As I settled into a comfortable rhythm, my mind began to wander. The papers had estimated that there had been about fifty people aboard the Miss Agnes when she sank. Considering the six who had died, as well as those who had been caught and deported, that still left somewhere in the vicinity of fifteen people who must have made it to shore and now could be tracked down. The article said that the captain of the boat had not been among those picked up by authorities, and it was possible even he could be located. I figured that was where I’d start—even if it only served to determine whether Solange was ever on the Miss Agnes to begin with.

After toweling off, I crossed back over A1A and walked down the sidewalk to my favorite morning breakfast spot, the St. Tropez Café. Francine, the French Canadian girl who’d worked there all winter and for some strange reason had not yet disappeared north with all the other Canadians, poured me my café au lait in one of their mixing bowl-sized ceramic mugs and pointed at a gooey apricot pastry with one raised eyebrow. I nodded and she passed me a plate of confection to go with the coffee-flavored milk.

I seated myself at one of the tables outside and picked up the newspaper left by the previous patron. The story about Solange and the dead woman had made the lower left corner of the front page of the Sun-Sentinel:

Her name, Solange, roughly translated, means Earth Angel. She is ten years old, has big brown eyes and thick black braids. Yesterday morning, when other children her age were going to school and playing with friends, the Earth Angel was found clinging to a half-sunk boat three miles out at sea. Rescued off Fort Lauderdale, suffering from hypothermia, she was too weak to stand when brought to safety. The little Earth Angel is currently listed in stable condition at Broward General Hospital while Immigration officials decide her fate. A Coast Guard spokesperson stated that the body of an unidentified woman was also found in the swamped wooden boat.

The author then emphasized the connection between Erzulie and the three other victims.

The unusual deaths, and the fact that they coincide with a sharp increase in the number of illegal immigrants being smuggled into South Florida, have drawn the attention of several federal agencies. Investigators, who are keeping most of the details of the autopsies under wraps, say the deaths could have been accidents. They could have been the result of recklessness on the part of smugglers who routinely overload their boats to multiply their profits. Or the deaths could be something worse.

As I was reading, a shadow fell across my newspaper, and in the background, just past the edge of the story, I noticed a pair of sexy brown legs, the thighs wrapped tightly in black Lycra. “Seychelle?”

I looked up and feigned surprise at the sight of Joe D’Angelo’s face, although I’d recognized the legs instantly. I quickly chewed and swallowed my mouthful of pastry. “Hi, Joe.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Pull up a chair.”

He set down his tray with a small white cup filled to the brim, a double espresso, a glass of ice water, and a slice of papaya with lime. I glanced at the remaining half of my apricot pastry and felt a twinge of guilt, but I felt much better when I’d taken another big gooey bite.

“You’re looking exceptionally lovely this morning, Miss Sullivan. You’ve been swimming, I see,” he said, then threw back his double shot of caffeine Latin style. He was wearing a crisp new white tank top that said something about a 10K race.

“Yeah, well, thanks for the compliment,” I said, crossing my arms to cover up my midsection where I felt the jellyroll start to grow as soon as I’d swallowed. “I need the exercise, and I find gyms boring.”

“Me too.” He pointed to a red bike locked to the No Stopping sign out by the curb. It was one of those fancy new mountain bikes, the kind with the alloy or titanium frames that look like they’re missing parts. The thing was probably worth more than my Jeep. “I try to log my miles at least three times a week.”

“Nice bike,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s a Klein Palomino. You could call it a nice bike." He stretched his arms out wide, showing the tufts of black hair under his arms and the lovely curves of the muscles in his shoulders and his biceps. I was thinking about how he could be a poster boy for one of those fit-after-fifty diet and exercise plans when I realized he had asked me a question. “I’m sorry, what was that again?”

“I asked if your father ever mentioned me.”

“No, not that I can remember. You knew Red?”

“Well, not all that well.”

“How did you two meet? I’m curious to know how a retired DEA agent would know my father.”

He laughed. “It’s no mystery. I was with the agency for over twenty-five years, most of it here in South Florida, the Caribbean, or South America. This area was real hot in the eighties—lots of smugglers—and whenever we impounded boats and had to move them around, I always tried to hire Red. He was the best. I was sorry to hear from Mike that he had passed.”

“Yeah, sometimes even I have trouble believing it.”

He reached across the table and placed his hand on my wrist. “He was a good man, Seychelle.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And one ornery son of a bitch.”

I laughed and nodded. “Yup, no question about it. You knew Red.”

He leaned back in his chair and laughed out loud. It was good to laugh about Red. I was tired of crying.

“I’ll bet he was a hell of a good father,” he said.

I pushed away the plate with the remains of the gooey pastry. “Yeah, you know, we were just kids, my brothers and I, and we were always asking for something. In those days my parents didn’t have much money, but if I wanted a bike, Red would spend hours fixing up an old one he’d found at some yard sale. It didn’t matter that we were poor.”

“You think that made you poor? You got a bike. My old man? No bikes there. Five boys in the family, and we’d go days without food. Then he’d bring home some powdered milk, old dry bread, and Spam. I was sixteen the first time I tasted real milk. And the bastard wasn’t just ornery, he was downright mean. Used to beat the shit out of us just because he felt like it.”

“Wow.” I didn’t know what more to say. I’d just met the man and his words seemed too intimate, too soon. Or was it just that it was only okay to talk about a happy childhood in polite company? The growing silence felt even more awkward, so I asked him, “What about your mother?”

He sniffed and grimaced. “She got out when she could. I was fifteen, and it suited me all right. I had a job at a local gas station, and she’d been taking nearly everything I made. Said it was time I paid rent. First time I ever really owned anything of my own was after she left.”

I realized then that it wasn’t intimacy, his revealing these details about his parents. What felt strange was that he spoke of his childhood matter-of-factly, as though none of it really mattered to him. I felt awkward; he didn’t.

“It looks like you did all right for yourself in spite of them. You got your own bike,” I said, nodding at his locked- up mountain bike.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out again, as though laying claim to the space around him. His lips stretched wide in a closed-mouth smile. He said, “You bet, and nobody’s gonna take it away from me.”

There was something solid and determined about the man. Perhaps it was years of successfully chasing after bad guys that had given him this self-assurance. It wasn’t simply that he didn’t care what others thought about him, it was that their opinions wouldn’t change his idea of who he was. I envied him that confidence.

“So, tell me more about you and Red. Was it like a business relationship, or were you two friends?”