She nodded and tabbed down through the incident reports for the past week. “I’m not seeing any vagrancy reports for white males,” she said, and then laughed. “Oh, here’s something you’ll love. You know Driscoll? The new recruit? He caught Sweaty Betty sleeping on one of the benches at Sunset Vista Park Friday morning.”

“Bet I know where this is going,” Joe said. Elizabeth Schockle, whose street name was Sweaty Betty, was a mostly harmless, if smelly alcoholic who drifted in and out of local homeless shelters. He himself had transported her, more than once, to the emergency room after she’d been found unconscious behind a convenience store or on the beach.

“Driscoll, being Driscoll, woke her up to tell her to move along, and of course she cussed him out, so he slapped cuffs on her and put her in his cruiser to take her to lockup.”

Joe raised one eyebrow. “And?”

“Betty, being Betty, took a dump and pissed all over the back seat of his unit,” Fina said, chuckling. “He had to spend half the morning hosing it down and disinfecting it.”

“No fun,” Joe commented. “Hey, are there any new hobo camps around the beaches where I might look for my guy?”

“Not since the local chamber started pressuring us to close down the camps,” Fina said. “Homelessness is bad for tourism, in case you haven’t heard. It’s mostly a case of solo guys sleeping on a park bench or in the bushes a night here or there, and then moving along. You want me to check if your guy’s been arrested? What’s his name?”

“Might as well,” Joe said. “Declan Rooney.”

“Really?” Suarez looked startled. “I remember his name coming up in that gold-and-jewelry-buying scam at the Surf a few years ago. You’re still looking for him?”

“I am, only this time we think he’s moved up to bigger and better crimes. He’s been linked to a homicide down in Immokalee. He was spotted at Publix yesterday, and again today.”

“I can put out a BOLO on him if you want,” Suarez offered.

“Yeah, do that,” Joe said. “And put my phone number as the contact. Thanks, Fina.”

From the police station, he cruised north on Gulf Boulevard. Tourist season was still in full swing, with cars bearing license tags from as far north as Canada and as far west as Missouri. Every few blocks he slowed or stopped to allow beachgoers to cross the road from motels on the east side of the road toward the beaches on the west.

This was not the Gulf Boulevard of his youth, when, as recently as the eighties, modest family-owned motels and restaurants lined the north-south beach road. Now, the Murmuring Surf was a distinct minority among the flashy condominium and time-share towers and chain hotel resorts.