Rescue

mobile homes, kind of welded together without the tall back walls. Howard can give you the details, if you’re interested.“
    From the hallway past the kitchen, his voice said, “These should fit you. They’re extra large.“
    Smiling, I took the long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants from him. “You just happened to have my size lying around?“
    He said, “I used to be heavier,“ and showed me where the bathroom was, laying out a towel for me.

    “Feeling better?“
    Howard had a drink in his hand, whiskey or scotch from the color of it around the cubes.
    I said, “Much better. Just a ‘thanks’ isn’t really enough, but I mean it.“
    “Drink?“
    “Vodka, if you have any.“
    “We do. Mixer?“
    “Tonight just on the rocks, I think.“
    As Howard moved to a cabinet in the dining area, Doris called out from the kitchen. “You’ll have some dessert with us?“
    “Dessert?“ The clock on the wall read 12:40 a.m.
    “Of course dessert. When we go night fishing, we have dinner first, but then reward ourselves with dessert afterwards, even if most people wouldn’t think sweets’d go too well with booze. Sit at the table.“ She came through the doorway with a tray of what looked like Italian pastries as Howard handed me the vodka-rocks in an old-fashioned glass. “Sit, sit.“
    The table was an ellipse that fit the dining area perfectly. On the server behind Howard at one end of the table were tasteful knickknacks, including painted decoys of the red-beaked ducks I’d seen. “What are those?“
    “Common gallinules,“ said Doris . “Antique wood, but you can buy hollow plastic ones now so lifelike, you’d swear the real thing was sitting on your lawn.“
    Above the decoys hung a beautiful painting of large pink birds in flight. I waved my glass at it. “And those. Not flamingos, are they?“
    Doris said, “Uh-unh. Roseate spoonbills. When we first got down here, you’d see them every trip into the back country. Now?“ A hopeless shrug. “Howard got the painting for me at this wonderful man’s gallery. The artist displays right by his studio. The painting was too expensive, but it was a special occasion, right, Howard?“
    A warm smile from him, but for her, not my, benefit. “Yes, sweetheart.“
    Doris asked me for my choice, the pastries already cut in halves so I could taste more than one. I took separate pieces of two cakes.
    She waited for me to nod my approval of the flavors. “So, how come you were out there in the bay and Colonel Greenspan here had to go in like George Patton?“
    “Sweetheart, Patton drove tanks, not boats.“
    “So George Custer then, and don’t tell me he rode horses, We both know that already.“
    It seemed an odd thing for her to say, but she came back to me and said, “So?“
    The cake was good, not to mention the first food I’d had since breakfast at Whit Tidyman’s house, but I put down my fork and picked up my drink. “I’m not sure how much of this you should be hearing.“
    In the command voice, Howard said, “Why don’t you tell us everything, and then like good old folks, we can forget the bad parts.“
    I stopped, then nodded. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to insult you after the way you came to the rescue like the cavalry.“
    I thought Doris winced at the word ‘cavalry,’ which seemed even odder to me after the Custer remark. “I’m a private investigator from Boston. I came down here looking for a little boy with a birthmark.“
    Doris said, “Birthmark?“
    “Yes. A strawberry one on his face.“
    “Oh, the port wine stain, like Gorbachev.“
    I looked at her. “Yes, only more noticeable.“
    She said, “My sister in New York, she was a nurse at this hospital there. They can pretty much cure that, now.“
    “Cure it?“
    “Yes. Some kind of laser, I think.“
    Howard said, “Sweetheart?“
    “Yes?“
    “Let the man tell us his story.“
    “Oh, right. Sorry, John.“
    “That’s okay. Like I said, I was looking for this boy. I thought he’d been taken, kind of kidnapped into a radical religious group.“
    Howard said, “Back at the marina a few days ago, you asked me about Little Mercy Key—the Church of the Lord Vigilant?“
    “That’s the one.“
    Doris said, “That’s the one what?“
    I told them about what had happened to Dawna Adair, then about what I’d seen that day in the bunk room and, briefly, what I thought had happened in the courtyard.
    Doris’s hand went to her mouth and stayed there until I was