On the return leg he checked a directory and found his way to the university’s main library, called the Flawn Academic Center. He ducked into the air-conditioned building, feeling the icy chill on his sweaty arms, and found the periodicals archive without asking for help. On a card beside each monitor, the workstations in the archive displayed a list of the periodicals the UT system was able to search, dating back to 1994. He found the system didn’t require a password for use, so he plugged in three keywords as a string, and in a little under a minute the system returned just under three dozen hits. He scanned the headlines, chose nine articles that appeared relevant to his intentions, and punched the Print icon for each article. It took him a few minutes to find the printer the workstations delivered to, but when he did, Cooper walked around behind a vacant librarian’s counter and snatched the pages he’d printed off the device. He then made his way to the big study room he’d seen near the front entrance and sat down to read.

Each of the articles covered a slightly different angle on the same political scandal. With a pencil and a few slips of notepaper, he took down a few lines of notes, mostly pertaining to a pair of names that either recurred in or, in some cases, were the subjects of the articles he’d printed. When he was finished reading, he tossed the articles in a wastebasket, pocketed the two slips of notepaper he’d filled, and walked back outside to complete his exercise loop.

“You on island time?”

Cooper checked his watch for the first time that day. It had been four and one-half hours since he’d left the lab.

“Live slow, mon,” he said.

Susannah, who had been reading a thick, well-worn book while perched on one of the stools, set down the book and stood.

“I’m finished with what you wanted me to do,” she said. “So what do you say? You want to see the bats?”

“Excuse me?”

“The bats. Come on. I’ll show you. You’ve never seen anything like this. And when we’re finished, maybe you can bat me around for a while.”

She giggled and made for the door.

Cooper gathered his dive bag and canvas sack, discovering that she’d already replaced the photos and artifacts and zipped them up inside the bags. He came over to her by the door. Susannah’s hand rested on the light switch; she had long fingers and strong hands. While he stood there, his chest brushed against one pillowy breast; he could hear her breathing too, the two of them standing in the doorway where the sounds they made were bounced back at them by the doorjamb.

His flight back to St. Thomas wasn’t until nine-fifteen tomorrow morning.

“Whatever the hell you’re talking about with the bats,” he said, “let’s do it.”

She flipped off the lights, locked the door, started toward the stairs, then spun, ran at him, leaped into the air, wrapped her legs around his waist, and emitted a high-pitched squeal that Cooper decided was Susannah’s version of a rebel yell.

10

Riley was at the Conch Bay dock again, reclined in his seat in the patrol boat, goddamn cap pulled down over his eyes as though he’d motored over for no better reason than to have a nap. Coming into the lagoon, Cooper switched over to the dinghy and cut a mean stripe past a couple of SCUBA students on his way to the pier. This time he didn’t waste any effort on the game of get-the-cop-to-skedaddle it had turned out he was pretty shitty at playing. Instead, he tied off his boat and punched the sole of one of his sandals against the side of Riley’s boat. It made a satisfying thuk, as though he might have succeeded in dislodging a piece of the boat’s chrome trim from the hull.

“What now?” he said.

Riley poked up the brim of his hat.

“Smuggler,” he said, “turn up dead.”

It took Cooper a couple seconds.

“Po Keeler, you mean,” he said.

“Yeah, mon.”

“Clearly you’re operating under the flawed assumption that I give two shits.”

Riley didn’t say anything.

“It happen inside?”

“No.”

Cooper nodded. “You let him out, then.”

“Yesterday noon.”

“When did he ‘turn up’?”

“’Bout seven A.M. today.”

Cooper thought about the deal Po Keeler had been wanting to make with Cap’n Roy. He thought that he could connect some dots were the mood to strike. Not that the mood had hit, but it was easy enough: Busted smuggler bribes top local law enforcement official; top local law enforcement official releases smuggler from prison; busted smuggler turns up dead. Coincidence wasn’t being too friendly with Cap’n Roy Gillespie.

It occurred to Cooper that Cap’n Roy might have recorded the conversation he’d held with Keeler-probably had-almost beyond a doubt, he decided. Meaning it might be that Riley was here on a public relations mission-that he’d come to smooth out the suspicious wrinkles on the otherwise starched-and-pressed bribery-and-murder scheme Cap’n Roy had conducted before realizing he should check the prison tapes. At which point he learned that Keeler had vetted his payoff idea with Cooper before taking his shot with Cap’n Roy.

“So what do you want, Riley?” Cooper said. “Actually, let’s skip the theatrics: what is it our esteemed chief minister is too busy to come and ask me in person?”

Riley surprised Cooper by actually answering his question.

“Look pretty bad on Cap’n Roy,” he said, “if that smuggler’s body turn up and people find out about it. People like the Coast Guard, even-especially them, since Cap’n Roy just finished arrangin’ the man’s release. He asked me to bring you up to the pine scrub, where we found him, and that’s about all he said to do or say. But you and I both know the chief minister’s thinkin’ ’bout a favor you did for him some time back. Thinkin’ maybe you be up for pullin’ something ’bout the same, one more time around.”

“Christ,” Cooper said.

“Yeah, mon,” Riley said.

“Maybe I should put up a sign on my bungalow: ‘Cooper’s Disposal Service.’ Why wrap a body in a rug and take it down to the local dump when you’ve got me hanging around? A one-man dead-body transfer station.”

Riley kind of shrugged with his head. There wasn’t, Cooper supposed, much for him to add.

“What do you think, Riley?”

When Riley didn’t say anything for a moment, Cooper said, “And don’t waste my time with the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force party line. A lot of Roy’s predecessors, fellow superior officers of yours, have done worse. His being a cop, especially a BVI cop, doesn’t put him beyond reproach in the slightest-so don’t give me a whitewash. I want to know what you think.”

“Yeah,” Riley said after looking at Cooper for a while. “You right about that-some done worse.”

Cooper waited.

“And I know you’re saying if he did it, well then, you’re out,” Riley said. “You know-if that be the case, you don’t want the first part of it. But if it’s seeming like he didn’t do it, then, yeah, mon, maybe you might come by and lend a hand.”

“‘Might,’” Cooper said, “being the key word. Go on, Lieutenant.”

Riley aimed his eyes right at Cooper’s, and Cooper saw some hardness in them-accepting the challenge he’d just been offered by Cooper’s use of his rank-and a softness too, maybe something in there showing that Riley was a little disappointed in his boss, whether in what the man had done, or in the way he’d handled it.

When he was finished looking at Cooper with those couple of things in his eyes, Riley shook his head.

“No, mon. No way.”

Cooper kept looking back at him.

“Either way,” Cooper said, “Minister Roy is getting himself in pretty deep.”

After another little while of looking at him, Riley gave Cooper a nod.

“Power to the people,” Riley said.

Cooper stood still for a moment, thinking he was liking Lieutenant Riley more and more, and wondering, among other things, how the hell he would succeed in convincing the medical examiner of the city of Charlotte Amalie, USVI-even though the man happened to be on his list of fully extortable targets-to toss the second clandestine homicide victim in as many years into the incinerator without that coroner asking anybody in the government that employed him for permission to do it.