“Why not?” he told me. “First my mom passed away, then my dad, and then my girlfriend dumped me. So why am I gonna stick around the city? ’Cause I got a great-aunt who lives in Jersey? I was outta there, Mac.”

He sat on the first step of the wooden boardwalk that leads to my house, fanning himself with one huge hand, his face still a pale and sickly gray. His blue raincoat was draped over the railing. He wore a black Polo shirt tucked into the black slacks, both of them stained with muck and sand.

He’d told me a little about himself during our slow walk out of the mangroves. I’d told him a little about myself. When he showed me his identification—an old NYPD badge and new business card—I looked at the card, saying, “Shouldn’t there be a drawing of an eye on this thing? Like in the old movies?”

To which he replied, smiling painfully, “Fuck you, Mac. I’m puking my guts out, and you play comedian.”

We were of a comparable age. Another similarity was that, as former wrestlers, we’d both worn our headgear religiously. No telltale scarred ears.

“I’ve never been what you’d call pretty anyway,” he explained.

I replied, “There’s another thing we have in common.”

“Wrestling all those years,” he added, “my shoulders, my knees are all so screwed up, I’ve been having to take steroids. But it’s been getting better. I’ve been working out a lot, making the muscles strong enough to help out the bad joints. Even so, I’m going to be sore as shit tomorrow.”

“Me, too,” I told him.

Now he sat, holding a bottle of water he’d retrieved from his car, trying to recover, his stomach moving with rapid, shallow breaths.

Why had he chosen this day to try chewing tobacco?

I’d asked him a couple of times.

The only answer I’d received was cryptic: “It’s ’cause of my work. We talk, let’s see how it goes, maybe I’ll tell you. But damned if I’m gonna try snuff again. The crap smells like horse piss and tastes worse.”

Groaning sounds. He was still making lots of weary groaning, gurgling noises.

Once, he looked at me and sniffed. “Jesus Christ, is that you who stinks? I thought it was fuckin’ swamp gas or something.”

I hadn’t changed clothes since returning from Tomlinson’s swamp ape expedition, and the khakis and T-shirt I wore were still coated with mud, burrs, flakes of duck weed and cow dung, plus the oily residue of something else.

“A skunk,” I told him. “I just got back from the Everglades, and I haven’t had a chance to shower yet. I got sprayed by a skunk.”

“You’re shittin’ me. I think I saw one in a zoo once. You see ’em squashed on the roads. What makes ’em stink so bad?”

I answered, “They have two musk glands inside their anus. They produce an oil, a chemical compound called thiol, which is the same thing that makes a rotten egg stink. They lift their tail and shoot the oil out of their butt.”

DeAntoni moaned softly, picturing it. “Their fuckin’ anus,” he said miserably. He sniffed again, then tried to cover his nose, but it was too much for him to handle.

He was sick once more.

“Hell, yes, I want to talk to her. What do you think the chances are?”

“Give me ten, fifteen minutes and I’ll let you know.”

He said, “Let’s make it an hour. I want to go get a hotel room, get cleaned up first. Brush my teeth, at least. Man, it’s like a case of food poisoning I had once. Got some bad mussels in Palm Beach. I heaved so hard it gave me hemorrhoids. Those things, they really itch bad. Hated ’em.”

I said, “Okay, an hour. But, before I talk to Sally, I need more information.”

He looked at me. “What’re you, her fuckin’ attorney or something?”

“No, I’m her friend. You give a little, we’ll give a little. What’s the name of the company that hired you?”

“Whoa, whoa, not so fast, Mac. ’Til we get to know each other, let’s talk in whatta-you-call-it . . . generalities.”

“Generalities about what?”

“Just listen for a minute, okay? Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “Let me ask you this: You know anything about insurance? About how the companies work?”

I said, “You could fill books with what I don’t know about insurance. I’m already assuming you’re working for an insurance company. ”

“You assume anything your little heart desires. But at least it gives us a place to start. Okay . . . what a lot of people don’t realize, the way it works with life insurance is, there’s a thing called an ‘incontestability clause.’ A man pays his premiums on time for two years or more, that’s when this clause kicks in. The companies never notify you, it’s just there. Like in the small print. You know about it?”

“Nope.”

I was leaning against a mangrove, looking northward across the bay. It was sunset, now, around 8 P.M.

Through the limbs, the music was louder, the marina’s speakers playing Jim Morris singing “Captain Jack is comin’ back . . . ,” the Friday party just getting under way.

He said, “Insurance bullshit, yeah, I know, boring as hell. But when I decided to open my own agency, I had to learn about it because, let’s face it, doing investigations for them is where the money is.”

“So you are working for an insurance company.”

“Damn it, stop pushing. I didn’t say that. Just shut your hole and listen for a few minutes.”

I smiled. All the profanity, the way he used it as punctuation, made the guy oddly amusing, even likable.

“Okay . . .” He paused, getting back on track. “. . . yeah, incontestability clause. What that means is, if you, me, anybody, if we pay our premiums for more than two years, just about no matter how we die, the company’s still got to pay off.

“Let’s say I got cancer and I know it. So I get some—name a company—some Mutual of Omaha agent to write me a ten-million-buck life insurance policy, but never say a word about being sick. They make me take a physical, blood tests, all that bullshit. But if they miss the cancer, and write the policy anyway, all I got to do is survive for the next twenty-four months, and they still got to pay, even though I tricked them.

“Suicide?” he said. “Same thing. I get an agent to write me a big policy, then I make my payments like a good boy.” He used his index finger and thumb to imitate a revolver, touching it to his temple, his thumb hammering down.

“Seven hundred and thirty-one days later, I can take the Smith & Wesson cure for insomnia, and they still got to pay off. I leave my wife and kiddies rich, and no more sleepless nights for me.”

I said, “I didn’t know that. I’d always heard that insurance companies won’t pay off on suicides.”

“That’s what almost everybody thinks ’cause that’s what they want the public to think. Guys would be popping themselves left and right. But it ain’t true.”

“Are you saying that you think there’s a chance Minster intentionally drowned himself?”

DeAntoni shook his head, then rolled it experimentally, stretching the neck muscles, and I could hear vertebrae pop—a mannerism common to wrestlers and football players. “What I’m asking myself is why I should tell you anything. That’s a beautiful lady in there. Maybe you two are in on it. Maybe you wanted hubby to disappear.”

I stared at him for a long, focused moment before saying softly, “I’m telling myself the reason I’m not going to knock the nose off your face is because it’s already been broken too many times. But it might really be because I know I’d get my nose broken in return.”

He smiled. His turn to be amused. “So you and the lady got nothing secret going on. Men and women, there are only two kinds of friendship: vertical and horizontal. Yours is vertical. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“For the record, it’s none of your damn business. But the answer is no, the lady and I have nothing going on.”

He sniffed, took a big breath, smiling, and stood. “Okay, okay. Sometimes you got to trust your gut. So I take it back. You don’t strike me as the sneaky type. More important than that, she’s not the sneaky type. Mind if I tell you something weird?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Weird is something I’m used to. Spend enough time around this marina, you’ll understand.”

“The weird thing is, I been following her for a couple of weeks now. She goes to church, she stops and helps these two or three elderly people, brings them food. She goes to the poor neighborhoods and plays with the little kiddies. She works at a local animal shelter. I mean, she’s like a fuckin’ saint. And pretty, too—not prissy pretty, but kind’a out doorsy.” He stopped for a moment. “What’d you say your name is again?”

I told him.

“Thing is, Ford, she seems okay. As a person, understand.” He leaned toward me slightly, lowering his voice.

“She’s been seeing a shrink, you know. Which is too bad, for someone nice as her. All because her asshole hubby decided to disappear.”

I said, “So I’ll ask again. Do you think he’s still alive?”

With his shoulders, DeAntoni gave me a noncommittal reply. “Maybe. It could be I got a picture someone sent that maybe proves it. That’s what the insurance company’s paying me to do. Check it out.”

“You have a photograph of her husband taken after he supposedly drowned.”

“Um-huh, one of those glossy digital printouts. Geoff Minster, the big shot, the rich business dude kicked back on some tropical beach, a beer in his hand and a real pretty girl beside him. One of those dark Latin types in a thong bikini.”

“Mind if I see it?”

“Depends. Maybe we can do a trade. This is business, understand. You work it so I can interview the lady, I’ll let you both see the picture.”

I told him, “Go get your hotel room, come back in an hour. I’ll let you know.”

She turned to look as I opened the screen door, and said, “Are you okay? I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine. He’s a private investigator. He’ll be back to talk with you later tonight. If you’re willing.”

She asked if he got mad when I caught him; if he’d given me a hard time. I gave her an abbreviated account of our meeting, minus the fight and the photo.

“How’d you get so muddy? Whew! You kinda stink, too.”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Is he out there now?”

“No. We’ve got about an hour.”

She returned to her scrubbing. “Good. I’m almost done.”

I stared at her, perplexed, as she returned to her work. “Sally? Sally. What’re you doing? The kitchen may be a little messy, but I’ll take care of it. You used to kid me about it, what a neat-freak I am. Remember? I keep this kitchen the same way I keep my lab. Spotless.”

Which was a lie. I’d kept the lab up to standards, but, the last six months or so ago, I’d been slipping, doing less and less housework, less and less laundry.

She said, “I’m happy to help. All the beer cans? I put them in your recycle bin.”

She continued to scrub as she added, “No offense, but this kitchen isn’t what I’d call spotless. You’ve got cobwebs in the corners, grease everywhere. And it could use some paint. Plus some new furniture.”

Once again, her voice had a troubled, manic quality that was disconcerting. Made the little hairs on the back on my neck stand up like hackles.

She was still kneeling, so I leaned and placed my hand gently around her left arm. The cinnamon blouse had a silky quality. Her skin was cooler than the April air.

“Sally. I want you to stop now. Please. Have a seat. There’s no need for you to clean my house. It’s not . . . it’s not an appropriate thing for you to be doing.”

The word appropriate seemed to key in her an involuntary response that was like a mixture of distress and comprehension. I watched her glazed eyes clear momentarily, and she touched a hand to her mouth.

“Oh my Lord, I’m doing it again. I’m so sorry. My therapist has been working with me—we’re doing biofeedback; some hypnosis. She’s trying to help me condition myself to recognize the symptoms and stop myself before the behavior takes control. Inappropriate behavior. That’s what I’m trying my best to stop.”

I was still holding her arm, feeling the gooseflesh sensation that accompanies alarm. I said gently, “What behavior?”

She stood, her expression gloomy, vulnerable. “Something happened to me. I’m not the same person you used to know. They call it manic behavior. Or obsessive. I might even be bipolar, but my therapist wants to get some other opinions before she commits to that diagnosis. I get my mind fixed on something, and I completely lose control. I can clean for hours. Or sew. Or . . . or pray.”

I said softly, “Pray?”

She nodded. “I can tell you about it, if you want.”

“I want.”

“Okay. Well . . . about three years back, Geoff and I began a hard time in our marriage—it was around the time you called and invited me to Guava Key. You don’t know how close I came to saying yes.”

I said, “I remember.”

“You never met him, but he was one of the biggest developers in Dade County. All he thought about was his business. And he was so critical. I just couldn’t do enough. I wasn’t sociable enough, smart enough. Pretty enough.

“He worked twelve, fourteen hours a day, just pushing and pushing until I think something in him finally broke.” She stopped for a moment, thinking about it. “Not long after that, something happened to me, too.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Geoff—Mr. Dade County Entrepreneur of the Year—got involved with a cult religious group. I’ve read enough about it to call it a ‘cult’ now. You’ve heard probably of it: the International Church of Ashram Meditation. Everyone has. The founder—the guy gave me the creeps from day one—calls himself Bhagwan Shiva, supposedly some kind of charismatic prophet.”

She said, “He’s got Ashram Centers all over the world, plus a big compound on Palm Beach. You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”

I said, “He’s the one who collects expensive cars, right?”

“Rolls-Royces, yes.”

“I read something about his group trying to take control of some western town a few years back.”

“Exactly. He sends his followers to live in a small town, enough of them so they become a voting majority. Then they take over the place. Literally. They change the zoning laws, build whatever they want, do whatever they want. He did it in Washington State, Alabama, now he’s doing it in Florida.”

I was nodding. “I know who you mean.”

“The Church of Ashram, that’s the group Geoff got involved with. He met Shiva at some Palm Beach fund-raiser. At the time, we were having cash-flow problems—later, I can tell you about the housing developments we were building. Shiva’s group got financially involved. In a big way, they got involved.

“Next thing I know, my husband was attending Shiva’s lectures, taking classes, going to meetings. Then he joined the church. I don’t know how many tens of thousands of dollars he gave them, how much property. But it was a lot.”

Sally told me that, worse, Geoff insisted that she join him in the church and go through what she called “Introductory Auditing.”

“It was like hell,” she told me. “They kept us awake day and night, screaming at us, making us memorize Shiva’s prophecies, telling us all that we were worthless. I was nobody, nothing. Over and over, they shouted that into my head. That we were dead people. Meaningless.”

I noticed that her voice was trembling, on the verge of tears, as she added, “I spent a month listening to it. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.”

I was still holding her arm; had finally stopped her from using the scrub brush. I said, “Calm down. You’re getting upset. There’s no need.”

“It makes me so furious!”

“I understand. Take all the time you need. Have a seat—stop cleaning, please. I’ll fix myself a drink, then we can sit down and talk about it.”

I felt her eyes on me as I half-filled a tumbler with Nicaraguan rum, added ice, juice from a whole key lime, and topped it with seltzer water.

Unseen below us, beneath dark water, two bull sharks and a smaller, seventy-pound hammerhead circled. They were always moving.

The cat was close enough that I could reach over and scratch his ears if I wanted to. He’d never been an affectionate cat, but, in the last half year, he’d become more attentive toward me. Spent more time following me around the house than he did hanging out by the marina’s fish-cleaning table.

Unusual.

I’d dismissed Tomlinson’s explanation out of hand (“You’re fighting demons and he wants to provide comfort”) but it was nice having the cat around more. Crunch & Des was good company. Tail twitching, he liked to lie on the stainless-steel dissecting table in my lab, beneath the rows of bubbling aquarium tanks, and stare down octopi.

I scratched the cat’s ears now, sipping my drink. I’d given Sally the abbreviated version of my encounter with Frank DeAntoni, and told her that he was interested in talking to her. Didn’t mention the photo.

While we waited, I sat quietly and let her vent. Told her I’d have one drink before showering, so it was a good time to help me catch up on what had happened in her life. It was a nice night to play the patient, friendly ear. A southern breeze, water-dense, weighted with salt and iodine, drifted out of the shadows while the rim of the moon ascended above mangroves.

I listened to her say, “At first with Geoff, our marriage was pretty good. We live—we lived—in Coconut Grove, just off Bayshore, a great view of Biscayne Bay. This little gated community called Ironwood. You have to cross a canal that’s more like a moat, and there’s not a home under four thousand square feet allowed. Luxury homes, that’s the real estate term. Screened infinity pools, boatlifts, everything. Most people’s dream place.

“Our next-door neighbor is a U.S. senator. Another owns part of the Dolphins. You add up all the wealth, all the political power, there’s no place in Florida that probably compares.”

She said, “When my husband got involved with Shiva, he would stand around at parties, barbecues, whatever, telling our neighbors how great Shiva was. That’s when invitations started dropping off, potential investors started avoiding us. Then our whole business operation began to slide right into the tank.”

I said, “The more your husband promoted the cult leader, the more he became dependent on the cult leader’s money.”

I watched her smile as she lifted the mug of tea to her lips. “Marion Ford. Back when I was a little girl, and you were the big, star high-school jock, people used to say you were strange because you collected bugs and fish and all kinds of stuff. But I always stuck up for you. I told them it was because you were so smart, not weird. My opinion hasn’t changed.”

Smart? I felt an urge to tell her: I’ve done so many stupid things in the recent past that it’s laughable. Instead, I said, “You both went through the organization’s programming process. Geoff broke, you didn’t. Any idea why?”

She thought for a moment. “I think he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He was vulnerable. It was awful, those three weeks. They just about killed my self-confidence. My therapist says it may take me years to recover. But I never gave in because . . . I’m not sure why. I used to think I was a fairly strong person. Not the smartest, but fairly bright—”

I said, “You were a strong person. You still are. And you’re among the brightest people I know. So there’s my answer. You were too strong to be brainwashed. Congratulations.”

“It was more than that, Doc. I think . . . I think God was there. I think He helped me and I didn’t even know it. That’s why I pray so much. Even now. You asked me, so I’m going to tell you.”

She said, “You’ve been to Coconut Grove, south Miami. It’s kind of an old Bohemian kind of village, so it changes every couple of blocks. That’s one of the reasons I love it.

“The reason I know God was with me is, not far from our house, three blocks off Dixie Highway, there’s this little Pentecostal church. A couple of days after I got out of Shiva’s compound, a Sunday afternoon, I was about at the end of my rope. I was alone, wandering around like a crazy person, and I heard an organ. It was like angels playing. I followed the music to a two-room church. Inside, I could hear people singing. I walked in—just like someone’s hand was steering me.

“It’s a poor church. Mostly Haitians, Cuban refugee types and poor whites. But that little church changed my life. I’ve never felt such unconditional love. It became my lifeline, Reverend Wilson and his wife, the whole congregation. Lots of clapping and dancing and hugging. That pretty little white church is still my favorite place in the world.”

Sally had been staring at the deck as she spoke, but now she looked up at me with eyes that were shadowed, dark. “Look, Doc, I know that lots of people make fun of religion. Us Born-Again types. We maybe scare them for some reason. But it’s changed my life. I think it saved my life.”

I smiled at her, as I said, “A person who makes fun of anyone’s religion lacks the brains to be taken seriously.”

“It doesn’t bother you that I’ve accepted Jesus as my savior? That I’ve changed?”

Yes, it bothered me that she’d changed, but only because her transformation exceeded any new passion for religion. There was pathology involved—to what degree, I didn’t yet know. But I told her, “We’re friends. So, no, it makes no difference. Right now, I’m more concerned with why you’re here. Something weird’s going on, or the insurance company wouldn’t have hired DeAntoni to follow you.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “My gosh, I’d already forgotten him. He’s going to be here soon, right?”

“If you want to talk to him, yes. If you don’t, no problem. I’ll send him away.”

She said, “That’s another symptom, by the way. More inappropriate behavior. A bad memory, a short attention span.”

She walked across the deck, retrieved her purse from a teak table and checked her watch. “No wonder,” she said. “I forgot to take my medication. The doctor’s been giving me Neurontin, plus some Valium. That’s how bad Shiva’s group screwed me up. Shiva. I even hate the sound of his name.”

Her smile seemed too theatrical, her laughter too loud, as she added, “But the pills can’t work if Miss Forgetful doesn’t remember to take her meds on schedule!”