“Yam is a pretty common Chinese name.”
“Ted, how in heaven’s name do you know that?”
“Scrabble. We used to play it a lot when I was a kid and names were okay.”
“Okay, it’s someone’s Chinese name. But—”
He interrupted me. “Let’s back up a little. Could Nelson know any of the traffickers’ names?”
“Lieutenant Dunn told me that Nelson helped out with an Operation Broken Glass sting. Something to do with exonerating Jack, but Dunn didn’t say more about that.”
Ted nodded. “Since Nelson was right in the middle of it, he could very well know some traffickers’ identities. There was something in the Maine newspaper a couple of days ago about eels and Chinese traffickers. Let’s go inside and check out the internet.”
We sat side by side at the kitchen table while I entered a string of words into my computer’s search engine. None produced anything useful. Finally, Ted said, “I think the piece I read was about Portugal. Try ‘Portugal’ plus ‘eel.’ Add ‘wildlife’ and ‘crime.’”
The four words did the trick. An article titled “Four Chinese Arrested for Smuggling Glass Eels in Portugal” appeared on my desktop.
Scanning the piece, I said, “Wow. Listen to this. Nearly a quarter of Europe’s natural stock of eels is smuggled into Portugal every year, making it the largest wildlife crime in Europe.”
“That’s a lot of biomass,” Ted said. “How do they do it?”
I ran my finger down the screen. “Um, baby eels in plastic bags, half-full of water, are smuggled in suitcases. Here’s more. ‘Police seized 350 suitcases bound for China containing eels worth five million U.S. dollars.’”
Ted shook his head. “Astounding and worth killing for. Let’s go back to what Nelson was mumbling. Are there any names in that article like Yam?”
I turned back to the screen. Two key smugglers were identified in the last paragraph. “Here it is. Yam Yuam.” I fell back into my chair. “So you’re thinking…”
He finished the sentence: “That the traffickers who shot Nelson are worried he told you about this Yam Yuam character before he died.”
Slowly closing the laptop, I said, “And that both Jack and I know the name.”
Ted nodded. “Which might explain why Jack’s hiding out.”
I raked my hands through my hair and said, “Nothing can be done about it now, but I’ll call Dunn again in the morning. One thing I’ll ask is why knowing Yuam’s name is so dangerous.”
That night a series of bizarre dreams interrupted my sleep. As I showered in the morning, snippets of each one came to me—a Chinese man rolling on a beach as an eel strangled him; Nelson with a hole in his chest, shouting “Yam, Yam”; me thrashing around in the freezing ocean as Jack rowed by in a skiff.
39
The next day, a ton of work kept me busy. Overnight, as weird dreams disrupted my sleep, Intrepid motored into Spruce Harbor and tied up at MOI’s pier. In the morning, Alise helped us load our samples and equipment onto carts and carefully roll them down the gangway, through the institution’s back door, up the elevator, and through the hallway to our lab. After three trips, the precious samples and all our paraphernalia were finally stored safely away.
In the lab, Ted counted the preserved Sargassum samples that still needed to be dealt with. “Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.” He shook his head. “That’s a whole lot of picking and sorting.”
“Remember those grad students sorting samples on the ship?” I asked. “Maybe we can hire them.”
Washing her hands at the sink, Alise said, “If you pay them enough, my guess is that they’d be happy to do it.”
“Excellent. Ted and I put a fair amount of money into our budget to hire assistants.”
Alise walked over to the lab bench and stared into one of the gallon jars, filled with pickled seaweed and Sargassum animals. “Okay, I’ll ask around and get back to you. Wow, what’s that bizarre little fish on the bottom of the jar? It’s kind of cute and looks half-fish and half-seaweed.”
“Histrio histrio,” Ted answered. “It’s a frogfish species that mimics Sargassum. I agree, the fish looks pretty benign. But that vicious little guy lunges out from its seaweed cover, grabs prey, and swallows them whole in a microsecond.”
Still looking at the jar, Alise said, “Histrio histrio, you are not what you appear to be.”
Back in my office, I called Lieutenant Dunn and described my ordeal on Little Moose. “I was only in the water a couple of minutes,” I added. “So I’m okay.”
“No, Mara,” he said. “I put you in danger, and none of this is okay. I don’t know why those thugs went after you, but I promise to do my best to get to the bottom of this.”
“Actually, Ted and I—he’s my, um, partner—we have an idea about that.”
“Go ahead.”
I described the scene as I knelt next to Nelson as he died. “He was mumbling something like the word Yam. Ted thinks that might be the name of a Chinese trafficker. It’s a pretty far-fetched idea, but…”
Dunn cut me off. “Not so far-fetched. Jack’s hiding out because he saw the guy who killed his father. If these criminals think Nelson had information about someone that he passed on to you, then you are a target as well. Look, if you see or hear anything suspicious, not matter how small, I want you to let me know.”
I had just thanked Dunn for his help, promised to get back to him with anything new, and ended the call, when my cell vibrated. The reception wasn’t great, but I managed to get the information Leonard wanted me to hear.
Without a word of thanks or goodbye, Jack had left Little Moose with a couple of lobstermen heading for the mainland.
“I’ve no idea where Jack’s gonna go,” Leonard said, “but thought you should know.”
I called Lieutenant Dunn, who answered on the second ring.
“It’s good you told me this, Mara,” he said. “Who knows what Jack is up to, so keep me in the loop, will you? And be careful.”
Ted was the next to know. Standing in the threshold of his office, I told him Jack was on his way to the coast.
“Where would Jack go?” Ted asked.
“I have no idea whatsoever.”
“Thank goodness I’ll be at your house tonight, Mara.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. “Boy, are you telling me.”
On my way home that afternoon, I spotted Ted’s truck in the grocery store parking lot and considered waiting until he was done so I could follow him home.
“That’s silly,” I said aloud. “He’ll get to the house minutes after I do.”
I had just opened my Subaru’s door and stepped onto the driveway when a familiar voice from behind scared the crap out of me.
“Get back in.”
I twirled around to see Jack walking towards me from the far side of the garage where he had hidden as I drove in.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
Opening his dirty yellow slicker, he pulled out a handgun. “I know how to use this thing. I said, get back in the car.”
As I fell back into the driver’s seat, Jack opened the back door on the passenger side, and slammed it shut. “Drive into town. And remember I got a gun aimed at your head.”
With shaking hands, I started the car, gripped the steering wheel, backed onto the grass, and headed down the dirt road.
“Where are we going?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Shut up,” Jack snapped. “Just drive.”
We had only bounced along the rutted road for a few minutes when Ted’s truck turned a corner, heading toward us.
“I have to stop to talk to this guy,” I said. “He’s my boyfriend and is staying at the house.”
“You got a blanket or somethin’ in this car?”
“In the back, right behind you.”
Jack grabbed the blanket and draped it over himself. I glanced back. Ted wouldn’t be able to tell anyone else was in the car.
I slowed to a
stop and rolled down my window, as Ted did the same.
40
“Did you forget something?” Ted asked.
“Um, Angelo made something for us we can have for dessert. He just called. I’ll be right back.”
“Huh,” Ted said.
“Well,” I responded, with a nod toward the back seat, “Histrio histrio.”
Ted opened his mouth to say something, but he shut it as I shook my head and mouthed, “No.” His eyes widened.
“Right then, Mara. Say hello to Angelo.”
After we rounded the corner on our way out, Jack emerged from the blanket, tossed it over his head, and barked, “Drive faster.”
“I can’t. The road’s in pretty bad shape. Drive where?”
“Nearest ATM. Jus’ drive and shut up.”
As the car neared the main road, I tried to reason with Jack. “Like you, my parents died suddenly. I know what it’s like.”
“You know nothing about me,” he growled. “Just shut up and drive.”
When we reached Route One, Jack slouched down in his seat as I turned toward Spruce Harbor. I could no longer see him in my rearview mirror but could certainly hear his hideous coughing and wheezing.
Racing through my limited options, I decided to drive past the closest ATM, out of view behind a bank. I prayed Ted had alerted the police, and the additional mile to the next machine would give them a little more time. But my mouth went dry as my car glided up to the ATM. No cruiser pulled up behind, with red lights flashing and sirens blaring.
I directed my question toward the back seat: “How much money do you want?”
A raspy voice answered. “Five hundred.”
I leaned out the window, inserted the debit card, and mistyped my code.
“What’s takin’ so long?” Jack growled.
“Um, my hand is shaking, and I pressed a wrong number.”
I felt the cold, hard metal of his gun on my neck, as Jack hissed in my ear. “Better get it right this time.”
“Jack,” I said. “There’s no way I can do this with your weapon next to my brain.”
Complaining, “Christ,” he fell back against his seat and took his gun with him.
I entered the correct code, pulled five hundred dollars from the machine, turned, and handed the cash to Jack. He snatched the money, counted it, and stashed it in his back pocket. Watching him, it was hard to believe this was the same person who had stood in the dark, shotgun in hand, as his father netted eels on the Union River. That Jack was young, vibrant, and caring. This Jack was nasty, slovenly, and totally self-absorbed.
Turning back, I scanned the blacktop next to the machine. The usually busy parking lot was empty, which was odd. Where was—?
The next moments were so chaotic I could hardly recall what happened afterward. I was about to close my window when an officer yanked the door open, lifted me out of the seat, and ran away from the car as he identified himself. Behind us, the shouts were unintelligible.
Officer Daniel Doyle set me down and said, “You are Mara Tusconi, correct?” as a police cruiser pulled up.
“Yes, sir. And am I glad to see you.”
Calling my name, Ted jumped out of the cruiser, ran over, and hugged me so tight I could hardly breathe.
Rapid-fire, he said, “Are you okay? I was so worried. What a thing!”
Stepping back, I said, “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”
Introducing himself, Ted told Doyle that he had called in my “abduction,” as he called it.
“We’ll need to interview both of you in the station,” Doyle said. He added, “If it’s okay for, um, Ted to follow us in your car, why don’t you ride with me, Mara?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “And the guy you just arrested? He’s high on some kind of drug.”
“I suspect the other officers will be able to see that, ma’am,” Doyle replied. “But I’ll tell them what you said.”
Before going home, once more I had to go through the whole interview routine including the sterile room, tape recorder, questions, and repetition. When I had finished, Ted was waiting for me in the hallway. I took his hand and together we walked out of the station into the cool, clean night air.
Silent, we leaned against my car in the parking lot and held on to each other. After the terror and chaos, I drank in Ted’s soothing warmth—his arms around me, the touch and smell of his hair, his strength and vitality.
Finally, I pulled back and said, “Ted, you probably saved my life tonight. There’s no way…”
He touched my lips with his finger. “Shh.”
I took his hand and squeezed it. “Bet I know how to pay you back.”
Pulling me toward him again, he whispered, “Bet you do too.”
A car turned into the lot and broke the mood. Stepping back, I said, “Before we go home, let’s stop at Angelo’s for a few minutes. He’s probably been listening to the scanner and knows something happened. I want him to see me in one piece before he finds out who the something happened to.”
Seated across from me at his kitchen table, Angelo muttered the expected, “Dio mio”—“Good lord”—but on the whole took the news pretty well.
After Ted and I finished our versions of the story, Angelo said, “Any idea what’s happening with Jack?”
“Not a clue,” I said. “And at the moment I really don’t care. That sounds terrible, but he could’ve easily shot me.”
“Not terrible at all, Mara. Completely understandable,” Angelo said. Changing the subject, he added, “That Histrio histrio. Very clever.”
Yawning, I stood. “That was a bit of marine luck. We were talking about that nasty little fish just this afternoon.”
“A nasty little Sargasso Sea fish, that hides and lunges after its prey, saves the day in Spruce Harbor,” Angelo said. “You never, never know.”
41
In contrast to my time on Little Moose and being abducted by Jack in Spruce Harbor, the next few days were extraordinarily peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, the days verged on boring.
Regrettably, I don’t do boring well.
The routine each day mirrored the next. Ted and I chatted over breakfast in my kitchen, and he left for work while I cleaned up. We met in the lab where the students we hired were picking out, identifying, and counting the tiny animals—epifauna—on the Sargassum samples from our cruise. Then Ted and I took turns entering those numbers onto a spreadsheet so we could make sense of the data with graphs and other visualizations.
In the end, we would compare our findings to similar studies done decades earlier by biologists at a research laboratory in Bermuda. Our ultimate goal was to assess the degree to which our rapidly changing climate was impacting the ecology of the Sargasso Sea’s relatively pristine waters.
As with most scientific studies, the end goal—in our case, assessing the ecological consequences of climate change—was exciting. In contrast, what it was going to take to get there was time-consuming and sometimes tedious.
The Sargassum epifauna data set was much bigger than I expected. Altogether there were thirty different types of species, including a couple I didn’t know existed.
Fixed on our computers, Ted and I sat on opposite sides of a lab table, typing numbers into little boxes. I looked up from rows and columns of diminutive numbers, rubbed my eyes, and asked, “Ted, what’s a pycnogonid?”
“Huh?”
“A pycnogonid. I haven’t the slightest idea what that is.”
Rolling his shoulders, he straightened up. “They’re called sea spiders.”
“Spiders in the ocean?” I asked.
He turned back to his computer. “Mara, find it online.”
Minutes later, I read the information aloud. “Pycnogonids, called sea spiders, are not even arachnids. There’s over a thousand species and controversy about the classification. Many think their lineage is ancient.”
“Hmm,” he said.
The minutes on the large clock on the wall ticked by—five, fif
teen, thirty, forty-five. Finally, after nearly three hours, I’d had enough.
Standing, I said, “That’s it. My brain is fried.”
Ted looked up from his screen. “Huh?”
“I’m fried, as in pooped, wasted, bushed, tuckered.”
“Tuckered?” he repeated. “Haven’t heard anyone use that one in a long time.”
“I’m going to look for Harvey and see if she’ll go for a little walk with me. You can’t tell from down here, but it’s supposed to be a nice day.”
“Why don’t you ask about her progress being department chair?”
“So she’s serious about that?”
“Far as I know. See what she says.”
Harvey’s office door was shut, but her lab door was open. Stepping in, I called out, “Harvey? You around?”
I expected Harvey to stick her head out from behind her analytical nemesis, the AutoAnalyzer. She could spend hours, sometimes days, tinkering with that cantankerous machine. Just looking at its guts gave me the willies. Yard after yard of thin flexible tubing in endless loops carried little liquid samples separated by tiny bubbles. Everything that could go wrong, did.
But the AutoAnalyzer wasn’t even turned on. Walking further into the lab, I spotted Harvey in the isolation room. The glass-enclosed space housed the mass spectrometer, an instrument that allows scientists to measure different forms—isotopes—of various elements, including carbon. With the “mass spec,” Harvey could assess impacts of the roughly thirty-five billion tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels that humans add to the atmosphere each year on the chemistry of Sargasso Sea waters.
I paused for a moment to read the inscription Harvey kept posted above the isolation room entrance:
“If you want to catch beasts you don’t see every day,
You have to go places quite out of the way,
You have to go places no others can get to.
You have to get cold and you have to get wet, too.”
If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss
Opening the door of her chemical sanctum for me, Harvey said, “Please come in. I’m trying to calibrate this damn machine and pulling my hair out while I’m at it.”
Glass Eels, Shattered Sea Page 15