It was two days before they let Jenner leave Douglas County. They interrogated him for hours, but the criminalists’ reconstruction of the scene and the pathologist’s evaluation of the bodies supported Jenner’s story; besides, he had no motive to kill either Chip or Maggie. They didn’t bother with a polygraph.

They’d have probably kept Jenner dangling were it not for Chip Craine’s paranoia. The director of the security company Craine used at Stella Maris contacted the police to tell them the estate had movement-triggered video surveillance. He sat with them in a darkened room and showed them digital video of Maggie Craine arriving; at the front door, she’d hesitated a second, opened her purse, and pulled out her pistol, then put it away before going inside.

At autopsy, the pathologist documented visible gunshot residue on Maggie’s hands, as well as blood spatter on her right arm and clothing consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Similar bullets were recovered at both autopsies; Ballistics would eventually confirm that all four bullets, plus a fifth recovered from the bedroom dresser, were fired from the same gun.

And that was that.

When Jenner stopped by Port Fontaine General to say good-bye to Deb Putnam, he found her dressed in street clothes, chafing to be sprung. She’d become a celebrity in the Park Ranger world, and had a small retinue of deeply tanned men and women in green uniforms sitting by her bed.

She excused herself to walk with him.

“Well, that was something, right, Jenner?”

He grinned. “Eh. In New York, this kind of thing happens to me all the time.”

She smiled at him. “I hear New York’s pretty nice this time of year.”

“Someone’s lying to you! The city’s a pit in the summer—hot, sweaty, smelly, filled with tourists…” He draped an arm gently around her shoulder. “But, you know, the restaurants have air conditioning, and I know a great place for swordfish. If you don’t really care about the planet, that is…”

She laughed, then looked up. He’d walked her to the entrance lobby. She laughed again and punched him softly in the shoulder. “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I’m the one who got shot, yet you make me walk you out!”

They hugged, and he left. An hour later, he was on Pelican Alley, heading for Miami. The dog, chest bandaged, a protective plastic neck cone around his neck, snored in the backseat.

When Jenner had first arrived in Port Fontaine, the region had been parched, but the month had completely reinvented the wetlands. The sedge was vibrant green, and now there was water everywhere, flowing around the hammocks and through the sloughs, turning the Glades back into a drowned world.

He made good time. At the Midpoint gas station, in the middle of the Glades halfway between Port Fontaine and Miami, a big bald man in a Winnebago told him Michael Jackson had died. Jenner turned on his radio, but out there in the wild, there was nothing but static.

Back on the road, the rain started again. His wipers beat the drizzle away, and the sky was silver over the endless green around him.