Pick up trash? Perelman, trying to keep a neutral look on his face, unhooked his radio. “Cranfield?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“Please send Dixon and Ramirez out. With trash bags.”

A brief pause. “Ten-four.”

A minute later, two of the sanitation workers emerged from the tent, carrying large black bags. The four started slowly down the beach, Pendergast still in his expensive shoes. Ramirez bent down to pick up a plastic plate.

“That one won’t be necessary,” Pendergast said. “I will do the trash picking, if you please.”

And so they proceeded in fits and starts, pausing every now and then for Pendergast to pick something up—a potato chip bag, plant debris, pieces of driftwood, a plastic drink cover—and drop it into one of the bags the two sanitation men were holding. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his choices. This had to be the strangest “stroll” Perelman had ever taken.

“Do you have that map I requested?” Pendergast asked while examining a rubber gasket, which he tossed back onto the sand.

Perelman brought out a piece of paper and gave it to Pendergast. It was a map of the beach, hand-drawn, with red dots documenting where each foot had washed up before being placed above the high tide line, along with the estimated time of arrival. The agent had asked for it yesterday evening, just before leaving for the morgue.

Pendergast paused to examine it. “This is most excellent, thank you.”

“My patrol officer, Laroux, made it. He fancies himself quite the artist.”

Pendergast kept it in hand while continuing down the beach, but it did not seem to alter the randomness of his progress. They walked on, the agent stopping every now and then to look over an evidence flag or pick up a piece of trash, examine it, and put it in the bag or toss it back onto the sand. While he proceeded, he peppered Perelman with questions: Had anything like this ever happened before—not with human feet, of course, but a strange and concentrated gift from the sea? Would it be worth interviewing the local fishermen? Did a lot of trash and seaweed usually wash up, in addition to all the shells? How often did they have to rake the beach? Perelman did his best to answer.

They were now nearing the far end of the beach, and Pendergast stopped to point out a large, old house on the dunes beyond the crime scene tape. “What a charming example of shingle-style Victorian architecture.”

“The Mortlach House,” Perelman said.

“An almost ideal location—although, situated beyond the dunes as it is, the house does seem rather exposed.” He paused. “It’s a trifle out of place—at least, compared to the other buildings around. Who lives there?”

“Nobody. In fact, it’s scheduled to be torn down.”

“What a shame.” He picked up a plastic tag and dropped it into one of the now-bulging trash bags. Then he straightened up. “Shall we return? I think I have enough trash.”

“Fine with me.”

They turned around and headed back, Ramirez and Dixon lugging the two full bags.

“Chief Perelman, I must admit that I’m curious. What are your thoughts on the commander’s theory?”

“He’s an experienced seaman—logged ten thousand hours on the water as a captain, just like he said—and his abilities are without question.” That wasn’t quite an answer, and Perelman knew it. He hesitated a second, then decided Pendergast deserved his trust. Exactly why, he wasn’t sure. “He’s old-school, used to absolute command—obviously, that makes him a little proud and not always willing to listen. But I’ve worked with him before. I respect his experience: a lifetime on the sea. His idea that the feet originated in Cuba does, at least to me, seem quite possible. Cuba’s changing but, sad to say, there are still many dissidents in prison.”

Pendergast, walking beside the chief, nodded.

“On the other hand…well, we’re not dealing with the set, drift, and windage of a four-hundred-ton Coast Guard cutter here. We’re dealing with shoes floating in the water. I’m not sure that falls within anyone’s experience—even the commander’s.”

As he was speaking, Perelman noticed movement in his peripheral vision. A black town car had turned off Captiva Drive and then continued along the road that dead-ended in the beach parking lot, where it pulled over before the tape. He frowned. What fresh hell was this—yet another bureaucrat out for a photo op? He thought he’d already met with or spoken to every city manager, councilperson, and reservist brass in Lee County who could claim even a modicum of authority.

But then the rear door opened and he realized he was wrong. A woman stepped out into the shade of the palms. She wore a large, stylish sun hat and a pale dress of what looked like organdy, tailored to accentuate her slender figure. As she approached, moving out of the shade and into the sunshine, Perelman realized that she was not only very young—hardly twenty-three or twenty-four—but remarkably attractive. Perelman was a cinephile, and this woman’s thin, curved eyebrows and bobbed mahogany hair reminded him of Claudette Colbert. No—even stronger in the chief’s imagination was a resemblance to the legendarily beautiful Olive Thomas, the silent film starlet who died in 1920.

But then this vision from the past slipped gracefully beneath the crime scene tape, and Perelman’s spell was broken.

“Just a minute, there!” he cried. In the distance, he could see a couple of his officers trotting in the direction of the black car.

A faint pressure on his arm. “It’s all right,” Pendergast said. “She’s with me.”

But the young woman had stopped of her own accord, unwilling to bury her heels in the sand, and was apparently waiting for them. Perelman called off his men and then the small procession—FBI agent, police chief, and two workers lugging heavy bags of trash—made its way through the sand toward her.

“Constance,” Pendergast said as they drew near, “this is Chief Perelman of the Sanibel Police Department. Chief, allow me to introduce my ward and assistant, Constance Greene.”

The young woman removed her sunglasses and regarded him with violet eyes. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The deep contralto, with its mid-Atlantic accent, once again caused Perelman to feel a strange tug from the distant past.

“I’m surprised to see you here, though pleased,” Pendergast told her. “What prompted you to leave Eden?”

“I believe it was encountering the tree of knowledge.”

“Even the charms of paradise can pale with time.”

“I finished À rebours. And it occurred to me—after the security chief finished explaining the finer points of handling his M60—that it was selfish of me to stay behind, wallowing in luxury, while you were presumably toiling away on this investigation. Whether or not I can lend assistance with that, at least I can lend you my company.”

“Most kind.”

“They told me you were staying at the Flamingo View Motel—” she pronounced the name as if it were some species of slug— “but when I arrived there, I assumed it was a misunderstanding and didn’t venture inside to inquire.”

“Not a misunderstanding, alas. I’m sure ADC Pickett had intended to book me into a more suitable place. I’ll sort things out shortly.”