“Now I fly to New York five, six times a year for the Met and get season tickets to the Lyric … It gives me a queer feeling to talk about Cantonville with someone. My wife was the only person who knew about it—except Niels, of course. And neither of them ever mentioned it. It makes me feel almost guilty when I bring it up now.”

Around ten-thirty, two of the crew members came in with a cot and some blankets. They set the narrow bed up under the portholes in the starboard wall, bracing it to the side so it wouldn’t slide around with the rocking of the ship.

After they left, Bledsoe stood fiddling the change in his pockets with the awkwardness of a man who wants to make a pass but isn’t sure how it will be received. I didn’t try to help him out. I liked the way he kissed. But I’m not the kind of detective who hops nonchalantly from bed to bed: if someone’s been trying to kill me, it cools my enthusiasm. And I still didn’t have total trust in Bledsoe’s purity.

“Time for me to turn in,” I said briskly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He hesitated for a few seconds longer, scanning my face for encouragement, then turned and went upstairs to the stateroom. I put the Smith & Wesson under the little pillow and climbed under the blankets in my jeans and shirt. Despite the noise of the engines and the lurching of the ship, I went to sleep almost immediately and slept soundly through the night.

The cooks woke me the next morning before six as they started clattering around in the galley next to the captain’s dining room. I tried pulling the bedding up over my ears but the disturbance was too persistent. Finally I got up and stumbled up to the next floor where the bathroom was. I changed my underwear and shirt and brushed my teeth.

It was too early for me to feel like eating, even though breakfast was ready, so I went out on deck to look at the day. The sun had just come up, a ball of liquid orange low in the eastern sky. A purple shoreline lay a mile or so to our left. We were going past some more of the small clumps of islands which had dotted the channel as we left Thunder Bay.