"We was just heading up to the dam," he said. "These folks got some sort of tip that there might be some kind of clue to an investigation they got going."

Cleve was putting on his old Florida Cracker voice, the one he'd used with me for the first month I knew him. It was his way of gathering intelligence, by hiding his own and letting others mistakenly try to send things over his head. He was about to make introductions when the oxford shirts did it on their own.

Detectives Mark Hammonds and Vincente Diaz, county sheriff's investigators on a joint task force with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. When Hammonds stepped up he used the practiced firm handshake of a businessman and the old interviewer's trick of staring straight into your eyes like he could see the truth hanging back in there where you couldn't hide it. I'd used the look myself many times. I held his gaze until he flinched, then I took half a step back. Hammonds was the kind who made sure you knew he was in charge without using the words. He was a thin man in his fifties, tired around the eyes, but he squared his shoulders and like so many in his position seemed to will himself to appear bigger.

Diaz was quicker with the handshake. He was a clean-cut, young-looking Hispanic and couldn't help himself from being amiable. If cops had junior executives, he would be it. Eager to learn, eager to please. He had big, white, square teeth and even though he tried, he couldn't keep from smiling a little bit.

The woman refused to step closer to the riverbank and when Hammonds introduced her as a Detective Richards from Fort Lauderdale, I too kept my ground. We nodded our acquaintance. She stood with her arms folded as if she were cold, even on a night when the air was hanging warm and gauzy at the water's edge. Her perfume drifted by on a swirl of river wind and seemed distinctly out of place. When I turned to talk to the others I could feel her eyes on my back.