"The family, probably . . . wait a minute—they got that written right here on the tag, too. That's kinda weird. Usually the order comes in separate, not on the medical examiner's tag. But it says here cremation by request of Mrs. Helen Burke Hollins. That's the guy's wife, I guess. Maybe his mother. You want us to put a hold on the ashes? Pieces of bone now, mostly. You promise to get the papers to us by Monday morning, we can do that."
Ford said, "No. You can release the ashes. "
He had one more call to make, an anonymous call, but that would have to be from a pay phone. He wanted to contact the FBI; give them what he knew about the boy. Just in case everything else failed. . . .
SIX
Ford idled into the marina to get his evening quart of beer. He was tired of the talk of death; felt like kicking back and taking a good, deep bite of life for a change. Several of the women doctors had returned, looking relaxed in beach clothes, shiny hair combed just so, standing there on the dock talking to Jeth. Ford pretended to study his mooring lines until Nicholes called him over and made introductions. There was one he liked: Dr. Sheri Braun-Richards. Short blond hair, nice athletic body, something solid behind the blue eyes and a smile that didn't strain.
Ford listened politely until he had established she wasn't one of the neurotic nonstop talkers or one of the man-haters who had girded herself in the flag of feminism, then struck up a conversation. She was a gynecologist from Davenport, Iowa. Had a confident manner and a quick sense of humor. Ford laughed at her stories because they were funny. And did he live all alone on the gray house out there, the one built on stilts? Must be nice hearing water lap all night long. She had always been interested in marine biology, but knew nothing about it, living in Iowa all her life. Ford could see the evening taking shape; could see it in Dr. Braun-Richards's blue eyes. Nothing overt, but not coy; aware that a subliminal process of selection was going on; aware that, because she was on vacation, there was no time for the normal presexual proprieties. Ford liked that awareness. And he had gone long enough without a woman.
"I think someone's calling you." She was pointing at the marina office, amused that he hadn't heard MacKinley banging on the window.
MacKinley was holding up the phone. Ford said, "Don't go away."
"We might be down on that big blue sailboat." Not committing herself to stand there and wait, but making sure he knew where she would be. That was good.
"I'll probably be going back out to the stilt house in a little bit. You and your friends could stop out, look around, maybe have a beer."
She knew what that meant but played right along. "Sounds interesting. But I think I'd have to leave my friends here. They met some people on the sailboat last night." Getting better and better. Why hadn't he thought to take a shower after work?
She drifted back into the circle of conversation, a pretty woman in white knit shirt, cut-off shorts, with the good legs of a tennis player. Ford headed for the office.
It was Jessica on the phone. She'd gotten his new home number from information; tried and tried but it was busy all afternoon. Then it wasn't busy, but he didn't answer and she was wondering why he hadn't tried to call her. "Doc, I hope it's not because you're mad at me for abandoning you last night."
Ford said don't be silly, he wasn't mad—looking out the window, watching Dr. Braun-Richards.
"Well, I wouldn't blame you if you were. Benny came on like such an ass. Doing his Mr. Macho routine. Working in the art world, living in Manhattan, he has a thing about proving he's not gay."
Ford said he hadn't noticed, Benny had seemed like a very nice guy—enjoying the clean lines of Dr. Braun-Richards's body as he spoke on the phone; the soft facial contours, the way she laughed ... a little bit of the college girl left in those cut-off jeans.
"Then maybe I can take you up on your offer to have dinner. A little late, but my treat."
"Dinner?" Ford had a redfish fillet and a mackerel in the refrigerator. He'd planned on cooking. "Dinner would be nice, sure. But I was going to hang around the marina tonight. Jeth said he might need a little help . . . with some things."
MacKinley looked up from his magazine, his eyebrows raised. He knew that Jeth didn't need any help.
Jessica's voice dropped, softened. "I'd like to see you, Doc. Just for a little while if I can. Please? There's something I'd like to talk with you about."
Ford watched Dr. Braun-Richards step onto the blue sailboat with the others, accept a drink from the owner. Ford said, "Well . . . sure. For a little while. You want me to come out now?"
"The sooner the better."
Ford said, "Now . . . ah . . . well, sure. For a little bit. I can tell Jeth to wait."
"Don't sound so anxious!"
Ford freed the lines of his skiff, aware that Dr. Braun-Richards was watching. Jeth was on the sailboat with the others, and Ford called, "I'll be back in about an hour."
Nicholes, who didn't know why he should care, called back, " Bout an hour . . . right."
The sailboat owner had his hand on Dr. Braun-Richards's shoulder, trying to show her something, and she turned away as Ford said, "I'll probably go straight to the stilt house when I get back ... if you want to stop by."
Nicholes said, "In ba-ba-'bout an hour . . . right."
Jessica's house: ceiling fans, throw rugs on pine floors, rattan furniture, hatch-cover coffee table near the fireplace, two cats lounging on the Bahama couch, another atop the stereo, un-framed paintings stacked in every corner, the odor of an old beach house mingling with the smell of paint supplies, incense, and cats.
When Ford pulled up to the dock, Jessica stood beneath the porch light leaning against the door frame, hip thrown out, hand behind her head, looking like a bus-stop blonde in a 1930s movie. But the hair was long auburn, and she didn't linger, meeting Ford at the steps, falling into his arms, hugging him.
"Boy, I missed you." Then led him into the house, holding his hand. She was shaking.
"Are you okay?"
She swung down on the couch beside him, her hand coming to rest on his thigh. "I am now. I missed you, that's all." She was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt—braless, too, which made Ford take a breath because he could see her in the soft light of the lamp beside the couch. She said, "I feel like such a jerk going off and leaving you last night. You had something you wanted to talk about, and I could tell it was important, but I just left . . . and you're my best friend. For some stupid party so Benny could push my paintings."
"You didn't have fun?"
"A lot of smiling and nodding and everyone so superior, talking about Rauschenberg's latest breakthrough and the next political fund-raiser—my God, what happened to your face?" She was touching the scratch marks on his cheek tenderly, concerned . . . her own face becoming blurry to Ford's eyes at close range: Lombard filmed through a filter; a genuinely classic face.
"I took a spill at the marina. Tripped on the dock."
She kissed his cheek, then his lips, too, very softly. That was a new one. "You big clumsy lug. Yesterday it was vultures, today the dock. You need someone to look after you."
"Took the skin right off, huh?" Like a little boy with a scrape.
"I've got some antibiotic cream in the bathroom—" She was already standing. "You're sure you don't need it? Then some wine. Last night a very fat, rich man gave me a twenty-year-old Chardonnay that is supposed to be wonderful. He said he bought a case at auction, and I'd hate to even guess what it cost him."
"Wine," said Ford. "That would be nice." He would have preferred Old Milwaukee to old Chardonnay, but why be ungracious?
She went into the kitchen, patting each cat on the way. Ford stood, hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, heard Jessica call for music and touched the digital buttons of the stereo until he found public radio: Dvorak, maybe, with a lot of timpani. Then he studied the paintings. Over the fireplace was a big print by Chrzanoska, a sole-eyed woman with a pearl headpiece, holding a cat over her bare breasts. There was something haunting in the woman's eyes, something that reminded him of Jessica . . . and he found it touching that she did not display her own work as prominently. Some of her watercolors were on the side walls: wading birds feeding at low tide; an old man in a wooden skiff; storm clouds approaching a lone mangrove island, everything frozen in an eerie bruised light. There was a canvas on the easel, too, something new, and he peeked beneath the paper dust guard to see a man wading the flats. The man wore only brief khaki shorts, his thigh muscles flexing as he lifted his leg to take a step, very wide shoulders, body hair covering the rib cage. An impressionistic treatment, but anatomically suggestive in certain details and oddly sexual. Only the hands, face, and some of the background hadn't been finished.