“I didn’t want to go to the store and miss the sun so I made spaghetti sauce.”

“Did you forget the basil?”

“How could I forget the basil when I’m married to you?” For a farm girl Diana was a surprisingly nonchalant cook. Spice racks in the Midwest, until lately, had not held the bounty of those in the East and West.

“I wish they weren’t coming. I’m tired.” He flopped down on the grass and tickled her bottom up through the mesh of the chair, scenting the cocoa butter she had rubbed on herself. He worked a forefinger under the edge of her bikini. Wrong place.

“How did it go?”

“Fine. I like the idea of working for a genius. I have to go to the Upper Peninsula tomorrow for a few days.”

“Why?”

“You know I can’t say why precisely. Let’s just call it lumber.”

She wriggled off his forefinger angrily. “You’re carrying this bullshit secrecy to an absurd length.”

“It’s just part of the territory, darling. I’m sorry.” He stood there, taking out the envelope and dropping its forty C-notes on her bare moist tummy. “Got some work to do.”

After a shower and checking out Diana’s distinctly mediocre spaghetti sauce (sneaking in a few cloves of garlic), he studied the folder and plat book maps of Rabun’s timber holdings. There were two thousand irregularly shaped acres near Cape Sable in a totally unpopulated area of Luce County. The maps confused him so he called Clete. He wished he hadn’t jauntily assured Rabun that he would walk the perimeters of the property to check out any timber stealing incursions.

“Clete. Johnny here. I got to walk off two thousand acres in the U.P. and I can’t figure out the maps. I mean in a woods how do you find the boundaries?”

“Surveyor stakes.”

“Steaks?” Sunday’s porterhouses had been great.

“Surveyor’s markers. Do you have the legal description of the land?”

“Yeah. It goes on for three pages.”

“You can’t walk two thousand acres in one day. It’s eight miles and you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”

“Thanks.”

“Friends you tell. Everyone else you let get lost.”

He had been tempted to pay Clete amply out of his expense money to go along as a guide, but he sensed his first trip on the job should be solo. Sink or swim.

“If you’re such a great detective where did I hide the dough?” Diana had sneaked up behind him.

“Elementary, sugar.” He peeked behind her ears, under her hair, down the bra of the bikini, then stripped down the bottoms that covered a rather male bulge. “Eureka!”

“Be gentle with me,” she whispered with civic players intonations.