We walked in silence to the end of the street and took the stairs down to the sand. A police department jeep met us there, and drove us to an area on the beach which had already been cordoned off and shielded from the stares of curious early morning joggers.

The trick in these situations is to not identify the object on the sand as another human being. The trick, I told myself, is to distance yourself, observe, and not think about this waterlogged casing as a person, and certainly not anything at all like yourself. If you start to think about who it might have been or about your own vulnerability to death, you’ll probably pass out or get sick or both.

So I used the trick. I noted the fancy yachting shoes and the Rolex and the neatly trimmed hair. Absolutely refused to let my glance settle for more than a brief moment on what was once the face. The thing on the beach wasn’t in as awful a condition as “floaters” usually are, leading the county coroner, Dr. Carlos Hernandez, to say the body probably hadn’t been in the water more than a few hours.

THAT SUNDAY’S EDITION of the paper was printed before the body was found, but a story on the third letter and an interpretation of its meaning ran on the front page. The Express got phone calls all morning from women who were frantic about their missing husbands, but it wasn’t until about nine o’clock that I picked up the one that I knew was Alcyone.

Her voice was shaky, and she started by saying, “My name is Rita Havens. I’ve been reading your articles, Miss Kelly. I think-” She took a deep breath and started over. “My husband, Alexander Havens, went sailing to Catalina Island yesterday. He’s fifty-four years old.” That made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. But it was as she whispered her next statement that I became convinced that she should get in touch with the police.

“His mother used to work at Mercury Aircraft. Have they found Ceyx?”

RITA HAVENS’ CALL to the Express had resulted in negotiations that came just short of requiring a U.N. Resolution. When I went into John’s office and told him about her call, he got in touch with Frank, but didn’t give out any names or addresses. Frank handed it over to Lieutenant Carlson, saying he couldn’t do otherwise.

Carlson, in turn, went bananas. When he started making threats, John hung up the phone, then called Carlson’s boss, Captain Bredloe. Bredloe, fortunately, saw the wisdom of seeking the help rather than the ire of the paper. He promised to get back to John within the hour.

Meanwhile, my own situation at the Express wasn’t exactly comfortable. Rita Havens insisted I was the only reporter she would talk to, but the Express was wary of putting me on a story involving the cops. John only gave in when it looked as if he wouldn’t get an interview with her any other way.

Bredloe called back as promised. In the interest of finding the killer as soon as possible, he was encouraging a more cooperative spirit. He told us he had “worked with Lieutenant Carlson” on “better defining a team for this set of cases.” Frank and Pete were to act as liaisons with the paper, and he asked that we forward any leads we received to them. Mark Baker was free to talk to any of the detectives assigned to the case, but Bredloe made it clear that the detectives would continue to use discretion regarding what information they released to the paper. No detective would release information which might jeopardize the apprehension or prosecution of the murderer. I could tell that John wasn’t happy about the possibility of Frank working with me, but he could hardly complain, since Bredloe was basically giving him what he wanted, and getting Carlson off his back at the same time.

I CALLED RITA Havens to talk about Frank and Pete joining me when I came to see her.

There was a long silence, then she said, “So you are quite sure it’s Alex.”

“I’m no more certain than you are, Mrs. Havens. But if it is, then the police will need to be informed.”

“I suppose I’m only delaying the inevitable.” There was a little catch in her voice, but after a moment she said, “Bring them, of course.”

WE PULLED UP in the sweeping drive of the Havens’ mansion, a great monument of a place. The door was answered by an honest-to-God butler, and I caught myself developing a bad attitude as we stood in the entryway. I find I have to fight a prejudice I have about the wealthy when I encounter them. However, while I’ve certainly met my share of the obnoxious well-to-do, I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t found the same types among the other economic strata.

But if Rita Havens was a nouveau riche snob, then she fooled me. In any other setting, I think she still would have been as genuine and as warm. She was a petite salt-and-pepper brunette with dark brown eyes. There was something about her manner that made me feel instantly comfortable with her. Although it was easy to see that she had been crying, she greeted us as if we were there to visit as friends, rather than to discuss the possibility of her husband’s death. She invited us to join her for a cup of coffee in a cozy sitting room, and asked us to call her by her first name.

We chatted about the weather, about the newspaper, about a new building that was going up where the Buffum’s department store used to be. Frank didn’t rush her, and neither did I. She took a sip of coffee, looked outside for a moment, and then, as if realizing that small talk would not change what had happened, started talking about her husband.

Alexander Havens was a prosperous manufacturer of special fasteners used on airplanes – airplanes made by none other than Mercury Aircraft. Alex, as she called him, had gone to work at Mercury while his mother was still working there. He had seen an opportunity in Mercury’s need for reliable fasteners, left on good terms, and started his own business. It had been a highly successful venture for all concerned. He had branched out into supplying other aerospace companies with a variety of parts, but Mercury had always been his mainstay.

I asked her about his business, his hobbies, his interests. As she worked her way toward the question at hand, her devotion to him was apparent.

“Alex loves to sail. He’s very good at it. I get sea-sick just looking at the boat, so usually he finds someone else to go with him. This close to Christmas, and with the weather so chilly, he couldn’t find anyone who wanted to brave the choppy seas between here and the island. I tried to get him to forget about it…” She couldn’t finish. She didn’t start crying again, just bit her lower lip and looked away from us.

“Forgive me,” she murmured.

I’m not sure she meant it for us.

“So he went sailing alone?” Frank asked.

She nodded.

Pete, usually an animated chatterbox, was quiet and still. I remembered that he once told me that contacting victims’ families was always hard on him, no matter how often he had done it. I wondered if he usually left this part of the job to Frank.

Frank continued asking questions, his tone gentle. “Your husband left yesterday – the twenty-second?”

“Yes.”

“From the Las Piernas Marina?”

“Yes.”

“Could you describe the boat?”

“It’s a small sailboat, at least, Alex says it’s small. A thirty-foot Catalina – I think that’s right. It’s white – I guess most of them are.”

“And the name of the boat?”

She waited a moment before whispering, “Lovely Rita.”

Frank gave her some time to recover, then asked a few more questions. She thought there were at least six or seven other people who knew he was sailing; she named them. He had left early yesterday morning.