The Missing Manatee

by Cynthia DeFelice

  The waitress came over then and asked if we were ready for seconds.

  “Goodness, no!” said Mom.

  “It’s all you can eat,” the waitress explained patiently.

  “Well, I know,” said Mom. “But that’s all I can eat.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “I’m stuffed.”

  “I’ll pop right out of these jeans if I have one little bitty mouthful more,” declared Memaw.

  The waitress shook her head, looking real perplexed. Apparently this didn’t happen very often. “You sure now?” she asked anxiously. “How about dessert? We got key lime pie, pecan pie, black-bottom pie, cheese cake—”

  “Lord have mercy!” Memaw groaned, holding her stomach. “Stop!”

  “Just the check, I think, please,” said Mom.

  As we walked out to the parking lot to get into the car, a black pickup pulled in and squealed to a stop. The truck had big tires that raised it way up off the ground, and it was black with red and yellow flames painted on the sides. There was a sign in the rear window saying THIS TRUCK PROTECTED BY SMITH & WESSON, and a rifle hung in a gun rack behind the front seat.

  The driver got out. His hair was pulled back in a long, blond ponytail. He was big and strong-looking, and his tight sleeveless T-shirt showed every one of the muscles, bulgy veins, and tattoos that lined his arms. I couldn’t help staring and thinking, Now, this guy looks like a manatee killer, if I ever saw one. He had “bad guy” written all over him.

  He took off his mirrored sunglasses and stared right back at me as we passed each other. I turned away to see Memaw glaring at the guy with a squint-eyed, just-what-do-you-think-you’re-looking-at expression.

  Mom said nervously, “Come on, you two.”

  In the car, Memaw said, “You don’t know him, do you, Skeeter?”

  I shook my head. But he had looked oddly familiar. It took me a minute to realize he looked a little like the manatee killer from my dream the night before. My dream killer had also been one of those tattooed guys who go around acting tough all the time. But looking or acting like a macho dude didn’t make a person a manatee killer, at least not in real life. I had to think more scientifically than that.

  I remembered something I’d seen on a cop show on TV. When it came to solving a crime, the police used a formula called MOM. It stood for Means, Opportunity, and Motive. The criminal had to have all three.

  Did Macho Man have the means to be the killer? Obviously: Smith & Wesson.

  Did he have the opportunity? Anybody could rent a boat; people around here did it every day.

  That left motive. Which was where I—and everyone else—got stumped. Why in the world would anyone want to shoot a manatee?

  Six

  When I pulled into Larry’s parking lot on my bike, Blink was throwing a ball for Blinky. This was another activity Blink never seemed to tire of. He always had a tennis ball in his pocket, along with our flipping quarter, and he and Blinky played throw and fetch for hours every day.

  “Hey, Skeet!” Blink called. He was already reaching into his pocket, an expression of eager anticipation on his face. “Wanna flip?”

  “Sure,” I answered. I took the quarter from his outstretched hand and we began the game. Blinky stood by with the ball in his mouth, waiting, his crooked tail wagging patiently.

  We finished, and Blink put the quarter away. “I’ll save it for another day, Skeet.”

  “That’s right, Blink. Save it for another day. Well, I guess I’ll go see if Larry needs any bait.”

  “Okay, Skeet. See ya, Skeet.”

  “Bye, Blink.”

  I started to walk away, but Blink called, “You’re going fishing with Dirty Dan. Dirty Dan said you’re going fishing with him, Skeet.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to try for a tarpon on a fly rod.”

  “You’re a lucky duck, Skeet.” He grinned.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Lucky duck,” he repeated. “Lucky duck.”

  “I sure am,” I said.

  “Lucky duck,” Blink said again.

  “Yep.”

  Blink saying I was lucky was starting to make me feel bad. Dan took Blink—and, of course, Blinky—bait fishing for reds and snappers all the time. But Dan never took Blink fly-fishing for tarpon and, I suddenly realized, he probably never would. Tarpon fishing was too complicated and difficult. Blink could never learn how to do it. Heck, I wasn’t sure I’d ever learn.

  Did Blink wish he was the one going? Or was lucky duck one of those phrases he latched on to and liked to repeat? It wasn’t easy to figure out what was going on in Blink’s head.

  For instance, he was real smart about some things. He could name every baseball player on every team, and he could remember all their stats once he heard them. But about a year ago Dan put him in the bathtub with the water running, and didn’t think to tell Blink to turn the water off when the tub got full. When the camper began to flood, Dan ran into the bathroom to find Blink sitting happily in the overflowing tub, playing with some plastic ships.

  I shook my head and went inside the shop to ask Larry if he’d pay me to catch some bait for his tanks. He said he reckoned he could sell some live pinfish if I could get them. He gave me a few pieces of fish scraps, and I headed out in my skiff.

  After an hour and a half, I’d filled the minnow bucket with a couple dozen pinfish, and I took them back to the marina quick, before any of them died. Larry counted them, dumped them in the bait tank, and gave me three dollars. That brought my total savings up to thirty-seven dollars. The radio antenna I wanted cost $44.95, so I was getting close.

  It was only a little after three o’clock, so I decided to go back out, maybe do a little fishing. The tourist boats tended to stay close to the marina area, where the restaurants and bars were, so I headed downriver, hoping to find a group of snappers I’d have to myself. The water was quiet, though, and I didn’t see any signs of fish feeding on the surface. I kept going, and soon I was close to the place where I’d found the manatee. I didn’t know why I was doing it really, but I pulled the skiff up to the island to look around.

  Some gulls took off, screeching their disapproval at my invasion of their turf. Nothing else moved, except for the river, and the clouds, and the mangrove leaves waving in the wind. The marks Earl and I had seen in the mud the day before had been washed away by the tide. There was nothing to show that anything at all unusual had happened there.

  What did I expect to see anyway? The tattooed guy from Fat Boy’s parking lot, returning to the scene of the crime? I laughed at the idea.

  My eye caught on some trash that had gotten stuck in the saw grass growing near the high-tide line. All kinds of stuff ended up in the river, and it tended to get bunched up by the movement of the wind and tide. There was an empty gallon milk jug, a Dr Pepper can, a tennis ball, a motor oil bottle, a kid’s bright pink flip-flop, a sandwich bag, and a tangle of fishing line.

  Junk like that was a fairly common sight, and I hadn’t paid any attention to it the day before. Now, for some reason, looking at it made me think of what we were doing in art class in school. Mrs. Rathbun had been talking about still-life painting. She’d told us that when we came back from spring break, we were each supposed to bring in a collection of objects. It wasn’t really homework, which was why I hadn’t mentioned it to Mom. In class, we were going to arrange our objects and draw or paint them.

  I figured this was an interesting assortment of things, so I maneuvered the boat to where I could grab them and put them in the minnow bucket. A lot of the stuff was plastic, I realized, but there were plenty of different textures and colors. I was pretty happy with my haul. I even had a title for my picture: Study in Trash by Skeet Waters.

  On the way home, I stopped at the sheriff’s office to check in with Earl.

  “Deputy Wells is out on a call,” said the woman at the desk. “May I take a message?”

  “No,” I said. “No message.”

  As I biked home,
I told myself the afternoon wasn’t a total waste. I’d made three dollars and picked up some real artistic garbage.

  Seven

  I didn’t want to wish my vacation away, but I could hardly wait to go fishing with Dan. I hung out with Lenny at his house on Monday. He wanted to know what I’d been doing in the sheriff’s boat, and I told him about the manatee.

  “Cool!” he said. “You’re in on an official police investigation.”

  I explained that I was the only one doing any investigating. “You want to help me look for the body?” I asked.

  Lenny nodded eagerly, then frowned. “I forgot for a second. We’re leaving tomorrow for Tampa to visit my grandparents. I’ll be gone the rest of the vacation.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed.

  “Mom made me do my English assignment.”

  “What did you write about?” I asked.

  Lenny grinned. “How my pet peeve is writing papers over vacation.”

  “You did it!” I said. “Let me see.”

  When I’d finished reading, I told him, “It’s good. Funny.” I made a face and added, “And very passionate.”

  “Well, I sure hope Mr. G. agrees with you,” he said.

  With Lenny gone, I spent most of the next day practicing my fly casting in the side yard and waiting to go to Mac’s house that night. The time went by really slowly.

  Mom didn’t get home from work until six-thirty, so dinner was late. I gulped mine down in a few minutes, but it took Mom and Memaw forever to eat. I felt like saying, Stop talking and chew faster! I knew better than to ask to be excused early, though. It was my night to do dishes.

  Finally, I put my rod in the holder Mac had rigged up on the back of my bike, and fastened my tackle box onto the rack with a bungee cord. When I pulled into Mac’s driveway, Dan’s and Earl’s trucks were both already there. I went inside, and they all greeted me from the card table, where they were in the middle of a hand.

  “Grab yourself a drink from the fridge,” Mac offered.

  “Give me a minute to take some more money from these fellas, Skeet,” said Dan. “Then you and I’ll get down to business.”

  I pulled a chair over to the table to watch. Eager as I was to talk tarpon with Dirty Dan, I always enjoyed sitting in on Mac’s poker games. I liked to look at everybody’s hands, and listen to them bluff and bet.

  As usual, Mac and Earl were drinking beer and munching on chips and peanuts. Dan never ate anything, as far as I could tell, and he never drank anything but Jack Daniel’s whiskey. He called it his “butterfly milk.”

  “Look at this, Skeet,” said Mac, holding his cards so I could see them. He had five hearts, a Jack-high flush. It was a pretty good hand, but I knew better than to say so.

  “Mmmm,” I said.

  Mac laughed and said proudly, “That’s the way, Skeet.” To the other guys he said, “Did you ever see such a poker face? I tell you, when this kid takes up the game, he’s gonna beat the pants off all of us.”

  I tried to keep my poker face, but I couldn’t help grinning.

  Mac’s was a good hand but, as it turned out, not good enough to beat Dirty Dan’s full house.

  “Time for me to quit and give you boys a fighting chance,” said Dan, raking in the pot and pocketing the money. “Skeet and I have work to do.”

  We sat on the couch on the other side of the room. Dan set his glass and the bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the table. Then he put on some powerful-looking reading glasses and said, “Let me see that rod.”

  I handed him my fly rod and he looked it over intently. While he was examining the reel, I watched him. Dirty Dan was a pretty interesting guy to look at. He wasn’t big, but he was strong. Somehow you knew you didn’t want to mess with him. His nose had been broken a bunch of times, so it was squashed flat at the top and bent crooked near the end.

  The main thing you couldn’t help noticing was a ragged, six-inch-long, one-inch-wide scar down the whole left side of his face. The rest of the skin on his face was a deep, leathery brown from all the days he’d spent out in the sun chasing tarpon, but the scarred skin was kind of pinkish brown, tight, and raw-looking.

  When I was a little kid, that scar had half fascinated me and half scared me to death. It still fascinated me. Whenever I looked at it now, I thought about the time I’d asked Dan how he got it. I was maybe six or seven years old, and Dan had come over to our house to show Mac how to tie a new kind of tarpon fly. I was hanging around watching and listening, but mostly keeping an eye on that scar. I liked to watch it jump and wiggle around when Dan talked. When there was quiet for a minute, I pointed to his face and said, “What happened?”

  “Got my nose broke,” said Dan. “Back in my misspent youth.”

  I didn’t know what that meant but, anyway, it wasn’t what I wanted to know. “I mean here,” I said, reaching out to point at but not quite touch the scar.

  Dan took a long sip of butterfly milk, looked at me with his bloodshot eyes, lifted one eyebrow, and said in a low, slow voice, “Hatchet fight over a blonde.” Then he went back to tying his fly.

  I remember sitting there, my mind filled with pictures of Dirty Dan fighting with a pirate-y looking guy wearing an eye patch. The pirate-y guy had a hatchet, but that didn’t stop Dan. He went after the guy with nothing but his bare hands. While Dan bravely fought, the blond-haired lady cried and begged them to please stop.

  I sure wished I’d asked Dan more questions then. You can blurt out dumb, rude questions when you’re a little kid, and people think it’s funny, or at least they don’t hold it against you. I was determined to ask for the whole story someday, but the right moment never seemed to come along. It wasn’t the kind of thing that came up in normal everyday conversation, in which I might say casually, “Speaking of hatchet fights, Dan, tell me about the one you had over that blonde.”

  Maybe tomorrow, when Dan and I were out in the boat fishing and talking man to man, I’d have my chance.

  Dirty Dan interrupted my thoughts by saying, “We’re going to have to take this thing apart.”

  He was talking about my reel. “How come?” I asked.

  He handed me the end of the line and said, “Pull.”

  I pulled.

  “Feel that?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “There’s a little hitch in your drag. Could be some rust in there, or a grain of sand. Anyway, it’s no good.” He took a drink of butterfly milk. “Come on, let’s get this line off here first. You’ll want to put on a new one.”

  As we unspooled the line, Dan said, “When you go after tarpon, there’s a hundred things working against you, Skeet. Most of ’em you got no control over. You’ve got to pay attention to the things you can control, and your equipment’s one of ’em.”

  I watched Dan take the reel apart, clean it, oil it, and reassemble it. Then we put on a new fly line. He began tying a nail knot to fasten a length of monofilament line called a leader to the end of my fly line. As I watched Dan’s thick, rough fingers at work, he asked, “You know this knot, Skeet?”

  “I’ve tried it,” I said, “but I can never get it right.”

  “It’s a tricky devil,” Dan agreed. “But you need to know it, and the Bimini twist, the surgeon’s loop, and the Huffnagle, too, if you’re serious about fishing for tarpon.”

  I nodded. I was serious, all right. To me, everything about tarpon fishing was incredibly cool. I made a silent vow to get my knot book out and do some practicing at home.

  “Now,” Dan said as he worked, “if we tied a regular square knot here, what would happen if you put force on it?”

  I thought for a minute. “Well, it wouldn’t be smooth like a nail knot, so it would get caught in the eyes on the rod.”

  “Exactly,” said Dan. Then he tied on a series of different-strength lines, using the other knots he’d mentioned. “Why am I bothering to do all this?” he asked.

  “That first section of line is pretty strong,” I said. “What is it, ei
ghty-pound test?”

  Dan nodded.

  “Well, the next section is only twenty-pound test. If you used a square knot to tie eighty-pound test line to twenty-pound test, the stronger line would wear on the weaker one, and the weak line would eventually break. Probably when you had a fish on.”

  “You got it,” Dan said. “When you’re after tarpon, you gotta count on Murphy’s Law being in effect. You know Murphy’s Law?”

  “If anything can go wrong, it will?” I said uncertainly.

  “Bingo. Don’t forget it.”

  Dan held up the finished leader and examined it critically. It looked perfect. Each knot was neat, smooth, and strong-looking.

  I whistled in admiration.

  “You think I tie a good knot, you should have seen my second wife,” said Dan. “Her nail knots were beauteous to behold, Skeet. I do miss that woman’s knots.” He sighed, then muttered, “Too bad she was such a pain in the shorts every otherwise.”

  That’s another thing I liked about Dirty Dan. How many grownups say what they really mean when they’re talking to kids?

  Suddenly I felt anxious. “Are you sure that twenty-pound section is strong enough?”

  “If it’s any thicker, he’ll see it and he ain’t gonna eat the fly. First order of business is to get him to eat. Then we’ll worry about how you fight him.”

  “How do I get him to eat?” I said.

  “A perfectly placed cast,” he answered.

  Uh-oh, I thought. I began wishing I’d spent more time practicing my casting.

  “And this.” He grinned, making the scar wriggle like a snake, and held up a fly. “My secret weapon.”

  It was a cockroach, which was a fairly common tarpon fly. But I’d never seen one that color. “They like orange?” I asked dubiously.

  He lifted an eyebrow and whispered, “They’re crazy for it. Like alligators after a poodle. You’ll see.”

  I nodded eagerly.

  “If you’re lucky,” he added. “And if you don’t make mistakes.” He tested each of the knots with a final sharp tug, and nodded with satisfaction. “Looks like you’re ready, Skeet,” he said.