Sister Kate sees us studying the plaque.
"Are you acquainted with Sir Teddy?" she asks us.
I'm tempted to say, "Yep, Barbara's aunt is sleeping with him," but instead, I just tell her: "Yes, we know him."
Sister Kate's face fairly radiates with her smile.
"He's our patron saint, Sir Teddy. When Emily came through, she lifted the roof right off the chapel, broke it all to pieces," Sister Kate says. "We're not a wealthy order, by any means. Sir Teddy more or less adopted us. He put the chapel back together again. Did all the work himself."
"I was admiring the ceiling," I say.
"Oh, isn't it lovely?" Sister Kate says. "It took Sir Teddy months to complete that. The woodwork had to be just so."
At that moment, a bus pulls into the chapel's small grass parking lot. Camera-toting tourists pour out the doors and start heading for the chapel.
"Oh my," says Sister Eunice. "Where did all those people come from?"
"The cruise ships are in town," says Sister Kate. "Get used to it."
49.
After only a few near-death experiences on the drive back from the botanical gardens, Barbara and I make it to Cutfoot Estate and park the mopeds in the garage.
"So what's on your agenda for the rest of the afternoon?" I ask her.
She checks her watch.
"Well, it appears as if I am already late for my four o'clock meeting with the tent people."
"Tent people?"
"Yes, you know, the people who rent tents and tables and chairs and things. Titi asked me to come up with an idea for how everything should be laid out for the party. I would guess that they are in the backyard at this very moment, so I better not keep them waiting any longer," she says. "And what are your plans, darling?"
"Think maybe I'll contemplate the origins of the universe, smooth out the wrinkles in a new quantum theory of thermodynamics, that sort of thing."
She looks at me.
"Planning a nap, are you?"
"I find that it sharpens my skills of contemplation."
"Well, I wouldn't get my heart set on it if I were you."
Barbara looks past me to the front door. I turn to see Fiona McHugh hurrying outside. Boggy is with her. She waves and they head our way.
"I believe someone might have plans for you," Barbara says.
She gives me a kiss, then hurries off.
Fiona and Boggy wait for me by the Morris Minor. I walk over to join them.
"Good news," Fiona says. She holds up the GPS that she took from the boat.
"You get new batteries for it?"
"No, Boggy did something to it and it fired right up."
I look at him.
"Since when did you become a GPS technician?"
He shrugs, doesn't say anything.
"I think it might have had a short or something," Fiona says. "This was Ned's personal GPS, not one that belonged to the dive shop. Needed a password."
"And you figured it out?"
"Easy. He always used the same thing-Lebowski."
"As in The Big Lebowski?"
She nods.
"He was a giant fan of the movie, was always making me drink White Russians with him." She takes a moment to enjoy the memory. "Anyway, the GPS has at least three months worth of data stored in it. At the beginning there's a variety of coordinates, all over the place. But in the last few weeks, there have been considerably fewer positions, in an increasingly tighter cluster."
"As if he were zeroing in on something."
"Right," she says. "The last half-dozen or so entries, leading up to the day he was killed, are all the same place."
"So what are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking we go to Teddy Schwartz's house and ask him to take us out on his boat."
"This afternoon?"
"Sure, why not? There's still three or four hours of light left," she says.
"And what are we going to do when we find this spot?"
"Why, jump in, of course. Schwartz has scuba gear, doesn't he?"
I don't say anything.
Fiona says, "I need to do this, Zack. I need to know what Ned was doing out there, what he was looking for."
I open the car door.
"OK," I say. "Let's go." She hops in the front seat. Boggy stays put. "You coming with us?" I ask him.
"No, Zachary. The palms, I must take the hose to them." "Take the hose to them? That's cruel and unusual punishment, isn't it? This is Bermuda, Boggy, not Singapore."
He just looks at me. Then he turns and walks away. Sometimes he's just no fun, no fun at all.
50.
Teddy Schwartz's car sits in his driveway, but he doesn't answer when I ring his doorbell. We walk behind the house to the dock, where Miss Peg is moored. No sign of him there either.
I step over to the boathouse, stopping at a small window by the door. The drapes are drawn, leaving just a sliver of an opening. I peek through it.
Teddy sits hunched over the workbench that had been covered by a tarp when I was there with Boggy just a couple of days earlier. His back is to me. A high-intensity halogen light sits to one side, beaming down on whatever it is that he's working on.
I rap on the door. Teddy jerks around. He's wearing a headband of some sort. There's something hanging down from it, over one of his eyes. Then I recognize it-a loupe, like jewelers use when they are doing close-up work.
Teddy removes the headband, turns off the lamp, and carefully drapes the tarp over the workbench. Then he steps to the door and opens it, smiles when he sees it's me.
"Well, Zack, to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"We interrupting you from anything?"
"No, no, not at all. I was just piddling around."
He closes the boathouse door behind him and steps outside.
I make the introductions between Teddy and Fiona, and we briefly discuss logistics for Ned's service the next day.
"Miss Peg is gassed up and ready to go. I'm glad she can be of service," Teddy says. "Now, can I get the two of you a drink or something? It is getting to be that time of day."
Teddy takes Fiona by the arm, begins ushering her toward his house.
He says, "Have you tried a Dark 'n Stormy, Miss McHugh? It's our national drink, you know. A shot of Gosling's, a splash of ginger beer, a slice of lime. Just the thing for a warm afternoon."
"Perhaps another time," she says, "because we were wondering if Miss Peg might be of service right now."
Teddy stops.
"Now? Whatever for?"
Fiona tells him about visiting Deep Water Discoveries and finding the GPS aboard the boat Ned had used.
"I'd just like to ride out to the site that's marked on the GPS, take a look around," she says. "Here, let me show you."
She pulls out the GPS, switches it on. She punches a few keys. The coordinates flash up: N32 18.024/W064 52.622.
Teddy studies the display screen for a long time, doesn't say anything.
"Know the general vicinity of where that might be?" Fiona asks.
Teddy looks at her, his eyes hooded now, his expression grim.
"No," he says.
"Well, that's certainly understandable. There's a lot of water out there," Fiona says. "Still, it would be easy enough to find. I can't imagine that it's ..."
"I really don't think it's a good idea, Miss McHugh," Teddy cuts her off.
"But there's still plenty of daylight left."
"Miss McHugh, I told you, I'd prefer not to do it. Not today."
The tone of his voice makes it clear there's no further need for discussion. And there's no further mention of drinks.
51.
"Well, that was certainly awkward," says Fiona as we pull out of Teddy Schwartz's driveway and wind our way back to Somerset Road. Next stop-Ned's house on Bedon's Alley.
"Yeah, there was something a little off about the whole thing."
"It was like this giant mood shift. One moment he's the gracious gentleman, anxious to pour us cocktails, all friendly and everything. The next he's ready for us to leave."
"Starting from the moment you brought out the GPS."
She looks at me.
"You think he recognized the coordinates?"