"Don't blame you," I say. "Don't blame you at all."
"But the idea that she would try to capitalize off Ned's death ... I just lost it. Was I wrong?"
"No, you weren't wrong."
She looks at me.
"You think I should have just bit my tongue?"
"No."
"No, but ...?"
"But, yeah, I do think Janeen knows some things. Maybe more than the cops know, even. Or certainly more than what they've been willing to share with you so far. I don't think it could hurt matters to hear her out."
Fiona stops.
"OK, then. Let's go back up there. I've cooled off. Let's listen to what she has to say."
"Not just yet. She deserves to wallow in a little guilt for handling that the way she did. Besides, we might wind up learning more from her if we give her time to stew."
We get back to the car and drive to the funeral home recommended by Dr. Patterson. The funeral director says he can arrange Ned McHugh's burial at sea for the day after tomorrow.
We'll need a boat. So I make a call to Aunt Trula, who calls Teddy Schwartz, and, just like that, we've got Miss Peg.
"I'm done in," says Fiona as we leave the funeral home.
"Still working off the jet lag?"
"Yes, that, plus I never could have imagined that I'd be arranging Neddie's funeral. And this whole thing with crosses and reliquaries and secret societies, it's just so ... so ..."
She stops. She looks exhausted.
"I need to call my folks and let them know where everything stands," she says. "Do you mind if we head back now?"
"Fine by me."
"And one other thing, Zack."
"What's that?"
She takes my arm, gives it a quick squeeze.
"Thanks," she says.
"For what?"
"For insisting that you help me out."
"Aw shucks, ma'am. It weren't nothing. Besides, I was just looking for an excuse to tool around in my cool blue car."
I drive us to Cutfoot Estate, and when we get there I make a call of my own-to Daniel Denton, the attorney.
"I was rather hoping you might have changed your mind about going through with this," he says.
"Nope. Did you do everything I asked you to?"
"Yes, but I can't say that I like it any more than when we first spoke."
"You don't have to like it, Denton. When can we do this?"
He sighs.
"I'm available after three P.M."
I tell him where to meet me.
36.
As soon as I hang up the phone with Denton, I round up Boggy. Together, we figure out how to lower the top on the Morris Minor and set out down the coast.
The morning's rainstorm is long gone. It's a lovely afternoon. The air is warm but not too warm, the sky a flawless blue.
As we drive along, I bring Boggy up to speed on everything, from Fiona's meeting with the coroner to our encounter with Janeen Hill.
"This book the man Peach wrote, and the one the woman Janeen is writing," says Boggy. "They are books I would like very much to read."
"Oh, really. And why is that?"
"Is like some Taino stories. This search for the cross, it reminds me of how we Taino always hope to find Yaya's gourd."
"Yaya's gourd?"
Boggy nods.
"Yes, for Taino, it is our creation story. Yaya, the father of the world, had a son, Yayael. And Yayael, jealous of his father's power, plotted to kill him. But Yaya caught him at this and he killed his son instead."
"Jeez," I say. "Why is it that so many religions get started by families from Dysfunction Junction? The whole Cain and Abel thing. God cuckolding Joseph and then sending Jesus on a suicide mission. This guy Yayael trying to kill his old man."
"You want to hear how the story ends, Zachary?"
"Is it a happy ending?" I say. "I could really use a happy ending for a change."
Boggy ignores me.
"So after Yaya killed his son, he put the bones into a gourd and hung the gourd in his house."
"Sick bastard," I say.
Boggy cuts his eyes my way, keeps talking.
"Then one day, wanting to see his son again, Yaya asked his wife to fetch the gourd and pour out the bones. She did this. Only, it was not bones that came out, but water and fish. Enough water and fish to cover the world."
I look at Boggy.
"That the end of the story?"
Boggy nods.
"It is a happy ending, Zachary, no?"
"What's so happy about it?"
"Yaya and his wife, they get to eat the fish."
"Gee, nothing at all whacked-out about that, seeing as how those fish were once their son's bones."
"Yes, but death creates life, Zachary. That is the story of all religion. And just as there are people who would want to find this Lost Cross, so, among the Taino, we have always dreamed of finding Yaya's gourd. Is out there. Is real. He who finds the gourd finds everlasting life." He looks at me. "Why is it that you are smiling, Zachary?"
"Oh, nothing."
"No, Zachary. It is something. What is it?"
"I was just thinking that maybe the Taino religion is the most honest of them all. It admits that it's based on someone being out of their gourd."
Boggy looks at me.
"I do not understand this," he says. "Please explain."
"Never mind. You believe what you believe. And I believe what I believe."
"Very well then, Zachary. And what do you believe?"
"I believe we are getting close to the place I want to see."
We're outside of Tucker's Town, near a bluff overlooking the ocean. There's a small sign just ahead. Back in Florida, where billboards grow wild, it would be a giant sign with Day-Glo lettering and a stop-traffic headline. But this one is fairly tasteful as such things go.
FUTURE SITE OF GOVERNOR'S POINTE, it reads. EXCLUSIVE RESIDENCES. PRECONSTRUCTIONS PRICES.
I pull onto the side of the road.
Below us sits a tiny cove. The green-blue water is so clear that you can make out the outline of sea fans waving atop coral heads twenty feet below the surface. Pelicans dive-bomb schools of fish. The beach is a glistening strand of pinkish sand.
"Only one thing could improve a view like this."
"What is that, Zachary?"
"A bunch of condos stuck on the side of the hill."
Boggy smiles.
"And maybe a golf course, too," he says.
"With a clubhouse and a spa."
"It's the way of man," Boggy says.
"What? To improve something that doesn't need improving?"
"Yes, that. And to think that he can own the land. Man cannot own the land, Zachary."
I look at him.
"OK," I say. "I'm waiting for the next part."
"Next part?"
"Yeah, you know, something like: Man cannot own the land because the land will wind up owning him."
"Yes, that is true."
"Also, man cannot own the land because, long after man is gone, the land endures."
"Wise words, Zachary," says Boggy. "It is the way of the Taino."
"Well, don't go thinking you've got a convert. Because I'm looking at that land right there in front of us and I'm thinking that someone has taken a big chunk of my money so that he can own a tiny part of it. And I don't get any comfort out of knowing it will endure long after I'm gone. I'd like my money now."
"You are very attached to your money, Zachary."
"Yes, I am."
Boggy doesn't say anything. I start the car.
"It's not that I'm greedy," I say.
"You only wish to have that which is yours. Eh, Guamikeni?" "Right," I say. "And maybe just a little something extra to go along with it."