"I thought it would be a good job for him, yes. I talked to some people. He got the job." Ferreira looks at Nestor. "You liked that job, didn't you?"
Nestor nods.
Ferreira says, "Nestor, he grew suspicious that morning. Frazer called him very early, told him that he could take off the next few days. A free vacation. That was very much not like Frazer. So Nestor, he followed Frazer. Saw him get the woman ..."
"Fiona McHugh."
"Saw him take her to the boat. And that is when he decided to follow you," Ferreira says. "He saw you go to Teddy Schwartz's house. Saw you leave on his boat."
"And that is when the two of you decided to go fishing?"
"There were many of us who went fishing that day. The sea it is big. Many boats were needed," says Ferreira. "I must apologize to you."
"Why is that?"
"We saw the explosion, the fire that took the boat of Teddy Schwartz. We were not far away. We could have come to help you. But instead ..."
"You went after Michael Frazer."
Ferreira nods.
"We were three boats. Three good, fast boats. He had little chance."
I think about it.
I say, "But how did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Know that Frazer was after the reliquary?"
Ferreira looks at his grandson, nods.
Nestor says: "Frazer was a man obsessed. His books, his papers-they were all about the Reliquarium de Fratres Cruris. He was writing his own book. I saw the pages in his desk. And that day when the young man and his girlfriend came into the office ..."
"Ned McHugh?"
"Yes, the one who died," says Nestor. "After they left, Frazer was very agitated. The paperwork, he made it very difficult for Ned McHugh. The young man, he kept coming back and each time Frazer would tell him: 'You must be more precise. You must tell where this site is exactly.' And that is how I knew. There is nothing else that would have made him like that."
There is a long silence. Then Ferreira says: "When finally we caught him on his boat, when finally we saw the blessed reliquary, he tried to tell us it was not real. He said it was a fake." Ferreira stubs out his cigar. "It was over soon after that. Nestor returned his boat to the marina."
"And the reliquary?" I ask. "What will happen to it?"
Ferreira smiles.
"It will go home, to Portugal, to a place of honor. Finally, after all these years."
90.
It's a fine May morning and I'm standing on the dock behind my house in LaDonna, cast net poised and ready to sling. Mullet are schooling with the flood tide. I've every intention of filling my smoker with a goodly number of them.
About forty feet out, dorsal fins slice Vs in the water. It's well beyond my net-throwing range.
I wait.
A mosquito lands on my ankle. I shake my leg. It flies away.
The mullet move in-thirty feet and closing.
The boathouse phone rings.
I finger the monofilament, adjust the balance of weight on my shoulder. These mullet are skittish. As soon as the net touches water they'll scatter. It will take a good spread to haul them in.
The phone rings.
More mosquitoes find me. I shake both legs, do a little dance. Can't set down the net to slap them.
The phone rings.
Twenty-five feet ... twenty feet ... come to Poppa, come to Poppa. I can see their big googly-eyed, silver heads now, swimming right at the surface, just where you want them to be.
I rear back, get ready to let it fly ...
"Yo, Zachary!"
Stutter-step ... lead weights snag on my shirtsleeve, the net collapses in midarc, goes kerplunk in the water.
I turn around. Boggy stands in the door of my office. He holds up the phone.
"For you," he says.
I haul in the net. Nothing to offer but oyster shells. I leave it in a heap and walk to the boathouse.
Boggy holds out the phone.
I say, "You couldn't just let it ring like we usually do?"
Boggy shrugs.
"The phone," he says, "it told me to answer."
"Get a grip."
I grab the phone.
"Zack Chasteen."
A man's voice: "Who is Fiona McHugh?"
"What? Who is this?"
"I said, who the hell is Fiona McHugh?"
As I try to place the voice, Boggy walks out to the end of the dock. He picks up the net, shakes loose the oyster shells.
And then it clicks.
"That you, Trimmingham?"
"Yes, it's me. And I am sitting here in my office looking at a thank-you note from someone by the name of Fiona McHugh."
"You back in Bermuda?"
"I am." A cough on his end. "We got back together, my wife and I."
"Nice to hear."
"Yeah," he says. "So who is Fiona McHugh? I got this thank-you note from her. The letterhead says 'Ned McHugh Memorial Foundation.' The trustees are listed in the margin. I saw you were one of them."
So I tell him the story of Ned McHugh. And I tell him how Fiona started a foundation to honor her brother.
"It awards scholarships to students who want to study marine archaeology," I say. "I made a donation in your name."
"Oh, really? How much?"
"Forty thousand dollars."
Silence from Trimmingham's end.
On the dock, Boggy ties the cast-net line to his wrist. He lifts the net, folds the top half over his shoulder, studies the water.
I say, "If it helps, I gave forty thousand dollars, too. Eighty thousand dollars total. What we owed Papi Ferreira. I paid him off in trade."
Trimmingham doesn't ask for details, not that I'd tell him.
He says, "The condos. At Governor's Pointe. You sold them?"
"I did."
"I don't want to know how much you got for them, do I?"
"No, Brewster, you really don't."
Another long pause on his end.
Boggy tosses the cast net-a perfect spread. He hauls it in, shakes it open. A dozen mullet flop around on the dock.
"You know," says Trimmingham, "I was lying there in that hospital bed and thought: OK, this is it. Now or never, you've got to pull it together. So I got out of there, got back with Sally. I'm making a clean start of things."
"Clean starts are good."
"Yeah, they are," he says. "And I was going to thank you for it, but jeez, forty thousand dollars? That stings."
"What about your car?"
"What about it?"
"I washed it, waxed it, left it with a full tank of gas."
A pause on his end, then: "Thanks, Chasteen."
91.
By the time Barbara gets home that evening it's eight o'clock and I've got everything ready. Table set, candles lit, Andrea Bocelli on the stereo. A tad hokey, but romantic as all get-out. The steaks are warming to room temperature, au poivre in waiting.
We start with appetizers on the front porch-smoked mullet dip, Ritz crackers. A bottle of Schramsberg in the ice bucket.
Barbara scoops up dip while I pop the champagne.
"Just the tiniest bit for me," she says.
"But it's a special occasion."
"I know."
I look at her.
"What do you mean you know? It was supposed to be a surprise."
"It was." She smiles. She raises her glass. "I'm pregnant."
Five minutes later, we've calmed down. Hugs and kisses and tears ...