“What for?”

“He and two friends almost beat a black guy to death. It started at the Lob Lolly over on Pine Island. The black guy was with a white girl and Van Slate was shit-faced and made some remarks. They followed the couple out of the bar, tailed them back here, forced them off the road, and whaled on him.”

“Does Van Slate have a record other than this?” Louis asked.

“No, but he’s a hothead.”

“He lives here on Sereno?”

Wainwright nodded. “His father owns a big boatyard here on the key, and he’s had enough pull in the past to keep his kid out of jail.”

“I still can’t believe whoever killed these two men is living right here among us,” Dodie said quietly.

“Sam, you had killers living right next to you in Black Pool,” Louis said.

Dodie looked at his beer. “True enough.”

The crickets had stopped. It was quiet until a fish jumped out in the canal.

“Have you noticed the dates?” Wainwright said finally.

“What dates?” Dodie asked.

“Tatum was killed on Tuesday, March first. Quick was found on Thursday, nine days later, and the doc says he was in the water about two days.”

“Could be just a coincidence,” Louis said.

“Could be Tuesday’s the killer’s day off from his regular job,” Dodie interjected. “If he has one.”

Louis looked at him. “Well, Tuesday is three days away,” he said.

Wainwright drained his beer and sat forward. “Okay, this is what we’re going to do,” he said. “Louis, you check out Van Slate. We’ll put twenty-four-hour surveillance on the causeway to check every suspicious vehicle. If anyone sees anything, he’ll radio me to do a stop.”

“We don’t have the manpower,” Louis said.

“Chief Horton over in Fort Myers is a friend of mine and might lend some uniforms,” Wainwright said. “And I know my guys will do what it takes on our end.”

“I’ll pull a shift, Dan,” Dodie said quickly.

Wainwright paused and glanced at Louis. “Sure, I’ll fit you in, Sam.”

Wainwright pulled out his notebook and began to draw a diagram of the causeway and key. “Okay, we’ve got the Sereno Key causeway with two lanes going into the town center and—”

Margaret came back out carrying a platter. Wainwright fell silent. The three men looked up at her.

She gave them a stern look, then went out to get the chicken off the grill. She came back onto the patio, holding the platter, and paused, looking at them.

“You’d think y’all were CIA or something,” she said. “It’s not like I don’t know anything. I read the paper. I watch Hill Street Blues.”

Louis glanced at Wainwright, who lowered his head. Dodie sat very still. The silence lengthened.

Louis looked up at Margaret. “So, you think Furillo and Joyce will ever get married?” he asked.

Margaret smiled. “Yes, I do, and if y’all would get your butts inside to supper, I’ll tell you why.”

She went in. Louis glanced at Dodie, who looked mildly embarrassed. He looked at Wainwright. He was gripping his beer bottle, staring out at the black canal beyond, his face tight in the spare light of the Japanese lanterns.

Chapter Twelve

Louis stood outside the chain-link fence of the boatyard, watching Matthew Van Slate. If Van Slate had noticed him, he didn’t show it. He was up on a ladder, sanding the wooden hull of a sailboat that was propped on scaffolding. The yard was crowded with dry-docked boats—everything from beat-up bas-sers to a forty-foot white Hatteras that hung in a massive metal lift like some exotic captured bird. At the entrance was a large sign: VAN SLATE BOAT WORKS.

Louis opened Van Slate’s criminal folder. Van Slate and two other boatyard employees had been arrested last May by Wainwright’s officers for assault and battery on Joshua Zengo. Van Slate had served ten months of an eighteen-month sentence, and his two friends had served seven. According to Zengo’s girlfriend, the drunken Van Slate had picked a fight with Zengo in the bar, making racial slurs about him being with a white woman. The couple left, but about ten minutes later they noticed a car following them. Van Slate ran Zengo’s car off the road in Sereno and pulled him out of his car. The girlfriend said the three men beat Zengo unconscious before fleeing.

According to a witness statement from a patron in the bar, Van Slate was angry because his wife had recently left him and Van Slate suspected she was seeing a black man.

Louis closed the file and stared back at Van Slate. He looked to be about thirty, at least six feet, with a body honed by day labor and nights spent in a gym. He was wearing paint-stained jeans and an old denim shirt with the sleeves cut off. His knotty shoulders glistened in the sun and his oily blond hair hung over his forehead.

Louis could see two other men painting a hull. From what he could tell from the mug shots in the case folder, they looked to be Van Slate’s two friends. Louis tossed the file in the car and went through the gate.

“Matthew Van Slate?” he called as he approached him.

Van Slate looked down, the sander in his hand. His knuckles were dirty and raw, several scraped nearly to the bone.

“Who are you?” Van Slate asked, turning off the sander.

“Louis Kincaid. I’m working with the Sereno Key Police Department. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Van Slate’s eyes narrowed. “Get lost,” he said. He went back to his sanding.

Louis waited, knowing Van Slate would eventually turn around again. After almost a full minute, Van Slate looked back down at Louis.

“I thought I told you to get lost.”

“All you have to do is answer a few questions.” Louis could tell Van Slate was trying his damnedest to figure out who he was—and what authority he actually had here.

Finally, Van Slate set the sander on the ladder and climbed down. His eyes locked on Louis, and he reached into his back jeans pocket for a cigarette. Louis waited while he lit it. The pungent smell of paint thinner drifted on the breeze.

“Be careful, you might go up in flames,” Louis said.

Van Slate slipped the lighter back in his pocket and blew out smoke. “Okay, what?”

“Two black men were found murdered here in the last month. Both were beaten. You heard about it?”

“Why would I care?” Van Slate’s lips, gripping the cigarette, barely moved when he spoke.

“Past history.”

Van Slate pointed the cigarette at Louis. “Look, that shit with my old lady is over with. I don’t care anymore how many—who she fucks.” Van Slate looked at the gravel, then out over the yard. “I got a new life now.”

“Must be hard, though.”

“What?”

“Your buddies still talk about it?”

Van Slate’s eyes drilled into Louis. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Louis glared back, feeling a surge of anger. Van Slate stepped forward. For a second Louis thought he was going to hit him and he braced himself.

“You’d like to kick my ass, wouldn’t you?” Van Slate said.

“Yeah,” Louis said.

“But you can’t. Cops got rules. Too bad.”

Van Slate took a drag from his cigarette. Louis focused on Van Slate’s bruised knuckles. Images of Anthony Quick’s battered face came to his mind. He inhaled and forced his words out evenly, meeting Van Slate’s eyes.

“Where were you a week ago Tuesday, about six-thirty P.M.?”

Van Slate shook his head. “I don’t have to talk to you.”

“You’ll talk, Mr. Van Slate. If not to us, then to the sheriff’s department.”

“You fucking people . . .” Van Slate muttered, turning away.

Louis reached out and hit his shoulder, spinning him around. “What?”

Van Slate stared at him, shocked, then smiled. “Cops. You fucking cops.”

Over Van Slate’s shoulder, Louis noticed the two friends staring at them. Van Slate followed his gaze, then said, “Touch me again and they’ll be all over your ass, you son of a bitch. This is my boatyard. There’s not one fucker in here who will come to help you. You understand that?”