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might want to get over that fence before the deputy gets here. Soon as that bell sounds they’re on their way, don’t matter if I call ‘em or not. House rules, s’pose they got to tell the insurance men they checked it out.”
    He didn’t need to tell them twice. The Hemingways were over the fence and running down the street as fast as their tired, stubby legs would carry them.
    No one pursued them, and Ernie spoke the last words of the night, just before they reached Duval.
    “The letter’s all yours, fellas. I’m gettin’ the hell off this sandbox.”
    Bumby and Papa saw it on the morning news. They were back at the Croissant Palace, stuffing their fat faces with banana Nutella croissants, licking their fat impostor fingers with their fat bovine tongues.
    Both of them stopped chewing when the proprietor turned up the news on the patio television. An old Ford pickup had run right off Seven Mile Bridge the night before, plunging to the water below and landing on top of a shallow reef. The driver was ruled dead on impact and identified as Ernie Pickens, and due to paint scrapes on the side of the pickup, investigators suspected that another vehicle had struck the pickup and caused it to flip over the short concrete barrier. A tagline on the bottom of the screen read
Another Hemingway Impersonator Found Dead
. The photo of the Ford went off the screen and a panel of experts appeared and started talking about the damage to the coral reef.
    Papa set down his croissant with trembling fingers, and Bumby couldn’t stop swallowing. They looked at each other with suspicious eyes.
    “Shit,” Papa said.
    “Damn,” said Bumby.
    They took Papa’s golf cart over to Fort Zachary where the water mirrored the pale blue of the morning sky. The tiny waves lapped against the rocks while they sat in the shade of the pines. When the sun rose higher and stole their shade, they rose, two old men weary not just of murder but of life, weary of eking out an existence as living specters of a man long dead, weary of every single tight-fisted sunburned tourist who laughed and pointed and tossed a goddamn dollar in their tip jar.
    I pitied them.
    They hunched over a soundless meal at Blue Heaven until Sergeant Cohn walked over to their table and asked if he could sit down.
    Papa wiped the burger juice from his mouth. “It’s a free country. You might as well drink with us before you arrest us.”
    The Sergeant took off his hat, pulled up a chair and rubbed at his chin before he spoke. “I’m not here to arrest either of you.”
    “You seemed pretty set about it last time.”
    He gave a slow nod. “I’ll admit you’re both on my short list. And I know you’ve been breaking into the Hemingway place.”
    Papa started to retort, and Sergeant Cohn held up a hand. “I’m not in the trespass business. I’m in the murder business.”
    Papa sat back, sullen. Bumby said, “Then why’re you here?”
    “I wanted to run a little something by you. How well do you know Lester Scott?”
    Bumby shrugged. “Just casually, from stopping by the house so much.”
    “Don’t really know him at all,” Papa said. “Why?”
    The Sergeant ordered a coffee with cream, then looked from one to the other. “There was a call at the Hemingway house last night.”
    Papa did a very poor job of trying to look innocent.
    “I took it myself, considering the circumstances. When I got there Lester told me some kids had shot out a window in back of the house. Sure enough, one of the back windows was busted. What I found curious, though, was the angle of the impact hole. From my reckoning, which is pretty damn good, the best place to fire that shot would’ve been from Lester’s balcony. I suppose some kid could’ve climbed up there and done it, but why? On the other hand, why would Lester do it, unless he was shooting at someone? Also, I never found the slug, and I doubt some kid would’ve had the time or sense to retrieve it.” He shook his head. “Any