Craig had asked Bonnie Taylor—and hastily included Elizabeth Carr in his invitation—to sail to Chatham with him, but both women said there was still too much mess to clean up at the lighthouse. Elizabeth, particularly, wanted to have the building spic and span before Wanda Lind­strom arrived.

Craig had no difficulty recognizing Dr. Lindstrom on the Chatham dock. Other women were in shorts and halters, tanned and informal. She was pale, and wearing an elegant tan linen dress, with her hair combed severely back over a sculptured face. She needed no rimmed glasses to appear the academic she was. Her no-nonsense, brisk air projected her total self-assurance.

After an impersonal greeting and some confusion with loading the laboratory crates, Craig headed the Jessica back to Yarkie Island. His own innate shyness matched the woman’s formal reserve. From the wheel, he watched the ramrod stiffness with which she stood holding the rail. He took her manner to discourage conversation. He felt like a schoolboy with a teacher; you didn’t speak until spoken to.

Dr. Wanda Lindstrom was a good sailor, though, he had to give her that. The boat was heading into the wind, and landlubbers could be forgiven if the spanking motion made their stomachs “bilgey,” as Cape Cod sailors put it.

Craig regarded the straight back with an open curiosity on his weather-­creased face. The wind was draping the woman’s dress closely around her body. She really was a looker, like the slim models in the magazines. Observing the biologist’s femininity, Craig realized he had been expecting someone like his old teachers on Yarkie, plain as grocery bags. There was a spice in this woman’s combination of academic frostiness and the looks of a movie star. He couldn’t put his finger on which actress she reminded him of—it was the one with the high cheekbones, straightforward eyes, and wide mouth that could show a charming smile as well as the slight frown with which Wanda Lindstrom was turning to him now.

The man could not know it, but he was accurately sensing the two aspects of the woman’s personality. She was of Polish descent on her mother’s side, which accounted for her given name and the intriguing modeling of her face. It also gave her a passionate nature hidden beneath the stern exterior, but quick to flare into either anger or love. She kept the latter well hidden under the constraints of her father’s blood. He was Swedish of the old school, class-conscious and stiff-­upper-­lip.

Whatever the combination, Craig thought, he preferred Bonnie Taylor’s sunny smile and her flowing good nature. His regret was that Bonnie was so deeply upset by Sharky’s end. He was sharply disturbed, himself. He could only hope, with the others, that Peter Hubbard and this woman scientist would come up with the answer quickly.