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me out than burning me up.
    When we finished gawking, we returned to the ranger’s boat and tied a line to the canoe for towing. Griggs motored slowly down the narrow upper river, the sound of his engine sending most of the river animals I would normally see this early in the day into hiding. But just as he cleared the canopy and pushed the throttle up, I caught a glimpse of the long lazy wings of a blue heron, its yellow, sticklike legs not yet folded from its takeoff. I watched it keep time with us, then circle back toward the west and finally disappear into the distance.

CHAPTER
    3
    I waited until I was on the road in my truck before calling Billy on my cell.
    “Jesus, Max,” was his response when I filled him in on the morning’s events. “Are you going to file a report?”
    “What? And have cops crawling all over my stuff?” I knew the kinds of useless messes cops made. I’d made them myself.
    “Besides, what good would it do? It’s not like you’re going to find footprints out there. And contrary to popular belief, the bad guys really don’t leave torn pieces of their shirts on the thornbushes that often.”
    “So what you’re saying is, you’ll investigate on your own.”
    “Yeah, if waiting to see what happens next is investigating.”
    “Good. Then you’ve got two cases to work. You’re pretty busy for a new businessman.”
    Several months ago, after sliding into two different sheriff’s cases and pissing off the local law enforcement brass, I’d caved in to some not too subtle suggestions and applied for a Florida private investigator’s license. My years on the Philadelphia force hadn’t hurt, and even the street shooting didn’t stop them from granting me a concealed weapons permit. Of course I was one of more than 300,000 such Florida residents so permitted, and how many lobotomies were included in that select group was anyone’s guess. It also hadn’t hurt to have a detective with the Broward Sheriff’s Office vouch for me. She was, in fact, my next call as soon as I got off with Billy.
    “So you’re heading over to my place?” Billy asked.
    “Not right now, but if that’s an offer, I’d like to reserve it until the shack smoke clears, as they say.”
    “My place is your place, Max. Diane and I will be out at the Kravis Center for the philharmonic, but make yourself at home.”
    Diane McIntyre was another attorney, and one of the few women I’d met in South Florida who had enough class and moxie to keep up with Billy on several levels.
    “By the way, I’ve set up another appointment with Mr. Mayes in my office on Thursday, and I’d like you to sit in.”
    “He’s here?”
    “He graduated from Emory and is considering an acceptance to the seminary at Luther Rice. I get the distinct feeling he’s trying to clear this thing, Max, before he moves on.”
    “All right, Thursday. I’m heading out to southwest Dade now.”
    “Nate Brown?” Billy asked, guessing my moves, sometimes before I even made them. Nate Brown was an Everglades legend. He’d been born and raised in the swamp and if he was still alive, no one knew the stories or the topography of that vast place better than he. If men had died while the Tamiami Trail was being built, Brown would at least have heard the rumors and tales of their passing around the late-night campfires or early-morning fishing swaps.
    “An excellent idea, tapping Brown if you can,” Billy said. “I can’t give the same approval to a trip to Loop Road, if that’s where you’re going. Should I have a cold compress and an auto-glass repairman standing by?”
    My last trip to the sanctuary of the Everglades’ denizens had not been altogether friendly.
    “I’m going to be careful this time,” I said. The other end of the connection stayed silent, but Billy’s wry smile was in it.
    “What?” I said. But the phone had softly clicked off.
    Before I made the turn to the southbound ramp of I-95, I pulled over and made another