“There’s been no ransom demand, has there?” he asked Jenna.
“Not yet. Let’s sit on the couch.” Jenna put a James Taylor album on the stereo and went into the bedroom. When she came out, her hair was down and she was barefoot.
“If Skip wasn’t kidnapped,” she said, “then maybe Cab’s right. Maybe he just went crazy and wandered off.” She curled up on the couch. “I wish I had a fireplace.”
“It’s seventy-four degrees outside,” Keyes said.
“What happened to my young romantic?”
Keyes smiled bashfully; God, she never let up. He fought to keep a proper tone to his voice. “Is there a possibility … have you two been getting along?”
“Better than ever,” Jenna said. “We made love the afternoon he left. Twice!”
“Oh.”
“Right there, where you’re sitting.”
“Sorry I asked.”
Keyes kept waiting for Jenna to say: I know how hard it was for you to take this case. But she never did, and gave no sign of comprehending his distress.
“You’ve got to find him, Brian. I don’t want to get the police involved, and I don’t want a lot of publicity. It could ruin his career.”
Or cinch it, Keyes mused. He asked, “Do you think he’s gone insane?”
“I’m not sure I’d know the difference.” Jenna took off her earrings and laid them on the coffin. Elegantly she poured herself another glass of wine. Keyes sipped cautiously. The Chablis gave a dangerous urgency to his loneliness.
Jenna said, “Lately Skip’s been wilder than usual. He wakes up ranting and goes to bed ranting. You know, the usual stuff: toxic waste, oil spills, the California condor, the Biscayne Aquifer. Armageddon in general. About a week ago a man came to the door selling time-shares in Key Largo, and Skip attacked him with a marlin gaff.”
Keyes asked, “Does he get incoherent?”
Jenna laughed softly. “Never. He’s a very cogent person, even when he’s violent. He always makes perfect sense.”
“Well, if he’s been kidnapped—which I doubt—all we can do is wait for a ransom demand. But if he’s off somewhere in a frenzy, we’ve got to find him before he really hurts someone. Jenna, I need some ideas. Where the hell could he be?”
“The wilderness,” she said wistfully, gazing at her imaginary fireplace. “That’s where to start.”
“You mean the Everglades.”
“Where else? What other wilderness is there? The rest is all gone.”
Jenna was vice-secretary of the local Sierra Club, so Keyes knew it wouldn’t take much to launch her off on a big speech. He had to be careful. “Jenna, the Everglades are three times bigger than Rhode Island,” he said. “I’ll need a few more clues.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. The wine was almost gone. She went to the refrigerator and opened another bottle.
Remembering Jenna drunk, Keyes thought: This could be promising.
“I’ve got an idea,” Jenna said as she filled their glasses. “Here, hold this.” Quickly she cleared the top of the coffin, uprooting the vase, collecting the coasters, sweeping the magazines to the carpet. Then she unfastened the clasps and opened the lid. She’d been telling the truth: the coffin was full of newspaper clippings.
Jenna dropped to her knees, the wineglass poised in her left hand. Methodically she began to explore Skip Wiley’s unusual personal library. “A few months back,” she said, “he did a column about a place near the dike.”
Keyes knelt next to her and joined the search. Concentration was impossible, Jenna looking the way she did, smelling so warm and familiar.
“He used to go fishing at this place,” she was saying, “when he was a boy. Not long ago he discovered that they’d built a huge development right there, next to the old dike on the edge of the Glades. A retirement community, they called it. Stocked with three thousand geezers from Jersey. Skip was livid.”
“I remember the column,” Keyes said. “ ‘Varicose Village.’ “
“Right! That’d be a good place to start. Maybe he’s camping out. Planning something big.”
“Oh boy,” Keyes said.
Somehow Jenna located the column amid the random litter of Wiley’s coffin. She slid over to show it to Keyes and practically nestled in his lap. He was not certain if she was doing this out of pity, or just to tease. He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. He also wanted to take her in his arms and make her forget all about Skip Wiley.