Kiss (13 page)

“You ever seen her with a man named Raffy Ortiz?”

Birdie shrank back into her chair; the canvas and wood creaked. “Never,” she said, too quickly. Fear darkened her midwestern features like a rain cloud over a wheat field.

“You know Raffy Ortiz?”

“Know him enough I can say he gives me the creeps. He’s a friend or something of Dr. Pauly. Comes out to Sunhaven and sees him every great once in a while.”

“How often’s that?”

“Maybe once, twice a month. They don’t like him to come around there.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Just everybody. I get the idea even Dr. Pauly ain’t all that crazy about Mr. Ortiz.”

“What have you heard about Raffy Ortiz?”

She stared at the ceiling for a moment, letting him know she was thinking hard. “That he’d killed somebody once. One of the residents said he thought he recognized Mr. Ortiz and he heard he’d once killed a man in a knife fight down around Miami.”

“Which resident?”

Birdie almost squirmed with nervousness. She was running on a compulsion to blab, but not about this. “I can’t recall. It was just some loose talk.”

“Is that why you’re afraid of him?”

“Of the resident?”

“Of Mr. Ortiz.”

“That, and the way he looks at me. I caught him a few times staring at me the way I used to be stared at sometimes by my father. Like he wanted to do those same things to me.”

Which might be exactly what a sicko like Ortiz had in mind, Carver thought. Birdie’s instinct for survival had been working well when she’d formed her opinion of Raffy Ortiz. A man who hurt people, and who found in their pain a dark and visceral amusement.

Carver looked at Birdie and wished it had been different for her, wished she’d had a father who felt about her as Carver did about his own daughter, living with his ex-wife, Laura, in Saint Louis. What kind of man would systematically rape his own child? Something that had developed in the human race over millions of years, something in the evolutionary process, must be missing in men like Birdie’s father—the thing that had helped ensure the survival of the species by shorting out sexual desire for one’s own offspring. It was difficult to understand or forgive such people.

Birdie had spent enough time reliving her agony, Carver decided. She’d been made a victim as a child, and would probably remain a victim all her life. He could never fully understand her pain, but he didn’t want to compound it.

“Thanks for talking with me, Birdie.” He angled his cane to support his weight and stood up. “I mean what I said. I won’t mention you to the authorities.”

She stood also, drawing the robe’s sash tighter around her waist. She smiled as if he’d just offered to buy her an ice cream cone at the carnival. She’d always have that kind of smile; it came with desperate hope. “I believe you,” she said. “Don’t know why, but I do. Guess you want me to keep quiet out at Sunhaven about our talk here tonight.”

“It’s up to you. Neither of us broke any laws by having a conversation.”

She crossed her bare feet, wriggling her toes. The nails were painted pink. “I’d just as soon we made it our secret, if you don’t mind. Nurse Rule wouldn’t like it, knowing I let you in and told you things.”

“Our secret, then,” Carver said.

He resisted the urge to pat her shoulder and made his way across the room. When he opened the door the warm night air enveloped him, carrying with it the sweet, wild scent of flowers. He could hear the growl of distant traffic, and a radio or TV tuned too loud somewhere in the building. The darkness seemed ripe with struggle, a void where humans grappled blindly with each other and with themselves.

“Mr. Carver?” Birdie said when he was ready to step outside.

He twisted his torso so he was looking back at her, his cane set firmly on the wide threshold.

“You can come back again and talk if you want. Guess what I’m trying to say is, I could use a friend.”

“You’ve got one to use,” Carver said.

He limped out into the night.

Less than an hour later he stretched out on the cool bed next to Edwina. He lay on his back, his fingers laced behind his head, and listened to the repetitive thunder of the ocean. Moonlight softly outlined familiar forms in the room—a chair, Edwina’s dresser, the tall chest of drawers—and lent them a pliant, dreamlike quality. Carver felt that if he closed his eyes he might wake up.

Edwina’s bare, pale leg stirred, rustling the white sheet. Keeping the rest of her body still, she turned the dark shape of her head on her pillow so she was facing him. Her hair splayed over white linen. He couldn’t see her eyes, but he sensed she was awake.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked.

“To see a child.”

Edwina had a knack for knowing when not to ask questions. She lay quietly. He could see, stark against the moonstruck wall, the silhouetted length of her body. Her stomach and breasts were rising and falling almost unnoticeably as she breathed, in subtle but profound rhythm with the breaking sea.

He knew she’d been physically abused by her former husband. Edwina didn’t talk much about that time in her life, and it was something Carver didn’t pry into. It had all ended more than a year before he and Edwina had become lovers, and he had never met her ex-husband. Knew his name was Larry, but didn’t know much else about him. He used to spend a lot of time thinking about Larry, hating him. He’d seen what Larry had done, and how long it took for it to be made right again.

“Can you ever really forgive someone who’s violently sexually abused you?” he asked.

“You mean as a child?”

“Not necessarily. A man and a woman, maybe. Or a man and a young girl. His daughter.”

“The two situations aren’t alike.”

“Aren’t they?”

“I don’t think so.”

He didn’t speak for a while. She was thinking about Larry. And who knew what else? She’d always be a mystery. Maybe that was why he loved her.

In the dim, cool silence she said, “A woman might forgive being abused by her husband. She can eventually understand it. And after that maybe she can forgive. I doubt it happens often. There’s usually no reason to forgive.”

“So an abusive husband is seldom forgiven. What about an abusive father? One who sexually molests a very young girl over a stretch of several years. Is he ever understood by the victim and forgiven?”

Edwina’s answer came instantly across the shadowed bed. “A father? Never. The only thing is for the victim to get as far away from the situation as possible, and never go back.”

Carver thought about what she’d said, then he slept soundly.

N
OT THE PHONE,
the doorbell.

At first Carver hadn’t been sure what had awakened him. There was a breeze sighing through the bedroom window, but it was a warm one. The doorbell was quiet now; he could hear the sea gushing on the beach.

He lay in bed and watched Edwina struggle into her gray silk robe and stumble from the room. She was still half asleep, walking stiffly and bent forward slightly at the waist, like an actress in a low-budget zombie movie. Some zombie, even in the morning.

A minute later her voice drifted faintly to him from the foyer, mingled with that of a man. The male voice sounded vaguely familiar to Carver, but he couldn’t place it. He rotated his body, sat up on the edge of the mattress, and reached for his cane. He used the crook of the cane to snag a belt loop on his pants, which were folded on the chair near the bed. He drew them to him and put them on. Pulling on his pants involved half sitting, half lying on the bed while working his stiff leg through to the cuff. It was a knack. He’d gotten used to it, then good at it. Hardly thought about it now. Routine. Shoes were no problem; he almost always wore the kind without laces. Usually moccasins. But socks required effort, so he decided to remain barefoot until he found out what was going on.

He glanced at the clock: 9:15. At his reflection in Edwina’s dresser mirror. Tanned, oily complexion. Wavy hair around his ears mussed. Where were his eyes? There! Blue things way in there. He smoothed back the wings of gray hair with his hands, then stood up with the cane. Shirtless, he limped down the carpeted hall to the living room. The soft carpet felt great beneath his bare feet.

The uniform who’d driven Carver to see McGregor yesterday was standing just inside the door with Edwina. He looked fresh and cool this morning, as if he’d just been manufactured. There were sharp creases in his short-sleeved shirt and brown uniform pants. He spotted Carver over Edwina’s shoulder, flicked a smile, and nodded a good morning. An amiable public servant.

“You’re here to give me the bad news,” Carver said. “McGregor’s been shot.”

The smile again, but brief. Guy had control. “Don’t know what the news is, but it’s not that. McGregor’s the one gonna tell you the news.”

“The news for him is this,” Carver said. “Even a police lieutenant can’t send one of his men around on a whim to drag citizens off to the station so they can chat at his convenience. Where does he think he is—Mayberry?”

“No need for anybody to get dragged anyplace,” the uniform said patiently. Here he was again trying to pacify Carver. This wasn’t why he’d become a cop. “The lieutenant’s waiting for you right outside in the cruiser. Wants for you two to talk in private. Guess he figured you’d object to another ride to headquarters. He wanted me to tell you that this time you’d be glad you and him got together.”

Carver took two lurching steps to a side window. There was a Del Moray patrol car, parked in the shade of the three closely grouped palm trees near the gate. There was the elongated, looming form of McGregor, bent over in the backseat. The car’s whip antenna was vibrating in time with its idling engine and the windows were up. McGregor had the air conditioner on.

“Had your morning coffee?” Edwina asked the uniform.

“Some. Wouldn’t turn down another cup, ma’am.”

“In the kitchen,” Edwina said. “It’ll have to be instant.”

“I was told there was no other kind.” He followed her from the living room, studiously looking away from her swaying hips.

Carver stood still for a moment, then he went outside to talk with McGregor. The gravel driveway was hot and sharp on his bare soles. He walked gingerly, flicking some of the larger pieces of gravel aside with his cane. The temperature had to be well into the eighties already. Today would be warmer than yesterday. Maybe the weather would continue to heat up until there was spontaneous combustion.

“Don’t it hurt your feet to walk around without shoes or socks?” McGregor asked when Carver had slid in next to him in the back of the cruiser.

“Only tickles. Trick I learned in India.”

McGregor gave him a long, appraising look, wondering if he was kidding. Decided it didn’t matter. He stared straight ahead out the cruiser’s windshield at the vast ocean. Even though the air conditioner was whining away, it was warm in the car. “You been keeping busy on this Sunhaven thing?”

“Sure,” Carver said. Throw McGregor for a loop with the truth.

McGregor didn’t act thrown. He picked almost daintily at the gum line of his front teeth with a little finger, keeping his head bowed so he wouldn’t bump it on the car’s sloping roof. “Then I guess you know about the death out there last night.”

Something cold moved in Carver. He was tired of dealing with McGregor’s selfish, twisted attitude. His callow disregard for people he couldn’t use. Sharks had more compassion.

“Who died?” Carver asked simply.

“Old fucker name of Williams. Kearny Williams. Girl out there, little cunt behind the reception desk, said you was a friend of his. Came to see him.”

“How’d he die?”

“Oh, some sort of stroke or attack.”

“What sort?” Carver asked levelly.

“Aortal aneurysm, the doctor said it was. Fibrulation caused a ruptured wall of the main artery leaving the heart. Heart wore out, is what it all means. Fucking cardiac arrest.”

“Did Williams have a history of heart problems?”

“Hey, he’s your friend; you tell me. You say you knew him well enough to go out there and see him. Old Kearny ever mention a bum ticker?”

“No,” Carver said. “There gonna be an autopsy?”

“ ’Course not. Law don’t provide. Natural death. Nonviolent. Not at all unexpected, according to the doctor. How come you figure there should be an autopsy? Think the medical examiner’s got time instead of internal organs on his hands?”

“What if the family requested an autopsy?” Carver asked.

“That’d be different. Thing is, they was asked if they wanted to have the dear departed laid open and looked into. Talked to them myself just this morning by phone. They said no. Said Kearny Williams’s been living on borrowed time the last five years ’cause of his bad heart. Said let the poor old bastard rest in peace. Not them words exactly.”

“I bet they felt better after you talked to them.”

“Cheering up mourners ain’t my job. Protecting the dumb-ass public is. Speaking of which, have you noticed Raffy Ortiz hasn’t tried to crush your windpipe or peel back your fingernails lately?”

“I owe you for that benign neglect?”

“Not exactly. But since you and him are, in my estimation, linked in some way possibly illegal, I had him followed the past couple days. He took a short trip. Flew up to New Orleans early yesterday and got back last night. Guess he had more important things to do than bounce you around.”

“Where’d he go in New Orleans?”

“That I don’t know. I contacted the New Orleans police and they sent someone to fall in behind him, but they weren’t even out of the airport before Raffy’d slipped away.” McGregor paused for a moment and ducked his head for a better angle to peer out the windshield at a pelican winging past over the ocean. The morning sun was striking sparks off the water, making it hard to stare in that direction. Still squinting at the pelican, McGregor said, “You got any idea why your rough playmate would up and fly to New Orleans?”

“It’s a big city,” Carver said. “Lots of reasons to go there.”

“Sure. You can listen to hot jazz, or poke a southern belle, or dine in fine fashion. But hell, you can do all them things right here in Florida and have some fresh-squeezed orange juice before and after.”