The Shop

could tell by the inclination of his head, by the small movements he made, shifting slightly to the left and then turning back. His cap pulled down too low.

Landry walked down the other dock to a slip holding a sports fisher and stepped aboard. Walked around the outside of the cabin as if he owned it. Bent down to work the line.

He did this for maybe a minute. Darkness closing in. He slipped into the water, swam under the dock, and came up on the other side. Got his bearings and swam to the other dock, right to where Frank’s boat, Judicial Restraint, was tied up.

He had not lost his ability to board a boat silently. It was like riding a bicycle; you never forgot.

He slid sideways through the narrow doorway to the galley, looking toward the stateroom doorway. He’d memorized the layout. He saw the edge of something black—a man’s leg, clad in cargo pants. Knife in a scabbard. Soft-soled shoes.

Another man.

The watcher by the bait shop must be a lookout. He could be one of Frank’s people, but Landry doubted that. He was pretty sure that someone besides him was interested in Frank’s business.

The man on the boat must have just gotten here. He was bent over the bed, looking at the bag of triptascoline, trying to figure out what it was.

The entry to the stateroom was extremely narrow. Landry sidled in, then moved quickly.

The man sensed something and stiffened. Landry had seen this in a rabbit just before a hawk bolted out of the sky—a sixth sense. But the man wasn’t a pro. It took him a second to believe his senses, and by that time it was too late. Landry held his head in a vise, hands on either side of the head. He jerked backwards, wrenching the neck sideways at the same time. Heard the pop as the neck snapped, severing the spinal cord: instant unconsciousness, followed by death.

He allowed the body to fall back against him, then lowered it to the sole. The smell of feces was overpowering.

Landry found a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Fantastic. He cleaned the body up and dragged it to one of the bench storage seats in the galley. Lifted the hinged seat. Empty. He heaved the body inside and closed the lid.

More cleanup. There wasn’t much. Urine trailing to the bench seat, pulled along by the man’s heels. Landry worked efficiently and quietly in the light of the dim lamp from the stateroom. He wet a towel to get rid of the Fantastic smell, wiped the galley sole dry. Admiring the satin finish of the cherry wood sheen.

Twenty minutes later, he felt the boat rock as the lookout stepped aboard.

The man was quiet and careful, but eventually he would have to come through the doorway.

When he did, Landry shot him.

36

Jolie thought: Memorial Day weekend.

Something had gone on at Cape San Blas that weekend. A party, a gathering—something. She remembered Kay mentioning it. Kay was always mentioning parties and galas and barbecues and visiting dignitaries, and Jolie was always tuning her out. Now she wished she’d listened better.

She almost called Kay, but decided not to. As much as she liked her cousin, this time she would keep her in the dark.

She Googled Memorial Day and Indigo. Memorial Day and Frank Haddox, Memorial Day and attorney general and “party.” And so on.

Zip.

Jolie thought about Zoe and Riley, the day they visited the sheriff’s office. Riley worried about the nude pictures on Luke’s cell phone. Zoe telling Jolie that Riley and Luke broke up that weekend.

Jolie didn’t like coincidences, but she couldn’t see how these pieces fit. What did Riley’s and Luke’s breakup have to do with a missing gay man? Luke and Riley’s breakup seemed straightforward and self-contained: Luke had broken up with Riley, and Riley was worried that Luke had a sex video of her on his phone. The phone was probably with the FBI—swallowed up into a black hole.

So Jolie tried it from the other end. The man named Rick had come to Cove Bar looking for a young man to take to a party on San Blas. A certain type. Like picking a lobster out of a tank. Technically a man, but slim, young-looking, boyish.

A memory poked up.

It was just a piece of gossip, something her cousin Kay had told her when they were alone together on a shopping trip in Tallahassee. Kay looked around at the few oblivious shoppers in the mall before saying anything. “The veep’s coming this weekend.”

“The veep?”

“The vice president? Owen Pintek? Remember him?” As if Jolie should know everything she did about the goings-on at Indigo Island. “I know I told you this. He’s always coming down here—it’s private and he can have a good time.”

“I like his wife.” The vice president’s wife worked tirelessly for the women of Afghanistan. She’d used the bully pulpit, and used it well. A beautiful, charming woman. Genuine.

“Merle doesn’t come down here much.”

“Why not?”

“They have separate lives.” Kay lowered her voice. “Between you and me? He likes boys.”

Jolie Googled Vice President Pintek, plus visit, plus Cape San Blas. The first two of seven hits were from the National Enquirer. The other four looked like blogs, each one referencing the Enquirer’s headline: “VEEP’S SECRET GAY HIDEAWAY.”

The article about the vice president was the cover story for the April 3 edition of the Enquirer, accompanied by a telephoto shot of Indigo Island.

“After months of playing hide-and-seek at Washington’s toniest gay underground love nests, Vice President Owen Pintek has moved operations to a private Florida island more suitable to hedonistic fun and games, insiders say. ‘He can’t get out and about the way he used to since he became vice president,’ says one staffer close to the VP. ‘Too many people know about him—and his unusual appetites.’”

Jolie had never paid attention to the National Enquirer. It wasn’t on her radar at all. She’d walk right past it in the supermarket, never even register its existence. So she had no idea that the vice president of the United States would be on the cover. She opened up the cached webpage and scanned the article from over two months before. It was mostly innuendo with no real facts—enough journalistic leeway to drive a truck through.

The whole case hinged on the word of an unnamed staffer, as well as “sources close to the vice president.” According to the staffer and the sources, Pintek not only liked boys, but he liked rough sex. He liked sex games, he liked bondage. He liked being choked, and he liked choking. And his favorite place to blow off steam was Indigo Island, the home of the former attorney general of the United States.

Jolie went back to Google. There were no references to Owen Pintek and his sexual preferences other than this Enquirer article and another in the same tabloid—a rehash. Jolie often watched CNN on the nights she was home. She’d never seen any reference to Pintek’s homosexuality. She’d never read about it in the paper. She doubted this story had made the mainstream media. It was all innuendo.

She went back to the Google search, looking for other references to the VP, and found the important one, halfway down the third page. Just a small snippet, a quote from the Port St. Joe Star.

Owen Pintek was in town on Memorial Day weekend.

He was at Indigo.

Jolie drove into the empty parking lot of the Starliner Motel. The neon sign was dark. She remembered that first night, remembered the way the sign buzzed and blinked: N- VACA-CY. The office door was locked. She walked