“And she asked about his wallet,” Dave said. “All we could tell her was that no one ever found it…at least no one who ever turned it in to the police. I suppose it’s possible someone could have picked it out of his pocket on the ferry, stripped the cash out of it, then dropped it overside.”

“It’s possible that heaven’s a rodeo, too, but not likely,” Vince said drily. “If he had cash in his wallet, why did he have more—seventeen dollars in paper money—in his pants pocket?”

“Just in case,” Stephanie said.

“Maybe,” Vince said, “but it doesn’t feel right to me. And frankly, I find the idea of a pickpocket workin the six o’clock ferry between Tinnock and Moosie a touch more unbelievable than a commercial artist from a Denver advertising agency charterin a jet to fly to New England.”

“In any case, we couldn’t tell her where his wallet went,” Dave said, “or where his topcoat and suitjacket went, or why he was found sittin out there on a stretch of beach in nothin but his pants and shirt.”

“The cigarettes?” Stephanie asked. “I bet she was curious about those.”

Vince barked a laugh. “Curious isn’t the right word. That pack of smokes drove her almost crazy. She couldn’t understand why he’d have had cigarettes on him. And we didn’t need her to tell us he wasn’t the kind who’d stopped for awhile and then decided to take the habit up again. Cathcart took a good look at his lungs during the autopsy, for reasons I’m sure you’ll understand—”

“He wanted to make sure he hadn’t drowned after all?” Stephanie asked.

“That’s right,” Vince said. “If Dr. Cathcart had found water in the lungs beneath that chunk of meat, it would have suggested someone trying to cover up the way Mr. Cogan actually died. And while that wouldn’t have proved murder, it would’ve suggested it. Cathcartdidn’t find water in Cogan’s lungs, and he didn’t find any evidence of smoking, either. Nice and pink down there, he said. Yet someplace between Cogan’s office building and Stapleton Airport, and in spite of the tearing hurry he had to’ve been in, he must’ve had his driver stop so he could pick up a pack. Either that or he had em put by already, which is what I tend to believe. Maybe with his Russian coin.”

“Did you tell her that?” Stephanie asked.

“No,” Vince said, and just then the telephone rang. “’Scuse me,” he said, and went to answer it.

He spoke briefly, saidAyuh a time or three, then returned, stretching his back some more as he did. “That was Ellen Dunwoodie,” he said. “She’s ready to talk about the great trauma she’s been through, snappin off that fire hydrant and ‘makin a spectacle of herself.’ That’s an exact quote, although I don’t think it will appear in my pulsepoundin account of the event. In any case, I think I’d better amble over there pretty soon; get the story while her recollection’s clear and before she decides to make supper. I’m lucky she n her sister eat late. Otherwise I’d be out of luck.”

“And I’vegot to get after those invoices,” Dave said. “Seems like there must be a dozen more than there were when we left for the Gull. I swan to goodness when you leave em alone atop a desk, they breed.”

Stephanie gazed at them with real alarm. “You can’t stop now. You can’t just leave me hanging.”

“No other choice,” Vince said mildly. “We’ve been hanging, Steffi, and for twentyfive years now. There isn’t any jilted church secretary in this one.”

“No Ellsworth city lights reflected on the clouds downeast, either,” Dave said. “Not even a Teodore Riponeaux in the picture, some poor old sailorman murdered for hypothetical pirate treasure and then left to die on the foredeck in his own blood after all his shipmates had been tossed overside—and why? As a warning to other wouldbe treasurehunters, by gorry! Nowthere’s a throughline for you, dearheart!”

Dave grinned…but then the grin faded. “Nothing like that in the case of the Colorado Kid; no string for the beads, don’t you see, and no Sherlock Holmes or Ellery Queen to string em in any case. Just a couple of guys running a newspaper with about a hundred stories a week to cover. None of em drawin much water by BostonGlobe standards, but stuff people on the island like to read about, all the same. Speakin of which, weren’t you going to talk with Sam Gernerd? Find out all the details on his famous Hayride, Dance, and Picnic?”

“I was…I am…and Iwant to! Do you guys understand that? That I actuallywant to talk to him about that dumb thing?”

Vince Teague burst out laughing, and Dave joined him.

“Ayuh,” Vince said, when he could talk again. “Dunno what the head of your journalism department would make of it, Steffi, he’d probably break down n cry, but I know you do.” He glanced at Dave.

“We know you do.”

“And I know you’ve got your own fish to fry, but you must havesome ideas…sometheories …after all these years…” She looked at them plaintively. “I mean…don’t you?”

They glanced at each other and again she felt that telepathy flow between them, but this time she had no sense of the thought it carried. Then Dave looked back at her. “What is it you really want to know, Stephanie? Tell us.”