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to the door, certain that an ice-pick murder was in progress. No such tumult could be risked tonight—it would be poor form for a husband to be caught bonking a mistress less than twenty-four hours after his wife had perished.
    “Call you tomorrow,” Chaz said to Ricca.
    “Baby, I’m awful sorry about Joey.”
    “Me, too. Good-bye, Ricca.”
    “Wait. Who’s Glenn Close?”
    Chaz stopped at the hotel bar and ordered a martini. Rolvaag, the Broward detective, found him there.
    “You want a drink?” Chaz asked.
    “Let’s go for a walk,” the detective said.
    Chaz poured his drink into a go cup and followed Rolvaag outside. The sun was setting and the weather was mild and breezy, just like the night before. A wedding was taking place at the hotel, the bride posing for photographs in front of a lush bougainvillea hedge in the courtyard. She was a voluptuous young Cuban woman, maybe nineteen or twenty, and Chaz found himself devising impure fantasies about the honeymoon arrangements.
    “No luck yet,” Rolvaag said.
    “What?”
    “Finding your wife.”
    “Oh.”
    “They’ll probably knock off tomorrow,” Rolvaag said.
    “You’ve gotta be kidding! I thought they had to search for at least a week.”
    “I don’t know what the standard procedure is. You’d have to ask the Coast Guard.”
    “But they can’t give up already!” Chaz said, thinking: This is too good to be true. He had been dismayed when the search was extended to the south, knowing it would put spotter aircraft in the vicinity of his crime.
    “I’ve got a few more questions,” the detective said. “Routine stuff, but not particularly pleasant.”
    “Can’t we do this some other time?”
    “Won’t take long.”
    “Jesus Christ, then, let’s get it over with.” Chaz hoped he sounded appropriately exasperated.
    “Have you taken out any life-insurance policies on your wife?” Rolvaag asked.
    “No, sir.”
    “Did she take out any coverage on herself?”
    “At my suggestion, you mean?”
    “At anybody’s suggestion.”
    “Not that I know of,” Chaz said.
    “It’s easy enough to check, Mr. Perrone.”
    “And you will, I’m sure. By the way, it’s Dr.”
    The detective shot him the most curious look before plodding on: “Do you have a business partnership with your wife? Joint investments, trading accounts, real-estate holdings—”
    Chaz cut in: “Let me save you some time. Joey has her own dough. Lots of it.” Inwardly he congratulated himself for sticking to the present tense. “And if she dies, I don’t get a cent. The money goes into an irrevocable trust.”
    “Who’s the beneficiary?”
    “The World Wildlife Mission. Ever heard of ‘em?”
    “Nope,” Rolvaag said.
    “They go around crusading for endangered penguins and panda bears. Stuff like that.”
    “Doesn’t that bother you, Mr. Perrone?”
    “Of course not. I’m a biologist, remember? I’m all about saving wildlife.”
    “No, I meant the fact that you won’t be getting any of your wife’s money.”
    “Hey, it’s not mine,” Chaz countered mildly. “It’s a family inheritance. She can do whatever she wants with it.”
    “Not all husbands would take that attitude.”
    Chaz smiled. “Hey, if she suddenly changed her mind and decided to leave it all to me, I definitely wouldn’t rip up the check. But that’s not what she wants.”
    “Was this a source of friction between the two of you?”
    “Definitely not. She laid the whole thing out before we even got engaged. Her folks died in a plane crash and left her a bundle—what was I supposed to say? ‘Cut me in for half, would you, darling?’ “
    The detective asked how much Joey was worth. Chaz said he didn’t know precisely, which was true.
    “Would you guess several million dollars?” Rolvaag asked.
    “That’s my impression, yes. The pre-nup didn’t put an exact number on it,” Chaz said.
    He failed to add that he’d signed the pre-nuptial agreement fully anticipating it would be