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many truths turned out to be his death warrant, I had no idea.
    Sitting on the edge of my bed, I listened to club noises. Gardeners trimming and mowing. Wind shaking lines on yacht masts. Dishes and cutlery rattling in the kitchen. I sat there, wondering how Ferg was doing, did he know about Vinny?
    Opening my bedroom door and stepping outside, I stopped as soon as I heard Elaine’s voice coming from the terrace. “Do the crab for lunch, cold in a salad. And put a case of Tropicale on ice. What are you waiting for, c’mon, last night is over, it’s finished…” Her voice was monotone, no fear or anger, the way she usually addressed her staff without any emotion. I found her outside at the bar, clipboard in hand, the terrace spick-and-span, no one would have guessed what had transpired the night before. She wore a yellow clinging number, nothing underneath, breasts swaying as she leaned across the bar, fresh white rose tucked behind her ear. Apart from dark rings under her eyes, she showed no sign of anything out of order, everything was falling back into place again.
    “Is Ferg feeling better?” I said.
    “That was his third heart attack. He’s on digitalis.” Still the monotone. “You didn’t know? Okay, you haven’t been here long enough. He won’t last.”
    “He’s at the hospital?”
    “They’re pretty useless there.”
    I was at a loss for what to say next. She sensed this, Elaine was quick like that. “My husband’s giving up on life, he doesn’t know what’s going on around him now. Here, I got something for you.” She handed me a letter. “They left it a little while ago.”
    The letter was from the police, requesting Sr. Daniel Shedrick to appear at headquarters within the next seventy-two hours for further questioning.
Had everyone received a summons like this?
Seventy-two hours, they weren’t exactly in a hurry, not that I had much to add to what I’d already told them the night before, which was little enough, even if it was almost everything I knew. Almost, but not quite. I’d only just met the poor guy who was killed. The police may have realized this, believed me, and the summons was simply following standard procedure. I’d said nothing to them about an empty beer bottle or Elaine rushing past me from the beach. For some reason that I couldn’t precisely articulate, but no doubt a credit to intractable obsession, I was loath to implicate Elaine.
    An island woman came into the bar and showed Elaine a basket of fish. Elaine glanced at the fish and counted money out into the woman’s open palm. “Take them to the kitchen.” She turned back to me. “Don’t you have to work?”
    “Not this weekend.” I showed her the letter from the police. “I talked to them last night, we all did. What more do you think they want?”
    “You’ll find out when you get there. Relax, you don’t need a lawyer, they won’t bite you.” She seemed so unconcerned, a man murdered on her club beach and she showed no reaction, no indication the miserable crime had anything to do with her, zero anxiety, not a sign of what happened only hours before. Elaine appeared immune. “Only don’t drag it out, Dan, that’s my advice. Get it over with, go see them now. You’ll feel better for it.”
    Perhaps I was only imagining things, but I thought the club staff were also behaving oddly that morning, the only evidence I could spot of anything out of order, a recognition something amiss. The servers were going about their duties attentively enough, but every so often one of them fixed me with an angry glare—I was sure of this—and the others fell silent, turning their backs to me. They must have known something about Elaine and me.
    “Police headquarters,” said Elaine, “you’ll find it right behind the courts building, just off the square with the Columbus statue and the big neon sign, up near the embassy. You can’t miss it.”
    I knew the sign. I drove past the illuminated billboard every