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Cliffy isn’t divorcing you.”
    “He adores me, Andrew.”
    “Even after catching us together.”
    “Yes,” said Bonnie impatiently.
    “On his own boat.”
    “We’ve been over this a hundred times.”
    “In the tuna tower, for Christ’s sake! His own wife and anotherman, lewdly entwined.” Yancy inserted a crab claw in his mouth and bit down violently. “We must’ve looked like the fucking Wallendas up there.”
    The boat was a seventy-two-foot Merritt with all the bells and whistles. Dr. Clifford Witt had recently retired from the practice of medicine, having invested in a chain of lucrative storefront pain clinics that dispensed Percocets and Vicodins by the bucket to a new wave of American redneck junkies.
    Bonnie said, “I wouldn’t be here tonight if I didn’t care.”
    “Yet still you intend to testify against me.”
    “I’ll take no joy from it, Andrew.” She looked down, tugging at a loose thread on her cutoffs. “Of course, you could cut a deal. Spare us all from the messiness of court.”
    Yancy frowned. “And lose my job? That’s automatic after a felony conviction.”
    “Suppose I got Cliff to go along with dropping the charge to a misdemeanor? Between you and me, Dickinson’s office would be thrilled.”
    Billy Dickinson was the local state attorney, and he had no appetite for ventilating scandals.
    “Sonny could still fire me,” Yancy said, “or bust me down to deputy.” Still, a misdemeanor wasn’t insurmountable, career-wise.
    “What do you think of the wine?”
    “Yeasty,” said Yancy, “yet playful.”
    Their affair had started on a Saturday afternoon in the produce section at Fausto’s, the two of them reaching simultaneously for the last ripe avocado. From there they beelined to Bonnie’s car and sped up the highway all the way to Bahia Honda, where they spent the night, hiding from the park rangers and humping madly on the beach, carving their own private dunes. For breakfast they split the avocado.
    Yancy had been aware of Bonnie’s marital status; Cliff Witt was his dermatologist at the time, always ready with a frigid zap of liquid nitrogen whenever Yancy burst into the office to present a new, ominous-looking freckle. Yancy appreciated Cliff Witt’s accessibility but knew of his reputation as a horndog perv and pill peddler.
    Still, guilt fissured Yancy’s conscience when he began undressing the man’s wife. It was his first encounter with a Brazilian wax job, andrapture soon blinded him to the manifest hurdles in his path. Usually he avoided married women.
    “I suppose I should go,” Bonnie said, rising. She had pale blue eyes and reddish lashes that looked gold-tipped in the light.
    Yancy suggested a detour to the bedroom, and she said no. “But I’m a little drunk. Maybe a shower would wake me up.”
    “There’s an idea.”
    It was just like old times, Bonnie’s bare bottom slapping against the wet tile while Yancy’s heels squeaked in joyous syncopation on the rubber bath mat. Somehow they broke the soap dish off the wall and also spilled a bottle of Prell, which played havoc with Yancy’s traction. Afterward they toweled each other dry and fell into bed, and there Bonnie made a peculiar revelation.
    “I am wanted in Oklahoma,” she said.
    “You’re wanted here even more.”
    “I’m serious. That’s why I married Cliff. I was a fugitive. Am a fugitive.”
    Yancy wasn’t always a good post-coital listener, but Bonnie had gotten his attention. She said, “My real name is Plover Chase.”
    “Ah.”
    “ The Plover Chase?”
    “Okay,” Yancy said.
    “I can’t believe you don’t remember the case! Stay right here.”
    Naked she bounded from the sheets, returning with a French handbag that Yancy judged to be worth more than his car. From a jeweled change purse she removed a newspaper clipping that had been folded to the size of a credit card. As Yancy skimmed the article, he recalled the crime and also the steamy tabloid uproar.
    Plover