Night Swimming

by Laura Moore

  Owen Rafern picked up on the mood quickly. “Something the matter, Dr. Banyon?” he asked, helping Lily off with her scuba tank.

  She unsnapped her weight belt, lowered it to the deck, and then shrugged out of her buoyancy control vest. “There were some troubling signs in this area. Some of the coral and sponges are diseased,” she said. It was all right to divulge basic information. The fact that this section of the patch reef was threatened would be public knowledge as soon as she made her report next week.

  But it was yet another reason to berate herself for her foolish tantrum with Sean at Norma Jean’s. If he had accompanied them on the dive today, he would have observed firsthand the signs of rampant disease.

  “Can you tell what’s causing the disease?”

  Lily shook her head tiredly. “No, I can’t say for certain yet.” She reached for the zipper of her wet suit and tugged it down, freeing herself from the neoprene’s constricting fit. “Let’s weigh anchor, Owen. I need to get back to shore quickly.”

  Owen nodded. “Happy to oblige, Dr. Banyon, especially as the wind’s picking up again. More rain on the way,” he predicted.

  Only then did Lily notice the heavy roll of the Tangiers beneath her bare feet. She immediately looked over at Karen, knowing her photographer’s intolerance for rough seas.

  She was right to be concerned. Karen’s face had taken on a sickly gray-green cast. Still in her wet suit, she sat slumped against the side of the pilothouse with her knees drawn up.

  “Hold on a sec, Karen, and I’ll help you out of your wet suit,” Lily offered. “Just let me stow the tanks first. John, give me a hand here. Let’s get going, Owen. Karen’s sure to feel better once we’re moving.”

  “I’m fine,” Karen said just before she vomited.

  “Really Karen, there’s no need to be embarrassed,” Lily said when at last she and John joined her by the rental cars. “You know Owen washes down the deck every day.”

  Lily and John had been making trips back and forth between the Tangiers and the marina parking lot, carting the boxes full of samples, the bags with their gear, as well as Karen’s belongings. Karen had sat guard over them, too sick to stand, let alone help. Though her stomach seemed to have quieted, she remained the portrait of despondency, wretched and green.

  What else could go wrong this afternoon? Lily wondered tiredly. The reef was sick, Karen was sick, it was about to start raining, and there remained a ton of work to do before she could go find Sean.

  “All right, let’s figure out how to do this,” she said, thinking aloud. “Two things require immediate attention—Karen and the samples. Karen, you need to go back to the apartment and lie down. I’ll drop you off and meet John at the lab.”

  “I can’t go back to the condo yet,” she protested weakly. “I’ve got to FedEx my film to Duggal—”

  “What, and puke all over the FedEx counter, too?” John interrupted. “They’ll really love that.” He gave an aggrieved sigh. “You take Karen to the condo, Lily. I’ll drop the film off at the FedEx. Then we’ll deal with the samples.”

  Karen turned huge, glazed eyes on John. “You’d do that for me, John?”

  He shook his head. “Christ, it’s not like you need an advanced degree to FedEx a bunch of film. After all, you manage to do it. Write down the address, Masur. I’ll get the friggin’ film rolls shipped.”

  “Remember to insure them, too, okay?” Karen said.

  Lily passed her the camera bag, which Karen pulled onto her lap. One after the other, she took out her cameras and rewound the film inside them. Opening the backs of the cameras, she removed the rolls of film and inserted them into protective metal canisters. She stood weaving as she placed the silver canisters in John’s open hand. “Thanks a million, John.”

  Lily fished a pen out of her bag, and in block letters wrote the photo lab’s New York address as Karen dictated. She handed the slip to John. “John, you’re really saving the day here. Thank you. You can meet me at the lab when you’re done at the FedEx.” She bent over to pick up one of the boxes containing the core samples.

  “Why don’t I take the samples in my car?” John suggested. “The FedEx won’t take long. I can start the labeling as soon as I get to the lab.” With a sheepish grin, he added, “I was kind of hoping you could stop at the deli on your way to the lab and pick me up a couple of roast beef sandwiches and a Coke. Seems like we ate those burgers a hell of a long time ago.”

  Lily gave John a warm smile. “It’s a deal. I’ll be over as quick as I can.”

  John got into the rental car with the samples and the film and a smile on his face. He started the motor and eased out of the parking lot just in case Lily and Karen were watching. His hand reached into his sweatshirt pocket to pull out his cell phone.

  Ferrucci answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

  “Pete, this is—”

  “Yeah, I know. Hold on a sec.” There was a pause, and John knew he was checking that no one overheard the conversation. Ferrucci came on the line again. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve got something to show you in the trunk of my car. Something real valuable. I think we should talk about it. I’m heading toward town now.”

  “Stop at the Amoco for gas. Then wait for me.”

  Lily’s tires squealed as she turned into a parking space in front of town hall. Thankfully rush hour was waning, so the traffic had been lighter. She’d raced here from the laboratory where she and John had labeled and packed all the core, water, and algal samples into special shipping crates, compelled by her pressing need to see Sean, to make things right between them.

  The sky had deepened to a dull, dark gray as she ran up the wide marble steps in front of the town hall. Entering the high-ceilinged hall, she came to an abrupt halt. She had no idea where Sean’s office was. Her sneakers squeaked slightly as she walked down the long empty hall, checking nameplates as she passed. Then, at the far end of the hallway, a door opened, and a bright pink head appeared.

  Lily smiled in relief.

  “Ms. Roemer,” she called, her voice raised slightly to catch the secretary’s attention.

  Evelyn Roemer glanced up from the papers she was reading. Her eyes widened as they took in Lily’s grubby field attire, topped by hair dried in short, salty, punklike spikes. “Dr. Banyon! May I help you?”

  “Yes, I was looking for Sean.”

  Evelyn Roemer looked even more surprised. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve just missed him. He left for the airport to catch a flight to Tallahassee. The governor called him this morning. Sean had planned to take the first flight tomorrow, but then he changed his mind.” With a puzzled frown, she added, “I’m surprised he didn’t mention anything about it when he saw you earlier.”

  Disappointment rocked Lily. “No, I’m afraid he didn’t get a chance.” She hadn’t given him one.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Lily rang Simone at dawn the next morning. “Simone? It’s me.”

  “Lily. Hi.”

  “I didn’t wake you up?”

  “No,” Simone reassured her. “I’ve even had my morning coffee.”

  “How are things? How’s George?”

  “Fine and great. He’s in the shower, has to catch the shuttle to New York. There’s a fund-raiser this weekend. Want to talk to him?”

  “No, that’s okay. Tell him best of luck, though.”

  “Will do. How’s everything down in Coral Beach? You finished the dives yet?”

  Where to begin? Lily asked herself. So much had happened since her last update—and all of it lousy. “Well, first of all, I finally received Lesnesky’s report—if that’s what you want to call it. I’m still wading through it. Simone, this guy has the sloppiest methodology I’ve ever seen. As far as I can tell, he never looked at a single tide chart or consulted any data on the outflow from the Intracostal Waterway.”

  “Maybe since the reef overall is in such good condition—”

  “That’s just it,” Lily in
terrupted. “There’s a hot spot.”

  “What?”

  Lily began circling the living room as she talked. “Yeah, you heard me right. If I had to give a rough estimate, I’d say over sixty percent of the species in the last transect we looked at are affected. John and I finished labeling and packing all the samples yesterday. Simone, I’m going to need these last transect samples analyzed immediately and the results faxed to me. I’ve sent you an e-mail with all the transect numbers. A few earlier sites had significantly decreased visibility. Now that I know about the hot spot, I wonder if the problem hasn’t begun to spread.”

  “If the shipment arrives by this afternoon, I can get the results to you by Monday.”

  Lily calculated quickly. “That’ll work. I’m supposed to give my report to the committee next Thursday. If I’m going to be bearing bad news, I better have the data to back me up. Especially since this is the first they’ll have heard of the hot spot.”

  “Karen photographed the area completely?”

  “Yes. The rolls of film are on their way to Duggal.”

  “What’s your hypothesis, Lily?”

  Lily stopped her pacing to stare through the window at the sea below. “I’ve got to assume it’s a local impact which is affecting the coral. The hot spot’s located in the southern extremity of zone one, closest to the inlet,” she explained. “This morning I’m going to download water patterns for the area. It’s possible the outflow from the Intracoastal Waterway could be drifting right to the spot and dumping a ton of crap.”

  “Check the tide charts for the area, too,” Simone suggested.

  “Okay.” Lily gnawed absently at the tip of her thumb. Then voicing her frustration, she added, “What really stumps me, Simone, is why Lesnesky didn’t notice any earlier signs of the disease.”

  “Yeah, for an area that large, there should have been some early indicators long before this. Well, the reef samples will give us some answers.”

  “Answers I’m not sure many people on this reef committee want to hear,” Lily said worriedly.

  “As long as they don’t shoot the messenger delivering the bad news.”

  Lily gave a weak laugh. “Maybe I’ll ask Sean to have them do a security check at the door.”

  “Sean? Who’s Sean?”

  Her cheeks grew warm. “Sean McDermott, mayor of Coral Beach, chairman of the reef committee. I’ve known him all my life.”

  “This the first good news I’ve heard yet,” Simone said. “You’ll need a friend in your corner if this thing gets dicey.”

  Lily was uncertain if her relationship with Sean could be classified as a “friendship”—but she didn’t correct her boss.

  “So, there’s a Sean, ” Simone mused. “Is he single?”

  Lily rolled her eyes. Simone loved playing match-maker. “Yes.”

  “And cute?”

  God, no. Sean was gorgeous, mouth-wateringly handsome, but definitely not cute.

  Her silence had Simone laughing. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ ” Abruptly switching topics, she asked, “How are Karen and John doing?”

  “Karen is sleeping off a nasty case of seasickness. Once we got back onboard after the final dive yesterday, she was so sick she could barely stand. But John really came through. He was terrific. Sent off Karen’s film for her, and then helped with all the labeling—we had a lot of extra samples because of the hot spot.”

  “I’m pleased—and relieved—to hear that about John. He hasn’t always demonstrated the best work ethic. . . .”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean, but he seems to be coming around.”

  “Great. Let Karen sleep the whole day if she wants. I’m worried about you, too, sweetie. You sound totally stressed. Listen, after you check the tide charts and read over Lesnesky’s report, I want the three of you to take a little R-and-R. You’ve been working really hard, and I won’t have any concrete information until Monday. Just forget about the study over the weekend, ’kay? Maybe you and this Sean can go out. . . .”

  “I’m worried our plan has backfired horribly, May Ellen. Dana said that Kaye and Lily were eating dinner at Marco’s and—”

  “I know,” May Ellen replied. In her agitation she stirred her ice tea vigorously, making the spoon clink loudly against the glass. “Kaye told me about it, too.”

  May Ellen Farrady and Anne Prentiss were at their tennis club. Though neither woman played anymore and they both abhorred golf, they needed a place where they could talk without their daughters dropping by unexpectedly.

  Anne took a sip of her decaffeinated iced coffee, dabbed her lip with a napkin, and said, “I am so mad at that governor for calling yesterday! What does he need a task force for? And what will we do if Sean doesn’t make it back in time for your party? I watched Ryan Jeffries this morning. There’s another weather system brewing—”

  May Ellen’s eyes widened in alarm. “No, Anne,” she said, shaking her head. “We just won’t go down that road. But you’re right. Everything does seem to be falling apart—Lily hasn’t been by since she rehung all those pictures for me. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, Anne . . . and so terribly confusing, too. I hardly know where I am when I walk into a room!”

  “You could call her up and tell her she needs to move them all back, that you’re feeling very disoriented.” Anne suggested, her lips quivering.

  “Anne!”

  “Just a thought.”

  “Humph!” May Ellen pronounced. “Why don’t we have you be disoriented?”

  Anne smiled sunnily. “No one would believe it.”

  “Anne,” May Ellen said warningly.

  “All right, no disorientation for either of us. But we do need to get serious. So has Kaye started to patch things up with Lily?”

  “Yes. She seemed very happy after their dinner. Said they had a ‘really good talk.’ ”

  “That’s lovely. And concrete progress, isn’t it, dear? Did you mention to Kaye that you wanted to buy Lily a dress for the party?”

  “Yes, but I don’t believe Kaye got very far with that one.”

  Anne thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Call Lily, May. And get her to that dress shop!”

  Beside Lily’s laptop a small mountain of data had formed. The pile consisted of every chart and report Lily had been able to get her hands on. She had maps detailing the tide and current patterns around Coral Beach. She had engineering reports for the Intracoastal Waterway, to check if any recent construction might have altered the ICW’s outflow. If there had been any recent dredging or building, it was possible that the changes to the flow patterns had allowed harmful pollutants or bacteria to be carried to the southern section of zone one.

  Still dissatisfied, Lily had continued with her marine detective work. After downloading the charts and reports, she had packed up her scuba gear and driven over to the marina. Donning her wet suit and tanks, she’d dived amidst the moored boats and flotsam, taking additional water samples, then plunging her test tubes into the murky bottom of the marina. She’d even scraped algae off the submerged piers. Lily had then packed up the samples from the marina and shipped them to the Marine Center. With luck, she’d get the results back within a day or two of the samples she and John had taken from the reef itself.

  She was confident that once all the sample analyses were in front of her, it would be a matter of comparing the compositional breakdown of the locations and seeing whether she could find a common culprit.

  But now that she’d accomplished all the data gathering, there was really nothing more she could do. Unfortunately, Lily had never been good at “hang time,” as John called it.

  He, however, had leaped at the chance to take the weekend off.

  “That’s great. I have this, uh, ‘friend’ whose friends own a boat. They were talking about cruising down to Miami, spending the weekend there.” He scratched his unshaven chin. “I’m pretty sure they said they’re leaving this morning.”

  With a smile, Lily said, “Go no
w if you want, John. Of the three of us, you definitely deserve time off, especially after yesterday’s marathon session. Have fun.”

  “Oh, yeah, I will. This one-horse town is getting lame.”

  Karen, who was still sleeping off the effects of her seasickness, made an appearance a short while later.

  When she wandered into the living room, Lily was once again at her computer, mapping the southern transects’ coral species. Closing the program, Lily told Karen about her telephone conversation with Simone and John’s decision to cruise down to Miami.

  “Sounds like fun,” Karen said with a sleepy smile. “I think I’ll hang here, though. Dave mentioned that he wanted to do something this weekend. It’s too bad John’s gone. He might have joined us. He’s really okay once you give him a chance. So what are you going to do, Lily?”

  Think about Sean and how much I miss him, her inner voice replied. She didn’t even know when he was due to return from Tallahassee. She’d been so disappointed by the news that he’d left that she’d forgotten to ask Evelyn Roemer. Would he call her when he did return?

  Other than moon over Sean’s absence, Lily had no definite plans. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t manufacture a decent excuse when her grandmother phoned a few minutes later, to remind Lily that Kaye wanted to take her shopping for a dress for the party.

  “Granny, that’s really nice of you, but I have plenty of clothes already—”

  “Lily, this party is my chance to show you off to my friends, and I want to treat you to something. Please say yes, and make an old woman happy.”

  “I . . .” Lily sighed. “Yes, I’m free today.”

  “Good. Kaye has such lovely taste, she’ll find just the thing. By the way, Lily, I noticed your hair was looking a little dry and lifeless. No point dressing up if your hair’s a disaster. I’m going to make you an appointment at the spa.”