Ford placed the urn at the water's edge and stood in silence for a time. Then he reached into the urn and took a piece of bone with the ashes, hoping to set a precedent. He threw overhanded, far enough out into the pass so the tide wouldn't bring the bone back, pretended not to notice the ashes that blew back in his face, then stepped away so the next man could take his turn. It was a moving thing to see—at first. But there were a lot of bone and ashes, and only ten men. It would take three, maybe four full passes to get rid of everything, and Ford was already beginning to worry the heat and the grimness of the task would destroy what, at best, was a delicate mood. But then he noticed something . . . something in the way the men were throwing. The moments of silence were becoming shorter and the throws longer, each man trying to throw a little farther than the other, but without showing extra effort. They were watching until the shards hit, too, leaning to the right or left, depending on how they curved. Even Ford had to admire how the wind caught the chunks of bone, making them veer like wild curveballs or screwballs. The veil of competition finally burst open when Horack, on the fourth round, took a piece of rib, crow-hopped like an outfielder, and hurled it halfway across the pass, then turned around beaming. "Let's see you bastards beat that!" And then looked at Harvey Hollins in a dawning agony, remembering where he was, what he was doing. "Boy, Harv . . . I'm sorry. I got kinda wrapped up; plus Noel Yarbrough there was hogging all the really big pieces, and ..."
Harvey, though, was smiling. Then he was laughing; laughing and sniffing at the same time, wiping the tears away. "I know, I know. Did you see that thing break?"
Relieved, Bern Horack said, "Even when Rafe was pitching regular, he never had better stuff in his life. Like it dropped off a fucking table," then worried about that for a moment, but Harvey was still laughing. So was everyone else.
Les Durell said, "Why don't you and I take a little walk," looking up at Ford, this broad man with a boyish face but piercing eyes.
The others were heading toward a bar down the beach, and Ford yelled to Harvey that they'd be there soon, then said to Durell, "Let's go."
They walked for about a hundred yards in silence before Durell said, "You got me all the way down here. So talk."
"I remember you as being more cheerful. It was that much trouble to come?"
"Right; cheerful. I'm normally very cheerful—when I'm not being forced to act like a cop. You're forcing me. Not that I'm sorry I came. It was probably the nicest service I've ever been to; the only one where I've ever laughed, anyway. But I've been going to too many of them lately. That's how you can tell you've reached middle age, by the way: Your friends start dying."
"Rafe didn't just die."
"So I've heard."
"But you're not going to pay any attention to Harvey or me?"
"In this state, about two thousand people every year take the suicide cure for insomnia. How many times you think the loved ones go running to the police, saying it had to be murder because so-and-so wasn't the type? I'll pay attention when I hear something worth listening to."
"Just the facts, ma'am, huh?"
"That's right. I like facts. Numbers are easier to deal with than people. Law enforcement is tough enough without getting emotionally involved."
Ford said, "Okay, Les, I'll give you the facts. I have information that proves someone—probably one or more people in the Everglades County Sheriff's Department and the medical examiner's office—tampered with, suppressed, or ignored evidence in the investigation of Rafe's death. The information I have also strongly suggests that he was murdered."
"Yeah? So tell me."
"That's the catch. If I give you that information, I'll be confessing to a felony. "
"That's just great; just goddamn great. You and Rafe were smuggling drugs together, weren't you?"
"I only saw Rafe twice since high school. I wasn't smuggling anything."
"Right, oh sure. Rafe with his big house and big cars, flying in and out of the country. You think I didn't know? Every morning I woke up, I expected to see his name in the paper, arrested by the feds. I was very damn glad he didn't live in my county. I hate arresting friends. I've done it."
"Which is a subtle warning to me."
"I didn't mean it to be subtle."
"I'll give you the information, but I'd like it to be in confidence."
"I can't promise that, M.D. I'm sorry."
"Then I'm going to tell you anyway."
Durell held up an open palm. "Before you do, let me give you another warning. More facts and figures. Every five hours or so, someone in Florida ends up on the business end of a knife or some cheap handgun and gets murdered. A couple thousand known murders a year, and a fourth of those never even come close to being solved. Never mind about the bodies we don't find that end up scattered across the 'Glades or shoved under some mangrove root someplace. Those poor bastards go into the books under missing persons. You've read how tough it is to pull off the perfect murder? Well, that's pure bullshit. A perfect murder happens every day in this state; every single day. And it's not because the law enforcement agencies aren't competent, or that cops don't work their butts off, or don't care."
"If you're trying to make a point—"
Durell stopped, turned, and looked at him. "The point is, your information better be very good. If it's not, you could confess to a felony and get absolutely nothing in return. Murder isn't that easy to prove, and murderers tend to make themselves real hard to find. Think it over before you tell me anything."
Ford had already thought it over. It took about ten minutes to give Durell the entire story. He spent most of that time describing how determined Rafe was to get his son back from the Masaguan kidnappers. The only thing he left out was what he'd found in the tree trunk. Durell's expression went from pained to suspicious to thoughtful. He was silent for a time, then said, "Tell me again why you thought it might not be Hollins. At first, I mean. You went too quick over that part."
"Just small things. The watch was on the left wrist, with suntan marks to match. There was identification in the wallet, but nothing current. "
"So? Lots of left-handers wear their watches on their left wrist, and he'd spent so much time out of the country maybe he had no current I.D."
"I know, Les, I know. I was just trying to tell you step by step how my mind was working when I found him. The point is, if he was alive, he'd have gotten in touch with me by now."
Durell was quiet again, receding into the cop mind; big-shouldered man in a suit, out of place in the heat of a Florida beach. He said, "I come up with four or five different scenarios; reasons for you to make up a story like this. But none of them seem to fit what I know about you."
"It's because I'm telling the truth."
Durell was nodding, still thinking. "The jerks who run Everglades County, this little island kingdom, have been riding toward a fall for a long, long time. Maybe this is it. But why would they want a murder to go in the books as a suicide?"
"Bad publicity."
"It's possible, but I don't buy it."
"Rafe used to work for Sealife Development; put them down as employer when he bought his last house. I have a copy of the computer records back at my place."
"What'd Rafe do for them?"
Ford said, "I don't know; some kind of flying, probably. But one of the last things he said to me on the phone was that he had to meet some guys from Sandy Key. Maybe he had something on them and was trying to leverage it into cash. Or maybe he tried to sell them something and they decided to just take it."
"Some guys from Sandy Key?" Durell said. "That doesn't narrow it down much."
"Les, I worked on that body for twenty minutes and it seemed a hell of a lot longer. I tied the feet and hands so there would be no mistaking it for suicide. But they called it suicide anyway and, less than twenty-four hours later, cremated the body. Somebody is trying to cover up something."