Duma Key(126)

"And the reef wouldn't have ripped the keel out of a boat that got blown in here back in the 1700s? Or 1600s?"

Wireman shrugged. "Chris Shannington says no one knows what the geography of Kitt Reef might have been a hundred and fifty years ago."

I looked at the spread-out loot. The smiling middle daughters. The smiling Daddy, who was soon going to have to buy himself a new bathing costume. And I suddenly decided he hadn't been sleeping with the nanny. No. Even a mistress would have told him he couldn't have a newspaper photo of himself taken in that old thing. She would have found a tactful reason, but the real one was right in front of me, after all these years; even with less-than-perfect vision in my right eye, I could see it. He was too fat. Only he didn't see it, and his daughters didn't see it, either. Loving eyes did not see.

Too fat. Something there, wasn't there? Some A that practically demanded a B.

"I'm surprised he talked about what he found at all," I said. "If you happened on stuff like this today and then blabbed to Channel 6, half of Florida would show up in their little putt-putts, hunting for doubloons and pieces of eight with metal detectors."

"Ah, but this was another Florida," Wireman said, and I remembered Mary Ire using the same phrase. "John Eastlake was a rich man, and Duma Key was his private preserve. Besides, there were no doubloons, no pieces of eight just moderately interesting junk uncovered by a freak storm. For weeks he went down and dived where that debris was scattered on the floor of the Gulf and it was close in, according to Shannington; at low tide, you could practically wade to it. And sure, he was probably keeping an eye out for valuables. He was a rich man, but I don't think that vaccinates a man against the treasure-bug."

"No," I said. "I'm sure it doesn't."

"The nanny would have gone with him on his treasure-hunting expeditions. The three still-at-home girls, too: the twins and Elizabeth. Maria and Hannah were back at their boarding school in Bradenton, and big sis had run off to Atlanta. Eastlake and his little ones probably had picnics down there."

"How often?" I began to see where this was going.

"Often. Maybe every day while the debris field was at its richest. They wore a path from the house to what was called Shade Beach. It was half a mile, if that."

"A path two adventurous little girls could follow on their own."

"And one day did. To everyone's sorrow." He swept the pictures back into the folder. "There's a story here, muchacho, and I suppose it's marginally more interesting than a little girl swallowing a marble, but a tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh."

He brooded a moment.

"What probably happened is that one day in April of 1927, when Tessie and Laura were supposed to be napping, they decided to get up, sneak down the path, and go hunting for treasure at Shade Beach. Probably they meant to do no more than wade in as far as their knees, which is all they were permitted to do one of the stories quotes John Eastlake as saying that, and Adriana backed him up."

"The married daughter who came back."

"Right. She and her new husband returned a day or two before the search for the bodies was officially called off. That's according to Shannington. Anyway, one of the little girls maybe saw something gleaming a little further out and started to flounder. Then-"

"Then her sister tried to save her." Yes, I could see it. Only I saw Lin and Ilse as they'd been when they were small. Not twins, but for three or four golden years nearly inseparable.

Wireman nodded. "And then the rip took em both. Had to've been that way, amigo; that's why the bodies weren't found. Off they went, heigh-ho for the caldo largo."

I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by the rip, then remembered a painting by Winslow Homer, romantic but of undeniable power: Undertow.

The intercom on the wall beeped, startling us both. Wireman struck the folder with his arm as he turned around, knocking photocopies and faxes everywhere.

"Mr. Wireman!" It was Annmarie Whistler. "Mr. Wireman, are you there?"

"I'm here," Wireman said.

"Mr. Wireman?" She sounded agitated. Then, as if to herself: "Jesus, where are you?"

"The f**king button," he muttered, and went to the wall unit, not quite running. He pushed the button. "I'm here. What's wrong? What's happened? Did she fall?"

"No!" Annmarie cried. "She's awake! Awake and aware! She's asking for you! Can you come?"

"Right away," he said, and turned to me, grinning. "Do you hear that, Edgar? Come on!" He paused. "What are you looking at?"

"These," I said, and held out the two pictures of Eastlake in his bathing dress: the one where he was surrounded by all his daughters, and the one taken two years later, where he was flanked by just Maria and Hannah.

"Never mind em now didn't you hear her? Miss Eastlake is back!" He booked for the door. I dropped his folder on the library table and followed him. I had made the connection but only because I'd spent the last few months cultivating the art of seeing. Cultivating it strenuously.