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crystal-clear September morning on the Vineyard. A stiff breeze was kicking up whitecaps out in the sound, and gulls were wheeling around over the water like white scraps of windblown paper.
    The Fairchild property was an awfully pretty part of the island. There were rolling meadows, groves of scrub oak and pine, a couple of small freshwater ponds, and a long, curving stretch of beach. I could visualize the golf course they could build here. St. Andrews came to mind.
    I turned my attention to my briefcaseful of papers. Julie had dug up business histories and financial statements and résumés of key personnel and photocopies of newspaper and magazine articles, and from what I was able to gather, both the nature-preserve people and the golf-course people were legitimate, which would make my job a lot easier.
    After a couple of hours, Patrick summoned me for lunch, so I stuffed all the papers back into my briefcase and called it a day’s work.
    Patrick had made egg salad sandwiches and a jug of lemonade, and he and I ate with Sarah on the sun-porch. After we took our dishes inside, I filled Sarah in and told her that I expected to have some recommendations for her within a few days.
    She stared outside while I talked and didn’t say much. Once I caught her squeezing her fists in her lap. “Pain?” I said.
    She looked up at me and smiled weakly. “Nothingunbearable, honestly. A twinge now and then, that’s all.”
    â€œDo you have medication?”
    â€œOh yes. A lovely nurse comes by every day to bathe me and check my vitals. She gives me shots and makes sure I have my pills handy. And don’t worry. I don’t have any foolish courage. I take the pills when I need them. For now, the shots and the pills do the job.”
    I couldn’t think of anything comforting to say, so I pushed myself to my feet. “Well,” I said, “with your permission, I think I’ll take my fly rod down to the beach and do some casting, get limbered up. J. W. Jackson’s picking me up a little later. I’m fishing in the Derby tonight, you know.”
    She smiled. “Good for you. I hope you beat Nate. Do give J.W. a kiss for me, will you?”
    â€œI will certainly not kiss J.W. But I’ll tell him you’d like to deliver one in person.”
    Half an hour later I was standing on the beach with my feet bare and my pants legs rolled up and the water lapping around my ankles, casting a Lefty’s Deceiver out beyond the place where the gentle waves lifted and spilled over. In the cove, there wasn’t much surf, and I could see where the bottom dropped away, within easy reach of a fly rod. I didn’t expect to catch anything under the bright afternoon sun, although it wouldn’t have surprised me if a few stripers were cruising along the edge of that drop-off. After the sun went down, it would be a prime spot.
    Even more prime was the rocky point that juttedout into the ocean at the left-hand end of the cove. Now, at low tide, the rocks had risen up out of the water, and all but those on the very tip of the point were surrounded by wet sand. When the tide rolled in, it would cover the rocks, and the waves would crash around them. Then the big stripers and bluefish would come in to gobble sand eels and baitfish and crabs and any other unfortunate prey they might find being dashed around in the swirling currents.
    So I cast rhythmically, working my way along the beach. Once or twice I thought I saw the shadow of a swimming fish, and it focused my attention. I was casting to one of those shadows—real or imagined, I wasn’t sure—when suddenly my line started moving sideways.
    My first reaction was to pull back on my line and lift my rod as I would do if I’d had a strike. I realized this was no fish at about the same instant I heard the man’s voice growl, “Who in hell are you?”
    I looked over my right shoulder. Nate Fairchild was standing