The next morning, a strong northerly wind blew intermittent rain through the Bimini Harbor. High seas would make it too dangerous to cross the Gulf Stream. After two days it calmed, and I set out at first light, sailing perpendicular to the wind and making good time. As I reached the middle of the Stream, a dot appeared on the horizon. It grew slowly, eventually transforming into a cluster of skyscrapers. For the rest of the journey, Miami rose slowly from the water like the Lost City of Atlantis.

     By sunset, the Diogenes was tied up at the Matheson Hammock Marina, a yacht basin carved out of a mangrove swamp, five miles south of Dinner Key. Luckily, the customs inspector was already there for a string of big power boats. I paid the dockmaster for a couple weeks’ berthing.

     The mosquitoes and "no see-em’s" tormented my sleep. The next morning, a Wednesday, I called a cab and went into action. I would need correct answers for everything before I could show my face at the Department of Pharmacology. As I walked into ABBA Radio & Video, Joe Kazekian greeted me with mixed emotions.

     "Ben, you’d better not change your mind about those tapes, because I’ve got a whole shitload for you," he said, ushering me into his back room and pointing to several three-foot stacks. The VCR cassettes were all labelled by date and ready to go.

     "Thanks, Joe. I knew I could count on you. Have you put together a bill?"

     "Yes, but you’d better sit down before I show it to you. The tapes themselves are about seven hundred dollars."

     "Whatever you wrote up, I am sure it’s fine. We’ve known each other for a long time," I said, taking the bill from under one of the stacks. Zeekie had put down $400 for his labor, and, of course, he’d make a little off of the tapes. "This is just fine," I said, pulling out my checkbook.

     "Well, it did keep me busy, popping in and out tapes. But that stuff was pretty interesting — some of it. I had the audio playing in the shop."

     I continued writing the check, saying nothing. Zeekie fidgeted for a second and then said, "Hey, I know that murder happened at the place where you’re studying, but how do you come off spending one grand to tape the trial? I mean a guy could buy a used car for that kind of bread."

     "Well, let’s just say that the thing is more real to me than a used car. Let’s say I have a scholarly interest."

     Zeekie looked puzzled.

     "You writing a book or something?"

     "Let’s say I’ve been thinking about it."

     A knowing smile came to Zeekie’s face.

     "You better get it together fast, because this thing’s all over the TV and magazines now. But in a year everyone’s going to forget about it."

     "I agree completely," I said, handing Zeekie the check. "I hope that the bill covers everything you did for me. Now if you could just get me a box, and maybe I could get a ride."

     "Sure."

     "And could you give me a deal on a VCR?"

     "What kind are you looking for?"

     "One that will work on a sailboat and will last long enough for me to run through all this shit."

     "Sure. I’ve got just the baby for you," he said, gesturing to the end of the bench. "I call her ‘Ferina.’ Found her on a trash pile in Liberty City. Only thing wrong was that they gummed up the drive wheels and broke the belt. I put eighty dollars into her. I’ll let you have her for ninety."

     I acted like it was a big decision. It was Joe who broke the silence:

     "OK, I’ll let you have her for eighty-five dollars."

     "A deal."

     So we got in some Middle-Eastern bargaining after all.

     Joe left the shop in the hands of his assistant and drove me by the Coconut Grove Post Office where I pulled several pounds of mail from my box. Most of it was from my clipping service. There was also a letter from Dr. Taylor, postmarked the day after my departure, demanding that I contact him immediately regarding an "urgent matter."

     Setting the VCR and the four boxes of tape on the dock at the marina, Joe said, "If anyone wants to make a documentary out of this, remember me. I’ve got editing equipment."

     I loaded my booty into a dock cart and rolled it along the concrete dock to Slip C5. The tapes filled the whole wet locker and part of the V berth. Dripping sweat, I put the VCR in a plastic bag and tied it tightly. On the dinette table, I pieced together the newspaper clippings. As I assembled the journalistic jigsaw puzzle, a low-resolution picture of the trial emerged.

     The opening argument of the prosecution described Ledbetter and Cooper engaged in a war. Ledbetter was infuriated to the point where he microencapsulated the three toxins. Minutes before the faculty meeting, he added water to his preparation until it had the consistency of mayonnaise, put it into a syringe and injected it into Cooper’s hamburger.

     The prosecution described the trial run with the two dogs and linked it to the preparation that killed Cooper. After Cooper’s death, the M.E. drained all of the blood from his body. They put his blood, organs and remainder of his body in a liquid-nitrogen freezer. Later, they sampled his blood and tissues and found the same toxins that were in the vial at the med school.

     "POISON VICTIM PULLED FROM ‘DEEP SLEEP’ TO TESTIFY IN OWN MURDER CASE," proclaimed one tabloid.

     The local press carried stories every second day. There were many photographs of Ledbetter, Cooper, Cooper’s wife, and the prosecuting attorney. Early on, the trial was reported briefly in Time magazine:

     "MODERN FORENSIC MEDICINE: INGENIOUS JUSTICE OR HIGH-TECH WITCH-HUNT?"

     The coup de gras from the prosecution was the video tape of the arrest, which was described in vivid detail in the print press.

     "SCIENTIST MURDER SUSPECT CAUGHT BY UNDERCOVER POLICE WHILE REMOVING POISON COCKTAIL."

     The defense consisted of a parade of expert witnesses. They asserted that sudden death is not an infrequent occurrence. They argued the M.E.’s proof was a sham and that small amounts of toxins can be found in the body anyway. They debunked the State’s case as a harebrained theory of an eccentric coroner who had lost touch with reality. The Defense claimed Westley had seized on a chance observation from an ex-employee of his office to cook up this theory. Their experts were "cross-examined savagely" by the prosecuting attorney.

     The defense disputed the assays for toxin in Cooper’s blood. They disputed the dog evidence and argued that other people could have used an entrance badge. They said the videotaped arrest was entrapment of the most crass type: Wouldn’t a scientist working late at night be surprised when a janitor told him he was under arrest? In fact, they replayed the video tape to bolster their theory of Ledbetter’s startled reaction.

     Halfway through the defense case, the clippings described the trial as a battle of experts, with everything revolving round whether antibodies are specific enough to assay E 7532, KN 25 or O-35.

     The press had major difficulty with the technical testimony, and began calling it "a high-tech Mexican standoff between two bands of hired-gun expert witnesses." But then, in a surprise move, Ledbetter took the stand in his own defense. He testified that he worked with all sorts of toxic principles, so it should be no surprise to find some of them in his lab freezer. But under hours of "grueling cross-examination," he apparently held up badly. When the prosecuting attorney persisted in asking why he had the vial in his hands the night he was arrested, he broke into a rage, criticizing police and prosecutors of "sloppy thinking" and of using "fuzzy logic."

     The latest batch of clippings told the story of the guilty verdict of first-degree murder. Sentencing was not yet imposed. After the verdict, the press came down on Westley’s side, reporting in more depth on the three toxins and a timed-release microencapsulation. They commented that it had been clever of Dr. Westley to "break the scientific case" and find the particles, caught in the act of releasing poisons inside Cooper’s body. Westley emerged as the hero. The Miami Standard’s Sunday supplement, The Cabana, carried a four-page article and interview giving his version of how he cracked the case.

     The story mentioned me briefly as the one who’d unwittingly given Westley a crucial bit of information — that Ledbetter was working on a means of oral delivery of proteins to the blood stream. There was a small picture of me, taken from my University photo I.D. — mousey and unimpressive, ponytail showing.

     The article had an impressive picture of Westley pulling an unidentifiable cadaver from refrigerated vault. If it had been of marble and not of stainless steel, it could have been a mausoleum vault. The Cabana article had pictures of Westley standing on his balcony and in front of his Silver Shadow. They described him as a "cultivated English gentleman."

     The story was picked up by People magazine, which ran a shorter version with a more revealing photograph: A strong, determined, yet aristocratic Goeffrey Westley sitting in his Pharaoh Chair, each hand gripping the base of the jackal figures. The article told of his mummy investigation for the Egyptian government. Yes, the Old Boy could allow himself expressions of pride and accomplishment, having persevered and done a "jolly good job": A proper Englishman’s answer to the Royal scandals which had been filling the tabloids for decades.

     That evening, I called Rebecca’s apartment, hoping against hope that she would be there. But all I got was her answering machine.