Worley studies me.
"What's your business with Papi Ferreira?"
"Tell you the truth, Inspector, I'm still trying to nail that down. I've yet to meet the man."
"But you don't deny that you are here in Bermuda to conduct business with Ferreira?"
"It's not what brought me here, if that's what you mean. It's more like I inherited a situation after I arrived."
"Care to share the details of this situation?"
"No, I wouldn't."
Worley holds up the file again.
"There's something else in here," he says. "Want to guess what that is?"
"I have a pretty good idea. You've got computers. Ten minutes and you can find out just about everything you need to know about me."
"Didn't take that long," says Worley. "Baypoint Federal Prison Camp. You served almost two years for counterfeiting, that right?"
I look at him for a long while.
I say, "You read the whole report?"
"I did."
"Then you saw the amended writ of adjudication. Cleared on all counts. With special citations for meritorious service from the federal prosecutor and the governor of Florida."
"Yeah, I saw all that," says Worley. "Still ..."
"Still what?"
"Still, you seem to have a knack for associating with individuals of ill repute."
"Present company excluded?"
Worley doesn't laugh.
"Why is that, Mr. Chasteen?"
"Why is what?"
"Why is it that you regularly find yourself in the company of criminals?"
"Just my gregarious nature, I suppose. A friend to one and all."
Worley tosses the file onto his desk. He folds his arms across his chest and looks at me.
"Bermuda attracts all kinds of people, Mr. Chasteen. People with money. More money than you or I will ever know. And I have no doubt that a goodly number of those people either got their money in a questionable fashion or are trying to hide it in a way that might not be strictly legal. But you know what?"
"What?"
"That doesn't bother me. I mean, I don't like it. But I don't waste my time worrying about people like that. They're aren't good people, but they aren't real bad people either. You know what I mean?"
I nod. Worley looks at me.
"Papi Ferreira is real bad people, Chasteen. Your gregarious fucking nature notwithstanding, you do not want to be friends with him. And if you're up to anything with Ferreira and I find out about it, then I'm coming after you. We clear on that?"
"We're clear."
Worley nods to the door.
"Get out of here," he says.
44.
"So you feeling better about things now?" I ask Fiona when we're back in the car.
"Yeah, a bit."
"But not so much better that you want to go back to Cutfoot Estate, lollygag around the pool, and let things take care of themselves. Am I right?"
"Right as rain," she says. "I'd like to visit the place where Ned worked."
"The dive shop?"
She nods.
"Deep Water Discoveries. I've got the address somewhere." She pulls out a notepad, flips through it. "Somerset. Know where that is?"
"Yeah, I've been to Somerset. Teddy Schwartz lives near there."
"Really now? How convenient. Maybe we could drop by, let me introduce myself and thank him in advance for letting me use his boat for Ned's service tomorrow."
"Maybe. I'll have to see what the time looks like after we get finished at the dive shop. I'm supposed to be meeting Barbara at noon."
"So what do the two of you have planned?"
"Don't know. It's her idea. She's calling it a playdate."
"My, my. Sounds like fun. Could mean any number of things, now, couldn't it?"
"Yes, it could. Although I'm hoping that pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and ring-around-the-rosy aren't involved."
Fiona laughs.
"So what's in store for the two of you?"
"I just told you, I'm meeting Barbara at noon and ..."
"No, no. Not that." She waves me quiet. "I'm talking long term. You plan on fastening your muzzles, sharing the old feed bag?"
"Excuse me?"
"You going to marry her, Zack?"
She grins an impish grin.
"You know, you're the second person who's asked me that recently."
"The other being?"
"Aunt Trula."
"Oh, now that's serious. And what did you tell her?"
I concentrate on the road, don't say anything.
"Ha," laughs Fiona. "Dodged the question, did you?"
I look at her.
"What's with you women, anyway?"
"Why, Zack," she says, all innocence. "Whatever do you mean?"
"I mean, I've got friends, men friends, who I've known all my life and they would never even once think of asking me if I planned to marry Barbara. Wouldn't cross their minds. Here I've known you, what, two days, and Aunt Trula only a day or two longer, and both of you apparently think you're already on a need-to-know basis regarding me and Barbara."
Fiona laughs.
"It's because women are more honest than men."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes, really. Put four women who've never seen each other together in a room, give them an hour, and they'll walk out of there knowing the nitty-gritty about one another. The names of all their children. Their hopes, their dreams, their fears. How much money they've got in the bank. And how many times their blokes knock boots with them in a week." She catches the look on my face. "Really, Zack. Women do talk freely about such things."
"And men?"
"Ha, men. You put four men in a room and the sum of all their knowledge would likely be reduced. Unless, of course, it applied to brands of beer or the scores of ball games or what highway to take to get somewhere."
I laugh.
"You're probably right about that," I say.
"I know I'm right. Women get straight to the heart of the matter. Men just nip around the edges. You're very superficial creatures, really. But somehow we manage to love you anyway." She smiles. "You and Barbara are quite lovely together."
"Thank you."
"And I can't even begin to imagine how beautiful your children would be."
I don't say anything.
She laughs again.
"You men ..."
45.
Half an hour later, we're pulling into the parking lot of Deep Water Discoveries. It occupies part of a small marina on a cove just off Great Sound, a squat concrete-block building painted a wake-up shade of aquamarine with an office, gear room, lockers, a retail shop, and a small classroom for conducting scuba certification classes.
A young man perches on a stool behind the shop counter. He's shirtless with a shaved head and no visible space left on his torso for another tattoo.
I tell him who we are and why we're there. After that, I figure I'll let Fiona handle the talking.
"You should really be speaking with Bill," the young man says.
"Bill?"
"Bill Belleville, the owner. He's usually around, but shorthanded like we are right now, he's running one of the boats. Should be back any time now from this morning's trip," the young man says in a brogue that hints strongly of Ireland. "Sucks, what happened to Ned. A solid one, he was, don't know how anyone coulda done that to him."
"Did you know Ned well?" asks Fiona.
The young man shrugs.
"Not all that well. Just around the shop here, really. Ned, he'd sometimes join us for a pint down at the Onion, but not so much lately, he didn't. Lately, he seemed to have his own thing going. Even Polly was riding him about it, complaining that the two of them never went out."
"Polly?" asks Fiona.
"Yeah, Polly ... uh, don't know her last name, sorry. Just Polly. American, tiny little thing, pretty as a bug," he says. "She and Ned were a pair. The two of them shared a place just down the road."
Fiona covers it well, but I can tell that her brother's living arrangements have come as a surprise.