The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel (18 page)

"Right. If a blunt instrument was used, you might not see obvious evidence on the soft surface tissue, but you could find severe trauma beneath. Contused heart, bruised organs, an occluded airway. That sort of thing."

"Is that what you found in Marvin Rios?"

"Now. now. now. Mr. Ford, we can't talk about that. But I think even the newspaper reported that we had found evidence of a severe beating with a blunt instrument. Isn't that right, Keith?"

"Gee, I don't know. I only read the sports page." Ford hadn't read the papers at all. He rarely did. Through the rectangular windows. Ford could see a sheet-covered corpse atop a Gurnee. He thanked the two, saying he didn't want to keep them from their work.

"We have the most patient clientele in the world. Stop by anytime, Mr. Ford!"

Ford made one more stop, the local newspaper. Got a pass into what was once called the morgue, but what had now joined the casualty list of euphemism and New Age sensitivity—the clipping library.

Emily, the librarian, showed him how to use the microfilm machine and the rotating file system, and Ford spent the next hour piecing together information on Griffin. Senator Robert M. Griffin was the middle child of a Central Florida land baron and dairy farmer, Denham Griffin, who had once been active in state politics. The Griffins were an old-money Florida family. Over the years, the newspaper had done several Sunday features on Griffin Pioneer Days, a family reunion that drew hundreds of family members back to the original Griffin homestead—a fat pine cabin preserved in the shadows of the family mansion. Robert M. Griffin had given his opening speech as a candidate at Pioneer Days when he first ran for the state legislature at age twenty-four. And it was to the Griffin Plantation that reporters came to question Griffin when his development company declared bankruptcy three years later. From what Ford read, that bankruptcy seemed to be the lone stumble in an otherwise solid career of real estate development and part-time state politics. In Griffin's fourth successful bid for the state Senate, his listed net worth was in excess of $2 million.

Now the man was forty-eight years old, divorced, with no children, and there was public speculation that Griffin would finally make the big switch and run for the U.S. Senate. Each story was accompanied with what, by now to Ford, was the familiar file photo: big beaming grin on a rugged down-home face that could gamer a sizable percentage of votes on looks alone. The same man he had seen talking privately with Suiter at Cabbage Key.

Ford kept flipping through folders, making mental notes, and then he finally found the slim connection he was looking for. It wasn't much. A little more than a year ago, one of Griffin's companies (for he had several now) had sold off twelve hundred acres of pristine frontage on the Mayakkatee River and the eastern shore of Charlotte Harbor to a development group calling itself Mayakkatee River Development. Inc., in which Marvin Rios was listed as the major shareholder. According to the story, tax stamps reflected a sale price of nearly twice the going rate for raw acreage. A spokesman for Rios's group said they had expectations of building a planned community on the land, but refused to offer specifics.

Environmental groups protested the sale, and filed recommendations that the state purchase the land as a part of its Conservation and Recreation Lands Acquisition Program, acronym CARL. Griffin told the press that he agreed the land should be saved, but, as a businessman, he couldn't afford to pass up what was clearly a very profitable offer.

"I truly wish I could set aside that land as a sort of park for the people of this great state," Griffin was quoted as saying. "But I've got bills to meet, just like everybody else, and business is business. However. I'll do what I can on the legislative end to come to a compromise between the consortium that now owns the land and Florida's dire environmental needs."

Carefully enough worded to have been a press release, and it sounded reasonable. Griffin's company had made the sale, and it was now out of his hands. So why was he having dinner with Sutter? Even if Sutter was representing Rios's interests, why were those two together?

Ford considered cross-referencing to the Mayakkatee River file, but he'd already been in the library for an hour, and he had his own work to do.

He had found the connection; two connections, really. It was not easy for a private citizen to purchase explosives these days. They had to apply for state licensing, then file for permits. The entire process was carefully monitored. Ford knew about explosives. They had taught him all about explosives during his training at Coronado. Which is why he knew that mining companies and construction companies were the two best private-sector sources.

Mayakkatee River Development.

So what would he do with it? Sit on it for a while; let Detective Roy Fuller know, and let them finish making the connections.

Or he could turn it over to Tomlinson. Tomlinson liked doing research.

Yeah, that's what he would do. Ask Tomlinson to help.

Dewey and Walda were sitting in the main room of Ford's stilt house when Jeth called. Sitting on the floor laying out cards for some new board game Walda said she'd bought at Kennedy Airport, a thing called Ravel. There was a thick stack of cards containing riddles and problems of logic in different categories. A player could ask five yes-or-no questions. For each yes, the player moved his piece one space. Move completely around the board or solve the riddle, and the player was given an icon that fit into a cube. Win four icons, win the game.

Ford was at the propane stove frying fish in a skillet, listening to the women. They had arrived about an hour ago, gone for a swim in the bay, and done some pull-ups on one of the beams that connected the main room with the lab.

Now they sat on the floor, relaxed and having fun, their hair still wet from the swim. It gave this room a nice homey feel, with music on the stereo, laughter, and the moon up outside. Produced in him the realization, like a minor shock, how alone he had been living here on the water and how ... lonely?

Not lonely, just alone...

"Hey, Doc, are you gonna cook or are you gonna play?"

"Can't I do both? You roll the dice and move for me."

"But you must concentrate. This game is very hard." Walda's voice. "Have you heard some of these questions?"

He had heard some of the questions. He said, "Then I'll play after we eat."

"See, Bets? He's trying to chicken out."

"Hah!"

He had tried to decipher, from eye contact and body language, which of them had come to his bed. Dewey or Walda?

Nothing.

He had watched them climb out of the water after their swim, trying to match one of the bodies with the body that had pressed against his.

Too much alike. Both long and lean and fit.

It was a private riddle more complicated than the ones he heard being read from the cards.

Walda was reading one of the cards now. " 'An anthropologist went to the Arctic on an expedition. There he found a man and woman frozen and perfectly preserved in a block of ice. Upon seeing them, he turned immediately to his assistant and said, "We have found Adam and Eve!" How did he know?' "

Ford flipped the fish—small snapper fillets—then took English muffins from the toaster, glopped on butter, and sprinkled them with garlic salt. Then he began to cut fresh limes into wedges, enjoying the fragrance. Through the window, he could see the dock lights of the marina and beyond, Tomlinson's sailboat on its mooring buoy on the other side of the channel. All the portholes were dark; Tomlinson's tender gone. Probably out with Harry, his old girlfriend.

Dewey was asking questions. "Was Eve holding an apple?"

"No."

"Was the guy missing a rib? Adam?"

"No."

"Am I warm? ... That's not an official question. You can't count that one, damn it."

The phone rang, so Ford slid the skillet off the burner and answered.

"Hey, Doc. You mad at me?"

It was Jeth.

"Hold on a minute." He pulled the cord along behind him and shut the door, standing outside on the porch. He said, "How you doing, Jeth?"

"Well, are you?"

"Mad, you mean? No. But why wouldn't you see me?"

"It's just that I wasn't feeling too good, plus a lot of the guards were standing around, talking about fishing. I didn't want to interrupt. They brought me Big Macs for supper. Nice guys. They snuck them in."

"I talked with Elizabeth Harper today, Jeth. Did you tell her you killed Rios?"

"Is that what she said?"

"No. But that was the impression I got. Why'd you tell her that?"

"Doc. I just don't want to talk about it—"

"Jeth, you're in a hell of a lot of trouble, so you'd better talk to somebody. If not me, maybe another lawyer. I've got some money. We can hire a good lawyer for you. MacKinley said he'd chip in, Felix and Tomlinson, too."

"It don't make no difference. I'm not telling you why, but it don't. Believe me. Doc, it just don't! It's not like I got three little kids and a wife to take care of. I'm doing what I think's best."

Ford thought immediately of Javier Castillo, the only guide he knew who was married and had three children.

Into the phone, he said, "You've got about three weeks to think this thing out. Jeth. By that time, a grand jury is going to be involved, and they're going to have to hand you over for arraignment. You'll have to enter a plea. I just don't want you to do the wrong thing, that's all."

"That's exactly what I'm not going to do. Doc—the wrong thing. All my life I've been doing the wrong things, and this is my chance to do right. Just trust me, okay?"

"If you just tell me one thing."

"What's that?"

"When you took off the first week of June, where'd you go?"

"Now see! That's exactly what I'm talking about! Why I didn't want to see you today—"

Ford said, "It wasn't to visit your sick grandmother, was it? Were you getting therapy for your stutter?"

"No!"

"Then what did you do?"

There was a silence, and Nicholes said, "I've got to go. Doc; they got a time limit here. I don't want to get into trouble."

"You're already accused of murder."

"Yeah, but I don't want to upset the guards here. They're nice guys."

"Will you call me again in a couple of days?"

"Well... sure. Doc. Just so long as you're not mad at me."

Ford carried the receiver inside and replaced it on its cradle. Beside the phone, on the table, was the information he had received from Sally Field, who worked for the Operations Data Board of National Security Affairs in Washington. D.C. The information had been FedExed and arrived late that afternoon: three computer-fresh pages that capsulized the public lives of Marvin Rios and Karl Sutter.

Ford, who had worked for NSA for more than ten years, had seen thousands of such data sheets, and his eyes touched automatically upon the pertinent data. For Rios, it was tax audits: two, both of which had included stiff fines, and a third review pending. For Karl Sutter, it was the final line on the heavy printer paper, a non-sentence that said he had died five years earlier of natural causes at the age of seventy-one, in Denver. Colorado. End of file.

Ford returned to the stove and placed the skillet on the fire while, behind him, Dewey still worked on the Adam and Eve riddle.

"Was there a snake at their feet?"

"No! You get one more question, then you take a card and ask me a question."

Dewey called to him. "Hey. Doc. have you been following this? How'd the anthropologist know he'd found Adam and Eve? Give me a good question to ask."

Ford thought.
No umbilical cords, no belly buttons,
but he said. "Let's eat first. Then maybe go for a boat ride."

Dewey was standing, disgusted. "That's fine with me. I told you. Bets, I hate games like this."

Karl Sutter was standing in the living room of his girlfriend's shithole Sanibel apartment, thinking,
I got to play this one just right. Make just the right moves, play it smooth. Real smooth and clean, and I end up rich enough to shit on all the assholes in the world. But if I give this bitch time to tell someone about the tarpon gag, I'm screwed
...

Standing there waiting for Greta to pack her bags, just like he'd told her on the phone, saying, "You know what I think we ought to do, baby? I think we ought to enjoy some of that prize money and surprise all your friends. Just sneak off for a few days to Key West, or Disney World, maybe, and come back married."

"Karl! Baby!" Christ, could she shriek. Made him want to put his fingers in his cars. "Do you mean it, darling? Do you really mean it?" Starting to blubber right there on the phone, the big old cow. "Wait till I tell Suzie, that little bitch'll take back all the bad stuff she said about me dating a guy your age. But she should be there, Karl. Suzie and me have been through so much, sweetie. We're practically like sisters."

Her best friend. Suzie, was a big old cow, too.

"Are you sure you didn't tell Suzie about the tarpon deal?" Asking Greta for about the hundredth time.

"I swear to Christ I didn't. Didn't I already tell you? She

was gone all weekend, then we didn't get a minute to talk yesterday, and I would'nta said anything anyway, babe."

"Good. Don't tell Suzie this, neither. That'd ruin the surprise."

"But she'll know I went someplace. We work in the same office, and—"

"Then tell her you're driving to Miami to see about ... something. A new job. Something you can work from here, but have to go to their office in Miami to apply. A lot more money, tell Suzie that. But don't mention me, or she'll put two and two together. Ruin the whole thing. We'll just run off and do it. come back and say, 'Look at us. Mr. and Mrs. Karl Sutter.' ''

"Baby, you're so romantic. Just what you say, I'll do it. I promise. I'll be such a good wife to you—" Beginning to bawl again. He could picture the chubby fat-girl face of hers shiny with tears and snot. "And with all that money, and with Marvin dying and leaving you with a good business to run, we should do real fine. Let's make it Disney World, darling. Find a preacher or a notary republic, then honeymoon at the Magic Kingdom."

So now he was in her apartment, waiting for her to pack. Musta been ninety-five in the shade outside, just hotter than hell, and stuck waiting in this nasty little apartment of hers where the window air conditioner didn't work worth a shit, burping and banging so loud he could hardly hear her yammering away in the next room while she folded clothes into a suitcase—not that he minded not hearing her.

Looking around the apartment, he thought,
God, what
a pigsty.

Peanut cans for ashtrays, stuffed full. A Motley Cru
¸
poster taped over the stereo. Jesus, a twenty-three-year-old heavy-metal fan. A little ceramic plaque on the wall—
god bless this mess
—and another of a sea gull flying toward the sun. Her mom had probably given her those. Dirty clothes thrown everywhere, dishes in the sink and something yellow that had dripped down the tiny stove and hardened. Egg, probably. The place stank, too, like she had a hamster for a pet.

After this, it s only beautiful women for me. Clean women with nice hair.

Sutter thought about the two women that asshole Ford had been with at Cabbage Key. He knew the one; knew where she lived, at least, because old dead Marvin had had a thing for her. Dewey Nye, some kind of rich tennis star. Marvin wanted to shit all over her, probably because she'd told him what a dwarf he was, though Marvin hadn't said. Just said he wanted her place checked out, see if she was doing anything weird they could maybe report to the cops. Then Marvin had had him make a few phone calls, give some anonymous crap to some reporters about her being a lesbo and stuff like that. Really trying to hurt the bitch. Then Marvin had called him off, said to stay strictly away.

Well, Marvin was out of the picture now....

Sutter was thinking about watching the tennis star and that other woman from the bushes while they wiggled out of their clothes and dove into the pool. Gave his penis a little zap, like electricity, thinking of that. Man oh man, what bodies. Those tits with big pointed nipples because they were cold, and so skinny he could see their stomach muscles.

He could hardly stay away from something like that. Plus, it would be just the right way to get back at that asshole Ford. Show him he couldn't mess with money. Not the kind of money he was going to have, anyway.

Greta came out lugging two Samsonite suitcases, a big green one and a small overnight case. The floor was carpet over a cement slab, and the suitcases had some weight when she dropped them on the floor. "A trip like this"— she beamed—"you have to pack the same way you would for a month. Like you would for Paris or someplace like that." Sliding into his arms, the observation really a request, so he knew what she was going to ask before she asked it. "Karl, you think we could go to Paris sometime? That's something I've always wanted to do. I took French in high school, you know. Two years. And it's not like we can't afford it."

Already spending his money.

"Sure, baby. Paris. England, you name it. I know them both pretty good. Maybe in the fall when things here get straightened out."

"And we can buy a house, too. A nice house. With a pool! Sweetie, I just love laying out by a pool. Wouldn't that be fun, you coming home from work and finding me out by the pool?" Pressing her wide hips into his. letting him know what she meant. Now she'd already quit her job on his money.

Sutter held her away; could hardly bear to look at her, that dumpy white body beneath the jeans and pink Led Zeppelin T-shirt, her tits squashed down like mounds of lard. That big wide mouth of hers on a big white face with little blue eyes peering out beneath the blond bangs, looking up at him. "Wouldn't you like that? Great big Karl coming home every day to sweet little me?"

"Hell yes. I'd like that fine."

"And you know what I'd do for you every day you got home? Guess, baby." Grinning at him while her hand moved down to massage his crotch. "Any day you wanted it, anytime."

Sutter automatically slid his hand up under her T-shirt, but then pulled it away, thinking,
I can't
waste any time here. What if someone stopped by and found us?

"Hey. we've got plenty of time for that. Let's get going."

"You sure, darling? I just feel like I want to give you something nice, let you know I'm all yours." Trying to snuggle against him as he turned her roughly toward the door and gave her a little push. "Oh-h-h-h, you're so mean to me. I'm going to be after you the whole drive to Orlando." Pouting but wicked; a wicked little-girl look on her face.

In the parking lot, Sutter put Greta's luggage in the backseat of Marvin's white Lincoln, but stopped her when she tried to get in. "You've got to take your car, baby. Don't you see why?"

"Hey, where's your luggage?" She was looking in the Lincoln's back window.

"In the trunk. Did you hear me?"

"You mean I'm supposed to follow you all the way to Orlando? And what about your birth certificate? Did you remember for the wedding?"

Sutter had his arm around her, steering her toward her new Mazda, the one she'd just gotten with a bank loan. "You follow me to the airport. We park your car there, then get right on the interstate. You leave your car here, Suzie might stop by and catch on."

"But she's not going to stop. I already told her—"

"Do you want this to be a surprise or not?"

"Okay." Pouting again as she unlocked her car door. "But you just wait till I get in your car. Am I going to make you suffer! And you brought your birth certificate—"

"In my luggage in the back."

"And you got cigarettes?"

"Yes!" And he shut the door, looking down on her through the window.

Sutter slid into the Lincoln, taking a quick look around. No one outside the apartment complex this hot Wednesday morning. A UPS truck over there, but no one watching him. He reached his hand under the seat until his fingers touched the checkered handgrip of the nickel-plated 9 mm Taurus auto hidden there. Big silver pistol with the laser night sight clamped beneath the barrel. Turn on the laser, touch and shoot—so simple. Wicked-looking bastard, which is why he'd bought it from that backseat pawnbroker. Like a space gun.

Well, no one had stolen the damn thing while he was inside the apartment. These days, you couldn't leave a car alone for a minute without worrying.

Sutter put the Lincoln in gear and motioned to Greta in the mirror, telling her to follow.

Early Wednesday morning. Ford telephoned Detective Roy Fuller, but Fuller wasn't in, so Ford left his number and a message: "Check SS records; Karl Sutter died five years ago in Colorado." Then he got in his flats boat and idled across the bay to talk with Tomlinson.

Tomlinson's forty-two-foot Morgan had once been bright white with blue trim, but the hull had gone gray above the green bottom paint; a fiberglass voyager that had pounded a lot of sea and had bleached in the harbor sunlight of islands around the world. Now it sat on its mooring line, high and still, like a workhorse dozing in the pasture; a quiet gray pyramid on the flat blue bay.

Quiet until Ford shut down his engine and drifted to the boat's stern, catching the line that held the tender. Which is when he heard Tomlinson's voice saying, "OU-OU-OU, that's just about exactly where I want it!"

Ford thought:
This is bad timing.

He heard Tomlinson again: "My head's starting to focus now! The cosmos is beginning to gel!"

Then a woman's voice: "Is it good, Sighurdhr? Is that the spot?"

Then Tomlinson: "OU-OU, baby, it's ... it's two outs ... blazing sliders ... it's fucking infield in, baby!" Half yelling, half moaning.

Ford looked at the sky, twisted around and stared at the marina, didn't want to look at the boat at all.

SEA-gurd
... so that's how Tomlinson's first name was pronounced.

But couldn't they hear his boat coming? Probably not. Not with the music turned up loud. The Doors singing "The End." a Heart of Darkness kind of tune, as if the earth had caught fire and was drifting off its orbit.

"What about here, Sighurdhr? Is that good, too?"

"
I'm rounding third!"

"And here?"

"Missed ... the fucking ... cutoff!"

"Now, now,
mi amor,
that's all for the moment."

"What!"

"Seventh-inning stretch, my pet. I think your friend has come to visit. I heard a boat outside."

Ford wished he could just disappear, or maybe somehow pull his skiff up and hide beside the hull. But too late. There came Tomlinson, scraggly-haired and shiny with sweat, digging a fist into his eye, hitching his baggy shorts as he stepped out into the sunlight. "Hey, Doc! Good to see you, man—"

"I just remembered something at the house. I'll stop back later—"

"No, man. You got to meet Harry first." Meaning the woman who had changed her name from Musashi Rinmon to Moontree to Harry. Tomlinson was smiling at him, not the least bit embarrassed. "She's great. You know what she was just doing? You got to try it."

Ford thought.
Sometimes he's just a little too weird.

"Maybe not right now."

Then a woman ducked out of the main cabin behind him; stood there holding on to a halyard, smiling down. Nice-looking Asiatic woman, Japanese judging from her face, with long black Navaho hair, good skin without makeup, wearing a blue denim shirt. A medium-size woman who had been around, who looked as if she took joy in things; probably liked camping, used organic soap, and read
Mother Earth
magazine.

She said, "Tie up your boat, please. I've heard so much about you. I'll make tea." She went back down the companionway steps into the salon.

Ford stepped out of his boat, with Tomlinson grinning at him. "I mean it, you've got to get Harry to do it to you—"

"
Tomlinson
—"

"It's called shiatsu, man. An Oriental thing where she uses pressure points on your body to release all the poisons—"

"What? Oh-h-h-h."

Tomlinson was moving his head around experimentally, testing his neck muscles. "Only she combines it with a thing called Rolling, so it hurts like crazy, the way she digs into the old muscle fiber. I mean, like you want to scream. But leaves you feeling like you've just been born."

Ford said, "Fascinating, Tomlinson. I've read something about it—" Talking stiffly because he felt so relieved.

The three of them sat around the dinette table over tea, the music turned low, making introductory conversation. The cabin smelled of diesel, kerosene lamps, sailcloth, and sandalwood incense—or maybe that was the perfume Harry was wearing, the sandalwood smell. Finally, Ford said. "Look, the reason I stopped by is because I want to ask a favor."

"Sure, Doc—name it."

"But I'm reluctant because it's going to interrupt your vacation." Finding it strange to call a woman "Harry," he pointed the question right at her.

She said. "If I choose not to help. I'll say so. What's the favor?"

Ford described seeing Sutter with Senator Griffin; tried to illustrate the strangeness of that by talking about Sutter, explaining the whole thing for Harry, who did not know the man and who did not live in Florida.

"A tourist area attracts some pretty strange characters," he said. "Maybe it's the same with a college town. Both are ideal cruising grounds for transient types, people with the rogue mentality. Because no one knows them, they can create the illusion of being anything they choose to be. Their lies go unchallenged. Understand? In a land populated with strangers, the illusion of fact is more important than the facts themselves. So they're accepted without question." Ford looked at the two to see if they were following along. They were—probably even a little ahead of him.

Harry said. "I'm aware of that personality type. And this is in reference to this man Sutter, correct?"

Ford said, "I think so. Tomlinson, do you remember how Sutter lied about how his father was killed? In the air force, he said."

"I believed him." Tomlinson looked at Harry and said, "This guy comes off very sincere, but he has seriously bad karma. Like a negative force."

The woman patted Tomlinson's hand, still concentrating on Ford.

Ford said, "I think the reason he seems so sincere is that he actually believes the lies he tells people. Which is one of the characteristics of a pathological liar, correct?"

He was asking them both, but Harry answered. "One of the indicators, but it's also commonly noted in other forms of dysfunctional behavior. From psychoparesis to the psychopathic. It can run the broad spectrum. It doesn't necessarily mean that the man is dangerous. Doc." Giving Ford the clear impression that, back in her Moontree days, Tomlinson was the only one who specialized in substance abuse. All her little neuron passages were still fast tracks.

Ford said, "You're right, of course. I'd be willing to bet that if you checked the credentials of every person who lives in this area—successful people, too—you would find a small percentage of people who have found ways to profit from an invented past. Faked college diplomas, criminal records left unmentioned. That sort of thing. They probably live peacefully and do good work.

"But Sutter
does
strike me as being dangerous ... Harry. For one thing. I have proof he's living here under an assumed name. He's violent by nature - Tomlinson can tell you that. And he's a cheat. We had a big tarpon tournament here recently, and there are indicators that he killed fish with explosives so he could win the prize money."

"Did he? Win, I mean?" Harry was asking.

"Yep. But here's the thing: I also believe he's manipulated evidence to suggest that Jeth murdered Marvin Rios. I'm not sure of that. No one will talk to me about the evidence. But it's the only explanation that makes sense."

Tomlinson said. "So you think Sutter killed Rios? He's setting up Jeth to protect himself. That conehead!"

"No, I don't think so. I don't think Sutter did kill him. Rios had more than two thousand dollars on him when he was found. Sutter likes money. He would have taken all of it. No, make that most of it. Sutter's shrewd. And he would have tried to weight down the body, or hide it. Even if he hadn't planned to kill Rios—which you have to assume, because Rios was beaten to death, not shot or stabbed. Even if he hadn't planned it, he would have tried to hide the body. Pathological liars—and psychopaths— are very methodical. They don't panic. Covering their tracks is a way of life. Isn't that right?"

The woman smiled wryly. "In many cases, yes."

"So if Sutter didn't kill Rios, who did?"

Ford said, "I have a couple of ideas, but I can't be certain until I find out if there is a serious connection between Sutter and Griffin. There probably isn't. Why would a senator deal with someone who is dearly bad news? But, if there is a connection, it suggests all kinds of possibilities. So what I'm asking is, would you two be willing to do some research? I'm going to tell the police what I know, but it'd be nice to give it to them in a whole package If we can outline all the possibilities, they might just cut Jeth loose. The way it stands now, the police're trying to prove him guilty. They have their man, so that's the only ease they're trying to build."

Harry said, "And Florida has the death penalty, doesn't it? They could electrocute your friend; an innocent man." Tomlinson was nodding. "Which is the stupidest thing in the world. Killing people doesn't deter criminals. It just adds to the tragedy. Barbaric, is what it is. Like the old saying. 'Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.' Same thing."

Ford said nothing because he didn't agree.

Tomlinson looked at Harry. "I'm up for it. Put the ol' brain in research mode and maybe right some wrongs." To Ford, he said. "Same thing we were talking about earlier: the disruptive influence. That's what we're tracking down, isn't it?"

"That's it exactly. We need to find the disruptive hinge."

Tomlinson was using his hands to talk, a dear sign he was enthusiastic. "Harry and I used to work together a lot. Back in the sixties, we put out national research papers. You ever hear an SDS speech? They used our stuff all the time. We were
good.
But we'll need to borrow your pickup truck. We'll need to do some driving around."

"You've got it."

Harry looked at Ford, the look of joy on her face replaced by a studied concern. "But to get started," she said, "we'll need more information."

Ford had Xeroxed several of the newspaper stories about Robert Griffin. He took them from his pocket, unfolded them, and began: "Are you familiar with the Mayakkatee River?"

Ford had returned to the marina, and now he was talking to MacKinley. It was 11 a.m., so the guides were all out, but there was still plenty of activity: people renting boats, getting bait, buying hats and souvenirs, tapping on the glass counter so Mack had to get up from his chair and work the cash register or list what fish was fresh today.

"The snapper is very nice. The grouper is good. No. the oysters come from Apalachicola, but we got them in yesterday."

Every time he rang the cash register, Mack would smile—a private joke. "They're playing my song," he would tell Ford, meaning that he loved the American dollar.

Now MacKinley was sitting in his chair behind the counter, listening to Ford.

"So what I'm saying is, if I could just have a look around Jeth's apartment. Maybe check out his truck; just take a quick look."

"I have the key to his apartment, but not his truck. I've been feeding his cat."

In reply to the expression on MacKinley's face, Ford said, "I know—I don't like the idea of going in without his permission, either. But it might help him."

"The police were already up there. I don't see the point."

"The police were looking for something to prove he killed Rios. Not to prove he didn't. That's what I'll be looking for."

MacKinley shrugged. "It's fine with me, cobber. I trust you. But I have no authority"—he was standing, looking at keys hanging on a hook on the wall—"to give you permission, so you'll be doing it without my consent." He handed Ford a key ring. "The brass one goes to the downstairs door; the silver one to the porch. Use the porch steps."

"I'll do it."

As Ford was going out, MacKinley said, "While you're up there. I'll straighten a coat hanger so you can pick the lock on his truck."

"But you're not involved."

"I have my personal ethics to consider."

Ford stopped and turned. "One more thing. Mack. Does Jeth have insurance through the marina?"

"What? You mean like for his boat and stuff? Or health insurance—that sort of thing?"

"Both."

"Nope. All the guides are on their own. It's an independent kind of contractor deal. They keep their own books, pay their own insurance, handle their own taxes, everything."

"That's what I thought. I'll be back in about twenty minutes.''

Jeth's apartment was over the marina office, a one-bed- room efficiency with a broad view of the docks below and of Dinkin's Bay. A few small boats out there drifting, fishing for trout. There was a desk with a reading lamp, and books piled in the corner:
McClane's New Standard Fishing Encyclopedia; Chapman's Piloting,
the
Ashley Book of Knots,
and other standards on the sport.

Ford began to go through drawers; found Jeth's personal calendar with the first week of June blocked out, but no explanation. Found Jeth's personal phone book, and jotted down the telephone numbers of Jeth's three sisters.

Maybe they would know something. If need be, he could try to call them later.

As he went through Nicholes's private papers, the big I black cat. Crunch & Des, sauntered past, brushing Ford's leg once, then jumped up on the desk to watch.

Ford liked dogs, and he liked cats—if they weren't the neurotic variety that demanded constant attention. Crunch & Des was not. As Ford went through the papers, he sometimes paused to scratch him behind the ears—a gesture that Crunch & Des accepted with apparent indifference.

Electric bills, bills for tackle, a payment book for Jeth's outboard motor, a payment book for the shiny Ford Bronco sitting out there in the parking lot, an unpaid Visa bill from May-all symptoms of the New Age fatal flaw: the acceptance of a life on credit. Jeth wasn't keeping his head above financial waters, which was no surprise.

Ford put the stack of bills away carefully, then went through the next drawer and the next. He found insurance policies for the boat, for the truck, and a commercial-liability policy for Jeth's passengers, but that was all.

He made one more stop, the bathroom medicine cabinet. Old Spice, Aqua Velva, shaving cream, Tylenol, wintergreen rubbing alcohol, two condom foils—well, at least Jeth was being careful that way—bandages, a container of fishhooks—yep, fishhooks—aspirin. Alka-Seltzer, a container of Everglades Seasoning, and a bottle of Antivert tablets, which was the only prescription medicine.

Unlike the Everglades Seasoning, the Antivert tablets made sense.

Ford checked the apartment once to make sure he had left everything just as he had found it, then gave Crunch & Des a scratch. "You can come and stay with me tonight—long as you don't bother my fish." He took the cat, locked the apartment's porch entrance and went downstairs, into the marina office.

MacKinley was at the register again, and he said over the heads of two gray-haired ladies who had just purchased straw hats, "You find anything?"

"There was something I didn't find."

"What's that?"

"I don't think Jeth has any health insurance." MacKinley said, "Probably no life insurance, either. He's a fishing guide, for heaven's sake, what do you expect? So what does it mean?"

"I'm not sure." Ford waited until the ladies had left, and then he said. "Do you have the coat hanger?"

"I do. Here, I'll go out with you. I need a break from this place."

Jeth had a blue Bronco with bucket seats and a rod rack clamped to the roof. It took them a few minutes to fish the coal hanger in through the door seal and pop the lock. Once in. Ford checked under the scat, pawing through the litter of hook containers, popping-cork boxes, and crushed beer cans.

"Jeth left this vehicle of his a mess, huh? I keep waiting for him to grow up."

Ford said. "He hauls bait in here, too. Smells like dead fish."

In the glove compartment, he found a Florida map folded to the north-central section of the state, then he found another map, a Gainesville local with the University of Florida professional complex circled in ink.

Shit!

Ford studied the local map closely, thinking there should be a telephone number written on it, but there wasn't.

Ford closed the glove compartment and backed out of the Bronco. "We can lock it up now."

"I ought to get the keys from Jeth, anyway. Start it every day so the battery doesn't go bad." MacKinley pressed the door closed. "You find what you wanted to find?"

Ford said, "I found what I didn't want to find."

Ford parked his old ten-speed Trek bicycle at Two Parrot Bight Marina just after noon, a bright place with white aluminum siding covering the restaurant, the ship's store, and the big boat bam, all roofed with metal and designed by an architect to fit into the Old Florida clapboard and tin tradition. The place had been professionally landscaped, with propped-up coconut palms and hibiscus. Hawser rope and pilings marked the footpaths, so it looked as clean as public facilities at a national park, and just as sterile.

Ford checked the docks as he rounded the marina basin. All the guide boats were in for lunch, including Sutter's. He didn't want to see Sutter now; didn't trust himself to be around the man. But there was Captain Javier over there behind the marina office. sitting in the grass eating a sandwich. Captain Dalbert Weeks, too. Both of them off by themselves, probably trying to hide from the afternoon fishing clients; wanted to enjoy their hour break without interruption.