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threatened, and the police, and apparently you, think she’s merely another hysterical woman.”
    “I’m not sure what she is. Neither is my client. That’s why I’m trying hard to find out. I’m not some stereotype male Bubba who thinks that because a man has a grudge against a woman, she probably deserves it.”
    “But you do make the assumption Brant’s story is fact.”
    “He is my client.”
    “So rather than see Marla Cloy as a victim, you see her as an aggressor.”
    “She might be.”
    Beth finished Carver’s toast and licked butter off her finger. “Well, we could go round again, but I doubt if it would change anything. We’re simply viewing this matter from two different perspectives.”
    “I’m trying to get at the truth,” Carver said. “I don’t have any preconceived notions.”
    She smiled. “Everybody has those, Fred. The truth nobody wants to face is that we all carry around our own ideas of the truth. We hardly ever know the real truth—or even if there is one. Life’s an ambiguous experience, lover, so don’t be too sure of anything.”
    “Found that out long ago,” Carver said, gripping his cane and sliding off his stool.
    “Keep finding it out,” Beth advised. “Where are you going now?”
    “I’ve got an appointment to meet with Brant at ten o’clock, to let him know what’s going on.”
    “Doesn’t sound as if you’ve accomplished much.”
    “If Marla happens to claim he harassed her last night,” Carver said, “I’ll know otherwise.”
    “There you go assuming her guilt again, even though she’s the one being stalked.”
    “Maybe you’re assuming her innocence because of what you two have in common.”
    “Our gender?”
    “And you’re both journalists. She wants to save the manatee, you want to save the Everglades.”
    “More than that,” Beth said, “I want to save Marla Cloy.”
    Brant was waiting in his car with the engine and air conditioner running when Carver turned off Magellan into the strip shopping center parking lot where his office was located. The car was a black Stealth sports car, sleek, powerful, and expensive. And possibly bought with his dead wife’s life-insurance money.
    Beth would suggest that, anyway.
    By the time Carver had parked and climbed out of the Olds, Brant was out of the Stealth and leaning against the polished black door with his arms crossed. As Carver approached, he pushed away from the car, smiled, and walked toward him with his hand extended. “So detectives keep bankers’ hours.”
    Carver shook his hand. “Not bankers’ money, though.”
    He invited Brant inside, then unlocked the office door and stood aside for him to pass. The temperature outside was already in the mid-eighties, and the inside temperature was catching up fast. Carver moved the thermostat down enough for the air conditioner to start humming, then closed the drapes partway to block the morning sun from pouring in and warming the place. It didn’t help much. The sun was sparking silver off the ocean visible between the buildings across the street, its rays entering through the window at a low angle. He leaned his cane against the wall and sat down behind the desk. “Hot this morning,” he said.
    “The tropics,” Brant said, lowering himself into the small, padded chair in front of the desk. “Thank God for air-conditioning, or nobody would live here and I’d be out of business.” He crossed his legs and laced his hands together in his lap, actually twiddling his thumbs nervously. He was wearing prefaded Levi’s today, and a blue-checked short-sleeved shirt with a pen and some kind of slide rule sticking out of the breast pocket. Dressed for business at a construction site, Carver supposed, though he didn’t think people used slide rules anymore, in the age of minicalculators that could compute what you needed to know in seconds and remind you when it was time for lunch. Brant had slept in one position too long and his hair stuck out in a