Hot by John Lutz

on the cane. “I’ll be there for a while,” he said.
    “So how’s old Henry doing?”
    “Not bad, considering. He’ll be laid up for some time, though. I’m here to look into the hit and run.” Among other things.
    Chief Wicke frowned and nodded. “Hell of a turn for Henry, but I guess that’s what happens when you get old, your hearing and eyesight go bad, and you can’t see or hear a car coming at you.” He ran beefy fingers lightly across his chin, as if checking to make sure he’d shaved that morning. “Kinda problems we’re all gonna run into sooner or later.”
    “That how you see it? Henry got nailed by some drunk driver who kept on going?”
    “Sure. Or some variation of that. What other way is there to see it?”
    “Henry thinks maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe it had to do with some suspicions he has about a neighbor of his, Walter Rainer.”
    Chief Wicke chuckled and shook his head. “Now why ain’t I surprised?”
    “Henry said he’d been to see you,” Carver said.
    “He sure has. ’Bout a week ago. I told him he better not go around spreading such theories unless he expects to be sued. There’s no evidence Walter Rainer’s anything but just another middle-aged man with money living his Florida dream. Got himself a younger, good-looking wife, a couple of steady employees to take the load off his shoulders. So what if he does go out in his boat at night— if he does, which I doubt. Hell, he’s one of the least eccentric rich folks we got living on the island. You wouldn’t believe some of the oddball shit goes on here. Or maybe you would.” The chief squinted at Carver and leaned forward over his cluttered desk. “What exactly’d Henry tell you, Mr. Carver?”
    “He wasn’t very specific. He seems to have added up everything he’s observed, and doesn’t like the total, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it is. Mainly, he figures a longtime cop can sense when something’s not what it oughta be.”
    “I guess he’s right on that one, but there comes a time when that cop gets too old and too far away from the work. Listen, last thing I wanna do is bad-mouth old Henry, but my actual belief is that he’s rounded that bend, like a lotta old folks, and his imagination’s doing a job on him. It ain’t unnatural, either, for a man his age to get kinda paranoid.”
    “You’d have a tough time convincing him of that.”
    “Don’t I know it? What I tried was to convince him to quit spying on Walter Rainer, and to try and forget his crazy suspicions. Take up goddamn basket weaving or some such.”
    “I bet he took to that suggestion with a smile.”
    Chief Wicke grinned. “Well, you probably ain’t noticed any baskets around his place. He cussed a lot and then tromped outa here. Tell the truth, I don’t guess I blame him. It can’t be easy admitting the string’s about played out. Maybe working up suspicion about Walter Rainer is Henry’s way of trying to make himself meaningful.”
    “Exactly who is Rainer?”
    “Man about fifty, said to have made his fortune in the car business up north. Lives out on Shoreline and manages his investments. Now and again him and his wife, Lilly, come into town for dinner or what have you, though usually they pretty much keep to themselves. Rainer’s well-enough liked, or at least not disliked, and no trouble to anybody far as I can see.”
    “His man Davy Mathis looks like a rough character.”
    Wicke spread his hands on his desk and nodded. “Yeah, I know about Davy. Even mentioned his background to Walter Rainer, case he didn’t know. But he did know. He said he’d gotten to like and trust Davy when Davy worked for him up north, and felt he deserved a chance despite his background.”
    “So he’s a humanitarian.”
    Wicke’s broad but foxlike face creased in a smile. “Now you sound like Henry.”
    “Yeah, I guess I do. Sorry. I’m working on not being so cynical.”
    “Well, in our line of work, that ain’t easy.