I noticed Jeth drop his head, shaking it, maybe laughing, maybe fighting back tears, I couldn’t tell. Saw Amelia Gardner smile as everyone hooted and applauded. I also saw Gardner turn suddenly, scanning the little crowd until her eyes found me. Then she stopped, as if she recognized me, before returning her attention to Tomlinson, who was using his hands to call for silence.
“One last thing,” he said. “Day after tomorrow, Sunday morning, here at the marina, we’re going to hold a service for Janet. I talked to Claudia about this, too. It’s time to say good-bye, my children. It’s time for some closure. We can shed all the tears we want on Sunday. We can bawl like babies, but tonight, damn it, tonight we are going to kick a little cosmic ass. Tonight we’re gonna live the hell out of every single, drunken moment, and love each other like the family we are!”
When he said that, I found my eyes turning involuntarily to my left where JoAnn and lanky Rhonda sat side by side on a picnic table. I saw, to our mutual amusement, that their eyes had swung automatically toward me. I nodded at Rhonda’s smile but pretended not to see JoAnn’s bawdy wink.
I did notice that Gardner was moving in my direction, but gradually, as if she didn’t want to divert attention from Tomlinson.
As Tomlinson said, “There’s a very powerful woman I need to introduce right now,” Gardner stopped walking, giving me a brief, pointed look that maybe meant something, maybe didn’t. Then she waited as he continued, “We didn’t expect her, but the timing couldn’t be better. We all know the story. Four people were set adrift, and only one of them made it to the light tower. If you think we’ve been through hell, imagine what she went through. That woman’s here right now. She came here because she wants to talk to the people who care about Janet and answer our questions.
“Out in the parking lot, she told Ransom and me that she’s made it a point to go to all of the families, one by one, and try to clear up any misunderstandings. We’re Janet’s family, and I think we all know what the lady means. That’s why I described her as a powerful woman. I watched her get out of her car in the parking lot a few minutes ago, and she had an aura so bright it damn near hurt my eyes. She’s got a strong and caring heart, so let’s welcome Amelia Gardner to Dinkin’s Bay.”
He nodded to Gardner, who was smiling, but not giving it much, keeping herself within herself, as people applauded politely. “Amelia, you mind if we adjourn to the main docks? We’ll do it any way you want it, but I suggest you grab a beer, get some food, relax, and make yourself at home. Then you can talk to us as a group, if that suits you. Afterward, you’re welcome to stick around and drink heavily with the rest of us. But I warn you-you may never be the same woman after you see the limbo contest.”
Gardner’s laughter had a jazz singer’s rasp, and her voice was a foggy alto that did not mesh, at first, with her Boston accent. She was articulate and polite, and seemed slightly nervous speaking to a group of strangers, which was understandable. “The only favor I ask,” she said, “is that you don’t hold anything back. I want to answer all your questions. I want to set the record straight as best I can. I don’t care what rumor you’ve heard, no matter how outrageous, I want to address it.
“There’s a thing called ‘survivor’s guilt,’ and I know I’ve got a bad case of it. This is my way of trying to help all of us. So, you bet, I’d love a beer. I’ll meet you over on the docks.”
A couple minutes later, as I walked alone across the shell parking lot, toward the mangrove path that leads to my house, I was surprised when Gardner came up behind me and said, “You’re not leaving, are you?” Then, when I stopped and turned to face her, she added, “You’re Ford, right? Dr. Marion Ford?” Her tone was businesslike, formal, and confident.
I said, “That’s right. How’d you know?”
“Dalton Dorsey described you. From Coast Guard St. Petersburg? I’d like to speak with you privately, Dr. Ford, after I’ve talked to the group. Commander Dalton said you’d be the perfect person.”
“The perfect person for what?”
“I want someone to help me find out why that boat sank. Every single little detail, so I can make it public.” She dropped the formality then, the tone of her voice communicating pain, as she added, “The rumors are killing me, Dr. Ford. I don’t know what makes people so mean that they’re saying these kind of things, but none of it’s true. I didn’t know the other three people very well, but those poor souls aren’t even here to defend themselves, which is absolutely infuriating.”
“That’s understandable,” I said. “Some of the stuff floating around is pretty silly.”
“I’m an attorney. I know that the best way to fight a lie is with the truth. I’ve met my share of private investigators, but I’ve never met one who was qualified or equipped to do the kind of research it’s going to take to find the real facts and make them public. Commander Dorsey told me that you might be just the guy.”
I said, “That’s a compliment. Dalton’s a good man.”
“I like him, too. Very professional, plus, my guess is, he’s got a little circus going on inside him, which I tend to like in people. When he told me about you, first thing I did was look you up on the Internet. No web page-which I found surprising-but you’ve published a lot in journals, and enough of your fellow scientists have quoted your work, so there was plenty to find.”
“I had no idea,” I told her. “A while back, I had an interest in the Internet. I still use it, but just for research. So I haven’t bothered to check out what’s on there about me.”
She was nodding, pleased to be sharing information. “The thing I like is, you’re not attached to any agency. No government funding. You do your own work in your own way, and you obviously know your way around boats and the water. So I’m inviting you to help me figure out what the hell went wrong out there. Your opinion would carry a lot of weight with people who live along this coast, and the media, too. I want my reputation back, Dr. Ford, it’s as simple as that.”
I looked into her face. The late winter sun burnished her skin with a klieg-light gold. In that harsh, parchment light, I could see how she would age; how she would look in ten, twenty, even thirty years. Amelia Gardner was not pretty. She had never been pretty. But she possessed a handsome, prairie-woman’s plainness that is uniquely American, and that I, personally, find far more attractive than the predictable, painted masks of film stars and beauty queens.
Hers was a good face with a strong jaw, eyebrows darker than her red hair, full pale lips, no makeup at all, and a corn-silk down that grew below her temples. There were a few pores visible, and a faint acne scar or two that implied a difficult adolescence. She was an outdoors person with horizontal sun wrinkles on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes; the tennis-player, mountain-bike type who was also a professional. She had a sloping nose shaped like a ski jump and, yes, cat-green eyes. In that brilliant light, her eyes glowed as if illuminated from within, showing little specks of blue and bronze.
I said to her, “I’d like to help, but I’ve got a job, Ms. Gardner. The one person who I could trust to take care of my lab, Janet Mueller, is gone now. I’m sorry.”
I was surprised when she reached and put her hand on my shoulder, a fraternal gesture not often used by women, particularly women strangers. “I want you to think it over. Listen to what I have to say about what happened three weeks ago, then talk to me later. I’ll stay as late as you want. The thing is-”
I said, “What?”
She had her arms folded now, looking at me, and, from her expression, I knew she was trying to decipher the most productive approach for the brand of person she was dealing with-me. How was I best handled? What would be the fastest, most effective angle? It is an increasingly common phenomenon, a calculated brand of assessment and manipulation that may well be taught in business and law schools, yet I find it offensive.
Finally she said, “I have to follow my instincts. So here it is: There’s something I want to tell you, but you have to promise me no
t to tell the others. You’ll understand why later. If you promise, I’ll take you at your word. I don’t meet many stand-up guys these days, but maybe you’re one of the few.”
“Stand-up guy, huh?” I didn’t say it, but I assumed that what she had to say had something to do with her behavior after the sinking, some guilty secret, a burden she now needed to share.
She seemed surprised by my tone. “Is there something wrong with me thinking you’re trustworthy?”
“We just met.”
“Like I said, I’m going on instinct.”
I was shaking my head. “Sorry, Ms. Gardner. I’ve known the people at this marina much, much longer than I’ve known you. I respect what you did that night, but talking to me privately is the same as speaking to the entire group. If there’s some secret you want to share or maybe even confess, I suggest you contact a priest. But please don’t tell me.”
I could see that it irked her that I’d correctly deduced her religion, and she was clearly annoyed that I was questioning her intent. A friend once told me that newborn redheads ought to by law come with a warning tag on their toe.
Amelia Gardner had a temper. I saw her face flush, her eyes glitter, as she lowered her voice to say, “First of all, pal, I don’t need some oversized, sun-bleached nerd with Coke-bottle glasses to tell me when to see my priest. And second, I’ve got nothing to confess. I’m going to tell you anyway, and if you want to risk hurting Janet’s friends, go right ahead. But I will not play some little role you’ve dreamed up.”
She took half a step toward me, an aggressive move, hands set on broad hips, her nose not much lower than mine, as she added, “This is it: I can’t prove it, but I think there was another boat out there that night. Early that morning. A boat without lights. I saw it. I’m sure I saw it. And I think it may have stopped.
“Commander Dorsey says I was probably imagining things, but I know what happened, I was there. I think it’s possible that they got picked up, Janet and the others. Why else didn’t we find them? What I’m telling you, Mister Doctor Marion Ford, is that I think there’s a chance, a very slim chance, they might be alive.” Then she spun and stalked away, pissed off, demonstrating it by refusing even a chance of additional eye contact.
I stood there, watching her, and gave a private little whistle.
Tomlinson was right. A powerful woman.
I went to my house to change shirts before rejoining the party, reviewing Amelia Gardner’s words as I walked, her nuances of speech, wondering if she really might have seen a boat. Was it possible?
The woman was still much on my mind when I peeked into my lab and flicked on the lights. My pattern of thought shifted instantly. Aloud, I said, “What in the hell is going on in here?”
Two more stone crabs were missing. I’m so familiar with my stock that I knew right away. The heavy glass lid was on the tank, but the little metal vise I’d used to seal it fast lay on the lab’s wooden floor, in a streak of water. I stooped and touched my finger to the tiniest fleck of crab shell in the water.
Someone was sneaking in and stealing my specimens. Someone too sloppy or hurried to replace the vise. Who and why, I couldn’t fathom.
But my eight remaining octopi were still in their covered tanks. That, at least, was a relief. As I checked them, I sensed the solitary, golden eye of the largest Atlantic octopus tracking me from beneath its rock ledge. Its extended tentacle was still throbbing gray, pink, and brown as I switched off the light and locked the door.
5
Before we met, as a group, and listened to Amelia Gardner’s story, we made the sunset rounds in a marina caravan that increased the number of partygoers with each stop.
There wasn’t much doubt why. Word was out that the lone survivor was with us. Everyone on the islands wanted to hear what happened from Gardner’s own mouth.
We stopped at Jensen’s Marina for Claudia to join us. Seeing her come out the door of Janet’s little blue Holiday Mansion, with its curtained pilothouse windows, gave us all an emotional jolt. It wasn’t just the family resemblance, though that was part of it. It was the fact that Claudia was wearing a pale, peach-colored beach dress and makeup, and she had a bright red hibiscus bloom fixed behind her right ear.
It was exactly the sort of outfit that Janet typically wore to our Friday parties.
I was standing beside Jeth when Claudia made her entrance. I heard him whisper, “Jesus Christ, that’s almost too much to handle.”
I patted him on the back. “Nothing’s too much. That’s one of the things Janet taught us.”
We stopped at McCarthy’s Marina and boarded the Lady Chadwick for drinks, then we mobbed our way to the Green Flash, and then the Mucky Duck for sunset on the beach. Milled around swapping stories with Pat and Memo at the bar, listening to John Paul on the guitar before returning to Dinkin’s Bay.
The entire time, I noticed that Gardner kept her distance from me, still mad, apparently. Ransom, though, she liked. The two women fast became a pair.
Once, passing behind them, I paused to listen as Ransom, speaking in her musical Bahamian accent, told her “Amelia, darlin’. Let me tell you something ’bout these nice titties ah’ mine. They changed my womanly life, they surely did, and don’t let no man tell you he doan care about your boobies. A woman deserve to look how she want to look, my sister! Yes sir! I reckon they cost me four, maybe five, blow jobs apiece, and that cheap, girl! Very cheap! I were kind’a sweet on that lil’ doctor man anyway. I’d a’ made him feel good for free, no problem!”
I liked Gardner’s unembarrassed laughter-then she noticed me. She said to Ransom, “This big goon really is your brother?”
“Oh yes, oh yes, he one of the very few white ones in our family. He can be kind’a mulish sometimes when it come to women, but he good. Doan you doubt that. My brother, he a good man.”
Long after sunset, several dozen of us sat quietly listening to Amelia Gardner. She was sitting cross-legged atop one of the picnic tables, behind Dinkin’s Bay’s Red Pelican Gift Shop, facing the docks. Sitting to her left was Claudia. Ransom to her right.
The windy, high pressure system that had made our search so exhausting was gone now, replaced by a balmy, tropical low. Through the coconut palms, beyond the yellow windows of my house and lab, I could see drifting clouds and oily star paths on black water. Woodring’s Point and the mouth of Dinkin’s Bay were a charcoal hedge of mangroves two miles north.
It was a very warm night for late November. Even so, Gardner had gone to her Jeep for a jacket, as if affected by memories of the cold that night three weeks earlier. It wasn’t easy for her to talk about it. There was no mistaking the emotion in her voice, and I admired the way she fought her way through it.
I was holding a plastic cup of beer poured over ice, plus a wedge of squeezed lime, and I took a sip now, as she said, “I met Michael Sanford and Grace Walker when I was in the Keys, then again at a dive club party on Siesta Key. You guys ever eat at the old mullet restaurant there? That’s where the party was. They were with a woman by the name of Sherry Meyer, who was supposed to dive the Baja California with us. Lucky for her, though, she had a cold and didn’t make the trip. I wish to hell we’d all had colds that day-” She touched her hand to Claudia’s arm as she said that; Claudia patted Gardner’s hand in return. “But I guess destiny has its reasons and there’s no going back now. Janet was a friend of Michael’s, and I didn’t meet her until I got to Marco. He’d rented a three-bedroom condo-him in one room, we four women in the other two-and we went to bed early Thursday night so we could get up early Friday.”
Because I’d seen still shots of them in the newspapers and on television, I had a fixed mental image of both Sanford and Grace Walker, and impressions of both of them that may or may not have been valid. Michael Sanford could have been a fashion model-six foot four or so, probably 220 pounds, with the jaw, the dimpled chin, and dense, curly black hair that photographs well. Walker was his female, African-American counterpart-busty with mak
eup and lots of jewelry, a businesswoman in her thirties who was making money and fighting for causes in which she believed. They both knew how to look into the lens of a camera and smile.
Gardner told us that the four of them had left Marco River Marina in Sanford’s twenty-five-foot boat at around 8 A.M. and were headed out Big Marco Pass when Sanford noticed that one of his 225-horsepower Johnsons was overheating. They returned to the marina and had a mechanic switch out a thermostat, which solved the problem.
“Michael bought a second thermostat just in case,” she said. “I suppose most of you’ve heard the rumors that Michael-maybe all of us-ran offshore and sank the boat intentionally for the insurance money. Well, check with the marina. Why would he have bought a second thermostat if he’d planned on sinking his own boat? Why would he have bought a second thermostat if we’d planned on rendezvousing with a drug boat, sinking the Seminole Wind, and escaping? That’s another theory you’ve probably heard.”
Around me, I could see the island fishing guides-eight of them, sitting in their own little group-thinking about it, nodding their heads. Yeah, it didn’t make any sense. If you were going to sabotage your own vessel, you might buy new canvas or pay for a new paint job, just to make it convincing. But a backup thermostat? Very unlikely.
Gardner, an attorney, was already doing a good job of making her case.
On their way offshore, the four divers stopped at a wreck called Ben’s Barge, which is about three miles off Marco. Sanford, a fisherman, wanted to catch some bait so the four of them could fish the Baja California after diving it.
Using tiny hooks and bits of shrimp, they filled the stern’s bait well with small bluegill-shaped fish called pinfish.
“While we caught bait, we discussed what we wanted to do,” Gardner told us. “We were listening to the weather channel on the radio, and Michael told us it wouldn’t be real nice out there, but it should be okay. A couple days ago, I had got my hands on the actual forecast from NOAA. It was ‘small craft should exercise caution, wind out of the east southeast, fifteen to twenty knots, seas four to six feet, with bay and inland waters choppy.’”
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