Kiss (31 page)

Carver could imagine the melted lead, lumping up and sizzling through the brain like a slow-motion bullet, cauterizing tissue behind it so there was no bleeding. No obvious cause of death. The pain, if there was any after the initial burning, would have been paralyzing and occurred simultaneously with disorientation in the last few seconds of life, while the lead seared through delicate matter until it cooled enough to become a solid mass again and stop at the core of the brain. He said, “Sweet Jesus!”

Birdie said with sudden alarm, “They won’t send me back, will they?”

M
C
G
REGOR LAID A SMALL
lump of lead on his desk in front of Carver. It was the size of a .45-caliber bullet and shaped something like a comet with a short, curved tail. He said, “This one’s from James Harrison.”

Harrison’s name had been only one of four that Birdie hadn’t included in her list of residents who’d died at Sunhaven during the past year. The list had included Kearny Williams’s name because she’d known Carver was investigating his death. The bodies had been exhumed and autopsied under court order. The order had extended to all male Sunhaven fatalities since Birdie’s employment there. There was no other way. The news media had gotten hold of the story and were playing it big. All stops had been pulled and the investigation was roaring ahead. It had taken on a momentum that couldn’t be reversed. Professional reputations and careers were on the line.

Carver sat in the cool breeze from McGregor’s new window unit and stared at the streamlined ball of lead. He wondered if a real princess had ever actually killed her father the king that way.

“Fucking clever, huh?” McGregor said. “Might not have fooled a doctor curious about the actual cause of death, but it’s a damned effective way to kill somebody without visible trace. Good enough so Pauly could sign the death certificate and not worry about being found out, so long as there wasn’t a legitimate autopsy with thorough internal examination. Nothing would even show up in blood, tissue, or hair samples. Puts me in mind of that case in Fort Lauderdale where this one queer kills another by straightening out a wire hanger and running the sharp end up his ass all the way to the vital organs. There was some bleeding there, though. This hot-lead business seals the wound, the M.E. said. Cauterization. Not a drop of blood. Nothing suspicious unless you get inside the body and look hard.”

“Nonviolent death in an old-folks’ home,” Carver said. “There wouldn’t be an autopsy unless the family requested one.”

“Exactly. And since the family was suddenly richer than before, they’d let the matter lie. Nobody’d even think the word
murder
except the heir in on the deal.” McGregor dropped the lump of lead back into its clear plastic bag and deftly sealed the flap. “Hey, you see me on the TV news?”

“Which time?”

“Last night, six o’clock. I gave you a mention.”

“Generous of you,” Carver said. He’d stopped watching television and reading the papers after a week of seeing McGregor skillfully corner credit and limelight for the Sunhaven disclosures. Nobody was better at clouding and rewriting history than McGregor. Dr. Pauly had been found dead from loss of blood in a phone booth; Birdie Reeves had been discovered by paramedics who’d somehow been called to an apartment on Citrus Avenue; and Raffy Ortiz seemed to have wandered into a hole and got stuck. Lieutenant McGregor had been at the right spots at the right times, the essence of his job, and made the appropriate arrests. This because he’d kept his investigation secret, even from his superiors. The superiors knew better than to comment; they could feel McGregor pulling away and knew he’d soon be looking back at them. Their superior.

“These are the autopsy reports,” McGregor said, tossing Carver a thick blue file folder. “Thought you might wanna see them.”

Carver opened the folder and thumbed through the stapled white forms.

McGregor said, “Interesting, ain’t it, what a tiny piece of hot metal can do to the brain? Musta burned right through it like it was a chunk of raw veal. Through where we feel love, hate, fear, pain, pleasure. Through the place that controls whether we can move our arms and legs and wriggle our ears. Through where we remember. Makes you wonder what the old bastards felt. Wonder if some of them’d say it was worthwhile, seeing they were near the end of the line anyway and mighta got to diddle with young Birdie.”

“Makes me wonder what you feel,” Carver said. “Or if you feel anything.”

“Hey, I’m human. Ambition. I feel ambition. And that’s no way to talk to the guy that’s gonna put Raffy Ortiz away forever, keep him off you so you can go on breathing.”

“The prosecuting attorney might have some part to play in that, too.”

“Not without me, fuckhead. You might say I’m the principal player in this.”

McGregor was riding high again, solid in his power and working on promotion. Full of his old gloating arrogance. Carver didn’t like to see it. Had to get away from it.

He braced on his cane and stood up.

“You shouldn’t leave yet,” McGregor said. “I ain’t showed you the newspapers. How they build me up high enough to run for fucking mayor if I feel like it. What they say about me in the
Miami Herald.
”

“Too bad they didn’t ask me for a quote about you,” Carver said. He limped toward the door.

McGregor said, “You missed the news last night, watch it tonight. I’m on again.
I’m goddamn back!
”

That afternoon Carver met Desoto for lunch in Orlando. The lieutenant was pleased but somber. He’d asked Carver to turn over a rock, and under it they’d found something nastier than either of them had expected. They were glad the rock was lifted and light was shining where there’d been darkness. Still, they’d seen what had been there, and that black knowledge saddened and somehow diminished them.

The restaurant was a tourist attraction that served fruit juice with everything, a noisy place. But Carver and Desoto had a booth in back, away from the sunburned travelers with their squabbling, impatient kids. Over coffee, Carver told Desoto the details of what had happened, as opposed to some of the information in the media.

Desoto moved his spoon in his coffee lazily, staring at the brown whirlpool in the cup.

“So she killed five men,” he said softly.

“The psychologists say only one,” Carver said. “Her father. Over and over again.”

“Psychologists would say that. It’s the way they think.”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Raffy Ortiz. He’d find somebody like her. Use her. Makes you sick, eh,
amigo
?”

Carver said, “Seen the autopsy report on Sam Cusanelli?”

Desoto looked up, dark eyes vivid with interest. He didn’t have to say McGregor hadn’t phoned him. McGregor was a busy and important man these days and probably hadn’t had time.

“Your Uncle Sam died of a cerebral hemorrhage,” Carver said. “No sign of foul play. A natural death. His time.”

“His time . . .” Desoto repeated.

He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Then he put down the cup and smiled, adjusted his cuffs.

Carver could see he felt better.

C
ARVER WENT TO VISIT
Birdie at the old city jail on Magellan Avenue before her trial.

He’d been waiting fifteen minutes in a small, pale green room containing only a scarred oak table and three plain, straight-backed wooden chairs. There were no outside windows; the light came from frosted plastic panels in the drop ceiling. It was warm in the room, and lingering desperation was palpable. It was where prisoners usually met with their attorneys, where hope was nurtured or crushed.

The door opened and a matron led Birdie into the room.

Birdie was wearing a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit that was too large for her. Her red hair was skinned back in a ponytail held by a gray ribbon in a tight bow. She wasn’t wearing makeup and she might have passed for twelve years old. She smiled at Carver, glad to see him but not surprised. As if he were visiting her at summer camp, maybe brought her some cookies, and a flashlight so she could read under the covers at night. He planted his cane firmly and remained standing. Neither of them sat down at the table.

The matron, a buxom, middle-aged woman with a sad, kind face, ambled outside and stood at a thick glass window in the door, watching without seeming to stare. Quite a knack.

Carver looked at Birdie and wondered if she’d still have freckles when she was the age of the matron. Her guileless blue eyes had gotten years older in the past few weeks, but not at all wiser.

He plucked at her sleeve and said, “Some outfit for a princess.”

She looked puzzled. Probably didn’t recall what she’d said to him in Melanie Star’s bedroom.

Then she said, “Oh, I know what you mean. I been reading the papers. All about me.” She seemed perversely pleased by her publicity. Something in common with McGregor. It was more attention than she’d ever dreamed of receiving.

“They treating you all right in here?” Carver asked.

She shrugged her child’s narrow shoulders in the orange jumpsuit that was supposed to provide a good target if she escaped. “Yeah, I gotta say so.” She looked away, at a blank green wall, and then back. “There’s something I never told nobody.”

“Before you tell me or anyone else,” Carver cautioned her, “you better talk to your lawyer. You’re in deep trouble, Birdie.”

“No, it won’t matter if I tell you. And I want to, though I ain’t sure why.”

She waited, as if needing his assent.

He nodded.

“When they was dead I bent over and kissed them on the lips. Kinda to wish them peace wherever it was they were going. Know how come? ’Cause kisses go with death. Death is forever, and so’s a kiss, Mr. Carver.”

“I guess it is,” Carver said, “in a lot of ways.”

She stared at him. “You understand what I’m saying?”

“Part of it. That’s the best I can do.”

Birdie said, “Well, that’s all I can ask and more’n I got a right to expect. Listen, will you tell Linda Redmond I’m sorry I let her down? And like thank her for thinking about me, and tell her I’m thinking about her?”

“I’ll tell her,” Carver said.

“Thanks. It was unfinished business. Sometimes I think that’s the trouble with the world, too much unfinished business that can never really be worked out.” Something infinitely sad crossed her features. “It ain’t easy, is it, Mr. Carver?”

Carver said, “Hardly ever. For anyone.”

There she stood, victim and killer, child and adult, testimony to the complexity of life and the simplicity of death. Smiling brightly up at him now. Her blue eyes burned and there was a sheen of perspiration on her pale, smooth forehead.

Good Christ, what would they do to her? What would become of her?

Carver propped himself against the edge of the table and held both her small, cold hands in his. He bent down and gently placed his lips just below her hairline. She’d recently showered with the prison’s cheap perfumed soap and shampoo. Her hair smelled like lilacs.

He kissed her good-bye.

John Lutz is one of the foremost voices in contemporary hard-boiled fiction.

First published in
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
in 1966, Lutz has written dozens of novels and over 250 short stories in the last four decades. His earliest success came with the Alo Nudger series, set in his hometown of St. Louis. A meek private detective, Nudger swills antacid instead of whiskey, and his greatest nemesis is his run-down Volkswagen. In his offices, permeated by the smell of the downstairs donut shop, he spends his time clipping coupons and studying baseball trivia. Though not a tough guy, he gets results. Lutz continued the series through eleven novels and over a dozen short stories, one of which—“Ride the Lightning”—won an Edgar Award for best story in 1986.

Lutz’s next big success also came in 1986, when he published
Tropical Heat
, the first Fred Carver mystery. The ensuing series took Lutz into darker territory, as he invented an Orlando cop forced to retire by a bullet that permanently disabled his left knee. Hobbled by injury and cynicism, he begins a career as a private detective, following low-lifes and beautiful women all over sunny, deadly Florida. In ten years Lutz wrote ten Carver novels, among them
Scorcher
(1987),
Bloodfire
(1991), and
Lightning
(1996), and as a whole they form a gut-wrenching depiction of the underbelly of the Sunshine State. Meanwhile, he also wrote
Dancing with the Dead
(1992), in which a serial killer targets ballroom dancers.

In 1992 his novel
SWF Seeks Same
was adapted for the screen as
Single White Female
, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. His novel
The Ex
was made into an HBO film for which Lutz co-wrote the screenplay. In 2001 his book
The Night Caller
inaugurated a new series of novels about ex-NYPD cops who hunt serial killers on the streets of New York City, and with
Darker Than Night
(2004) he introduced Frank Quinn, whose own series has yielded five books, the most recent being
Mister X
(2010).

Lutz is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and his many awards include Shamus Awards for
Kiss
and “Ride the Lightning,” and lifetime achievement awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Private Eye Writers of America. He lives in St. Louis.