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Dave was off in a cypress swamp turning my secretary’s son either into a delinquent or an ace tracker and couldn’t challenge my version.
    â€œYeah, sounds good,” Waylon said, and held out his hand. “Key?”
    I gave Waylon the key Dave had left with me and Bonita and I followed him out to the truck, then each of us carried a case of organic muscadine wine back inside my house. Then we went back outside to watch Waylon depart.
    A white pickup, which I assumed Waylon had driven up in, was parked in my driveway. Inside its cab, a woman wearing a red scarf hippie style over her dark hair watched, and then started the truck and followed Waylon as he drove off.
    Bonita and I went back inside. A muscle in the back of my neck twitched when I saw Dave’s dirty backpack dumped on my clean floor. Touching as little of it as possible, I picked up the backpack, took it to the bathroom where I got a clean towel, and then carried the pack to my second bedroom and put the towel on the futon, then the pack on the towel.
    But little snoop bells of curiosity went off. I peeled back the cover flap and perused the contents. Most of it was pretty ordinary stuff, though there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of dental-cleaning paraphernalia, plus the usual stash of sativa, aka pot, which I smelled appreciatively and otherwise left alone. The thing that gave me pause was the gun at the bottom of the pack, carefully wrapped in a soft chamois cloth. A cardboard box of bullets, labeled “158-grain roundnoses,” was stuffed under the gun. The box looked old when I pulled it out and opened it. Yeah, bullets, huh? As I was putting the roundnoses back in Dave’s pack, I saw that someone had scribbled JEB on the side of the box.
    I picked up the gun, which looked like a perfectly ordinary .38, and saw that someone had scratched JEB on the side of the handle. There were oily smudges on the gun, which I polished off with the cloth, admiring the practical appeal of the sturdy little gun. I checked the cylinder and saw that the gun was not loaded. After pretending to shoot out my own window, I was putting the weapon away when Bonita stuck her head in the room.
    Whatever she was going to ask me, she didn’t, opting instead for, “Is that a gun?”
    I bit back the obvious sarcasm, as I’ve learned over the years that Bonita never thinks I’m as clever as I do. “It’s a classic. Not loaded. Want to see it?” I offered the gun to her.
    Bonita took the pistol gingerly. Then she held it with more assurance and pointed it at the same window I had. She shuddered. “Dave wouldn’t have a gun with him, not with Benny, would he?”
    â€œNo,” I said, though not having a personal clue as to the truth of that. Winging it, a trial lawyer’s specialty, I added, “This is just . . . for . . . long road trips and stuff. You don’t need a gun to go hiking in Myakka State Park. Plus, it’s illegal.” Oh, yeah, like that would stop Dave.
    Bonita handed the gun to me, and I put it in the backpack while she fingered her cross and watched me. I guessed from her expression that she was regretting her decision to let Benny go off with Dave.
    â€œIt will be all right,” I said, hoping fervently that it would be.
    â€œSi Dios quiere.”
    Shutting the door on the gun and the backpack, we headed back toward the kitchen.
    I didn’t know which bothered me more, the thought of a potentially unarmed Dave in the cypress swamp with Benny, or the thought that he might have another gun on him.

Chapter 3
    Henry Platt, liability-insurance claims adjuster mediocre and malleable guardian of most of my malpractice expense accounts and legal fees, and still my friend despite the fact that I had briefly thought he had killed one of my clients last year, persisted in his courtship of Bonita.
    Neither Bonita nor her children had made up their minds about the chubby, pink-faced man