“Brice’s service revolver? Christ, Sherri!” He took it from her. “That’s what you shot her with?”

“What else? You know I don’t like guns.”

He stood up and pulled her to her feet, then stuck the gun in the waistband of his jeans.

“Go on, now. I’ll deal with this. How soon do you think Brice will be back?”

“Around nine? The class he just started taking this quarter only meets at the USF campus in Tampa. Or it might be later. He won’t drive across the Howard Frankland Bridge in a storm like this. You know how he is about that bridge.”

“Right.”

Thirty minutes later, he knocked on the glass of the doors. He was soaked, and rain dripped from his nose. “Do you happen to have the keys to the handcuffs?”

Her reactions were still dulled from the shock and the whiskey. “They’re in the cigar box where he keeps the cuffs.”

“Get them, please.”

She looked over his shoulder and shuddered at the sight of the rolled-up lumpy form resting at the edge of the deck where they’d just been sitting.

When she came back with the keys he took them and knelt down beside the lifeless form.

“Here.” He handed her the handcuffs and the keys. “Get a towel and wipe them off good, then put them back in the exact same place you found them.”

“Okay.”

He handed her the revolver, and she took it, reluctantly.

“Do you know how to clean one of these?” he asked.

“Yeah. Brice showed me when he taught me how to use it.”

“Good. Clean it like he showed you, then take a towel and wipe it down completely and put it back where he always keeps it.”

“What about you? Where are you going?”

“Like I said, I’m going to take care of that.” He jerked his head in the direction of the corpse.

“Is there anything else?” he asked. “Any other sign that she was ever here? Think, Sherri. This is important.”

“I’m trying, Jimmy,” she said plaintively. “But my mind’s not right. Everything’s all mixed up. Oh, wait. She left her train case on the floor of the front seat of my car. She said it’s full of money.”

“I’ll deal with that too.”

The lights flickered back on again, revealing an upended chair, a broken glass and a wet spot on the wall-to-wall carpet.

“You need to get the place straightened up,” he said.

“I will. I’m sorry, Jimmy, that I got you mixed up in this. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay. That’s what friends are for, right?” He touched her face, and she flinched. There was a nasty gash across her nose. She had a black eye and a huge bruise on her right cheek.