Perceptions are filtered through the sieve of the experience of our conscious and unconscious lives. Even when a person is doing their utmost to relay the facts of a situation, it is never complete and never absolutely correct. That doesn’t make it right or wrong, it just makes it the way it is. What Joree Causey had given me was a starting point, a place to begin.

And what Joree had told me was the truth of certain matters as they appeared to her, and nothing more. Again, what I had heard was a place to start, and for that I was grateful. I had heard the first notes of a song, but there was more to come, and I needed to listen to the music for a bit. In my mind the tune was still off-key and had not yet found its rhythm, and I was not quite ready to dance.

In all that Joree had said she had never once spoken of Tonya in the last year. Where she lived, what she did, how she supported herself was never mentioned. Either Joree had no idea concerning the missing portion of her daughter’s life—that critical year prior to her death—or it was something that she just couldn’t bring herself to speak of. Maybe it was a mixture of the two, a compound of willful ignorance and reticence. Perhaps she knew a bit but found it too painful or embarrassing to think about, much less tell to a stranger.

I intended to sleep in that next morning but awoke at dawn with a restless energy kicking me out of my bunk. I put on a pot of Mexican coffee, and then, as I shaved and readied myself for the day, I played Joree Causey’s story to myself one more time. After that, I purposely put it away in a corner of my mind, where my subconscious could chew it over until I was ready to bring it to the light once again, and examine it with a new and critical eye.

Joree’s belief that her daughter was killed by an unknown someone could be correct—but it could also be the case that the girl had indeed decided to end her life by taking a plunge from the Talmadge Bridge into the all-embracing and uncaring waters of the Savannah River. Only one thing was certain at this point: Tonya Causey was dead, and she wasn’t about to become undead anytime soon.

In the galley, I opened a can of Spam, the staple food of refugees everywhere. I love the stuff. I fried a couple of pieces until it had a dark crust, and sliced some hoop cheese. Putting that delicious twosome between a couple of pieces of bread, I poured a fresh cup of coffee and went up on deck to enjoy my breakfast al fresco.