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Marlboro Light. If the county meant business about banning smoking on the job, they would have to prove it by removing dashboard lighters from their fleet of Crown Victoria cruisers. Pressing the tip of his cigarette to the bright orange glow, McManus took a deep drag and felt better than he had in hours. “What do you think?”
    “Couple of things,” Jackson replied.
    McManus took another long drag, enjoying the way the plume of bluish smoke mingled into the mist of the humid night. Ben Jackson was in the habit, common among Gen Xers or Gen Y or whatever the hell they were called these days, of thinking out loud. It was a quality Frank McManus disliked in the general population, but he had grown to appreciate in his partner.
    Jackson’s massive shoulders hiked up a bit before settling back down. “First, there’s probably nothing in this. Guy got wasted and went for a swim. Too bad, man, what a way to go.”
    “Yeah.” McManus shook his head. As the son and grandson of avid fishermen, McManus possessed a genuine love of the Atlantic that was matched with equal parts respect and fear.
    “A man who ventures out onto the ocean in a boat had better know what he’s about,” his grandfather had taught him.
    McManus’s father, as always, had been more direct. “You go out alone in a boat, you better have your shit together, or your own mother won’t recognize what washes up onshore.”
    McManus shuddered. It was hard to believe a guy could be wasted enough or just plain stupid enough to drown in his own pool, but McManus had been on the force for over twenty years. Plenty long enough to believe anything.
    “The thing is,” Jackson observed, “she’s not too shook up.”
    McManus nodded. Christina Cardiff was clamped shut tight as a clam. Working homicide, they’d seen their share of widows. Therapists and defense lawyers would tell you some folks hold back and do their weeping in private. Everyone grieves in his or her own unique way.
    Bullshit.
    “True,” McManus said. “Her counselor at rehab said she took the news on the chin.”
    “That’s cool for her, I guess.” Jackson arched an eyebrow. “Still, there’s nothing at the scene.”
    McManus nodded. “Clean as a whistle.”
    “And she was nowhere near the place.”
    “True again. She was in Minnesota taking the pledge.”
    Jackson chuckled. “The politically correct term is ‘getting sober,’ my friend. And she just inherited one big”—he paused for effect—“big honkin’ pile of cash.”
    To the tune of approximately seventeen million dollars, if Jason Cardiff’s Forbes ranking was correct. McManus was a big fan of Google. “That she did.”
    “Lotta dough.” Jackson whistled. “If it weren’t for Cirie and the kids, I might just have to ask her out.”
    McManus, whose ex lived in Florida with his two kids, played along. It was an old routine. “Well, I’m gonna take a number and hang back at the end of the line, my friend. Things didn’t work out so good for bachelor number one.”
    Jackson grinned. “That’s probably wise.”
    “And there may be a couple of guys in line ahead of me.”
    “You never know, dawg. You could be right about that.”
    McManus raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see.” It was their job, after all, to figure that out. Old man Cardiff had not come out and accused his daughter-in-law of anything, at least not according to the part of the conversation that had trickled down to McManus and Jackson by way of the Suffolk County assistant district attorney.
    In any event, the higher-ups had made it clear theywanted all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted before any ruling was made as to the cause of Jason Cardiff’s death.
    McManus watched for deer in the shadowed forest of pin oak and scrub pine that pressed up against both sides of the road.
    This area had never been developed. No signs with gold letters advertising some overrated vineyard, no freshly paved streets named after flowering vines, not even a