BETH WAS IN THE kitchen eating a tuna salad sandwich and drinking beer when Carver got back to the cottage. He pulled a Budweiser from the refrigerator and sat down across the table from her. She was wearing a gray Florida State T-shirt and faded Levi’s, dressed to take her turn in the blind and keep up surveillance on the Rainer estate. He didn’t want her back in the blind, was getting worn-down from fearing for her. Obstinate, heedless woman.
A hard-shelled bug of some kind flew against the window and bounced off, sounding like a thrown pebble. Carver took a sip of beer and said, “There’s no point in watching the Rainer place any longer. We’ve seen all we’re going to see.”
She swallowed a bite of sandwich. “I wasn’t sure what you had in mind. Thought I better be ready.”
The sandwich smelled good. He noticed a brown ceramic bowl containing tuna salad on the sink counter and limped over to it, got two slices of white bread and set about constructing a sandwich of his own. “Call Forest, Ohio?”
Beth nodded. “Turns out to be a little town out in the middle of farm country. Everybody knows everything about everybody. Key Montaigne north.”
“Only without Walter Rainer.”
“Yeah. Anyway, there’s only one Sandy listed, and her last name’s Bing. I called a gas station near Forest, said I was looking for the address of somebody named Bing to send some money lent me to get a flat tire repaired some weeks ago. Guy at the station liked to hear himself talk, so I kept quiet and let him run on fast-forward. He told me there were lots of Bings in and around Forest, family’s prominent in the town. There used to be a large Bing farm, but now it’s been parceled out for homes and a feed store. Sandy and Sam Bing are the daughter and son of Bings who still work the land. That was just the way the gas station guy put it, ‘work the land.’ Dr. Sam’s death’s the talk of Forest, as you might expect; his funeral’s tomorrow and most of the locals are attending. Sandy was married to a guy named Merchant, but they got divorced last year and she’s back to using her maiden name.” Beth drained beer from her glass. “I got her phone number and the number of the Bing farm.”
Carver grinned, amazed as he often was by her ability to ferret out information. “You did better than okay.” He sliced the sandwich in half diagonally and sat back down at the table, hooking the crook of his cane over the back of the chair next to him.
“Thanks. Speaking of cars, some bastard went at mine under the hood and made a mess of the engine. I got a call in for Effie’s father to tow it to his station for repairs.”
“Davy or Hector,” Carver said. “Trying to decrease our mobility. Or maybe just more fun and fright tactics. The Olds’ll probably be next, if they get a chance at it.” He subdued the heat of his anger so he could eat.
“I didn’t figure it was mischievous kids,” Beth said. “How’d you do at the house?”
Between bites of sandwich, he told her about what he’d found in the Bing house, and his conversation with Katia Marsh.
“Katia’s right,” Beth said. “The fact the good doctor and his wife were likely doing S and M probably doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Lotsa uptight conservatives and fundamentalists in Florida. They’re heavy into this kinda thing, but their consciences won’t allow them to get involved in honest crime. A night now and then with ropes and nipple clamps is all they need to let off steam.”
Carver studied her, trying to figure if she was putting him on. He decided she was serious. Not for the first time he wondered about her life with Roberto Gomez. Maybe it was best she hadn’t told him everything and never would.
“You think you’re getting anywhere with all of this?” Beth asked.
“Either that or I’m being taken somewhere.” Carver finished his sandwich, then looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. Not too late to call Ohio. “You got those numbers handy?”
“They’re written on the tablet by the phone.”
Carrying his beer can, he limped into the living room and sat down by the phone. The air conditioner was off in there, and the ratchety clamor of cicadas in the lush foliage outside was shrill and loud, almost as if it were coming from inside the cottage. He decided to punch out Sandy’s number instead of that of the Bing farm. She’d written to Millicent and inquired about her brother; Sandy and Dr. Sam had been at least that close at the time of his death.
She answered on the third ring. Her voice was slow, dragging, as if she might be tired or drugged. Grief pulling her down.
Carver told her his name, said he’d been a friend of Dr. Sam’s and that he sure hoped he hadn’t gotten her out of bed. He was assured he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” he said.
“We all are. Everybody who knew him’s sorry.” She spoke with a slight midwestern lilt, not unpleasant.
He said, “I’m trying to get in touch with Millicent.”
“She ain’t here.”
“Oh? She said she was flying in for the funeral.”
“Yeah, but she ain’t got here yet. Had a long layover in Atlanta. Plane had a mechanical problem and couldn’t take off till it was fixed. Dave drove to the airport to pick her up.”
Carver didn’t ask who Dave was. “When Millicent gets there,” he said, “will you give her a message from me?”
“Don’t see why not.”
“Ask her to phone me about Dr. Sam. Tell her I’m a friend, that this has to do with his work and how he’ll be remembered here in Key Montaigne and it’s vitally important. She needs to talk to me for his sake and for hers.” He gave her the phone number of the cottage.
“That the entire message?” Sandy asked, obviously curious.
“That’s it. She’ll understand.”
“Wish I did.” She sounded wistful, not as if she was just talking about his message for Millicent, but maybe life in general. And death.
He told her again he was sorry about Dr. Sam, then hung up. Millicent Bing would probably phone Katia first, then, if he’d read Katia right, she’d urge Millicent to call him. Then maybe he could find out why Millicent was frightened when she left Key Montaigne. It must have to do with Walter Rainer. Maybe, Carver thought, if he promised her anonymity and the chance to bring Rainer down, she just might confide in him. He was sure she knew something, knew what Dr. Sam had known. And maybe she wasn’t as sure as everyone else seemed to be that her husband’s death was a suicide.
“Think she’ll call?” Beth asked from the living room doorway. She was leaning with a shoulder on the doorjamb, her fingertips inserted into the pockets of her tight Levi’s.
“She might. She’ll be curious, and the phone call’s no risk to her. When the funeral’s over tomorrow and she leaves Forest, she probably plans on dropping from sight.”
“What now?” Beth asked.
“Bed.” He wiped a hand down his face, starting high on his bald forehead. Ouch! Hurt his nose again, still tender from too much sun. “Jesus, I’m tired!”
“Too tired?”
He thought about it, looking at her there in the doorway. “Well, maybe not.”
She hip-switched over to him and gracefully settled down on his lap. His cane clattered to the floor as she draped a long arm around his neck and bit his earlobe, flicked her tongue in his ear.
“Definitely not,” he said.
Smiling, she swiveled from his lap, bent low and retrieved his cane. He enjoyed watching that.
The screaming of the cicadas was deafening as he limped beside her to Henry Tiller’s bed.