Carver told her he knew that, then told her how he knew. She seemed unimpressed by Davy’s theatrics with the sharpened cargo hook, but then she wasn’t the one who’d felt its point and almost became shish kebab.
She gnawed her lower lip for a few seconds and looked thoughtful. “If they’re trying that hard to scare you off the case, leaving no doubt that’s exactly what they’re doing and practically admitting they’ve got plenty to hide, you must be probing a mighty sensitive nerve.”
“Henry must have probed the same nerve.”
Beth toyed with her empty glass, rotating it on the table, running a long, lean finger down the tapered curve of its damp side. “You gonna?”
“Gonna what?”
“Do what Davy said, give this up and head back north?”
He smiled. “That what you plan on doing?”
She smiled back. “While it’s still light out, I can drive you over and show you the view of the Rainer estate from farther down the shore.”
Carver said he thought that was a good idea. She buckled on her sandals and stood up, then placed the empty glass in the sink and hook-shot her beer can into the wastebasket. She didn’t look as if she belonged in a kitchen.
He took his beer with him, letting her drive the LeBaron. The top was down and the sea breeze was just beginning to cool as it roiled around the car’s exposed interior, pressing on the back of Carver’s neck and flipping his shirt collar. If there was any doubt he’d returned to Key Montaigne, this ride in Beth’s open convertible would confirm his presence, and word would certainly get back to Walter Rainer. That was okay with Carver. He thought about Davy in Miami, felt himself getting mad, then very mad, and took a sip of beer.
Beth was looking over at him, grinning, a woman who’d been in hell and had the determination and character to escape the ruins of her dreams and delusions. After a certain point-the point she’d passed-that was impossible for most people, but not for her. She was something rare, all right. And still grinning. He wondered if she could read his mind.
Probably.
On the curve of Shoreline Road she’d described, it was possible to pull to the side and park on the gravel shoulder. She aimed the car’s sloping white hood toward the sea, sliding the shift lever into Park and letting the engine idle almost silently. A gull swooped low to examine them, then screeched in apparent anger and glided back toward the sea. They sat there in the breeze, looking along the stretch of shore to where it angled in the sun and provided a distant but comprehensive view of the ocean side of the Rainer estate. The white hull of the docked Miss Behavin’ looked smaller from here.
“Some regular binoculars in the glove compartment,” Beth said.
Carver got them out, a compact pair of 10X50 Bausch amp; Lombs with rubber eyepieces. He fit the binoculars to his eyes, trained them through the windshield, and brought the Rainer estate into focus.
The house was a massive layer cake of white clapboard and stucco with a red roof. Beside it the rectangular swimming pool glittered silver as tinfoil in the angled sunlight. For a second Carver thought he saw a blond woman in a swimming suit strolling from the pool into the house, but he couldn’t be sure from this distance even with the binoculars. There were palm trees and flowering tropical shrubs of every size on the ground sloping up from the dock. What appeared to be a stone path led through the foliage, from the house to where the boat was moored. The doors were raised on an attached four-car garage. Carver could see the trunk of what looked like a big gray Lincoln. A blue minivan was parked facing out of the deep shade of the garage.
He felt Beth’s fingers on his shoulder. “To your right,” she whispered, as if they might be overheard.
Carver ranged that way with the binoculars and saw Davy’s black van creeping like a distant dark beetle along the tree-lined driveway. It disappeared beyond the house for a while, then emerged on the side nearest Carver and stopped in front of the garage. After a brisk but smooth maneuver, it backed into the shadows of the garage. So dark was the garage’s interior that Carver couldn’t see anything going on inside it. A minute or so passed, then all four overhead doors slowly descended simultaneously. They were painted the same wedding-cake white as the house and had no windows.
“Think we oughta set up an observation point someplace over here?” Beth asked, sounding like a military strategist.
Now that the car was sitting still, the sun felt hot on Carver’s bald pate and the back of his neck. He lowered the binoculars and shook his head no. “Better to stay where you were last night.” The hunter’s blind he’d constructed by bending branches and fronds and tying them together with twine ensured that no one would see Beth or him even in daylight unless they were only a few feet away. “The view’s not as clear there, but we’re closer.”
He raised the binoculars to his eyes again. Near the side of the house he saw a brief glimmer of light, like the setting sun glancing off a lens. Were Carver and Beth themselves being observed?
“Ready to go back?” Beth asked.
He said he was and slid the binoculars back into the glove compartment.
When they drove up to the cottage it was dusk. Carver saw Effie’s rusty Schwinn bike leaning against the porch.
“What’s the deal?” Beth asked, spotting the bike.
“Effie’s,” he told her.
Beth looked sideways at him and pursed her lips.
“She’s a fourteen-year-old kid who comes in a couple times a week and cleans for Henry Tiller. Lives down Shoreline and pedals back and forth on her bicycle.”
Beth parked the LeBaron and got out. As Carver set the tip of his cane and straightened up from the car, the porch’s screen door opened and Effie stepped out. She jumped down the three wooden steps to the ground, letting the door slam and reverberate behind her.
“Mr. Carver!” she said, sounding relieved. “I saw your car and figured you was home, but when I went inside and called, you didn’t answer. I was afraid maybe something’d happened to you.”
“Like what?” Carver asked.
“Well, like what happened to Mr. Tiller.” She was wearing black shorts and a tan knit pullover shirt with a collar. Her oversized jogging shoes made her skinny legs look as if they belonged on a newborn colt. When Carver didn’t answer right away, she stared curiously at Beth, who smiled at her.
“This is Beth Jackson,” Carver said simply. “She’s staying with me.”
Effie’s green eyes widened, then she put on a blase expression and said, “Okay,” as if Carver had sought her approval. “She gonna clean, too?”
Beth said, “Too?”
Carver laughed. “You still got a job, Effie. Beth’s my assistant as well as my significant other, but detergent is no friend of hers.”
“I don’t deny it,” Beth said.
“Hey, neat!” Effie was grinning at Beth. It was a grin meant for orthodontic braces, though her teeth were straight. She might outgrow it by the time she was thirty. “This mean you’re a detective, too?”
“Sort of,” Beth said, “whenever Carver bothers to deputize me.”
Effie looked puzzled, not quite sure if she was being put on. “I thought I’d ride my bike here and see if you heard anything about Mr. Tiller,” she said.
Carver told her about Henry’s brain injury and coma. For an uncomfortable moment he thought she might dissolve into sobs. Beth moved close to her and rested a hand on her skinny shoulder.
“But he’s maybe gonna be okay?” Effie said.
“The doctors think he might be,” Carver told her. “Right now they don’t know too much about what’s actually wrong with him. They’re gonna do some more tests.”