Free Hot by John Lutz Page B

up north, Carver. Inquired about you.”
    “What’d these people say?”
    “Not to be fooled by the fact you walk with a cane. That you was one tough sonuvabitch. They right?”
    Carver said, ‘”Tough’s relative.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    Wicke tucked his shirt in beneath his meal-sack stomach paunch and ambled toward the door, a signal that he had matters to attend to and Carver had taken up enough of his time. Fair enough, Carver thought, and braced with his cane and stood up.
    Wicke said, “I’ll give you a call after I talk with Davy, let you know what he said.”
    “If it was Davy,” Carver told him, “it means there might well be something to Henry Tiller’s suspicions.”
    “Could be. Davy’s a real piss-cutter, though. Running interlopers off the road might be his idea of sport.”
    “Interlopers?”
    “That could be how he sees you. You can bet he knows about your staying up at Henry’s place, getting around the island and asking your questions.”
    “It’s the hit and run I’ve been asking about,” Carver pointed out.
    “But Davy sees the connection between you and Henry, and he might know about Henry’s suspicion that Walter Rainer’s up to no good. Davy might add that together and figure his employment’s in jeopardy. Or maybe he’d do something crazy like trying to throw a scare into you just because of loyalty to Rainer. After all, Rainer was the one gave him a chance in this world when nobody else’d give him spit.”
    “You make it sound like him killing me on the highway would’ve been an admirable act of servitude.”
    “Now, now, it ain’t that bad, Carver. But keep in mind we’re standing here just assuming it was Davy in that van to begin with.”
    “Davy or the Easter Bunny,” Carver said, remembering what Henry Tiller had said about the likelihood of coincidence.
    Wicke knew what he meant. “That bunny don’t have a valid Florida driver’s license, far as I know. In my capacity, I can’t afford to lean on the wrong man.”
    Carver wondered if he meant Walter Rainer had too much money and local clout to risk going up against. It was people like Rainer who kept an appointed chief of police like Lloyd Wicke in office, and people like Rainer who could start a political ball rolling that might knock a cop all the way back to civilian. But Carver didn’t know for sure that Wicke was intimidated by Rainer, so he said nothing.
    “I’ll just clean up some paperwork here,” Wicke said, “then I’ll go talk to Davy. Maybe we can throw light on this thing.”
    Carver thanked him and limped from the office. There was no point getting on the wrong side of Chief Wicke, but he didn’t think he could count on him for a lot of help. The incident had convinced Carver that Henry was on to something. Carver, younger and taken more seriously than Henry, would pose a genuine threat, so Davy, on his own or on Walter Rainer’s orders, had attempted to scare him off the case.
    He slid in behind the Olds’s steering wheel and sat with the windows up and the engine and air conditioner off, thinking and perspiring. It would be necessary to move in on the Rainer estate and watch it carefully, and for that he’d need help. It was time to ask Beth to drive down and join him.
    Carver was aware he tended to be too independent, to become obsessive and develop tunnel vision to go along with what Desoto often referred to as his dog-with-a-rag neuroses. Once committed to anything, he found it very difficult to give up, even when logically he should. Obsession could be his weakness as well as his strength; a dog tugging on a rag sometimes lost a tooth and the rag.
    He was sure he wanted Beth on Key Montaigne because he needed somebody reliable to spell him staking out the Rainer estate. It couldn’t be because he missed her and needed her in ways other than professional. Sitting there on the sweat-moistened upholstery and suffering in the heat, that kind of need must be the farthest thing from his