"Why would a woman who could write a check for a million dollars give her husband a cheap imitation?"

"Raymond LeBaron was no slouch when it came to style and taste. He must have recognized it for what it was. Better to ask the question, why did he stoop to wearing it?"

"So you think she put on an act and lied about the body ID?"

"My gut reaction is that she prepared herself for what to expect," Rooney replied. "And I'd go, so far as to bet my new Mercedes-Benz that genetic tracing, the dental report, and the results of the rubber casts I made from what remained of the fingerprints and sent to the FBI lab will prove she was right." He turned and peered at the corpse. "That isn't Raymond LeBaron lying there on the slab."

<<6>>

Detective Lieutenant Harry Victor, a lead investigator for the Metro Dade County Police Department, sat back in a swivel chair and studied several photographs taken inside the Prosperteer's control cabin. After several minutes, he raised a pair of rimless glasses over a forehead that slipped under a blond hairpiece and rubbed his eyes.

Victor was a tidy man, everything in its correct pigeonhole, neatly alphabetized and consecutively numbered, the only cop in the memory of the department who actually enjoyed making out reports. When most men watched sports on television on weekends or relaxed around a resort swimming pool on vacations, reading Rex Burns detective novels, Victor reviewed files on unsolved cases. A diehard, he was more fanatical about tying up loose ends than obtaining a conviction.

The Prosperteer case was unlike any he'd faced in his eighteen years on the force. Three dead men falling out of the sky in an antique blimp didn't exactly lend itself to routine police investigation. Leads were nonexistent. The three bodies in the morgue revealed no clues to where they had been hiding for a week and a half.

He lowered his glasses and was attacking the photographs again when the desk phone buzzed. He lifted the receiver and said pensively, "Yes?"

"You have a witness to see you about a statement," answered the receptionist.

"Send him on back," said Victor.

He closed the file containing the photographs and laid it on the metal desk, whose surface was antiseptic except for a small sign with his name and the telephone. He held the receiver to his ear as though receiving a call and swiveled sideways, looking across the spacious homicide office, keeping his eyes focused at an angle toward the door leading to the corridor.

A uniformed receptionist appeared at the threshold and pointed in Victor's direction. A tall man nodded, eased past her, and approached. Victor gestured to a chair opposite the desk and began muttering in a one-way conversation with the dial tone. It was an old interrogation ploy that gave him an uninterrupted minute to inspect a witness or suspect and mentally construct a profile. Most important, it was an opportunity to observe habits and odd mannerisms that could be used for leverage later.