by Al Macy
“But he would have floated after a while,” I said.
“Right. Angelo may have been dead, but the bacteria in his gut and elsewhere in his body went right on living. As they consume the body, they produce gases that would bring it back up to the surface. However, the water here is cold, so that could take days or weeks. Bottom line: not surprising that the body wasn’t found.”
“We may never recover it.”
“True,” she said.
Jen picked at the label of her beer, the Lost Coast Brewery’s Great White ale. “What was Angelo like?”
“That’s right, you never met him. What about you, Louella?”
“No, but he had a reputation. Like a borderline criminal.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He was a slimy guy,” I said. “Everyone in the family took turns trying to convince Carly not to marry him. It’s a mystery what she saw in him. Maybe it was her contrariness that did it. Push Carly on anything, and she’ll push back. Hard.”
“And he wasn’t deaf?” Jen said.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the bigger mystery. The deaf culture here is a big part of Carly’s life. She’s kind of militantly deaf, if you know what I mean.”
“No, partner, I don’t.”
“Sorry. She gets a little fed up with hearing people. Let me give you an example, something I’ve seen a few times when I’m with her. Someone will say, ‘Oh, you’re deaf?’ She’ll nod, and then they’ll say something like, ‘Oh, you don’t look deaf. Can you read lips?’ She’d nod again, and then the hearing person would talk with exaggerated mouth movements that actually made it harder for her to understand. Those kinds of things drove her up the wall.”
Jen frowned. “But they were just trying to help.”
“That isn’t how she sees it. Carly has always had a bit of a chip on her shoulder. She was teased cruelly as a child, so it’s understandable, but she’s not a forgive and forget type. She socialized almost exclusively with her friends in the deaf community. I was included because I knew ASL, and I was her brother, but I often saw an us-against-the-world attitude in her social groups.”
“Yet she married Angelo.”
“Right. She and I were inseparable until Angelo came into the picture. It was love at first sight, I guess, and her deafness made no difference. All I can figure is that it was his bad boy persona that kept her interested. He had some kind of animal magnetism. They eloped when she was eighteen and he was nineteen. Our family freaked.”
“But the marriage worked,” Jen said.
“Another mystery, but I have to say they did seem to love one another. They were together until … you know.”
“What was his job?” Louella asked.
“He went from one moneymaking scheme to another.”
“For example?”
“Let’s see … I don’t know the details, but at one point he was buying high-value luxury cars—Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover—and then shipping them to buyers in China. An exporter would front him the money. Technically, it was legal.”
“I’ll see what he’s been up to lately,” Louella said. “What else?”
“You know your job better than I do. I guess you better look into Carly as well. Find out more about that witness. And we’ll want to talk to the surfer who saw Angelo fall. There’s no budget on this.”
* * *
Two days later, we hadn’t heard anything more from the police. Still keeping my fingers crossed that Angelo would turn up or that his disappearance would be explained in a way that didn’t implicate my sister, I continued on with other business.
A receptionist in the lobby of Agena Bioscience told me that the geneticist would be with me shortly. Located in Santa Rosa, the firm provided both genetic counseling and fertility assessments. No sooner had I sat down than Dr. Olga Magroski came striding across the floor with her arm extended. Around fifty, she had flyaway blonde hair, dangly earrings, and a big smile filled with somewhat discolored teeth.
“I received the material you sent me. It’s a very interesting family issue you have,” she said after I’d introduced myself. She had a slight accent that I couldn’t place.
“Have you ever heard of something like this before?”
“An identical twin as a sperm donor? No. Very interesting.”
Molly Scully had provided the results of the fertility tests her husband had ordered, and I’d forwarded them to Agena Bioscience.
I followed her out of the lobby. We passed an impressive lab with the requisite centrifuges, busy bees in lab coats, and those machines with rows of pipettes that you see on the news whenever they do a story on something biomedical. Her office had a nice view of the hills and a desk crowded with folders and journals.
She settled in behind her desk. “How may I help you today, Mr. Goodlove?”
I sat in the visitor chair. “It’s pretty simple, I guess. I’d like to know whether Keith could be the father of the child and if there’s a way to know for sure.”
“The answers are simple, as well. I have the fertility test results here, and they show that Keith had a very low sperm count. It’s called oligospermia.” She rummaged around in a desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. “To give you a feel for it, here’s a chart that shows the pregnancy rate plotted against sperm count. Of course, if there are no sperm, then the rate is zero. It rises quickly from there but then levels off. Do you understand?”
“Where is Keith on this chart?”
She took a pen and pointed to a spot on the curve. “He was here, corresponding to a pregnancy rate of less than one percent. If he’d been a little higher, they would have been candidates for intrauterine insemination. They could have done in vitro fertilization, but apparently they chose not to.”
“Test tube baby.”
She laughed. “Yes. That’s right.”
“So Keith couldn’t have gotten his wife pregnant?”
“Well, it only takes one sperm, so it’s always possible, but we’re in hit-by-lightning territory here.” She laughed again.
“Okay, so unlikely but not impossible.”
“Precisely.”
“And the second question. Could we tell who the father is?”
“Yes, but not with the standard DNA test.”
“But don’t Keith and Horace have the same exact DNA?”
“No. With identical twins, the fertilized egg divides a few times and then splits in two. At that point, yes, the DNA is identical. But cells divide millions of times before birth, and during those divisions there will be a certain number of errors made. They’re called mutations. So the infants’ DNA is no longer identical. And those mutations are passed on to their children. Got it?”
“In general, yes. So why can’t the DNA tests detect those differences?”
“Because there are too few. A standard DNA test only looks in a few places in the DNA. But you can run a special test that looks at many locations on the DNA. It’s something we could do here.”
“And it’s much more expensive.”
“You bet.”
“Does this stuff continue to amaze you?” I asked.
She shut one eye and tilted her head. “What stuff?”
“Oh, mainly that all of the information needed to create a complete human being is coded in this one DNA molecule that’s, what, a thousandth of an inch long?”
Dr. Magroski held her arms straight out to her sides, as if being crucified.
It was my turn to cock my head. “What?”
“This is how long the DNA in a single cell is. Two meters long, two nanometers wide, and all jumbled up together in the cell’s nucleus. Take all the DNA in all your cells, and stretch it out, and it would extend across the solar system. Twice.”
Learn something new every day.
* * *
I wanted to get reacquainted with my twin sister, so I suggested we go surfing, just like the old days. Also, it would give us an opportunity to scope out the view of Tepona Point from the Camel Rock surf spot.
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There’s more than one sea stack along the coast called Camel Rock. Apparently, ships of the desert are often on the minds of cartographers. The Camel Rock at Houda Point Beach creates an ideal surfing location in the winter months. The waves are big, but a rip current usually forms along the rock, so surfers can take an escalator ride out to the break. When conditions are perfect, there’s a consistent right break. The great conditions never result in the types of crowds seen in Southern California, which was another plus. The North Coast is significantly less populated than the more tinselly half of the state, and the water is a lot colder. Unfortunately, the area is a destination resort for a basket of deplorables who travel thousands of miles to be there: great white sharks. Humboldt County has had sixteen shark attacks since 1960, many in the shadow of Camel Rock. Little River empties out there, and that, along with the rocky shoreline, attracts fat, tasty seals. My mantra is that the drive to the spot is more dangerous than the surfing itself, but that rings hollow when I’m sitting on the board, feet dangling above the shadowy abyss. I prefer to make the hour’s drive north to Crescent City, where attacks are less frequent, but Carly thinks that is a particularly wussy thing to do. The ASL sign for “chicken” is formed by making a beak shape with your fingers and pecking it down onto the other hand.
I pulled into the parking lot high above the break. It was so foggy I couldn’t see the waves. The St. George buoy reported a swell height of nine feet, which is at the upper range of my comfort zone. Carly pulled up while I was still putting on my wet suit. It didn’t take her long to catch up. While I wear a full suit with a hood, gloves, and booties, she goes with a suit only. I’ve never figured out whether the water didn’t feel as cold to her or she just toughed it out better. I also wore earplugs to keep the cold water from exacerbating my surfer’s ear, a bony growth in the ear canal caused by exposure to cold water and wind.
“How are you doing?” I said. We wouldn’t be able to talk on the hike down to the beach, since we needed our hands to hold the boards.
“Anything new?” she asked.
I avoided the question; I wanted to discuss it when we were out on the water. “I’m not worried.”
That was mostly true. Without a body, it would be harder for the prosecution to argue that Angelo was dead. But not impossible. Most people think you can’t convict someone of murder without a corpse. Not true, unfortunately.
I put my longboard—yellowed from age—on my head and followed Carly down the long set of railroad-tie stairs. We got to the beach and walked into the water. When the size of the waves became apparent, I hesitated. Carly smiled and made the sign for “chicken.” Then she made the sign for a particular part of the female anatomy.
I sighed and followed her out into the waves. We got on the conveyer belt, but the sailing wasn’t as smooth as I liked. I had to turn turtle for some of the breakers. Carly’s board was smaller, letting her duck dive under the approaching foam. We got out to the lineup and joined two other surfers. The first thing I did was to look north to Tepona Point. Not visible. Too foggy. But it hadn’t been foggy on the morning of the third of December.
A nice wave came around the point, and Carly went for it. Some dude started to drop in on her, but she gave a loud whistle, and he broke away. She got a great ride and popped into the air at the end. When she paddled back to the lineup, the guy apologized. She smiled and nodded at him, correctly inferring what he said from his body language. He probably would have tried to chat her up, but it looked like she was out with her boyfriend.
I missed two waves, not having the technique of my twin, but got my groove back on the third and started getting excellent rides. Carly and I shared one, and I felt our special bond coming back. It didn’t get much better than that.
When my arms started feeling like cooked macaroni, I said to her, “Let’s talk.”
We paddled out past where the waves were breaking and sat close together on our boards.
“Carly, I’m still sorry about what happened.” I couldn’t bring myself to use Patricia’s name. “You know that. I hope this thing can bring us together again.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not,” she said.
“But you wouldn’t communicate with me. You ignored my texts and emails.”
“Too painful.” The sign for “pain” involves the two index fingers pointing at one another and then twisting as if screwing them together. She held her hands close to her heart; that’s where it hurt. ASL involves facial expressions as well, and Carly’s contorted features showed me the depth of her pain.
We sat for a few minutes watching the blowing fog as it began to clear. I wanted to just hang with her, helping our relationship heal, but I had some business to discuss. I splashed her to get her attention, just as I had done when we surfed together as teenagers.
“Did you go near the Tepona Point trail on your way back from Clam Beach?”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question, Carly.”
She looked out to sea for a while. “I may have. It’s on the way.”
Aargh! I banged my fist against my board. “You didn’t think maybe that was something you should have told me?”
“It didn’t matter. I didn’t push Angelo off the cliff. Why does it matter?”
“Because someone might have seen you near there.”
“I doubt it.” Her shrug said that it was totally unimportant.
“The police may have a witness who saw you there.”
She glanced toward the incoming swells.
“Carly, you can’t lie to me. I need to know everything you know.”
“That’s not what you said in your office.” She fingerspelled “subornation of perjury” almost too fast for me to follow. She wore a satisfied smile.
I reached down and splashed some water on my face. Could she have done it? No. I didn’t believe it for a second. Did I?
When I looked up, she was paddling toward a wave that towered above its peers. It was going to break outside of the rock. I would have to haul ass to get over it before it broke, so I started after her. It looked like she was aiming to ride it. I put every ounce of my waning strength into my strokes, but things didn’t look good.
It was one of those sneaker waves—the kind that knocks tourists off the Redwood Point jetty once a year or so. Carly outpaced me, and as the wave came around the point, she turned and burned. She caught the wave at the perfect spot and crossed along it in front of me. The dudes farther in whooped and whistled, appreciating her performance.
I couldn’t have been in a worse location. If I stayed where I was, the tsunami would break right on me. Instead, I called on my forty-three-year-old muscles to earn their keep and get me over the top before it broke. The wave began feathering. I put my head down and kept paddling. Up and up. I was going to make it.
Something grabbed my board. The word “shark” jumped into my head, but it was probably only a length of kelp that got tangled in my leash. It was just enough to kill my effort, and I got that sickening feeling of going over backwards. Over the falls. I rag dolled it, letting the Pacific Ocean do with me what it would. My time to breathe would come again; I just had to wait it out. Unfortunately, my gargantuan effort to beat the wave left me with no oxygen to spare.
There was no way of knowing which way was up. It was as if I were in an underwater tornado. Time dragged on. My longboard was in there with me, along with its razor-sharp fin, but my only concern was getting air. I reached my limit then exceeded it, my brain yelling for me to breathe. In my dark time, I might have yielded, welcoming the chance to die. I might have breathed in the salt water.
That’s when the Pacific took pity on me. My arm found itself in the air, and I struggled to the surface, taking in some water with my first desperate breath. I pulled my board to me with the leash and after a quick glance to check that no more waves were coming, draped my arms over it and coughed in more life-giving
air.
Carly was by my side in seconds. “Welcome back.”
The fog had lifted, and I looked north. Tepona Point stood out clearly. If I were looking at the right time, I’d easily notice a body falling off the cliff.
“Still alive?” Carly signed, smiling.
I pulled myself up onto my board and replied, “No.”
An air horn sounded. Up on the cliff above the surf spot, someone was waving both arms. Someone else was doing the same on the beach. I pointed.
Carly looked. “Toby. And Nicole,” she said. Toby was my twenty-year-old son.
What could they want? We waved back and paddled in. Carly caught one more wave on the way, so she beat me to the beach.
As I waded out of the ocean and pulled the leash off my ankle, she signed, “Angelo’s body.”
Chapter Three
The day after Angelo’s body was discovered, Louella walked down the ramp to the floating dock at the Woodley Island Marina. It was a cold and damp morning, a typical December day on the North Coast. Seagulls fought over the fish scraps that a fisherman was tossing into the harbor. Barking sea lions got in on the free food. She lit a cigarette and walked to Wenzel Rozetti’s boat. Rozetti was the crabber who had encountered the body out on the ocean. The police had blocked the boat off by stringing crime scene tape between traffic cones on the dock. The tape flapped in the wind.
Commercial crabbing season had finally opened following the usual negotiations between canners and fishermen. Amateur crabbers could go out anytime, however, and Rozetti’s boat was about as small as they came. All aluminum, it had a 90-horsepower outboard on the back and the standard crane and winch for bringing up the crab pots. Louella took a drag on her cigarette. Just a hobby for him.
She wrapped her coat tighter and headed back to her car, a ten-year-old Corolla. She drove ten minutes to Rozetti’s house in an area of town where petty crimes and drug busts were common. The bungalow’s paint was peeling, and green mold had taken hold on the north wall.