Duma Key(32)

"Well, you deserve this one," she said. "Time to rest and heal. And if all this" - she waved to the Gulf - "won't heal you, I don't know what will. The only thing..."

"Ye- ess?" I said, and made a picking-out gesture at the air with two fingers. Families have their own interior language, and that includes sign-language. My gesture would have meant nothing to an outsider, but Ilse knew and laughed.

"All right, smarty. The only fly in the ointment is the sound the tide makes when it comes in. I woke up in the middle of the night and almost screamed before I realized it was the shells moving around in the water. I mean, that's it, right? Please tell me that's it."

"That's it. What did you think it was?"

She actually shivered. "My first thought... don't laugh... was skeletons on parade. Hundreds, marching around the house."

I'd never thought of it that way, but I knew what she meant. "I find it sort of soothing."

She gave a small and doubtful shrug. "Well... okay, then. To each his own. Are you ready to go back? I could scramble us some eggs. Even throw in some peppers and mushrooms."

"You're on."

"I haven't seen you off your crutch for so long since the accident."

"I hope to be walking a quarter-mile south along the beach by the middle of January."

She whistled. "A quarter of a mile and back?"

I shook my head. "No, no. Just a quarter of a mile. I plan to glide back." I extended my arms to demonstrate.

She snorted, started toward the house again, then paused as a point of light heliographed in our direction from the south. Once, then twice. The two specks were down there.

"People," Ilse said, shading her eyes.

"My neighbors. My only neighbors, right now. At least, I think so."

"Have you met them?"

"Nope. All I know is that it's a man and a woman in a wheelchair. I think she has her breakfast down by the water most days. I think the tray is the glinty thing."

"You should get yourself a golf cart. Then you could buzz down and say hi."

"Eventually I'll walk down and say hi," I said. "No golf cart for the kid. Dr. Kamen said to set goals, and I'm setting em."

"You didn't need a shrink to tell you about setting goals, Daddy," she said, still peering south. "Which house do they belong to? The big one that looks like a rancho in a western movie?"

"I'm pretty sure, yes."

"And no one else lives here?"

"Not now. Jack says there are folks who rent some of the other houses in January and February, but for now I guess it's just me and them. The rest of the island is pure botanical  p**n ography. Plants gone wild."

"My God, why?"

"Haven't the slightest idea. I mean to find out - to try, anyway - but for now I'm still trying to get my feet under me. And I mean that literally."

We were walking back to the house now. Ilse said, "An almost empty island in the sun - there should be a story. There almost has to be a story, don't you think?"

"I do," I said. "Jack Cantori offered to snoop, but I told him not to bother - thinking I might look on my own." I snagged my crutch, fitted my arm into its two steel sleeves - always comforting after spending time on the beach without its support - and started thumping up the walk. But Ilse wasn't with me. I turned and looked back. She was facing south, her hand once more shading her eyes. "Coming, hon?"

"Yes." There was one more flash from down the beach - the breakfast tray. Or a coffeepot. "Maybe they know the story," Ilse said, catching up.

"Maybe they do."

She pointed to the road. "What about that? How far does it go?"

"Don't know," I said.

"Would you like to drive down it this afternoon and see?"

"Are you willing to pilot a Chevy Malibu from Hertz?"

"Sure," she said. She put her hands on her slim hips, pretended to spit, and affected a Southern drawl. "I'll drive until yonder road runs out."

xii

But we didn't get even close to the end of Duma Road. Not that day. Our southward exploration began well, ended badly.

We both felt fine when we left. I'd had an hour off my feet, plus my midday Oxycontin. My daughter had changed to shorts and a halter top, and laughed when I insisted on anointing her nose with zinc oxide. "Bobo the clown," she said, looking at herself in the mirror. She was in great spirits, I was happier than I'd been since the accident, so what happened to us that afternoon came as a total surprise. Ilse blamed lunch - maybe bad mayo in the tuna salad - and I let her, but I don't think it was bad mayo at all. Bad mojo, more like it.

The road was narrow, bumpy, and badly patched. Until we reached the place where it ran into the overgrowth that covered most of the Key, it was also ridged with bone-colored sand dunes that had blown inland from the beach. The rental Chevy thudded gamely over most of these, but when the road curved a little closer to the water - this was just before we reached the hacienda Wireman called Palacio de Asesinos - the drifts grew thicker and the car waddled instead of bumping. Ilse, who had learned to drive in snow country, handled this without complaint or comment.

The houses between Big Pink and El Palacio were all in the style I came to think of as Florida Pastel Ugly. Most were shuttered and the driveways of all but one were gated shut. The driveway of the one exception had been barred with two sawhorses, bearing this faded stenciled warning: MEAN DOGS MEAN DOGS. Beyond the Mean Dog house, the grounds of the hacienda commenced. They were enclosed by a sturdy faux-stucco wall about ten feet high and topped with orange tile. More orange tile - the roof of the mansion inside - rose in slants and angles against the blameless blue sky.