"That's right. The hair on this brush should be enough to establish a match, if necessary," the detective said. "Do you mind?"

"Course not." Without missing a beat, Chaz snatched a couple of purses off the bed and dropped them into the box.

Rolvaag slipped Joey's brush into an inside pocket of his suit jacket. He said, "There've been incidents here in Florida where a fisherman hauls in some huge shark and it's flopping around the deck of the boat and all of a sudden it regurgitates part of a human body. And this can be, like, weeks after the person has gone missing. Meantime, the shark might've swum two or three hundred miles-"

Chaz interrupted with a queasy grimace: "I get the picture."

"Sorry, Mr. Perrone. You probably studied cases like that at Rosenstiel."

Chaz's gaze flickered briefly from the box to the detective's face. "Yes, we did." He heard an edginess in his own voice. Rolvaag had been checking up on him.

"Take whatever you need," Chaz offered, motioning toward the pile of Joey's things. "I'm willing to do anything if there's a chance to bring closure."

The detective gave a smile that Chaz chose to read as sympathetic. "Closure would be good," Rolvaag said. "Painful sometimes, but still a step forward. I'm sorry to have intruded on your privacy."

Chaz walked him to the door and said, "The Coast Guard called. They quit searching at noon."

"Yes, I know."

With simulated chagrin, Chaz added, "Three thousand square miles and they couldn't find a damn thing."

"Oh, they found something," Rolvaag said, freezing Chaz with one hand on the knob. "Four bales of marijuana. That's it."

Chaz waited for the rush of nausea to subside. "Whoop-de-doo," he said. "I'm sure they're scared shitless down in Colombia."

"Actually, the stuff was Jamaican. But you're right, they'll never figure out who dumped it, or even where. The Gulf Stream probably dragged it all the way up the islands."

Chaz snorted. "From Bermuda, maybe. Not Jamaica."

"What do you mean?"

"The Gulf Stream? It flows from north to south."

Rolvaag's blond eyebrows crinkled. "Not the last time I was out there," he said. "I'm pretty certain it goes the other way, Mr. Perrone. To the north."

Chaz lapsed into an unplanned coughing jag. What if the lame-ass detective isn't wrong? he wondered despondently. That meant the ocean currents had carried Joey's body from the remote perimeter of the search-and-rescue zone into the bull's-eye.

"Heck, you might be right." Chaz cleared his throat. "My brain's so scrambled today, I couldn't tell the sun from the moon."

"I understand completely. You get some rest," Rolvaag said, and headed out to his car.

Chaz shut the door and leaned wearily against it. Of the millions of people who weren't sure which direction the Gulf Stream ran, he was probably the only one to hold an advanced degree in a marine science. He had a fleeting urge to phone one of his former professors and settle the question, but that would have invited scorn that Chaz was in no mood to suffer. It was one of the rare times that he regretted having been such a slacker in school.

Quickly he returned to the chore of removing his late wife's belongings, consoling himself with the knowledge that sharks off the coast of Miami Beach were as indiscriminate in their feeding habits as the ones in the Keys. Joey undoubtedly had been gobbled by one, the strongest evidence being the absence of a corpse.

When Ricca phoned, though, Chaz couldn't restrain himself from asking, "Honey, which way does the Gulf Stream go?"

"Is this a quiz? What are my choices?"

"North or south," Chaz said.

"I got no idea, baby."

"Shit."

"Well, don't get mad at me" Ricca said. "Aren't you the one s'posed to be the big-shot scientist?"

Which is exactly what Karl Rolvaag was thinking about Charles Perrone on the way to the Coast Guard station.

Corbett Wheeler had moved to New Zealand at the age of twenty-two, believing that if he stayed in America he'd spend the rest of his youth battling to hide his inheritance from his gummy-fingered aunt.

Corbett had begged his younger sister to flee the States with him, but Joey's heart had been set on Florida. He had not been surprised when she married Benjamin Middenbock, but he was astounded when the stockbroker proved to be an upright, honest fellow with no overt interest in Joey's money. It was only later, after Benny had been flattened by the sky diver, that Corbett learned his sister had never educated her adoring husband about the family fortune. Corbett then began to suspect that Joey could take care of herself.

By that time he'd grown to love New Zealand, which was as vast and glorious as California, though without the motoring hordes. He had developed an improbable interest in sheep farming during a period when the East Friesian breed was being introduced from Sweden. East Friesians were the most prolific milking sheep in the world, and crossbreeding with New Zealand strains produced a bounty of chubby, fuzzy lambs. Corbett Wheeler had done very well for himself, though profit had never been a motive; he simply possessed an innocent fondness for the husbandry of sheep. Nothing gave him more joy than sitting on the porch of his farmhouse, toking on a joint and gazing out upon verdant slopes speckled in pewter with rams, ewes and lambs.

One night, Joey had called excitedly to report that their late mother's twin sister-the avaricious harpy who had raised them-was being sent to prison for authoring fraudulent insurance claims. Dottie Babcock had been working in Los Angeles as a professional accident victim, racking up two or three imaginary collisions per month in league with a crooked physician. For every alias used by Dottie Bab-cock, there was a corresponding crushed vertebra, shattered hip or detached retina. A newspaper had tracked her down and plastered on the front page a photograph of her Rollerblading with her Pila-tes instructor in Santa Monica. Authorities had been obliged to take action, and a judge slapped Dottie with eight to twelve years. Joey had delivered this bulletin in the hope that her brother might consider a return to the States, but Corbett had declined. From such a distance (and filtered through the leery eye of the BBC), American culture appeared increasingly manic and uninviting. Moreover, Corbett Wheeler couldn't imagine a life without lambing.

He had come back only once, for Benjamin Middenbock's funeral, and had lasted barely forty-eight hours. The blinding vulgarity of South Florida was too much; total sensory overload. Corbett had flown home to Christchurch, resolved to hunker down and tend his flock. He spoke regularly to his sister, and in that way had learned of her growing doubts as to the faithfulness and rectitude of her second husband, Dr. Charles Perrone. Still, Joey had said nothing in those conversations that even hinted she feared for her safety.

"He actually pushed you off the ship?" Corbett Wheeler's hand was shaking as he gripped the telephone. "How? And why, for God's sake?"

Joey told him the story of what had happened that night. He managed to laugh when she got to the part about the bale of grass.

"Who found you-the DEA?"

"Not even close."

"But you've been to the police, right?"

No reply.

"Joey, what's going on?"

"It would be my word against Chaz's," she said, "and he's a good actor, Corbett. Better than me."

Corbett Wheeler thought about that for a few moments. "So, is there a plan?" he asked.

"There will be. I might need your help."

"You name it," he said. "Where are you now?"

"On some island," she said.

"Oh, that's terrific. Are you alone?"

"I'm staying with the man who rescued me."

"Aw, Joey, come on."