“George isn’t in New Orleans. After the trial, he said he was moving far away. He wanted to forget everything, change careers even, anything that could fill his mind with something else. He...he hasn’t stayed in touch. He needed a new life.” She hesitated. “I know he lived just about a block away from the house where the people were murdered in Orlando. And he was on the boat when my parents were killed. But George isn’t a killer. I knew him well.”

He nodded. “Well, you might prove to be right. One way or another, I sincerely believe we need to rehash everything. Something has to give this guy away.”

She nodded.

But Dan didn’t leave. After a moment, he said, “I have a question. I still don’t understand how George knew nothing at all about what happened when, as you said, he was on the boat.”

Katie sighed. “Yes, he was on the boat. He knew another boat was approaching, but Anita was coming up on the dive platform, and the other boat was sidling along on the forward port side. I’m sure you read his testimony.” She paused. “According to George, Anita came up worried because the two of us had become separated. My father was a stickler for diving dos and don’ts, such as you always dive with a partner. So George was talking to Anita, trying to calm her down, assure her I did know what I was doing. Next thing he knows, he gets a blow to the head. He was still looking at his wife, in midsentence. Then nothing. He woke up on the beach with vague memories of realizing he was in the water and had to survive somehow. How he got there, I don’t know. Luckily, somehow, maybe he grabbed onto a piece of flotsam, and it brought him in to Annie’s Beach. He’s a great swimmer and diver—or he was. He’s like me now. He hasn’t been in the water since. Anyway, he made it to Annie’s Beach. That’s where he was found. He was airlifted to the hospital on the mainland. His doctors can tell you that he sustained a serious blow to the head.” She paused again, staring at him hard. “You know all this. You have every report on what happened. You have his statement. I don’t understand what it is you don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand a blow to the head,” he said. “There were six people on the boat. Your parents, George and Anita, and the mysterious Dr. Browne and Jennie Whoever. Browne and Jennie, disappeared. Your parents and Anita, dead. And George, alive, survived an axe murderer and the open ocean all the way to the beach while only semiconscious?”

“Think what you want. This is going to make you think again,” she said.