“Tell her to hang in there, Noah.”

“She says you need professional help.”

Dad sat back and chortled. “That's our girl. Did you go see Lice Peeking?”

I described my visit to the trailer park. My father wasn't surprised that Lice turned down the old truck and wanted money in exchange for providing evidence against Dusty Muleman.

“Dad, how are we going to pay him when…”

“When we're flat broke? Excellent question,” my father said. “See if Lice will take my bonefish skiff. It's worth ten or twelve grand at least.”

Secretly I'd been hoping that one day Dad would give me that boat. It was an original Hell's Bay with a sixty-horse Merc, a really sweet ride. Sometimes, late in the afternoon, my father would take me and Abbey out fishing. Even if the snappers weren't biting, we'd stay until sunset, hoping to see the green flash on the horizon. The flash was kind of a legend in the Keys-some people believed in it and some didn't. Dad claimed that he'd actually witnessed it once, on a cruise to Fort Jefferson. For our fishing expeditions either Abbey or I always brought a camera, just in case. We had a stack of pretty sunset pictures, but no green flash.

“You sure you want to give away the skiff?” I asked.

“What the heck, it's the best we can do,” Dad said.

“I guess so.” I tried not to sound too bummed.

“Hey, did you meet the famous Shelly?”

“Yeah. She's kind of scary,” I said. “Lice said he stole her from Dusty-what did he mean exactly?”

I figured it was one of those I'll-explain-it-when-you're-older questions that my dad would brush off, but he didn't.

“Shelly was Dusty's second or third wife, after Jasper Jr.'s mother,” he said. Then he paused. “Actually, maybe they were only engaged to be married. Anyway, one day she got fed up with Dusty and moved in with Lice.”

I wondered how miserable life with the Mulemans must have been to make Lice Peeking look like a prize.