The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel - Plot & Excerpts
Jeth Nicholes's boat was not among them. He wrote: "T = tide; W -= wind; R = resistance; L = lag; U = unknowns. TW, - TW2 + - 2[L]+-U x R = X." He puzzled over the formula for several minutes, then carefully erased it, as unsure that resistance factors could be computed as he was certain there were too many unknowns. He knew that drowning victims sink for a period of time, which varied with water temperature and salinity, but certainly the victim's own body composition must play a role. But did people sink who entered the water already dead? Probably. If so, though, the tidal current near the bottom would be different from the surface current, and the body mass would change as body gases contracted at depth, and then expanded with decomposition. And in South Florida, in June heat, decomposition would begin the moment a man's last breath was taken. It was a complicated problem; gruesome, too, though that did not bother Ford. But the fact that the problem was composed of factors that could not be calculated did.
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