Body of Evidence

15

Passing through the boarding bridge, I deplaned at noon into the sun-drenched concourse of Miami International Airport.

I stopped to buy the Miami Herald and a cup of coffee. Finding a small table halfway hidden by a potted palm, I took off my winter blazer and pushed up my sleeves. I was soaking wet, perspiration trickling down my sides and back. My eyes burned from lack of sleep, my head ached, and what I discovered when I spread open the paper did nothing to improve my condition. In the lower left-hand comer of the front page was a spectacular photograph of firefighters hosing down Marino's flaming car. Accompanying the dramatic tableau of arching water, billowing smoke, and trees igniting at the edge of my yard was the following caption:

Richmond firefighters work on a city homicide detective's car engulfed in flames on a quiet residential street. The Ford LTD was unoccupied when it exploded last night. There were no injuries. Arson is suspected.

At least there was no reference to whose house Marino's car had been parked in front of or why, thank God. All the same, my mother would see the photograph and she would try to call. "I wish you'd move back to Miami, Kay. Richmond sounds so awful. And the new medical examiner's office is so lovely down here, Kay-looks like something out of the movies," she would say. Oddly, it never seemed to occur to my mother that there were more homicides, shoot-outs, drug busts, race riots, rapes, and robberies in my Spanish-speaking hometown in any given year than in Virginia and the entire British Commonwealth combined.

I would call my mother later. Forgive me, Lord, but I don't have it in me to talk to her now.

Gathering my belongings, I crushed out a cigarette and immersed myself in the tide of tropical clothes, duty-free shopping bags and foreign tongues flowing toward the baggage area, my handbag pressed protectively against my side.

I didn't begin to relax until several hours later as I sped along the Seven Mile Bridge in my rental car. As I drove deeper south, the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic on the other, I tried to remember the last time I had been to Key West. Of all the times Tony and I had visited my family in Miami, this was one outing we had never considered. I was fairly certain the last time I had made this drive, I had made it with Mark.

His passion for the beaches and the water and the sun was a devotion returned in kind. If it is possible for nature to favor one creature over another, nature favored Mark. I could scarcely remember the year, much less where we had gone, on the occasion he had spent a week with my family. What I remembered with clarity were his baggy white swim trunks and the firm warmth of his hand in mine during our strolls across cool, wet sand. I remembered the startling whiteness of his teeth against his coppery skin, the health and unsuppressed joy in his eyes as he looked for shark's teeth and shells while I smiled in the shade of a wide-brimmed hat. Most of all, what I could not forget was loving a young man named Mark James more than I had thought it was possible to love anything on this earth.

What had changed him? It was hard for me to fathom that he had crossed over into enemy camps, as Ethridge believed and I had no choice but to accept. Mark was always spoiled. He carried about him a sense of entitlement that comes from being the beautiful son of beautiful people. The fruits of the world were his to enjoy, but he had never been dishonest. He had never been cruel. I couldn't even say that he had ever been condescending to those less fortunate than himself, or manipulative with those vulnerable to his charms. His only real sin was that he had not loved me enough. From the distant perch of my midlife perspective, I could forgive him for that. What I could not forgive him for was his dishonesty. I could not forgive him for deteriorating into a lesser man than the one I had once respected and adored. I could not forgive him for no longer being Mark.

Passing the U.S. Naval Hospital on U.S. 1, I followed the gentle shoreline curve of North Roosevelt Boulevard.

Soon enough I was threading my way through a maze of Key West streets in search of Duval. Sunlight painted the narrow streets white as shadows of tropical foliage stirred by the breeze danced across the pavement. Beneath a blue sky that went on forever, huge palms and mahogany trees cradled houses and shops in spreading arms of vivid green as bougainvillea and hibiscus wooed sidewalks and porches with bright gifts of purple and red. Slowly, I passed people in sandals and shorts, and an endless parade of mopeds. There were very few children and a disproportionate number of men.

The La Concha was a tall, pink Holiday Inn of open spaces and gaudy tropical plants. I'd had no problem making reservations, ostensibly because the tourist season did not begin until the third week of December. But as I left my car in the half-empty parking lot and walked into the somewhat deserted lobby, I couldn't help but think about what Marino had said. Never in my life had I seen so many same-sex couples, and it was patently clear that running deep beneath the robust health of this tiny offshore island was a mother lode of disease. Wherever I looked, it seemed, I saw men dying. I had no phobia of catching hepatitis or AIDS, having learned long ago to cope with the theoretical danger of disease endemic to my work. Nor was I bothered by homosexuals. The older I got, the more I was of the opinion that love can be experienced in many different ways. There is no right or wrong way to love, only in how it is expressed."

As the desk clerk returned my credit card, I asked him to steer me in the general direction of the elevators, and I foggily headed up to my room on the fifth floor. Stripping down to my underwear, I crawled in bed, where I slept for the next fourteen hours.

The following day was just as glorious as the one before, and I was outfitted like any other tourist, except for the loaded Ruger in my pocketbook. My self-imposed mission was to search this island of some thirty thousand people and find two men known to me only as PJ and Walt. I knew from the letters Beryl had written in late August that they were her friends and lived in the rooming house where she had stayed. I had not the slightest clue as to the location or name of this rooming house, and it was my prayer that someone at Louie's could tell me.

I walked, a map that I had bought in the hotel gift shop in hand. Following Duval, I passed rows of shops and restaurants with balustraded balconies that brought to mind New Orleans's French Quarter. I passed sidewalk art displays and boutiques selling exotic plants, silks, and Perugina chocolates, then waited at a crossing to watch the bright yellow cars of the Conch Tour Train rattle by. I began to understand why Beryl Madison had not wanted to leave Key West. With each step I took, Frankie's threatening presence began to fade. By the time I turned left on South Street, he was as remote as Richmond's raw December weather.

Louie's was a white-frame restaurant that had once been a house, on the corner of Vernon and Waddell. Its hardwood floors were spotless, its pale-peach linen-covered tables impeccably set and arranged with exquisite fresh flowers. I followed my host through the air-conditioned dining room, to be seated on the porch where I was dazzled by the variegated blues of water meeting sky, and palms and hanging baskets of blooming plants stirring in air perfumed by the sea. The Atlantic Ocean was nearly under my feet, a bright spattering of sailboats anchored a short swim away. Ordering a rum and tonic, I thought of Beryl's letters and wondered if I were sitting where she had written them.

Most of the tables were occupied. I felt removed from the crowd, my table in a corner against the railing. To my left were four steps leading down to a wide deck, where a small group of young men and women were lounging in bathing suits near a chikee bar. I watched a sinewy Latin boy in a yellow bikini flick a cigarette butt into the water, then get up and languidly stretch. He padded off to buy another round of beers from the bearded bartender, who moved about with the ennui of one tired of his job and no longer young.

Long after I finished my salad and bowl of conch chowder, the group of young people finally clambered down back steps and waded noisily out into the water. Soon they were swimming in the direction of the anchored boats. I paid my bill and approached the bartender. He was leaning back in a chair beneath his thatched canopy, reading a novel.

"What will it be?" he drawled as he rose unenthusiastically to his feet and tucked the book under the bar.

"I was wondering if you sold cigarettes," I said. "I didn't see a machine inside."

"That's it," he said, gesturing toward a limited display behind him. I made a selection.

Slapping the pack on the bar, he charged me the outrageous sum of two dollars, and wasn't particularly gracious when I threw in another fifty cents for a tip. His eyes were a very unfriendly green, his face weathered by years of the sun, his thick, dark beard flecked with gray. He looked hostile and hardened, and I had a suspicion he had lived in Key West for quite a while.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" I said.

"Doesn't matter because you just did, ma'am," he answered.

I smiled. "You're right. I just did. And now I'm going to ask you another one. How long have you worked at Louie's?"

"Going on five years." He reached for a towel and began polishing the bar.

"Then you must have known a young woman who went by the name Straw," I asked, recalling from Beryl's letters that she had not used her proper name while here.

"Straw?" he repeated, frowning as he continued to polish.

"A nickname. She was blond, slender, very pretty, and came to Louie's almost every afternoon during this past summer. She would sit out at one of your tables and write."

He stopped polishing and fixed those hard eyes on me. "What's it to you? She a friend of yours?"

"She's a patient of mine." I said the only thing I could think of that was neither off-putting nor a bald-faced lie.

"Huh?" His thick eyebrows shot up. "A patient? What? You're her doctor''."

"That's correct."

"Well, there's not a whole lot of good you're going to do her now, Doc, I'm sorry to tell you."

He plopped down in his chair and leaned back, waiting.

"I'm aware of that," I said. "I know she's dead."

"Yeah, I was pretty shocked when I heard about it. The cops stormed in a couple weeks back with their rubber hoses and thumbscrews. I'll tell you what my buddies told them, nobody here knows shit about what happened to Straw. She was real quiet, a real fine lady. Used to sit right over there."

He pointed at an empty table not far from where I was standing. "Used to sit there all the time, just minding her own business."

"Did any of you get to know her?"

"Sure."

He shrugged. "We all drank a few brews together. She was partial to Coronas and lime. But I wouldn't say the people here knew her personally. I mean, I'm not sure anybody could even tell you where she was from, except that it was from the land of snowbirds."

"Richmond, Virginia," I said.

"You know," he went on, "a lot of people come and go around here. Key West's a live-and-let-live place. A lot of starving artists here, too. Straw wasn't any different from a lot of people I meet-except most people I meet don't end up murdered. Damn."

He scratched his beard and slowly shook his head from side to side. "It's really hard to imagine. Kind of blows your mind."

"There are a lot of unanswered questions," I said, lighting a cigarette.

"Yeah, like why the hell do you smoke? I thought doctors are supposed to know better."

"It's a filthy, unhealthy habit. And I do know better. And I think you may as well fix me a rum and tonic because I like to drink, too. Barbancourt with a twist, please."

"Four, eight, what's your pleasure?" He challenged my repertoire of fine booze.

"Twenty-five, if you've got it."

"Nope. Can only get the twenty-five-year-old stuff in the.islands. So smooth it will make you cry."

"The best you've got, then," I said.

He shot his finger at a bottle behind him, familiar with its amber glass and five stars on the label. Barbancourt Rhum, aged in barrels for fifteen years, just like the bottle I had discovered in Beryl's kitchen cabinet.

"That would be wonderful," I said.

Grinning and suddenly energized, he got up from his chair, his hands moving with the dexterity of a juggler as he snapped up bottles, measuring a long stream of liquid Haitian gold without benefit of a jigger, which was followed by sparkling splashes of tonic. For the grand finale, he deftly sliced a perfect sliver of a Key lime that looked as if it had just been plucked from the tree, squeezed it into my drink and ran a bruised lemon peel around the rim of the glass. Wiping his hands on the towel he had tucked into the waistband of his faded Levi's, he slid a paper napkin across the bar and presented me with his art. It was, without question, the best rum and tonic I had ever raised to my lips, and I told him so.

"This one's on the house," he said, waving off the ten-dollar bill I extended to him. "Any doctor who smokes and knows her rum's all right by me."

Reaching under the bar, he got out his own pack.

"I tell ya," he went on, shaking out the match, "I get so damn tired of hearing all this self-righteous shit about smoking and all the rest of it. You know what I mean? People make you feel like a damn criminal. Me, I say live and let live. That's my motto."

"Yes. I know exactly what you mean,' I said as we took long, hungry drags.

"Always something they got to judge you for. You know, what you eat, what you drink, who you date."

"People certainly can be extremely judgmental and unkind," I answered.

"Amen to that."

He sat back down in the shade of his bottle-lined shelter while the sun baked the top of my head. "Okay," he said, "so you're Straw's doctor. What is it you're trying to find out, if you don't mind my asking?"

"There are various circumstances that occurred prior to her death that are very confusing," I said. "I'm hoping her friends might be able to clarify a few points for me-"

"Wait a minute," he interrupted, sitting up straighter in his chair. "When you say doctor, like what kind of doctor do you mean?"

"I examined her…"

"When?"

"After her death."

"Oh, shit. You telling me you're a mortician?" he asked in disbelief.

"I'm a forensic pathologist."

"A coroner?"

"More or less."

"Well, I'll be damned." He looked me up and down. "I sure as hell never would've guessed that one."

I didn't know if I had just been paid a compliment or not.

"Do they always send-what did you call it? - a forensic pathologist like you around, you know, tracking down information like you're doing?"

"Nobody sent me. I came of my own accord."

"Why?" he asked, his eyes dark with suspicion again. "You came one hell of a long way."

"I care about what happened to her. I care very much."

"You're telling me the cops didn't send you?"

"The cops don't have the authority to send me anywhere."

"Good." He laughed. "I like that."

I reached for my drink.

"Bunch of bullies. Think they're all junior Rambos."

He stubbed out his cigarette. "Came in here with their damn rubber gloves on. Jesus Christ. Just how do you think that looked to our customers? Went to see Brent -he was one of our waiters. He's dying, man, and what do they do? The assholes wear surgical masks and stand back ten feet from his bed like he's Typhoid Mary while they're asking him shit. I swear to God, even if I'd known a thing about what happened to Beryl, I wouldn't have given them the time of day."

The name hit me like a two-by-four, and when our eyes met, I knew he realized the significance of what he had just said.

"Beryl?" I asked.

He leaned back silently in his chair.

I pressed him. "You knew her name was Beryl?"

"Like I said, the cops were here asking questions, talking about her."

Uncomfortably, he lit another cigarette, unable to meet my eyes. My bartender friend was a very poor liar.

"Did they talk to you?"

"Nope. I made myself scarce when I saw what was going on."

"Why?"

"I told you. I don't like cops. I've got a Barracuda, a beat-up piece of shit I've had since I was a kid. For some reason, they've always got to pop me. Always giving me tickets for one thing or another, throwing their weight around with their big guns and Ray Bans, like they think they're stars in their own TV series or something."

"You knew her name when she was here," I said quietly. "You knew her name was Beryl Madison long before the police came."

"So what if I did? What's the big deal?"

"She was very secretive about it," I replied with feeling. "She didn't want people down here to know who she was. She didn't tell people who she was. She paid for everything in cash so she wouldn't have to use credit cards, checks, anything that might identify her. She was terrified. She was running. She didn't want to die."

He was staring wide-eyed at me.

"Please tell me what you know. Please. I have a feeling you were her friend."

He got up, saying nothing, and stepped out from behind the bar. His back to me, he began collecting the empty bottles and other trash the young people had scattered over the deck.

I sipped my drink in silence and stared past him at the water. In the distance a bronzed young man was unfurling a deep blue sail as he prepared to set out to sea. Palm fronds whispered in the breeze and a black Labrador retriever danced along the shore, darting in and out of the surf.

"Zulu," I muttered, staring numbly at the dog.

The bartender stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. "What did you say?"

"Zulu," I repeated. "Beryl mentioned Zulu and your cats in one of her letters. She said Louie's stray animals eat better than any human."

"What letters?"

"She wrote several letters while she was here. We found them in her bedroom after she was murdered. She said the people here had become like family. She thought this was the most beautiful place in the world. I wish she'd never returned to Richmond. I wish she'd stayed right here."

The voice drifting out of me sounded as if it were coming from somebody else, and my vision was blurring. Poor sleep habits, accumulated stress, and the rum were ganging up on me. The sun seemed to dry up what little blood I had left flowing to my brain.

When the bartender finally returned to his chikee hut, he spoke with quiet emotion. "I don't know what to tell you. But yeah, I was Beryl's friend."

Turning to him, I replied, "Thank you. I'd like to think I was her friend, too. That I am her friend."

He looked down awkwardly, but not before I detected a softening of his face.

"You can never be real sure who's all right and who ain't," he commented. "It's real hard to know these days, that's for damn sure."

His meaning slowly penetrated my fatigue. "Have there been people asking about Beryl who aren't nil right? People other than the police? People other than me?"

He poured himself a Coke.

"Have there been? Who? "I repeated, suddenly alarmed. "Don't know his name."

He took a big swallow of his drink. "Some good-looking guy. Young, maybe in his twenties. Dark. Fancy clothes, designer shades. Looked like he just stepped out of GQ. I guess this was a couple weeks ago. He said he was a private investigator, shit like that."

Senator Partin's son.

"He wanted to know where Beryl lived while she was here," he went on,

"Did you tell him?"

"Hell, I didn't even talk to him."

"Did anybody tell him?" I persisted.

"Not likely."

"Why isn't it likely, and are you ever going to tell me your name?"

"It's not likely because nobody knew except me and a buddy," he said. "And I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours."

"Kay Scarpetta."

"Pleased to meet you. My name's Peter. Peter Jones. My friends call me PJ."

PJ lived two blocks from Louie's in a tiny house completely overcome by a tropical jungle. The foliage was so dense I'm not sure I would have known the paint-eroded frame house was there had it not been for the Barracuda parked in front. One look at the car told me exactly why the police continually hassled its owner. The thing was a piece of subway graffiti on oversize wheels, with spoilers, headers, a rear end jacked up high, and a homemade paint job of hallucinatory shapes and designs in the psychedelic colors of the sixties.

"That's my baby," PJ said, affectionately thumping the hood.

"It's something else, all right," I said.

"Had her since I was sixteen."

"And you should keep her forever," I said sincerely as I ducked under branches and followed him into the cool, dark shade.

"It's not much," he apologized, unlocking the door. "Just one extra bedroom and John upstairs where Beryl stayed. One of these days, I guess I'll rent it out again. But I'm pretty picky about my tenants."

The living room was a hodgepodge of junkyard furniture: a couch and overstuffed chair in ugly shades of pink and green, several mismatched lamps fashioned from odd things like conch shells and coral, and a coffee table constructed from what appeared to have been an oak door in a former life. Scattered about were painted coconuts, starfish, newspapers, shoes, and beer cans, the damp air sour with decay.

"How did Beryl find out about the room you were renting?" I asked, sitting on the couch.

"At Louie's," he replied, switching on several lamps. "Her first few nights here she was staying at Ocean Key, a pretty nice hotel on Duval. I guess she figured out in a hurry that was going to cost her some bucks if she planned to stick around a while."

He sat down in the overstuffed chair. "It was maybe the third time she'd come to Louie's for lunch. She would just get a salad and sit there and stare out at the water. She wasn't working on anything then. She would just sit. It was kind of weird the way she would hang around. I mean we're talking hours, like most of the afternoon. Finally, and like I said, I think it was the third time she'd come to Louie's, she wandered down to the bar and was leaning against the railing, looking out at the view. I guess I felt sorry for her."

"Why?" I asked.

He shrugged. "She looked so damn lost, I guess. Depressed or something. I could tell. So I started talking to her. She wasn't what I'd call easy, that's for sure."

"She wasn't easy to get to know," I agreed.

"She was hard as hell to hold a friendly conversation with. I asked her a couple of simple questions, like 'This your first visit here?' Or Where are you from?' That sort of thing. And sometimes she wouldn't even answer me. It's like I wasn't there. But it was funny. Something told me to hang in there with her. I asked her what she liked to drink. We started talking about different kinds. It sort of loosened her up, caught her interest. Next thing, I'm letting her try out a few favorites on the house. First a Corona with a twist of lime, which she went nuts over. Then the Barbancourt, like I fixed you. That was real special."

"No doubt that loosened her up quite a bit," I remarked.

He smiled. "Yeah, you got that straight. I mixed it pretty strong. We started shooting the breeze about other things, and next thing you know she's asking me about places to stay in the area. That's when I told her I had a room, and I invited her to come see it, told her to stop by later if she wanted. It was a Sunday, and I'm always off early on Sundays."

"And she came by that night?" I inquired.

"It really surprised me. I sort of figured she wouldn't show. But she did, found the place without a hitch. By then Walt was home. He used to stay at the Square selling his shit until dark. He'd just come in, and the three of us started talking and hitting it off. Next thing, we're walking around Old Town, and end up in Sloppy Joe's. Being a writer and all, she really flipped out, went on and on about Hemingway. She was one smart lady, I'll tell you that."

"Walt was selling silver jewelry," I said. "In Mallory Square."

"How'd you know that?" PJ asked, surprised.

"The letters Beryl wrote," I reminded him.

He stared off in sadness for a moment.

"She also mentioned Sloppy Joe's. I got the impression she was very fond of you and Walt."

"Yeah, the three of us could put away some beer." He picked a magazine off the floor and tossed it on the coffee table.

"You both may have been the only friends she had."

"Beryl was something."

He looked at me. "She was something. I'd never met anybody like her before, and probably won't again. Once you got past that wall of hers, she was some fine lady. Smart as shit," he said again, resting his head on the back of the chair and staring up at the paint-peeled ceiling. "I used to love to hear her talk. She could say things just like that."

He snapped his fingers. "In a way I couldn't if I had ten years to think about it. My sister's the same way. She teaches school in Denver. English. I've never been real quick with words. Before I bartended I did a lot of things with my hands. Construction, bricklaying, carpentry. Dabbled a little in pottery until I about starved to death. I came here because of Walt. Met him in Mississippi, of all places. In a bus station, if you can fucking believe that. We started talking, rode all the way to Louisiana together. A couple months later, we're both down here. It's so weird."

He looked at me. "I mean, that was almost ten years ago. And all I got left is this dump."

"Your life is far from over, PJ," I said gently.

"Yeah." His face turned up to the ceiling, he shut his eyes.

"Where is Walt now?"

"Lauderdale, last I heard."

"I'm very sorry," I said.

"It happens. What can I say?"

There was a moment of silence and I decided it was time to take a chance.

"Beryl was writing a book while she was here."

"You got that straight. When she wasn't trapping around with the two of us, she was working on that damn book."

"It's disappeared," I said.

He didn't respond.

"The so-called private investigator you mentioned and various other people are keenly interested in it. You know that already. I believe you do."

He remained silent, his eyes shut.

"You have no good reason to trust me, PJ, but I hope you'll listen," I went on in a low voice. "I've got to find that manuscript, the manuscript Beryl was working on while she was here. I think she didn't take it back to Richmond with her when she left Key West. Can you help me?"

Opening his eyes, he peered over at me. "With all due respect, Dr. Scarpetta, saying I did know, why should I? Why should I break a promise?"

"Did you promise her you'd never tell where it is?" I asked.

"Doesn't matter, and I asked you first," he answered.

Taking a deep breath, I looked down at the dirty gold shag carpet beneath my feet as I leaned forward on the couch.

"I know of no good reason for you to break a promise to a friend, PJ," I said.

"Bullshit. You wouldn't ask me if you didn't know of a good reason."

"Did Beryl tell you about him?" I asked.

"You mean the asshole hassling her?"

"Yes."

"Yeah. I knew about it." He suddenly got up. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a beer."

"Please," I said, believing it was important I accept his hospitality despite my better judgment. I was still woozy from the rum.

Returning from the kitchen, he handed me a sweating bottle of ice-cold Corona, a wedge of lime floating in the long neck. It tasted wonderful.

PJ sat down and began talking again. "Straw, I mean Beryl, I guess I may as well call her Beryl, was scared shitless. To be honest, when I heard about what happened, I wasn't really surprised. I mean, it freaked me. But I wasn't really surprised. I told her to stay here. I told her to screw the rent, that she could stay. Walt and me, well, I guess it was funny, but it got to where she was sort of like our sister. The fuckhead screwed me, too."

"I beg your pardon?" I asked, startled by his sudden anger.

"That's when Walt left. It was after we heard about it. I don't know. He changed, Walt did. I can't say that what happened to her was the only reason. We had our problems. But it did something to him. He got distant and wouldn't talk anymore. Then, one morning, he left. He just left."

"This was when? Several weeks ago, when you found out from the police, when they came to Louie's?"

He nodded.

"It's screwed me, too, PJ," I said. "It's totally screwed me, too."

"What do you mean? How the hell's it screwed you, other than causing you a lot of trouble?"

"I'm living Beryl's nightmare." I was barely able to say it.

He took a swallow of beer, his eyes intense on me.

"Right now I suppose I'm running, too-for the same reason she was."

"Man, you're making my brain bleed," he said, shaking his head. "What are you talking about?"

"Did you see the photograph on the front page of this morning's Herald!"

I asked. "A photograph of a police car burning in Richmond."

"Yeah," he said, puzzled. "I sort of remember it."

"That was in front of my house, PJ. The detective was inside my living room talking to me when his car was torched. It's not the first thing that's happened. You see, he's after me, too."

"Who is, for Christ's sake?" he asked, even though I could tell he knew.

"The man who murdered Beryl," I said with great difficulty. "The man who then butchered Beryl's mentor, Gary Harper, whom you may have heard her mention."

"Lots of times. Shit. I'm not believing this."

"Please help me, PJ."

"I don't know how I can." He became so upset he jumped out of the chair and started pacing. "Why would the pig come after you?"

"He suffers delusional jealousy. He's obsessive. He's a paranoid schizophrenic. He seems to hate anyone connected with Beryl. I don't know why, PJ. But I have to find out who he is. I have to find him," I said.

"I don't know who the hell he is. Or where the hell he is. If I did, I'd find him and tear his fucking head off!"

"I need that manuscript, PJ," I said.

"What the fuck does her manuscript have to do with it?" he protested.

So I told him. I told him about Gary Harper and his necklace. I told him about the phone calls and the fibers, and the autobiographical work Beryl was writing that I had been accused of stealing. I revealed everything I could think of about the cases while my soul withered in fear. I had never, not even once, discussed the details of a case with anyone other than the investigators or attorneys involved. When I was finished, PJ silently left the room. When he returned, he was carrying an army knapsack, which he placed in my lap.

"There," he said."

I swore to God I would never do this. I'm sorry, Beryl," he muttered. "I'm sorry."

Opening the canvas flap, I carefully pulled out what must have been close to a thousand typed pages scribbled with handwritten notes, and four computer diskettes, all of it bound in thick rubber bands.

"She told us never to let anybody have it should something happen to her. I promised."

"Thank you, Peter. God bless you," I said, and then I asked of him one last thing.

"Did Beryl ever mention anyone she referred to as 'M'?"

He stood very still and stared at his beer.

"Do you know who this person is?" I asked.

"Myself," he said.

"I don't understand."

" 'M' for 'Myself.' She wrote letters to herself," he said.

'The two letters we found," I said to him. "The ones we found on the floor of her bedroom after she was murdered, the ones that mentioned you and Walt, were addressed to 'M.'"

"I know," he said, shutting his eyes.

"How do you know?"

"I knew it when you mentioned Zulu and the cats. I knew you'd read those letters. That's when I decided you were all right, that you were who you said you were."

"Then you've read the letters, too?" I asked, stunned.

He nodded.

"We never found the originals," I muttered. "The two we found are photocopies."

"That's because she burned everything," he said, taking a deep breath, steadying himself.

"But she didn't bum her book."

"No. She told me she didn't know where she'd go next or what she'd do if he was still there, still after her. That she'd call me later on and tell me where to mail the book. And if I didn't hear from her, to hold on to it, never give it up to anyone. She never called, you know. She never fucking called."

He wiped his eyes, averting his face from me. "The book was her hope, you know. Her hope of being alive."

His voice caught when he added, "She never stopped hoping things would turn out all right."

"What exactly was it that she burned, PJ?"

"Her diary," he replied. "I guess you could call it that. Letters she'd been writing to herself. She said it was her therapy and that she didn't want anyone to see them. They were very private, her most private thoughts. The day before she left, she burned all her letters except two."

"The two I saw," I almost whispered. "Why? Why didn't she burn those two letters?"

"Because she wanted me and Walt to have them."

"As a remembrance?"

"Yeah," he said, reaching for his beer and roughly rubbing tears from his eyes. "A piece of herself, a record of thoughts she had while she was here. The day before she left, the day she burned the stuff, she went out and photocopied just those two. She kept the copies and gave us the originals, said it sort of made us indentured to each other-that was the word she used. The three of us would always be together in our thoughts as long as we had the letters."

When he walked me out, I turned around, throwing my arms around him in a hug of thanks.

I headed back to my hotel as the sun settled, palms etched against a spreading band of fire. Throngs of people clambered noisily toward the bars along Duval, and the enchanted air was alive with music, laughter, and lights. I walked with a spring in my step, the army knapsack slung over my shoulder. For the first time in weeks I was happy, almost euphoric. I was completely unprepared for what awaited me in my room.