“My niece may have had one of those once,” I recalled. “Relatively inexpensive? Eighty, ninety dollars?”

“I don’t remember what I paid. But I bought it at the surf shop where she liked to hang out. Sweetwater Surf Shop on South Lumina, where Vito’s, Reddog’s, and Buddy’s Crab are. She lived near there with several other women. An old not-so-nice condo on Stone Street.”

I was writing this down.

“But it was on the water. And that’s where she wanted to be.”

“And what about jewelry? Do you remember her wearing anything unusual?”

He had to think.

“Maybe a bracelet?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Her keychain?”

He shook his head.

“What about a ring?” I then asked.

“She wore funky ones now and then. You know, silver ones that didn’t cost much.”

“What about a platinum band?”

He hesitated, knocked off balance.

“You said platinum?” he asked.

“Yes. And a fairly large size, too.”

I stared at his hands.

“In fact, it might fit you.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.

“My God,” he said. “She must have taken it. I have a simple platinum band I used to wear when Claire and I were together. She used to joke that it meant I was married to myself.”

“So she took it from your bedroom?”

“From a leather box. She must have.”

“Are you aware of anything else missing from the house?” I then asked.

“One gun from my collection is unaccounted for. ATF recovered all the rest. Of course, they’re ruined.”

He was getting more depressed.

“What kind of gun?”

“A Calico.”

“I hope that’s not out on the street somewhere,” I said with feeling.

A Calico was an especially nasty submachine gun that looked rather much like an Uzi with a large cylinder attached to the top of it. It was nine-millimeter and capable of firing as many as a hundred rounds.

“You need to report all this to the police, to ATF,” I told him.

“Some of it I already have.”

“Not some. All of it, Kenneth.”

“I understand,” he said. “And I will. But I want to know if it’s her, Dr. Scarpetta. Please understand that I don’t care about much else at the moment. I will confess to you that I have called her condo. Neither of her roommates have seen her for over a week. Last she spent the night in her place was the Friday night before the fire, the day before it, in other words. The young lady I talked to said Claire seemed distracted and depressed when they ran into each other in the kitchen. She made no mention of going out of town.”

“I see that you are quite an investigator,” I said.

“Wouldn’t you be if you were me?” he asked.

“Yes.”