When Carver entered the cottage, the sack of dog food slung beneath one arm, the other straining with the cane, he saw Wicker sitting on one of the stools at the breakfast counter, sipping from a glass of ice water.
Beth, who’d been seated in a chair facing Wicker, stood up and came over to Carver, taking the dog food from him.
“Heavy,” she said. “Did you remember the nail clippers?”
“In my pocket,” he said as he nodded to Wicker.
Wicker remained on his stool and leaned back, propped with his elbows on the counter behind him. The posture caused his pot belly to protrude and made him look particularly unkempt. A trace of stubble showed on his chin. He even needed a haircut, something you couldn’t often say about an FBI agent.
“I don’t know about this kind of dog food,” Beth said, leaning the sack against the wall by the door. “It doesn’t look very tasty.”
“The guy at the store said dogs love it,” Carver improvised. He pulled the nail clippers from his pocket and laid them on a table near the sofa. He had to poke the lining back into his pocket before sitting down. The clippers had shifted as he walked and poked a small hole in the pocket, maybe even in the material outside the lining. Chalk up a pair of pants to Al. Then it hit Carver: where was Al?
“Why didn’t Al bark when I drove up?”
“He’s out,” Beth said in a tone of voice suggesting that Al was a doctor not presently in his office. The watchdog is out.
“For a guard dog,” Carver said, “he spends a lot of time away from the person and place he’s supposed to protect.”
“He’s new to the job.”
Carver suspected Al was visiting Agent Anderson again for another impromptu meal.
“You having a guard dog here,” Wicker said, “that’s a good idea.”
“For the dog,” Carver said.
Wicker removed one elbow from the counter to take a sip of ice water. “I understand you’ve been in Orlando. What did you think of Reverend Freel?”
“He’s a true believer.”
“Could be.”
“I’m not so sure about his wife, though.”
Wicker appeared interested. “Oh? She struck me as just as fanatical as her husband. The ideal helpmate in the service of hubby and heaven.”
Carver shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. Just an impression. As for Freel and Operation Alive, I can see the organization being behind the clinic bombing. Apparently Norton was an involved member and a regular demonstrator.”
“Thing to remember,” Wicker said, “is that a lot of Freel’s congregation aren’t Operation Alive members, and not all Operation Alive members endorse bombing the abortion clinics they picket.”
“What I’ve read about them,” Beth said, “describes an extremist organization.”
“Being an extremist and advocating murder are two different things.”
Beth looked at Carver. “Could this be an FBI agent who’s undergone sensitivity training?”
Wicker smiled. “You’d be surprised. We’re not the stiff-backed, stereotypical outfit of Hoover’s era.”
Carver tried to imagine Wicker as a cross-dresser but couldn’t. But then Hoover was a stretch, too.
No one said anything while Beth went into the kitchen, then returned with a cold can of Budweiser and handed it to Carver.
“She seems to be feeling better,” Wicker said, nodding in Beth’s direction.
Beth sat down beside Carver. She had on a yellow blouse, faded Levi’s, and black sandals. Her hair was combed back and braided and she was wearing makeup and gold hoop earrings and a matching gold bangle bracelet. She thought that in an hour or so she’d be leaving to visit Lapella.
Carver hated to tell her the reason why she wasn’t going. Even more, he hated the idea of someone else telling her. He wished the lump in his throat were in someone else’s and that it were someone else’s heart taking on an irregular rhythm and growing heavier by the second.
“I stopped by the hospital on the way here,” he said. “Linda Lapella died from her head injury.”
He heard Beth’s sharp intake of breath, almost a sob.
Wicker removed his elbows from the counter and sat up straighter on the stool. “When did this happen?”
“She died just before I arrived, maybe two hours ago.” Carver put his arm around Beth. Her back and shoulders were trembling with each breath. “McGregor came into the hospital when I was there talking to Dr. Benedict.”
“So we’ve got another murderer.”
“McGregor considers it his murderer to catch. He doesn’t seem to think the link with the bombing is strong enough to involve the FBI.”
“McGregor’s wrong,” Wicker said. “Lapella was killed while guarding a victim of the clinic bomber.”
Beth slipped from beneath Carver’s arm, stood up, then went over to the window that looked out on the ocean. “I don’t care who catches him,” she said, “but I want the bastard caught.”
“I talked to Desoto when I was in Orlando,” Carver said. “He doesn’t have a line on the WASP either.” He glanced at Wicker. “Lieutenant Desoto’s an old friend. He mentioned the bureau had talked to him.”
“We know about him,” Wicker said. “And we know all about the history you two share.”
Carver felt a twinge of uneasiness. The positioning of Anderson to watch the cottage might not be nearly the extent of the bureau’s covert intrusion in his and Beth’s lives. Maybe Wicker was more like Hoover than he was saying.
There was noise out on the porch.
“Al coming back,” Beth said, turning away from the window.
Wicker downed some more ice water. “Not unless he’s wearing shoes with leather soles.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Carver said.
There were obvious footfalls on the plank porch then, and a solid knock on the door,
“Not Al,” Beth said, opening the door.
Al walked in.
“The way he was acting,” a male voice said, “I figured he had to be your dog.”
“He is,” Beth said, and stepped back to admit a tall man with angular features and a full head of gray hair. He was a nice-looking guy and had a little brush mustache and reminded Carver of an older Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
When he saw Wicker, he smiled. “Evening, Agent Wicker.”
Wicker returned the smile and slid down off his stool. “Mr. Duvalier and I have met,” he said to Carver.
“I’m Gil Duvalier,” the man said. From a pocket in his brown-and-cream-checked sport jacket he drew a white business card and handed it to Beth. “That’s sure a nice dog. He looks as if he has eyebrows.”
“Future Rock Fidelity,” Beth read.
“That’s an insurance company,” Wicker said. “It has nothing to do with popular music.” A beeper on his belt shrilled and Al trotted over to within ten feet of him and sat staring. Wicker opened his coat, pressed a button on the beeper, then tucked in his chin and squinted down so he could read the return phone number to call.
“Phone’s right behind you on the counter,” Beth said.
Wicker shook his head. “I’ll call from my car. I imagine the latest murder was finally brought to our attention.”
“Latest murder?” Duvalier repeated, looking confused.
“Officer Linda Lapella,” Beth said.
“Isn’t that the woman who was attacked at the hospital?”
“I’m afraid so,” Wicker said, detouring around the watchful Al and moving toward the door. “I think you’re going to have the same conversation with Mr. Duvalier I had this morning,” he said to Carver. He waved a hand as he went out. “Evening, all.”
Carver looked at Duvalier. “What conversation is that?”
“About Nate Posey,” Duvalier said. “My company’s making preliminary inquiries.”
“I can’t tell you much about him, other than that he tried to hire me to find out more about the clinic bombing. I refused the case, didn’t want to take the kid’s money for something I was going to do anyway.”
Duvalier looked interested.
“Maybe you can tell us more about Posey than we can tell you,” Beth said, saying what Carver was thinking.
“Two months ago,” Duvalier said, “Posey’s fiancee Wanda
Creighton made him the beneficiary of her hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.”
Carver remembered his conversation with Posey. “So he wasn’t kidding when he said he could afford to hire me.”
“He could hire you twenty times over,” Duvalier said. “The policy provides for double indemnity.”
Carver remembered the old movie of the same title, Fred MacMurray murdering Barbara Stanwyck’s husband and faking an accident, making it look as if the husband had fallen from the back of a moving train. The insurance company didn’t want to believe it was an accident but considered the possibility that the husband had committed suicide. Keys, the brilliant claims investigator played by Edward G. Robinson, had scoffed at the notion and asked his and MacMurray’s dense boss if he knew the actuarial odds of a man committing suicide by leaping from the back of a train.
Duvalier had seen the movie, too. He smiled at Carver and said, “What are the odds of a heavily insured woman being blown up in an abortion clinic bombing?”
Al stretched, yawned, and noticed the sack of Bow-Wow-WOW! leaning against the wall.
He ambled over to it and lifted a leg.