Free Hot by John Lutz Page A

from bashing his head on the roof.
    He shook off his disorientation, seeing the black van disappear around a curve on Shoreline. His arm or leg must have hit the transmission lever as he’d been jounced around, forcing it in Neutral. He crammed it into Drive, stomped on the accelerator, and realized the engine had died.
    By the time he got it started again, he knew he’d never catch up with the van.
    As he pulled slowly back onto the road, he saw that the temperature light on the dashboard was winking red. He drove cautiously and found if he kept the big car at around twenty-five, feeding it very little gas and letting the ocean breeze sift through the grill and play over the radiator and engine, the light blinked less frequently. If it didn’t glow red steadily, he figured he wasn’t doing the engine permanent harm.
    He nursed the Olds into Fishback, then down Main to Norton’s Gas ’n’ Go. Norton was nowhere in sight, but a cheerful teenage boy with greasy blue overalls and a thousand pimples replaced a sprung hose clamp that had pulled loose when the big engine had rocked on its mounts. Apparently that was the only reason the Olds was running hot.
    Carver splashed cold water over his arms and face while the car was being worked on, then paid the kid with Visa and drove down Main to police headquarters.
    The grandmotherly receptionist-dispatcher recognized him and gave him a milk-and-cookies smile. A gangly uniformed cop he hadn’t seen before was bent over at the waist and rooting through a bottom file drawer. His legs were long, his blue uniform pants creased too sharp to touch. Chief Wicke was standing nearby watching him with his fists on his hips, as if he’d just chewed out the skinny cop.
    Carver told Wicke he’d like to talk to him, and Wicke glared at the cop and said, “Don’t give up till you find it, Dewey!” He motioned with a jerk of his head for Carver to come into his office.
    Wicke listened silently as Carver told him about the encounter with the black van. He rocked far back in his padded chair and stared up at the ceiling, as if maybe pictures accompanying Carver’s words were up there.
    “Davy Mathis has such a van,” he said, when Carver was finished. He let the chair fall forward. The breeze from his sudden descent stirred papers on his cluttered desk. “Was it a Dodge?”
    “I don’t know,” Carver said. “Production model full-size vans look pretty much alike, and I was busy trying to stay alive. Except for the black-tinted windows and missing license plates, it was just a van.”
    “Well, it mighta been Davy’s, all right, but I gotta tell you there are a lotta vans like that running around the Keys.” Wicke stood up out of his chair and paced around the massive desk, dragging his fingertips on its surface as if testing for dust. “I think I better drive out and talk with Davy nonetheless. If it was him driving the van, he’ll have a solid alibi. Probably playing cards with ten people a hundred miles away, or doing charity work for the world’s unfortunates.” Wicke grinned. “I’d say the better the alibi, the more likely it is he was the one in the van.”
    Carver said, “I like your approach.”
    “What’s your plan now?”
    “I’ll try talking to Millicent Bing later today. Other than that, I’m not sure.”
    “Millicent was probably home,” Wicke said. “I wouldn’t call her a recluse, but she’s shy.”
    “Too shy to answer the door?”
    “Sure. It’d be just like her.” Chief Wicke chewed on the inside of his cheek, staring at Carver. “The business with the van don’t scare you, huh?”
    “It scares me,” Carver said. “A nautical nasty like Davy’s a scary guy.”
    “If it was Davy.”
    Carver said nothing.
    Wicke played with a massive turquoise ring on the middle finger of his right hand. It looked like cheap souvenir-shop jewelry, but it would be as formidable as brass knuckles if Wicke punched someone. “I talked to a few people I know