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arch framing the main entrance. Found himself on Beach Cove Drive. Where else?
    Most of the mobile homes were double-wides: two trailers joined side by side so they created a semblance of a medium-sized house. They were all fairly new and well kept. In front of each was a neat little square lawn with very green grass. The undercarriages were disguised by wood latticework, but on the mobile homes facing the opposite street, Carver could see license plates mounted on rear walls. In Florida, if you licensed your mobile home as a vehicle, there was no need to pay real-estate taxes. Many of the homes had small front porches or carports built onto them to make them appear even more permanent. Some had screened-in “Florida rooms” attached to the rear. Palm trees lined Beach Cove Drive, and there were smaller palms in some yards, and here and there a struggling sugar oak or citrus tree. Beach Cove Court, Carver decided, was a pleasant lower-middle-class retirement community, exactly the sort of place he’d imagined the retired railroad man Renway living in, marking diminishing time and coping with inactivity and expenses. Frank Wesley’s beachfront condo, exclusive-label clothes, and late-model Cadillac must have seemed like quite a step up for Renway. Stairway to heaven.
    Beach Cove Drive wound back toward the highway. Carver finally saw Little Cove Lane, Renway’s street, and made a sharp left turn. Many of the trailers were singles in this part of the court, and not so well kept up. At this slower speed, without the wind rushing through the cranked-down windows, the sun was cooking Carver.
    Renway’s was the last place on the street, not more than a hundred feet from cars and trucks swishing past on the sun-baked pavement. His home was a neat white double-wide with trim the color of egg yolks. A gleaming maroon Ford Escort was parked alongside it, in the deep shade of a carport with a slanted yellow-and-white fiberglass roof held up by white curlicued metal posts. The mailbox out front was black and supported by a thick chain welded together so it looked as if it were snaking up out of the ground and defying gravity in the manner of an Indian fakir’s rope trick. Stenciled on the box in white was THE RENWAYS. Renway hadn’t changed it after his wife died. What was her name? Ella. Maybe Renway and Ella were together again. Maybe the moon was Bailey’s Irish Cream.
    He parked the Olds behind the Escort and climbed out, feeling the back of his sweat-soaked shirt peel away from where it had been plastered to the vinyl seat. Leaned on his cane in the heat. No one was visible on Little Cove Lane, and he’d seen no one on his drive through the court other than a couple of teenage boys in swimming trunks climbing into an old pickup truck with surfboards in the bed. The late-morning July heat was keeping almost everyone nailed indoors in their air conditioning. Looked like the mobile-home court had been struck by a neutron bomb; buildings standing, but no people.
    Noticing the grass needed mowing, he limped to the metal steps leading to Renway’s front door. For appearance’ sake, he rapped on the aluminum door with the crook of his cane.
    There was no sound from inside. Perspiration stung Carver’s eyes and dripped off the tip of his nose. After a moment he climbed the two steps and peered inside through the door’s window. Saw dark carpeting, a dollhouse kitchen with white appliances. Nearer to him, but in dimness, were a recliner chair, console television, and a corner of a plaid Early American sofa. Everything was precisely placed and there was no clutter other than a magazine folded over the arm of the recliner. As if someone had been interrupted reading and would be right back. Renway the widower had been a neat housekeeper.
    Carver left the metal steps, then the concrete walk, and limped across sandy soil to the back of the mobile home. The sun was hot on the nape of his neck, and he could feel sand working its way