When most of the beach was in shade, I returned to my room.
Showering and changing, I got in my car and, cruised Estero Boulevard until hunger guided me like a divining rod into the parking lot of the Skipper's Galley., I ate red snapper and, drank white wine while the horizon faded to a dusky blue. Soon boat lights drifted low in the darkness and I could not see the water.
By the time I found cottage 182 near the bait shop and thing pier, I was as relaxed as I had been in a long time. When Willie Travers opened the door, it seemed we had been friends forever.
"The first order of business is refreshment. Surely you haven't eaten," he said.
I regretfully told him I had.
"Then you'll simply have to eat again.”
"But I couldn't.”
"I will prove you wrong within the hour. The fare is very light. Grouper grilled in butter and Key Lime juice with a generous sprinkling of fresh ground pepper. And we have seven-grain bread I make from scratch that you'll never forget as long as you live. Let's see. Oh, yes. Marinated slaw and Mexican beer.”
He said all this as he popped the caps off two bottle of Doe Equis. Jennifer Deighton's former husband had to be close to eighty years old, his face as ruined by the sun as cracked mud, but the blue eyes set in it were as vital as a young man's. He smiled a lot as he talked, and was beef jerky lean. His hair reminded me of white tennis ball fuzz.
"How did you come to live here?” I asked, looking around at mounted fish on the walls and rugged furnishings.
"A couple of years ago I decided to retire and fish, so I worked out a deal with the Pink Shell. I'd run their bait shop if they'd let me rent one of the cottages at a reasonable rate.”
"What was your profession before you refined?”
"Same as it is now.”
He smiled. "I practice holistic medicine, and you never really retire from that any more than you retire from religion. The difference is, now I work with people I want to work with, and I no long have an office in town.”
"Your definition of holistic medicine?”
"I treat the whole persons plain and simple. The point is to get people in balance.”
He looked appraisingly at me, set his beer down, and carne over to the captain's chair where I sat, "Would you mind standing up?”
I was in a mood to be agreeable.
"Now hold out one of your arms. I don't care which one, but hold it straight out so it's parallel to the floor. That's fine. Now I'm going to ask you a question and then as you answer I'm going to try to push your arm down while you resist. Do you view yourself as the family hero?”
"No.”
My arm instantly yielded to his pressure and lowered like a drawbridge.
"Well, you do view yourself as the family hero. That tells me you're pretty damn hard on yourself and have been from the word go. All right. Now let's put your arm up again and I'm going to ask you another question. Are you good at what you do?”
"Yes.”
"I'm pushing down as hard as I can and your arm is steel. So you are good at what you do.”
He returned to the couch and I sat back down.
"I must admit that my medical teaching makes me somewhat skeptical," I said with a smile.
"Well, it shouldn't, because the principles are no different from what you deal with every day. Bottom line? The body doesn't lie. No matter what you tell yourself, your energy level responds to what is actually true. If your head says you aren't the family hero or you love yourself when that's not how you feel, your energy gets weak. Is this making any sense?”
"Yes.”
"One of the reasons Jenny came down here once or twice a year was so I could balance her. And when she was here last, around Thanksgiving, she was so out of whack I had to work with her several hours everyday.”
“Did she tell you what was wrong?”
"A lot of things were wrong. She'd just moved and didn't like her neighbors, especially the ones across the street.”
"The Clarys," I said.
"I suppose that was the name. The woman was a busybody and the man was a flirt until he had a stroke. Plus, Jenny's horoscope readings had gotten out of hand and were wearing her out.”
"What was your opinion of this business she ran?”
"Jenny had a gift but she was spreading it too thin.”
"Would you label her a psychic?”
"Nope. I wouldn't label Jenny - wouldn't even begin to try. She was into a lot of things:" I suddenly remembered the blank sheet of paper anchored by the crystal on her bed and asked Travers if he might know what that meant, or if it meant anything.
"It meant she was concentrating.”
"Concentrating?”
I puzzled. "On what?"
"When Jenny wanted to meditate, she would get a white sheet of paper and put a crystal on top of it. Then she would sit very still and slowly turn the crystal around and around, watching light from the facets move on the paper. That did for her what staring at the water does for me.”
"Was anything else bothering her when she came to see you, Mr. Travers?”
"Call me Willie. Yea, and you know what I'm about to say. She was upset about this convict who was waiting to be executed - Ronnie Waddell. Jenny and Ronnie had been writing to each other for many years and she just couldn't deal with the thought of him being put to death."
"Do you know if Waddell ever revealed anything to her that could have placed her in jeopardy?”
"Well, he gave her something that did.”
I reached for my beer without taking my eyes off him.
"When she came down here at Thanksgiving, she brought all of the letters he had written and anything else he had sent her over the years. She wanted me to keep them down here for her.”
“Why?”
"So they would be safe.”
"She was worried about somebody trying to get them from her?”
"All I know is, she was spooked. She told me that during the first week of this past November, Waddell called her collect and said he was ready to die and didn't want to fight it anymore. Apparently, he was convinced nothing could save him, and he asked her to go to the farm in Suffolk and get his belongings from his mother. He said he wanted Jenny to have them, and not to worry, that his mother would understand.”
"What were those belongings?” I asked.
"Just one thing.”
He got up. "I'm not real sure of the significance - and I'm not sure I want to be sure. So I'm going to turn it over to you, Dr. Scarpetta. You can take it on back to Virginia. Share it with the police. Do with it what you want.”
"Why are you suddenly being helpful?” I asked. "Why not weeks ago?’
"Nobody bothered to come see me," he said loudly from another room. "I told you when you called I don't deal with people over the phone.”
When he returned, he set a black Hartmann briefcase at my feet. The brass lock had been pried open and the leather was scarred: "Fact is, you'd be doing me a big favor to get this out of my life," Willie Travers said, and I could tell he mean it. "The very thought of it makes my energy bad.”
The scores of letters Ronnie Waddell had written Jennifer Deighton from death row were neatly bundled in rubber bands and sorted chronologically. I skimmed through few in my hotel roam that night, because their importance all but disappeared in the light of other items I found.
Inside the briefcase were legal pads filled with handwritten notes that made little sense, for they referred to cases and dilemmas of the Commonwealth from more than ten years ago. There were pens and pencils, a map of Virginia, a tin of Sucrets throat lozenges, a Vick's inhaler, and a tube of Chapstick. Still in its yellow box was an EpiPen, a 3 milligram epinephrine auto-injector routinely kept by people fatally allergic to bee stings or some foods. The prescription label was typed with the patient's name, the date, and the information that the EpiPen was one of five refills. Clearly, Waddell had stolen the briefcase from Robyn Naismith's house on the fateful morning he murdered her. It may be that he had no idea who it belonged to until he carried it off and broke the lock. Waddell discovered he had savaged a local celebrity whose lover Joe Norring, was then the attorney general of Virginia.
