’s been knocked around some. Abused physically and emotionally. It changed her, gave her a hard veneer. You might say she never met a man before Willis who could match her strengths, or maybe understand her weaknesses.”
    “Do you mean a man she could look up to?” Carver always thought of Wilt Chamberlain when he used that expression.
    “No, I mean a man who wouldn’t need her to be dependent, one she could look upon as her equal. The Edwina I know doesn’t do much looking up to anyone.”
    Carver thought about his broken marriage to Laura. That hadn’t been exactly a fifty-fifty proposition. He’d demanded too much of her, made some classic male mistakes. And now she was living in St. Louis with their son and daughter, and he missed them, all of them at times. He’d needed to let Laura be Laura, but he hadn’t.
    “Despite his kind and quiet manner, there must have been something steely-strong in Willis Davis,” Alice was saying, “because even though they’d only known each other four months before he disappeared, Edwina loved him with complete commitment. She told me