"Okay, here's the thing. Ned, that's the guy with the babysitter, he admits to what he was doing. Asks me to keep it quiet unless I really have to use it. Obvious reasons, he says."

"And you agreed?"

"Well, I talked to the chief. And the chief talked to Mr. f.u.c.khead, and everybody said all right, keep it quiet unless you need it. And then, like, nothing else came up so it went like, pfft, under the door."

"Who's Mr. f.u.c.khead?"

"The other guy there." Howard closed one eye to help him concentrate. He put both arms on the arms of the lounge chair to ride out some particularly b.u.mpy waves. "The real D.A., Mr. White."

All right. So both Mitch and the chief at least knew the lead investigator was talking to the Gregorys. And both had to know there was nothing in the file about such talks. Pfft, as Howard had just said.

"So was this when you stopped writing everything down?"

"Pretty much."

"Because n.o.body wanted to get the Gregorys in trouble."

"That wasn't really the order. It was more like, don't put anything in writing unless you really got something."

"And you didn't."

Howard thought about it. At least that is what I a.s.sumed he was doing, because he was quiet for a long time. "Here was the thing," he said at last. "By this time, we're like weeks afterward, you know? I'd talked to everybody I could. And there still wasn't anything tyin' Heidi Telford to the Gregorys, which is why, I'm guessing, n.o.body wants to mess up Ned."

"Who did you talk to besides Ned and Peter?"

"I don't know. The girls, I talked to the girls."

"How about Jason Stockover? Ever get hold of him?"

"Leanne never gave me his number."

"You were staying in touch with her?"

"Yeah. I was. I mean, it was supposed to be about the case."

"Only you started having an affair."

"I ..."

"With a witness."

"... yeah."

"Were you married?"

"Yeah." Howard's mind was drifting and I had a good idea where it was going.

"And you decided to take off together for Hawaii?"

"It wasn't like that. Look, we both knew it wasn't a good thing to do and she told me she was gonna put an end to it, get away as far as she could."

"And she had enough money to do that?"

"All I know is she did it. Moved to f.u.c.kin' Hawaii."

"And you followed."

"Not right away."

"But you stayed in touch."

"What she told me was"-his sad face re-formed into an expression that could have pa.s.sed for pride-"I should come over and see her."

I nodded encouragingly, but he wasn't looking.

"I mean, it wasn't like things were Goin' so good between me and my wife. And the kids, they were outta the house by this time, so this was like, wow, I can go to Hawaii, say it's part of an investigation."

"The chief gave you permission to do that?"

"I told DiMasi I was Goin' on vacation. Told my wife I was Goin' on an investigation. f.u.c.ked up, I know. But that's what I did."

"And you came here."

"Nope. Went to Maui, because that's where she was. Had a great time. Time of my life, as a matter of fact. And I'm lookin' around, I'm lookin' at the fishin' boats in Lahaina Harbor, and I'm thinkin' this'd be the perfect life." He stared out at the water in front of us. There were no fishing boats there. Just rough waves and water that stretched on forever.

"I mean," he said, "I had a boat back on the Cape. Wasn't licensed to do fishing charters or nothing, but I was pretty d.a.m.n good at it, and I figured if you can fish off the Cape you can fish anywhere, so I start lookin' into it. Gotta get a master's license, get some time on the water out here, take a course, take a test, but I can do all that because, what the h.e.l.l, my retirement's comin' up if I want it. See how everything was coming together?"

"Sure," I said.

"Only problem was, Maui's pretty developed by this time. Not exactly in need of any more mainlanders coming over and cutting into the existing guys' operations. I tell all this to Leanne and then I end up Goin' home without doin' nothing. Next thing I know, she's callin' me on the phone, tellin' me all about Kauai, how it's just perfect for what I want to do, how she's gone over and checked it out already, and I'm thinking, You're doin' that for me?" Even telling the story this many years later, Howard Landry still seemed overwhelmed by the wonder of it all. "I'm thinkin'," he said, "I'm in f.u.c.kin' love."

"Information I have, Howie, is she bought you the boat."

"Bought me the boat." The man's face went back to looking worn and weathered. He made a spitting sound through his teeth. "Got me to leave everything I had, move here, and then, boom, all of a sudden it's Nine-Eleven and there's no more tourists. n.o.body wants to get on a plane anymore, and I'm out on the water, tryin' to catch fish, and this girl I'm livin' with is stayin' on sh.o.r.e, runnin' around with a crowd half my age. G.o.d knows what she's doin', because she ain't working, that's for sure. Then one day she just takes off and I'm stuck with the boat, stuck on this f.u.c.kin' island, stuck with my thumb up my a.s.s."

"And you can't go home."

"Burned my bridges there, didn't I?"

"Where did she get the money to buy the boat, Howie?"

"Same place she got the money to live here without workin'. I don't know."

"You didn't ask?"

"I asked." Howard Landry was still watching the ocean as it broke into little swells that lifted and flopped back down again in no particular pattern. "She told me it was something I shouldn't know about. Me being a cop and all. So I figured it was drugs and stopped askin'."

"You didn't care if it was drugs? You weren't worried that-"

Howard held up his index finger and I thought he was telling me not to say another word. But then he began slowly arcing it back and forth in front of him. "I didn't care because the woman, despite everything else, the woman had an a.s.s like a Metrodome."

It took me a moment. "Metronome," I said.

He shrugged. "It was like the Eighth Wonder of the World."

I watched the finger continue its arc. I watched the smile break the corners of his mouth.

"Tell me, Howard, did it ever occur to you that the money she was spending might be coming from someone else?"

The finger movement stopped. So did the smile. "Like who?"

"Like the Gregorys."

"Why would they be giving her money?"

"Keep her quiet."

"About what? She didn't know nothin'."

"Maybe you did."

Howard Landry raised his hand, palm up, and then let it fall back onto the arm of the chair. He looked confused. "I didn't know nothin', either."

"Perhaps you did and didn't realize it."

"Realize what? I'm tellin' ya, in all the time I was on the case, I never found a single bit of evidence that Heidi Telford was at the Gregorys' that night. Not one bit."

He had raised his voice to tell me that. Now he turned his head away and let his chin drop. "This thing that happened with Leanne, that was something that just happened." He seemed to be staring at his stomach. "It was something else altogether."

I thought back over everything he had told me. I had to do it quickly because I could see his chin beginning to moor at his chest. I leaned toward him and gave him a shove. "Maybe they were trying to keep you away from Jason Stockover. I mean, Leanne was your connection there, wasn't she?"

Howard's eyes popped. "You keep bringing that guy up. How about you don't do it again, okay?"

"Okay. Leanne, where did she go? When she left you, I mean."

"With the exterminator." Howard spread his shoulders until his arms were almost akimbo. Then he made gorilla noises.

"What's his name?"

"Bob. Bob the Exterminator. That's all I know. I didn't pay the bills."

"Are they still on the island?"

"Nope. Gone to Las Vegas. Him and her were gonna set up a new business there."

"Exterminating business?"

"Far as I know."

"Well, if it's any consolation to you, they picked the wrong time to do that. Las Vegas has been hit harder than anyplace by the economy."

"Good. May they rot in h.e.l.l."

"So maybe she'll come back."

Howard Landry's eyes closed and I a.s.sumed he was thinking about the prospect. When they did not open, I had to decide if it was worth trying to rouse him one more time.

I decided it wasn't and got up to leave. I took about three steps when something hit me in the back. I looked down at the gra.s.s. It was a crushed beer can, probably the very can I had given him. I turned and stared at the pathetic old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, still sitting in his lawn chair, daring me to do something about this insult he had just dealt me.

Except he was not all that old. He only looked it. And the lawn chair was broken and the cement-block condo complex he was running was either empty or virtually empty and it sat above a beach that was so rocky you couldn't even go in the water. I picked up the crushed can, retraced my steps, and gently placed it in his lap.

SAUSALITO, July 2008.

WHAT'S THE PROPER PROTOCOL FOR GETTING THE ATTENTION of someone aboard a sailboat berthed in a slip? I stood on the dock and yelled-"h.e.l.lo!" and "Tyler!" and even "Yo, anybody aboard?"-and people from several slips away poked their heads out of their quarters and regarded me as if I was p.i.s.sing in the water.

Tyler Belbonnet's sailboat was about thirty-five feet long, white with teak decking, with the name Pretty Hat scrolled on its stern. The boat to its starboard side was much bigger, with a black hull, and a muscular, gray-haired woman in a cut-off sweatshirt looking at me with great concern.

"Tyler's not here," she said. "He's doing the Trans.p.a.c." She spoke as if everybody should know that.

I gathered the Trans.p.a.c was a race. I further a.s.sumed it meant Trans-Pacific. "When will he be back?"

"Well," she said, as if that was a most peculiar question, "he's on a fifty-two-foot Santa Cruz, which should get to Kauai in ten days if they catch the right winds. Then they'll have about an eight-day layover, and then he's one of the short crew sailing her back, which ought to take him a couple of weeks. So I'd say you're looking at about thirty-three, thirty-four days from when they set sail."

I was not sure I had heard right. "He's on his way to Kauai?"

"He'd better be. Race ends in Ha.n.a.lei Bay."

I, of course, had just been in Ha.n.a.lei Bay, had just left Kauai that very day. The fact that I did not know what to do next probably explained my hanging jaw. "And when did they set sail?"

" 'Bout three days ago."

Which meant it would be a month before Tyler Belbonnet returned.

"You look like that's a problem," said the muscular mistress.

"I was supposed to meet him," I said, as if somehow she could fix that, make him come back, do something so that my short time in California would not be wasted.

I had arranged my return flight to Boston so that I could have a stopover in San Francisco. Barbara had called Tyler and made the arrangements. She had told him when I would be arriving and he had said sure, come around. And he had given her directions. Explicit directions. Go to Sausalito, just across the Golden Gate Bridge; drive all the way through town to the last marina on the right; park where you can and look for the houseboat that resembles the Taj Mahal at the far end of one of the docks; walk straight down that dock till you get to slip 23B on your right. Which was where I was. Where he wasn't.

The plan had been for Tyler to put me in touch with Peter Martin. A friendly meeting. Between a couple of old pals. Greetings, Peter. Good to see you, Georgie. I wonder, Peter, if you would mind telling me why you bashed in a young girl's head with a golf club?

No, that wasn't how it was supposed to go. If I were just going to accuse him I could have set up the meeting myself. No, the idea had been to talk to him, gather what I could without arousing suspicion. And to do that I needed Tyler. "Hey, Peter," he would say, "look who I got here. My wife's office-mate. Just pa.s.sing through town. Says you and he are old friends." Why, Georgie, is that you?