Glass Eels, Shattered Sea

by Charlene D'Avanzo

  “That’s right. We were pretty far from the river when Nelson was shot. What did Jack say?”

  “Jack insisted on riding to the hospital with his father. I didn’t get a chance to talk with him in any detail.”

  “Can’t you interview him now? Or is he too distraught?”

  “That’s one thing I wanted to talk with you about. Jack has disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Jack was in the hospital room until his father died, but then he split. Nobody there knows where he is.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would Jack do that?”

  Purdy leaned back in his chair. “I was hoping you might have an idea.”

  “Me? I saw Jack for a few minutes total and hardly spoke with him. He was there to protect his dad. Gordy and I raced back to take care of Nelson, and Jack ran over to us a couple of minutes later. He was out of breath because he’d sprinted up the trail after whoever shot Nelson and stole his eels. That’s all I know.” The early morning scene flashed through my mind. “Wait a minute. Something’s not right.”

  “Not right?”

  Frowning, I said, “Nelson’s eels were still there. When we ran back, we had to go around the metal bucket on the trail next to a big boulder.”

  “Back up. Describe the scene for me.”

  “Earlier, when I first met Nelson, Jack stood up the trail beyond the big boulder where Nelson put his eel gear, clothes, things like that. The eel bucket was near the boulder on the downstream side. When we ran back after the shot, the bucket was still right there next to the boulder.”

  Nodding, Purdy said, “Yes?”

  Leaning forward, I said, “Like I explained, when we ran to Nelson after the shot, Jack wasn’t there. He came back from the upstream direction. That’s where the shot came from, he said. I distinctly recall him stating that the shooter was after eels because the bucket was gone. But it wasn’t. The bucket was right there where it was before. Maybe it’s just a detail that’s not important, but it just seems odd to me.”

  “Take a stab at it.”

  I sat back again to think for a moment. “My intuition tells me it is important, but I don’t know how.”

  Purdy flipped off the tape recorder and put down his pencil. “That’s what I mean by it being complicated. You’ve got to take your time and get it right.” Purdy blinked a couple of times. “You know, Mara, you might’ve made a good cop.”

  “Scientists work on puzzles all the time. That’s basically what we do and why I like it. Follow the evidence where it takes you, don’t jump to conclusions, but pay attention to your gut.”

  He nodded. “That describes detective work pretty well.”

  “So,” I said to myself as much as to Purdy, “is there anything else important I missed?”

  “That’s why I asked you and Gordy to think hard about what you heard and saw,” Purdy said.

  I sat up in my chair. “Wait a minute.”

  Purdy flipped the recorder on again. “Go ahead, Mara.”

  “When we got to Nelson after he was shot, he was mumbling something. I was so focused on stopping the bleeding, I didn’t pay much attention.”

  The sergeant spoke softly. “Close your eyes for a moment. Picture what happened.”

  I followed his directions. As my breathing slowed, it came back to me. I could see the scene in my mind’s eye, hear Nelson’s mumbles. “As Gordy tried to stop the bleeding, Nelson murmured something in addition to what I told you earlier. He said, ‘For him. I did it for him.’”

  “For him.”

  I opened my eyes. “Yeah. I got the idea he meant Jack, but he didn’t say his name.”

  “So you think Nelson was trying to say, ‘I did it for Jack.’”

  “Yes. And he was kind of looking from one side to the other even though we tried to keep him still. Maybe he was looking for his son?” I glanced at Purdy, who looked interested but didn’t say anything.

  I added, “It’s really hard, you know, to just stick to the facts and not spin something that didn’t happen.”

  7

  Spruce Harbor’s bookstore and bakery were dark by the time I rolled past them. Grateful that I didn’t need to cook dinner, I pulled up to the Tap House restaurant and parked behind Gordy’s spanking new, half-ton black truck.

  From his stool in front of the bar, my cousin raised his beer mug and bellowed, “Mara. Come on over!”

  As I approached Gordy, the Tap House’s owner stopped polishing the shiny oak slab that was his bar. “Hey, Mara,” Joey said. “Your favorite booth by the window is free.” He cocked his thumb toward Gordy. “That’s if you want to share it with this ingrate here.”

  I put my hand on Gordy’s shoulder. “Guess I’ll take my chance. How’s your white wine supply?”

  “The pinot grigio is cold and waiting for you.”

  I was still wrestling to take off my parka in the confines of the booth when Gordy said, “So what happened with Purdy? You sounded pretty shook-up on the phone.”

  After stuffing the bulky coat against the wall, I looked at my cousin straight on. “Really sorry to tell you this, but Nelson died in the hospital.”

  Gordy put his mug on the tabletop between us and closed his eyes. Then blinking, he said, “Damn. Nelson was such a great guy.”

  “Purdy said Jack was with his father when he died.”

  “That’s something, I suppose. How’s Jack now?”

  I blew out a breath and said, “That’s the other thing. The sergeant says Jack is missing.”

  Gordy shook his head. “Nah. How could he be missing? And why?”

  “Purdy thought maybe I’d have some idea about that, which I don’t. Do you?”

  Gordy circled the beer mug with both hands. “Nope. I hardly know Jack. Damn, what a thing.”

  Saying, “Tonight it’s halibut,” a waitress slid plates of our usual Tap House dinner—fried fish and fries—across the table. Habitually, Gordy was the first one to pick up his fork and spear a french fry. But tonight, he looked down at the plate like he wasn’t sure what to do.

  “There’s more to tell you,” I said. “But let’s try to enjoy this meal first.”

  Since I hadn’t eaten much since breakfast, I made quick work of the expertly fried fish and chips. It wasn’t unusual for Gordy to ask for seconds, but this evening he mostly pushed his food around the plate.

  When I finished, Gordy fell back against the booth seat. “Okay, Mara. What’s the rest?”

  I slid the plates out of the way, told Gordy about the shooter, and added, “There are a couple of things that confuse me. The first one might seem unimportant, but I don’t think so. Remember how Jack told us that whoever shot Nelson took the eel bucket?”

  Nodding, Gordy said, “Ayuh. No, wait a minute. The bucket…”

  “Was still there when we ran back,” I finished.

  Gordy shrugged his shoulders. “His dad just got shot. Jack got confused.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But he seemed so, um, certain about it. Like he wanted us to believe that’s why Nelson got shot.”

  “You said a couple things confused you. What else?”

  “The main one. Where did Jack go? And why is he missing?”

  Gordy tapped his fingers against the mug. “Well, assuming nothing bad happened to Jack, I can think of a couple reasons he’s disappeared. Maybe he owes someone big money he doesn’t have. Or maybe he did something illegal—like he stole something—and went someplace to hide.”

  “It makes sense that his disappearance is connected with Nelson getting shot.” After a beat, I added, “People take off because they are really afraid of something.”

  “Like someone’s going to kill them?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gordy shrugged. “I suppose. But I can’t think what Jack’d be so afraid of.”

  “Remember what Purdy told us about Operation Broken Glass? There’s a ton of money in eel trafficking. Maybe it’s got something to do with tha
t.”

  “You think Jack is dumb enough to steal eels someone else wants to traffic?”

  “Gordy, I don’t know. Maybe he desperately needs money for something.”

  Gordy looked up and rubbed his neck. “Damn. We could do ‘what if’ forever. It’s not getting us anywhere.”

  My usually upbeat cousin was anything but, and I had a pretty good idea why. Reaching for one of his square rough hands, I said, “An old friend you knew well and liked a lot just died. Let’s drop this for now and deal with it later.”

  Despite my words to Gordy, during the drive home I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack’s disappearance. The idea that he was in hiding because he’d done something extreme—like steal a pile of money—didn’t make sense. If Jack was a thief in hiding, why was he out and about with his dad on the river?

  I’d just showered and climbed into bed when the phone on my nightstand announced its presence. The ID identified the caller as Harvey, so I picked up the phone.

  “Hope I’m not calling too late,” she said.

  I stifled a yawn. “Um, let’s talk tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Something’s wrong, Mara. I can tell.”

  “You’re right. Nelson—Gordy’s friend—didn’t make it. He’s dead. And his son Jake has disappeared.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah, and my intuition tells me Jack’s disappearance has something to do with Nelson getting shot.”

  “Huh,” Harvey said. “But what?”

  I leaned over to click off the light. “I have no clue whatsoever. Harve, good night. See you tomorrow.”

  8

  In the morning I had to put the Nelson/Jack conundrum aside because Harvey, Ted, and I were scheduled to board Maine Oceanographic’s research ship, Intrepid, the following day. The 150-foot research vessel had pulled away from MOI’s pier the previous month with our equipment and supplies aboard, so most of the heavy lifting was done. Still, time-consuming details, including a detailed sampling plan, required our full attention now.

  To work out that schedule, we had commandeered the science building’s makeshift lounge on the third floor. Harvey and Ted were already there when I arrived, and from the looks of empty cups on the coffee table, they had been chatting and drinking java for a while.

  I pushed a heavy armchair closer to the table and fell into it. “I thought we said ten. Am I late?”

  “Nope,” Harvey said. “Ted happened to be on my floor, so he stopped by my office. We got some coffee and decided to come up early and just chat.”

  The claim was odd because Harvey was definitely not a “just chat”–type person.

  She correctly read my “So what did you talk about?” expression and added, “I told Ted a little about your, um, eel adventure.”

  I would rather have spoken with Ted myself to explain what had happened, but let it go. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about that later, okay? Let’s get to work now.”

  Ted slid his computer onto the table and flipped up the display. “We’ve got, what, five sampling days on the ship? We’ll have to work around the eel research, so that’s not much time.”

  With the need for expensive equipment and seagoing laboratories, oceanographic research was extraordinarily expensive. To save money, we had piggybacked on Nick Fisher’s annual eel research cruise to the Sargasso Sea, a vast and unique patch of Atlantic Ocean bordered only by currents off the southeast U.S. coast. Named after its extensive free-floating mats of brown Sargassum seaweed, the Sargasso Sea is a marine biologist’s marvel. Drifting Sargassum rafts are home to turtle hatchlings, over one hundred invertebrates including tiny crabs and shrimp, one-hundred-twenty-odd fish species, and a myriad of other sea creatures found nowhere else.

  The Sargasso Sea holds particular interest for eel enthusiasts. Both American and European eels mate and spawn there, but nobody has witnessed this mysterious event. Although it was like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack, eel biologist Fisher’s approach was to track tiny floating eel larvae, the fish’s first post-egg stage. He wanted to figure out when and where developing eels gave up their passive floating lifestyle and instead actively sought out the river they would eventually swim up along the Atlantic coast.

  Ted reviewed the cruise’s research protocol. “A couple of the eel folks will be using that big MOCNESS net system so they can take zooplankton samples at multiple depths simultaneously. Have either of you seen MOCNESS in action? And what does it stand for, anyway?”

  “It’s the acronym for ‘Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System’ and was designed by scientists down in Woods Hole,” I said. “A few years ago, I watched a deployment and it was amazing. I was on the upper deck as the crew released the device off the ship’s stern. It was a tricky maneuver because the ship was rolling—you can imagine how easily that array of long nets could tangle. Once it hit the water, the black upper net ballooned into the shape of a long, wavy sea creature. Never forgot it.”

  “I can imagine,” Ted said. “Thanks, that’s really helpful. As I understand things, on this cruise Fisher and his grad students will use the net system to collect eel larvae down through the water column over twenty-four-hour cycles. From how you describe it, Mara, that’ll take a lot of time.”

  “It will,” I said. “Which means we’ll be on station for hours at a time. Once they’re done with the first MOCNESS deployment, we can bring some Sargassum aboard and decide on the protocol for picking off the epifauna. After that, we should be able to work around their schedule and collect plenty more samples.”

  Harvey asked, “Tell me again why you and Ted are collecting Sargassum?”

  “It’s pretty interesting,” I said. “A few years ago scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium started a long-term study of Sargassum rafts to see if and how climate change has affected the animal community on the rafts. They’re using museum specimens from over fifty years ago for comparison, which is terrific. Ted and I are part of the biological oceanography team collecting samples.”

  A chemist whose water samples went immediately into pristine, acid-washed glass containers, Harvey had no experience with the sometimes messy domain of biology and ecology. Crinkling her nose, she asked, “So you get some seaweed up on deck and what do you do with it?”

  Ted answered, “Well, in the lab, we spread the seaweed out in white trays and then pick out and count the animals—tiny crabs, shrimp, worms—things like that.” He winked at me. “Harvey, why don’t you pick samples with us so you learn what we’re up to?”

  Harvey rolled her eyes, and then she turned toward me. “And you’ll do that too, Mara? Sit in the lab, picking out tiny animals on a ship that’s rocking back and forth? We’re talking about Intrepid, remember?”

  Harvey referred to my tendency to get seasick, an inconvenient and sometimes embarrassing affliction for an oceanographer. A couple of hours into the previous year’s Intrepid research cruise, I introduced myself to Ted, a new MOI hire, by throwing up at his feet on the rolling deck. Fortunately, he was wearing rain gear so the, um, splatter could be easily washed off.

  That Ted laughed off the episode at the time and never mentioned it again certainly won him points with me.

  “I’ll be wearing my seasick patch, and the grad students will help us sort Sargassum.” I quickly changed the subject. “Harvey, the MOCNESS sensors get salinity, temperature, and oxygen data. What else do you need?”

  Harvey shrugged. “The usual—like surface and subsurface DIC so I can calculate CO2, pH…you know. I’ll collect those water samples myself.”

  Like many chemists, Harvey automatically slipped into the alphabet jargon of her discipline. DIC—dissolved inorganic carbon—includes things like carbon dioxide and carbonic acid dissolved in water. Harvey would need those values to calculate how much carbon dioxide—a greenhouse gas that readily dissolves in seawater—was in her Sargasso Sea water samples.

  When I talk about climate change in schools and to commun
ity groups, I’m often surprised that many people, even Mainers living on the coast, know little about its impacts on the ocean. Unfortunately, the impacts are pretty serious and getting worse.

  Global fossil fuel combustion by humans has increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. In 2016, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration reached an alarming milestone—it did not go below four hundred parts per million (ppm) the whole year. That’s only 0.04 percent, but to atmospheric scientists it’s an alarming number.

  Studies of ice core bubbles tell us that humans have never walked beneath skies with so many CO2 molecules floating around up there. This matters because CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat, akin to glass in actual greenhouses. As a result, on Earth—as in a sunlit greenhouse—temperatures are rising. And like ice cubes in a greenhouse, many of the glaciers that cover about a tenth of our planet are melting faster than before.

  Scientists are especially worried about glacial melting happening on the southernmost continent, Antarctica, which is nearly twice the size of the United States and contains roughly ninety percent of the earth’s ice. Recent work shows that Antarctic ice melt over the last twenty-five years could fill Lake Erie six times over.

  Due to the connectedness of the world’s oceans, rising sea level from glacial meltwater is already affecting coastal cities globally. In the U.S., for example, there are Floridians who routinely drive through flooded roads during high tides and whose tap water is contaminated with seawater. These folks know low-lying coastal cities are already in trouble.

  Along the coast, water from above—rain—has also become a hazard, as those who suffered through Hurricanes Dorian and Harvey know all too well. While the warming climate hasn’t made hurricane winds stronger (at least not yet), these big storms are behaving oddly. Instead of moving along like a good hurricane should, Harvey and Dorian stalled, then slowly meandered along and dumped wet misery on inhabitants below.

  Not all the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel combustion and other sources ends up in the atmosphere—a lot, about twenty-five percent, is absorbed by the world’s oceans. That has changed the ocean’s chemistry, a process called ocean acidification, which is very bad news for a myriad of marine creatures. Chemical oceanographers like Harvey want to better understand the chemistry of marine acidification.