“Wait, let me grab a pen and pad.” She was back in a nanosecond. “Okay.”

“I want you to find out if Meyer Napoli had any connection to Savich.”

“You mean besides the photographs?”

“Yeah, I mean a personal connection. One-on-one. It’s probably a long shot, but you never know.”

“ Napoli was hardly in Savich’s league. He said so himself-why would he need Napoli?”

“Just nose around, see if anything pops,” he said. “Start with Napoli ’s secretary. She’ll cooperate because she liked her boss and wants to know who killed him.”

“You think Savich-”

“I said it was a long shot.”

“Okay, I’ll call the secretary. Exactly what am I looking for?”

“I have no idea. And something else…” He paused, as though thinking. “It could be beneficial to run some backgrounds on the people we know Savich has hit. Gordie Ballew’s history we already know. But what about Freddy Morris and that Andre Bonnet whose house exploded? Maybe if we scratch around in their backgrounds, we’ll find someone who knows something, overheard something about Savich that we could build evidence around. At least stack up enough to get a search warrant. What do you think?”

He’d known this would be a tough sell and could imagine his partner’s untended eyebrows forming a frown above the bridge of her nose. “I guess,” she said with an apparent lack of enthusiasm. “What do you expect to find?”

“I don’t know. Won’t until we find it.” He hesitated for a strategic time, then sighed. “Aw, hell, I guess I’m grabbing at straws. Skip it. I’ll do some more brainstorming.”

“Is it still raining where you are?”

“The sun’s out.”

“Here, too. Steam is rising off everything. It’s too bloody hot to breathe.” After a telling pause, she asked when he was coming back.

“Coupla more days.”

“How do you feel?”

“Good, actually. Slept late. Went for a long run this morning. Really cleared out the cobwebs. That’s when it occurred to me to check out these guys again. But if you don’t think it’ll do any good-”

“I didn’t say that.”

“As good as.”

“No, I’m on it,” she said grudgingly. “It’s something, anyway, and we’ve got nothing else cooking.”

He had counted on her being glad that he was refocused on Savich this soon. He felt guilty for manipulating her. But only slightly. “Good. Start with Freddy Morris and work backward. Parents, siblings, ex-wives, girlfriends, best friends. Somebody may be dying to unload on us about Savich.”

“We talked to most of those people already, right after the hits.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to revisit them, widen the circle.”

“Okay.”

He pretended not to hear the reluctance in her voice. “And don’t forget Chet Rollins. The guy that got hit in prison.”

“The Irish Spring execution.”

“Right.”

“That wasn’t our case,” she said. “The investigation was handled in Jackson.”

“So maybe the detectives there missed something.”

“All right. I’ll check.” She hesitated, then asked, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“You sound funny.”

“I was yawning.” He spotted Elise rounding the end of an aisle and coming his way. Time to wrap this up. “In fact, I think I’ll take a nap,” he said to DeeDee. “Don’t forget to call Napoli ’s secretary. Get back to me as soon as you learn something. Bye.”

Before DeeDee could say anything more, he clicked off and switched his cell phone to courtesy mode. If DeeDee called back, and he wouldn’t put it past her, his phone would vibrate instead of ring.

He slid out of the booth and went to meet Elise. He glanced at the items in her cart. “Find everything you need?”

“Who did you call?”

“The office.”

“Why?”

“Habit.”

“Did you talk to Detective Bowen?”

“Got her voice mail. Left a message that I was relaxing, enjoying the time away.”

“When are you going to tell her that I’m alive?”

“When I’ve figured it all out. What did you buy?”

Her eyes were still on the phone he had clipped to his belt, but then she smiled wryly and answered his question. “I won’t be a fashion plate, but I’ll be clothed and groomed. How was the strawberry pop?”

“Want one?”

“I don’t want my lips and tongue dyed red.”

He wiped his mouth. “Are they?”

“You look like Dracula.” She laughed. “Maybe it’ll wear off soon.”

They paid for her purchases- Duncan doing his best not to analyze the panties and bras as they moved along the conveyor belt-and drove back toward Lady’s Island. They stopped at a roadside stand to buy fresh shrimp for dinner. “I can boil water,” he said as he passed the package to her through the passenger window.

After returning to the house, they went for a walk. Strolling the narrow lanes of the island, shimmering in the afternoon heat, he felt as though they should be holding hands. But he didn’t reach for hers, and she didn’t touch him.

When they returned to the house, she excused herself to take a shower. Duncan sat on the front steps in the shade, sweating profusely and telling himself he needed the solitude in order to plan his attack on Savich and Laird, when actually he was escaping the sound of the shower and mental images of Elise in nothing but suds.

Eventually she joined him on the steps, bringing with her a glass of iced tea for each of them and the scent of sweet-smelling soap. Her hair was still damp, sticking up in places. Blond strands were beginning to shine through the temporary brown tint. Catching him looking at it, she self-consciously raised her hand to it. “It’ll grow back.”

“Maybe you should leave it short. It’s…” He was about to say sexy, and amended it to “fetching.”

She was wearing some of her recent purchases, a pair of apple green shorts that came just above her knees, and a white T-shirt, the vague outline of her new bra beneath it. Nothing fancy. Nothing in the least provocative. He wanted to rip everything off her. With his teeth.

Standing suddenly, he asked if she was finished in the bathroom and when she said yes, he went straight into the bathroom, stripped, and got in the shower, the shelf of which was now cluttered with shaving cream in a pastel can, a pink razor, shampoo and conditioner, and moisturizing body wash. Hanging from the shower nozzle was a round sponge thing made out of lavender netting.

“Damn bunch of crap,” he muttered as he picked up the plain ole bar of soap.

But the damn bunch of crap aroused him. He didn’t even turn on the hot water tap.

When he came out of the bathroom, she was sitting on the sofa watching television. “What’s this?” he asked.

“A classic-movie station.”

“It’s in black and white.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Who’s that?”

She frowned at his ignorance. “Natalie Wood, of course.”

“Huh.” He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa. “What’s it about?”

“She and Steve McQueen had a one-night stand, which he barely remembered, but she got pregnant. She tracks him down and asks him to help her get an abortion-the movie was made when abortions were done illegally in back rooms.

“Steve McQueen has to come up with the money to pay for it, which isn’t easy, but he finally does and makes the arrangements. Except when they get to the appointed place-this creepy, cold, empty building-they can’t go through with it.

“She becomes hysterical and starts screaming. He-he’d been waiting out in the hall-barges through the door and yells at the abortionist, ‘If you touch her, I’ll kill you.’ Then he holds her while she’s crying. That’s my favorite scene. That, and the one right after when they’re riding in the backseat of a taxi and he puts his arm around her, and she falls asleep on his chest.”

Duncan stared. “Amazing.”

“It’s a good movie.”

“No, I mean you. How did you remember all that? How many times have you seen it?”

“A dozen or more.” Surprising him, she reached for the remote and switched off the TV.