Everett Pinder

Everett Pinder is 58 and has sold land to half the island. Born right there, the son of a master builder, he learned early that land is the one thing nobody can carry away. He began measuring lots with a rope and a stake, then opened a brokerage office and today owns miles of coastline that, he says, will be worth a fortune when the world discovers the Bahamas. He had been the magnate's partner and friend for twenty years.

He lives in a white masonry house with a wide porch and a ceiling fan, ten minutes from downtown. He spends the morning in an office of noisy fans, with rolled-up maps, a brass compass on the desk and a window onto the harbor. He greets everyone by first name, pays for the lunch of whoever is nearby and never forgets a customer's child's birthday.

He is short and stocky, with a sunburned face and red cheeks, thin gray hair combed back and a short mustache. He wears a cream linen suit, almost always rumpled, a loosened tie and a handkerchief in his jacket pocket. Friendly and talkative, he sells his own innocence the way he sells a lot: with enthusiasm, without hurry and with a handshake.

He says at 7 he knocked on his friend's door to call him to breakfast, as he always does when he sleeps over, and that the smell of burning came under the door and feathers were still flying in the fan's draft. Twenty years of friendship, he says, and it ended like this. About the housekeeper, he states that at 11:30 p.m., from the window, he saw her leave by the service gate with a bundle under her raincoat, and asks where a housekeeper goes in a thunderstorm. About the son-in-law, he notes the arms singed to the elbow and the beard.

Everett knows such an amiable man raises doubts precisely by being too amiable. It could be the candor of an old friend who truly grieves. It could be the friendliness of someone who learned to sell the conversation before anyone buys another. The detective will have to decide which.