“I don’t think there’s anything I can help you with there, Kennesaw. My advice is to quit, but you’ve already shrugged that off. I just want you to be careful up there in Effingham. People—outsiders—can disappear if they rub someone the wrong way; it’s happened before. And remember—everybody hides something, all the time—it’s the nature of the human animal. Now, you said you had a couple of things on your mind; what was the other one?”

“I may need to move my boat, Bob—for a little while at least. To somewhere out of the way and out of sight, but not too far from town.”

A huge grin came on Bob’s face. “Amigo, I got just the place for you. Did I ever tell you about my old fishing camp out on Dutch Island?”

“Bob, there are no fish camps on Dutch Island, just millionaire mansions,” I replied with a surprised voice.

“Millionaire mansions, yes—and one old shotgun shack,” he replied with glee. “It was my daddy’s place. He bought it before the war. We used to go camping out there when I was a boy. Once I was grown I realized it was Daddy’s hideout when he and Mama would get in a tiff. Over the years we built a cabin and a dock on the property. Now, it’s the last undeveloped lot left on the island. I check on it every week or so and think of how much those two acres of deep-water frontage will be worth when I’m gone. It’s my insurance policy for Fran.”

Without doubt, I thought, there was a veritable phalanx of real estate agents and developers salivating, this very day, over the prospect of getting their hands on that piece of dirt. And I knew enough about Bob’s nature to realize what a perverse joy he would take in turning them down.

“The cabin has electricity and running water. It’s set up like a bunkhouse and has all the comforts of home,” he explained. “The dock is in a deep cut in the bluff, and there’s ten feet of water there, even at the lowest ebb tide—so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your boat in there.

“But the channel coming up the river, and then the creek, can get pretty tricky. It shifts with every season and every spring tide. But Danny Ray knows the way in. Get him to pilot you up, and you’ll have no trouble.”

“Bob, I didn’t mean for you to—” I began, but he interrupted me with the wave of a hand.