I was sitting balanced in the stern seat of my canoe, my fly-fishing line lay dormant on the brown green surface of the river. The May sun was on my shoulders and thighs. The sky was a cloudless blue bowl so deep in color it hurt your eyes to stare into it. I pulled the bill of my cap down farther and tried to will a tarpon out of the nearby tangle of red mangrove.
It had been five months since the emergency room doctors had gone to work on Eddie Baines's exploded kidney, transfusing him with several pints of blood and saving his life. He had recuperated enough to be arraigned on a prosecutor's charge of five counts of murder in the deaths of Billy's women.
His public defender had him tested by an independent psychiatrist who reported the man had an IQ of 57 and that his understanding of the charges was such that he could not possibly aid his attorneys in his defense. Eddie was remanded to the forensics unit of the Florida State Prison system in Chattahoochee. Under the law he will stay incarcerated there until he is deemed competent to stand trial.
It had been two months since we gathered-Richards, Billy and myself-at Billy's apartment to watch an eleven o'clock news report on the issuing of subpoenas to the Delaware-based investor group that had bought the viaticals on Billy's five dead policyholders.
The cameras caught Billy's profile in the background as federal marshals carted out boxes of records from the firm's twentieth floor offices. Billy had been retained as an advising counsel to the government probe. The investment company's lawyers had already issued a statement that they had no knowledge of the deaths of the five women, denied having ever employed Frank McCane or having ever heard of Dr. Harold Marshack.
"This is a legal and reputable investment business that carries out thousands of viatical transactions in the southeastern United States that benefit the policyholders in a time of financial need. We categorically deny any knowledge of the abhorrent claims contained in the indictment," a lawyer for the group read from a prepared text into a bouquet of news microphones.
"We do not know," I'd said, standing at Billy's kitchen counter, sipping a beer.
"They'll know w-when the auditors get done m-matching up the names and dates and amounts that that Miami hacker burned on a CD before McCane had him destroy Marshack's hard drive," Billy said. "It's the a-advantage of b-busting an intrastate scheme-you get the G to follow the money."
And it had been a month since Billy had given me a half-joking ultimatum: He would continue his legal fight against the state's attempt to take over my river shack, if I would get a P.I.'s license and officially work for him. I'd told him I would think about it.
I was still thinking, my line now snaked out on the water like a curved thread of flotsam. I was staring up at the big osprey perched high in the sabal palm above me, his white chest puffed out, his yellow eye seeing everything. Suddenly, the canoe thumped.
"So, can the fish hear when you're talking?" Richards said from her seat at the other end of the canoe. She was wearing a wide- brimmed straw hat, huge sunglasses and a long-sleeved shirt, but her legs were bare and crossed at the ankle.
"No, I don't believe so," I answered the question.
"Then talk to me," she said.
So we talked about movies I hadn't seen, and books she hadn't read, and places neither of us had been, and we sat back and watched the movement of water and soaked in the warm spring sun and let a Florida breeze softly rock us.