"The original sc-script is very faded. But the d-dates are compatible. The building of the Tamiami Trail had b-been off and on b-but wasn't completed until 1926."

Billy sat down in the chaise next to mine. He was wearing a pair of shorts and a silk shirt of some expensive designer brand. He stretched out his trim legs and crossed his ankles. His chocolate- colored skin was smooth and tight, and his profile was equal to any GQ model or film actor as he looked out onto the horizon.

"Now, whether his c-conjecture about the f-fate of his relatives is correct, will t-take us time to investigate," he said.

I stopped tipping my bottle just at that point where the first swallow is down your throat and you are breaking the bubble for the next.

"Us?" I said, separating the bottle from my lips by only inches.

The twitch of a grin started at one corner of his mouth, but Billy's eyes did not leave the sea.

I was driving into the sun, leaving the coast behind, all the noise and heat, traffic and clutter, convenience and luxury that it inevitably drew. After a relatively short commute on the seventy-mile- an-hour bumper-car ride called I-95, I headed west on a two-lane asphalt road and then turned into the entrance to the state park. I pulled my pickup truck into a designated visitor's spot and clipped my officially purchased parking pass on the rearview mirror. It took me three trips to carry my supplies across the crushed-shell parking lot to my canoe, which was flipped under a group of sand pines near the boat ramp to the river.

On each trip across the lot I cut my eyes to the front door of the park ranger's station. I could detect no movement behind the windows, although the ranger's Boston Whaler was tied up at the dock and I knew he was still on duty.

More than three years ago I had walked away from a ten-year career as a cop on the streets of Philadelphia. In a shootout during a cheap Center City stickup, I had killed a child.