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The floor was wood, with a gray throw rug beside the bed. There were a few oil paintings in here, too, but none as good as the one with the cats. Carver was glad to see another window unit, this one smaller but newer, and a ceiling fan like the one on the porch. June nights in the Keys could emulate Hell.
    On top of the oak dresser was a display of small framed photographs. Carver stepped closer and examined them. There was Henry Tiller, accepting what looked like an award in front of a group of people, shaking hands with a gray-haired man in a dark suit. There were no women in the photograph, and everyone looked like a cop. Maybe this was Henry retiring. There was a black-and-white shot of a much younger Henry Tiller, standing next to an attractive woman with dark hair and an overwide smile. The ex-wife, perhaps, whom Henry professed not to care about. And there in a bronze frame was Henry about the same age, dark hair like the wife’s, posing with a lanky boy about ten years old in front of a lake. A slightly older Henry with the same boy, this time in his teens and looking something like Henry but with his mother’s smile; they wore heavy coats and there was a half-melted snowman behind them in this photo. Next to it was a shot of a man in his twenties, the boy grown up, with a heavyset blond woman standing next to him, one leg studiously in front of the other to make her appear thinner. She was holding an infant. Son Jerry again, and his wife, and their son Bump years before cocaine and death. All of them now out of Henry Tiller’s dwindling life.
    A squeaking sound from the front of the cottage made Carver turn. At first he thought it might have been the ancient air conditioner, but a shadow wavered in the short hall outside the door.
    He edged to the side, leaned with a palm against the wall and gripped the shaft of the hard walnut cane just below its crook. He focused his concentration, ready to rumble if he must.
    A redheaded girl about five feet tall moved into the doorway and stood with her stick-thin arms crossed. She was wearing shorts, clompy red and white jogging shoes, and a sleeveless blouse, a green sweatband around her forehead. She was in her early teens and was pale and had freckles on every part of her that was visible. She didn’t seem surprised to see Carver, and stared inquiringly at him with guileless and friendly green eyes. Danger would be the farthest thing from her mind, until she grew up. She said, “You Mr. Carver?”
    He straightened up and planted the tip of his cane back on the wood floor, feeling slightly silly at having brandished it for use as a weapon if necessary. “I’m Carver.” This had to be Effie Norton, the teenager who did Henry Tiller’s cleaning, but he thought he’d let her tell him that.
    She did. Then she said, “Mr. Tiller told me what a great investigator you were, how you were probably better’n anyone in most police departments.”
    Maybe Desoto had oversold Henry. Carver said, “Sometimes I can help, sometimes not.”
    She grinned, crinkling the flesh around her eyes. Like a lot of redheads, she’d look old before her time, but until then she’d be a coltish charmer. “You’re being too modest.”
    He said, “Yeah, Effie, I guess I am.” He wondered how much Effie knew about Tiller’s suspicions. How much she knew about Tiller. Well, there was a direct way to find out. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “what do you think of Mr. Tiller?”
    She arched an almost nonexistent eyebrow. “In what way?”
    “Any way you feel like talking about.”
    She uncrossed her arms and let her hands dangle at her sides, standing like a schoolgirl getting ready to recite in front of the class. “He’s nice. He reminds me of my grandfather, who’s been dead three years now. When I say something, he listens. He don’t treat me like some kinda feeb just because I’m young. Hey, did you see him in the hospital?”
    “Yeah, for a short time.”
    “So