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around, and we watched the game and had a beer. At halftime with a 7–7 tie, she looked at her watch and said, “I
     have to go meet this Department of Agriculture guy.”
    If you’re wondering about this Department of Agriculture thing, Plum Island is officially a Department of Agriculture installation,
     and they do things with animal diseases, anthrax, and all that. But rumor has it that it goes beyond that. Way beyond. I said,
     “Don’t keep the Department of Agriculture waiting.”
    “Do you want to come along?”
    I contemplated this invitation. If I went along, I’d get deeper into this thing, whatever it was. On the pro side, I like
     solving murders, and I liked the Gordons. In the ten years I’ve been with homicide, I’ve put twenty-six murderers behind bars,
     and the last two guys are eligible to take advantage of the new death penalty law, which adds another whole dimension to homicide
     cases now. On the con side, this was something different, and I was way off my turf. Also, a Department of Agriculture guy,
     like most government bureaucrats, wouldn’t be caught dead working at night, so this guy was most probably CIA or FBI or Defense
     Intelligence or something like that. It didn’t matter, and there’d be more of them later tonight or tomorrow. No, I didn’t
     need this case at a buck a week, or a thousand bucks a day, or at any price.
    “Detective? Hello?”
    I looked at her. How do you say no to a perfect 10? I said, “I’ll meet you there.”
    “All right. What do I owe you for the beers?”
    “On me.”
    “Thanks. See you later.” She walked toward the door and with the game at halftime, the fifty or so guys in the OTT finally
     noticed that there was an incredible babe on the premises. There were a few whistles and invitations to stick around.
    I watched a little of the halftime stuff. I wished they
had
taken my stomach out, because it was pumping acid into my ulcers now. The chili came, and I could hardly finish the bowl.
     I popped two Zantac, then a Maalox even though the gastro-doc said not to mix.
    In truth, my health, once robust, had taken a decided dip since the April 12 incident. My eating, drinking, and sleeping habits
     were never good, and the divorce and the job had taken their toll. I was starting to feel forty-something, starting to feel
     my mortality. Sometimes in my sleep, I remember lying in the gutter in my own blood, lying on a storm drain and thinking,
     “I’m circling around the drain, I’m going down the drain.”
    On the upside, I was starting to notice things like the waitress with the NordicTrack ass, and when Elizabeth Penrose walked
     into the bar, my little meat puppet sat up and stretched. Truly, I was on the road to recovery, and for sure I was in better
     shape than the Gordons.
    I thought a moment about Tom and Judy. Tom was a Ph.D. who didn’t mind killing his brain cells with beer and wine, and he
     cooked a good steak on the grill. He was a down-to-earth guy from Indiana or Illinois or someplace out there where they have
     this sort of twang. He was low-key about his work and joked about the danger, like last week when a hurricane was headed our
     way, he said, “If it hits Plum, you can call it Hurricane Anthrax, and we can kiss our asses goodbye.” Ha. Ha. Ha.
    Judy, like her husband, was a Ph.D., a Midwesterner, un-pretentious, good-natured, spirited, funny, and beautiful. John Corey,
     like every guy who met her, was in love with her.
    Judy and Tom seemed to have taken well to this maritime province in the two years since they’d been here, and they seemed
     to enjoy power boating and had gotten involved with the Peconic Historical Society. In addition, they were enchanted by the
     wineries and had become connoisseurs of Long Island wine. In fact, they had befriended some of the local vintners, including
     Fredric Tobin, who threw lavish soirees at his chateau, one of which I attended as the Gordons’ guest.
    As a couple, the Gordons