She was already moving toward the surf at a pace I might have found daunting if I hadn’t been faithful to my jogging routine. On the ocean, waves broke a dozen yards out, and once we reached the hard pack, the water rushed forward in an icy flurry, covering our feet with foam before sliding out again. The Pacific is cold and unforgiving. You can usually spot a few hardy souls swimming in its depths, but no one had braved it that day. Two sailboats tacked toward the islands and a speedboat, at full throttle, paralleled the shoreline, keeping a para-sailor aloft, attached by a towrope scarcely visible against the pale blue sky. Hang gliding and parasailing are second and third down on my list of the one thousand things I never want to do in life. The first is have another tetanus shot.

Deborah said, “I understand this whole business originated with Michael Sutton. What’s the nature of your relationship?”

“I wouldn’t call it a relationship,” I said. “I met him for the first time a week ago when he hired me for a day’s work.”

I sketched in the situation, starting with his appearance in my office and his story about the two pirates he’d seen in the woods. “They claimed they were digging for buried treasure, but he noticed a bundle on the ground nearby. A few weeks ago, he came across a reference to the Fitzhugh kidnapping and the penny dropped. Now he’s convinced he saw Mary Claire’s body wrapped for burial. The only snag is when the police excavated the site, they found a dead dog. According to the ID tag, his name was Ulf.”

She seemed taken aback. “Well, that’s bizarre. I can assure you he wasn’t ours.”

“I know. I drove to Puerto and talked to the man who owned him. He said he’d taken Ulf to Dr. McNally for hip dysplasia. X-rays revealed a nasty tumor instead and the vet recommended euthanasia. Someone removed the dog’s remains from a shed at the rear of the clinic and transported the body to your property, where they buried him.”

The look she turned on me was perplexed. “Pardon my skepticism, but it sounds like all of this is predicated on the notion that it was Mary Claire’s body he saw. What makes you so sure? It seems like folly to operate on the idea when all you have is his word for it.”

“Agreed. I’m not even sure we could say we had his word on it. Call it a hunch.”

“Call it anything you like, it’s still odd. If something went wrong in the course of the kidnapping and they had to dispose of her body, why would they bury her in our yard when Horton Ravine has acres of woods?”