Lightning by John Lutz

contacts. He had the kind of curly brown hair that would always look mussed, and for that matter a face whose features would always look mussed. He smiled, looking even more rumpled, but friendly. Everybody’s best friend who always dies in the movies so the audience hates the villain.
    “I’m Special Agent Sam Wicker, FBI,” he said. He flashed ID that appeared genuine enough to Carver even in the dim light.
    “You don’t look FBI,” Carver said.
    “I know. People tell me that all the time. They expect a guy who looks and dresses like a Sears suit model with a law degree. Pretty often that’s what they get.”
    Carver understood then that the man who’d looked in on Beth probably had been a federal agent.
    Wicker had been standing near the stone wall. Now he shambled around the back of the car to stand near Carver. He was taller than he’d first appeared, maybe five feet ten. It occurred to Carver that Wicker dressed a lot like McGregor, only he was cleaner. The breeze blew again, cool and fresh, rattling the palm fronds harder. “It’s nice down here,” Wicker said. “I spend too much time up north.” He spoke as if he’d come to Florida for a vacation rather than a social hot button murder investigation.
    “You in charge of the Women’s Light bombing investigation?” Carver asked. He still couldn’t quite believe it.
    “Sure am. I’ve got my agents looking at all the leads, investigating the hell out of everything. Seems I’ve got you investigating, too.”
    “I’ve got a personal interest.”
    “Uh-huh, I understand. Something you need to understand is that you best stay out of the bureau’s way. As much as you can, that is. And when and if you find out anything pertinent, you get the information to us pronto. To me personally if at all possible.” He handed Carver a card. It was embossed in gold. Very official and meant to be impressive, very like the bureau Carver knew.
    “What about doing this in both directions?” Carver asked. “Will you share information with me?”
    “Hell, you’re a private citizen. I can’t confide in you about bureau business.” Wicker’s face broke down into its creased smile again. “Except maybe in a very general way, if conditions warrant it, if the planets are in proper alignment.”
    “Just your occasional opinion, maybe?” Carver said.
    Wicker peered up at the darkening sky, possibly at the planets, then back down. “Maybe. Now and again.”
    “Do you think Norton did the bombing on his own?”
    “That I honest to God don’t know. In that respect, you and I are sniffing along the same trail. That’s why you need to tread careful and make sure everything’s above board. I wouldn’t want to see you get in trouble. Even more so, I wouldn’t want to see you cause trouble.”
    “When are you going to question Beth Jackson?”
    “Oh, real soon. It’s not for you or her to worry about though. She’s a victim, not a suspect.”
    “She can’t tell you much,” Carver said. “She walked inside and got blown back outside.”
    “We’ll let her tell it, make it official.” Wicker grinned and turned slightly to face in the direction of the sea, as if to luxuriate in the cool ocean breeze that came with the evening. When he looked at Carver, it was with a slight sideways tilt of his head. “We know about you, how you were an Orlando cop, got the bad luck and the bad leg and a pension. Went private, stayed honest. Making out okay most of the time.”
    “That’s me on a postcard,” Carver said.
    “You witnessed the clinic explosion.”
    “From some distance. I was sitting in my parked car half a block away.”
    “What did you see?”
    “Not much. Beth walked in, right behind another woman, then the bomb went off.”
    “Were the demonstrators a proper distance away from the clinic?”
    “Yeah. Maybe because they knew the bomb was going to blow.”
    “Did you see anyone run out from behind the building?”
    “I think I glimpsed someone,