I told her about reading Echevarria’s autopsy report and about the decidedly unprofessional way in which he was murdered. I said there was always a possibility the shooter had tried to look amateurish on purpose, to throw investigators off his trail, but that I doubted it.

“The killer didn’t conform to modern shooting doctrine,” I said.

“You worked in marketing. What would you know about ‘modern shooting doctrine’?”

“I read a lot.”

Savannah gazed scornfully at me with her sunglasses still on. She knew better.

The waitress was about fifty or so, a bottle blonde sausaged into blue jeans that housed a pair of hips nearly wide enough to land my airplane on. Savannah said she wasn’t hungry. My aspiring Buddhist impulses urged me to go with a salad, but my nihilistic past insisted otherwise. I ordered steak fries and a mushroom cheeseburger.

“I love a man who loves his meat,” the waitress said, jotting down the order. “Name’s Honey. Lemme know if you need anything.”

Savannah watched her move off. “Honey my ass.”

“She knows a big tipper when she sees one.”

“You said you were a vegetarian.”

“I prefer to think of myself as more of a work in progress.”

“There’s this thing now, Logan, in case you haven’t heard. It’s called cholesterol.”

“I didn’t know you still cared.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe I do. Which is why I want you to stop.”

“We’re not married anymore, Savannah. If I want a mushroom cheeseburger, I’ll order a mushroom cheeseburger.”

“That’s not what I meant.” A helicopter flew low overhead, its engine rattling the restaurant like a minor temblor. Savannah waited. Then she said quietly, “I think my father may know something about Arlo’s murder.”

“What makes you think that?”

She shook her head, done talking about it. She took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. They were rimmed red from crying.

“What’s wrong, Savannah?”

She sipped some water and put her sunglasses back on. “Had I known what I was getting you into, I never would’ve asked you,” she said. “Whatever my father paid you, I’ll double it. I just want you to go home. Forget about Arlo. Forget all about this.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. It’s easy. Just get back in your airplane and go.”

I couldn’t think of anything to tell her but the truth.

“Arlo saved my life once. I owe him at least this much.”

We were on Mindanao, the southern part facing the Sulu archipelago arching toward Malaysia. Negotiations between the

Moros and the government had broken down the week before. The Islamic Liberation Front was attacking government forces. Our mission was to kill every senior Moro leader we encountered. Through the palms fronting the shoreline outside Zamboanga City, I watched just after sundown as native fishermen in outrigger canoes cast their nets into a placid sea for sardines and eel, as they had done for hundreds of years. I was standing on a low bluff, the view reminding me of some South Pacific landscape Gauguin might’ve painted, when the first RPG came whooshing in. The warhead would’ve struck me square had Echevarria not tackled me a half-second before it hit. But I couldn’t tell that to his widow, my ex-wife. I’d sworn an oath. Some bonds are stronger than those between a man and a woman. That’s just how it is.

“How did Arlo save your life?”

I lied. “We were walking to lunch one day, crossing Mason. There was a cable car coming. I looked the wrong way and didn’t see it. He pulled me back right before I got run over.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”

“Must’ve slipped my mind.”

She gazed at me for a long moment, her lips pursed. Then she said, “Next time, tell a better lie,” then left to go to the restroom.

She never came back.

“Where’d your friend go?” Honey asked with more than passing curiosity when she brought me my burger a few minutes later. “She looked like she had a lot on her mind.”

“Her husband was shot to death. She wanted me to talk to the police about what I knew. Now she thinks her father might know something. She’s afraid I might be next. But I’m not worried. Wanna know why? Because the Buddha said that if you transcend love, you transcend worry, and if you transcend worry, you transcend fear.”

Honey laughed nervously. “Makes sense,” she said, like she suddenly realized she was waiting on a crazy person. “Catsup, mustard?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

She never came back either.

The wife Arlo Echevarria abandoned to marry mine was herself remarried. Janice Echevarria’s second husband, Manila-born Harry Ramos, was a venture capitalist and liaison for several foreign-based energy companies doing business in North America. He was also nearly twenty years Janice’s junior. They lived atop Nob Hill in a Greek revival mansion with Italianate colonnades, surrounded by rolling lawns, a priceless collection of marble statuary and an enviably unobstructed view of San Francisco Bay. Janice showed me into her sun-splashed parlor. She wore an off-white pleated skirt that came midway down her calves, maroon spike pumps, a maroon cashmere turtleneck, and a sapphire brooch fat enough to choke my cat.

“How was your drive?”

“I flew up. Landed at San Carlos and rented a car.” I gave her my business card.

“That’s right. You’re a pilot.”

She gestured toward a matching pair of richly upholstered wing-back chairs. We sat. On the lamp table between us was a sterling silver coffee service with two bone china cups and a plate of chocolate-dipped biscotti.

“Cream and sugar?”

“Black, please.” I glanced around the room while she poured. “I remember when you and Arlo used to live in Oakland, up in the hills.”

Janice Ramos handed me a cup and saucer. “I’m glad he’s dead,” she said without a trace of remorse.

She had short dark hair and dark, deep-set Mediterranean eyes that flashed fire when she was angry, which was her default mode. Her narrow lips were perpetually downturned in what some men might describe as a sexy pout. Take away the mansion and fancy jewels, and she was still every inch the same shrew Echevarria traded up for my wife.

“Arlo never had any feelings for anybody other than himself,” she said, dipping a wedge of biscotti in her coffee. “You of all people should appreciate that fact. I mean, be honest, Logan. In all the time the two of you worked together, did he ever once mention me, or his son?”

“I’m sure on some level he cared for you both.”

“You obviously didn’t know him very well then.”

I’ve never understood how two people who once vowed to spend eternity together could grow so far apart that one or both of them would be glad to see the other planted six feet under. I asked her if she had anything to do with his death.

“I only wish,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine ever enjoying anything more.”

“I understand he stole a ring from you.”

“Not just a ring. My grandmother’s wedding ring.”

“You get divorced and six years later, you discover the ring missing? How does that work?”

“I didn’t realize he’d taken it until a couple of months ago. I was inventorying all my jewelry to update the insurance. We had a small safe deposit box I’d forgotten all about. The bank records showed that Arlo was the only person who had accessed the box.”

“Did you threaten to put a contract out on him?”

She stared at me hard. “Arlo Echevarria was a piece of filth. He lied to me. He lied to everyone he ever met. He was a worthless, conniving husband and a worthless, disengaged father. I mean, it tells you something when your own son hates you. I would’ve killed him myself, believe me, with my own hands, if I could’ve gotten away with it.”

“So you had somebody else do it for you.”

Janice laughed. “If I knew people like that, Logan, I’d take out half of Congress,” she said with a blunt candor that told me she was likely telling the truth, “and I wouldn’t stop there.”