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best man? It didn’t seem very likely; there had to be something else at play here.
    But what?
    The great stone Captiva Drive monstrosity that was Elizabeth Traven’s sun-splashed lair stood behind a high wall and locked gates, giving no hint anyone ever lived there. It seemed to be on perfect permanent display, evidence of what the American dream, Florida division, might provide the outsized dreamer.
    He tried the intercom. No one answered. So much for a quick end to this case, a fast resolution of innate curiosity. He had already taken Miram Shah’s money. He would have to find Elizabeth Traven.
    Now how was he going to do that?
    ________
    The house Freddie and Tree had purchased on Andy Rosse Lane was mounted on stilts, protection against the hurricanes that always threatened paradise. The house was their pride and joy. Freddie’s car was already parked in the drive. He found her in the kitchen, having changed from work clothes into her evening uniform— shorts and a T-shirt—pouring the one glass of chardonnay she allowed herself after work.
    “You’re home early,” he said kissing her.
    She finished pouring the wine and said, “Come on, let’s sit outside.”
    “Is everything all right?”
    “I’m not sure,” she said.
    They sat on the terrace as they did most evenings. Not far away he could hear the pleasurable yelps from tourists gathered outside the Mucky Duck for the daily ritual of the setting sun, the tourists praying to the gods for cheaper beer and better weather. The gods usually acted on the weather; not so much on the cheap beer.
    Freddie stretched her wonderfully long legs and issued a deep sigh before she said, “I met with Vera this afternoon.” Ever since they returned from Paris, Ray Dayton’s widow had been keeping everyone up in the air as to her intentions for the five Dayton’s supermarkets located throughout the Lee and Collier County area, including the store on Sanibel Island.
    “She says she is seriously considering selling the business.”
    “I guess that’s not too surprising. Vera never struck me as the kind of person who wants to run a chain of supermarkets. Any idea who she would sell it to?”
    “She might sell it to me,” Freddie said.
    “Whoa, hold on there a minute. Are you seriously thinking of buying Dayton’s?”
    “You don’t think I can?”
    “Can you?”
    “Let’s put it this way: there appears to be real interest from my people in Chicago.”
    “You have people in Chicago?”
    “Investors I’ve worked with in the past.”
    “You would own Dayton’s?”
    “I wouldn’t own it, exactly, but I would head a syndicate that would purchase the five stores in the chain, yes.”
    “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, even though he was. “I mean, if anyone could pull off something like this, it’s my wife.”
    “Well, thanks for that vote of confidence, but it is all in the very early talking stage,” Freddie said. “Vera is all over the place. One day she wants me there, the next she doesn’t. One day she wants to sell; the next she’s thinking about hanging on.”
    Tree sat there taking all this in.
    “The silence,” she said. “What does that mean?”
    “It doesn’t mean anything. I’m excited for you. I hope it happens.”
    Did he really mean that? He wasn’t certain. At moments like this Tree realized just how far away he was from the world in which Freddie operated. He wondered what the reaction would be if he went to Chicago looking for enough money to buy a chain of supermarkets. He wouldn’t even know whom to ask. Freddie did. That was the difference.
    She sipped at her wine, and said, “Tell me about your day.”
    “Rex has a new boat, and, of course, can’t get the engine started.”
    “Of course.”
    “I’ve got a new client.”
    Freddie raised her eyebrows to encourage him to go on.
    “The former head of Pakistani Interservice. Apparently, it’s the Pakistani equivalent of the CIA. His name is Miram