Shark River Page 10

  I said, “No. Tucker died intestate. His ranch, most of it he’d already sold off to residents of a trailer park down in the Glades. Nice people—you met them a couple years back. They’ve really fixed it up from what I hear. The ranch house and the barn went to me because I was his only heir. Supposedly his only heir, anyway. I’ve never even gone down to look at the place. The trailer park people take care of maintenance. In return, I pay them a fee.”

  The tone Tomlinson used was as close as he can come to being businesslike. “Okay, then I think one of the letters Ransom received can serve as his actual will. If someone decides to get attorneys involved, I mean. It’s a handwritten instrument, and it’s kind of fun, really. What it amounts to is, Tucker left some money for you two, but you’ve got to find it first. He hid it because he was paranoid about this old enemy of his, an island dude named Benton, beating you to it. Sounds just like that wild old gunslinger, doesn’t it?”

  Oh yeah. Trying to manipulate people from the grave—that sounded just like Tuck.

  I told him, “Trouble is, Tomlinson, I don’t want anything to do with it. I think you know why. So do me a favor and tell Ransom that the money’s all hers. Whatever it is he left. And I’ll give her the house and barn down in Mango, too. You think we ought to take her word that she’s Tuck’s daughter? Or maybe I should ask her to do a DNA before I transfer the papers.”

  “If those eyes of hers aren’t proof enough, the conversation I had with her last night was. Isn’t it weird how people from the same family have similar vocal inflections, move and walk and even write like one or both of their parents? She wrote her address for me—Cat Island in the Bahamas. Used Tucker’s sloppy, curvy block print.”

  I didn’t think there was anything weird or unexpected at all about genetics determining characteristics and behavior, but I said, “Oh yeah, the similarities can be eerie.”

  “Believe me, compadre, she’s Tucker Gatrell’s daughter.”

  “Okay. Then she can have the house if she wants. I’ve got the deed in the fireproof box in my lab. But I’m not going on any of Tucker’s snipe hunts. I still have that fish count to finish up”—I glanced at my left arm; it was throbbing again, but not bad—“and I’m not in the best of shape.”

  “She’s counting on you, Doc. The woman’s got enough psych-up energy for ten people. The way she looks, the way she acts, can you believe that she’s got two kids? She was a middle-aged housewife, for God’s sake, before she kicked out her good-for-nothing husband and took her life back under control. What I’m saying is, she’s strong, man, very strong. In other words, partner, I don’t think she’s going to take no for an answer. And keep in mind, she really did come through when you needed her yesterday. If you catch my drift.”

  I said, “You’re not suggesting that she’d try to leverage me, are you? Threaten to go to the cops and tell them the truth?”

  Listened to Tomlinson say, “Probably not,” but I was thinking: Of course she would. She’s Tucker’s daughter.

  Thirty minutes later, standing, waiting on luggage to be stowed aboard an orange, multipassenger Bell helicopter, I perceived an unmistakable chill from the two women deputies who’d stayed the night on Guava Key and stood guard over the girl.

  Well, they’d supposedly stood guard.

  One of them was Deputy Walker, who hadn’t exactly been my advocate during the interrogation the night before. I’d avoided her questions, true, and we certainly hadn’t struck up even a conversational friendship, but that didn’t explain her behavior or the behavior of her fellow officer.

  As Lindsey and I approached the helipad, they seemed to make a point of ignoring me, and when I asked, “Is Waldman still around?” Walker shrugged and turned away.

  I’m not a stickler for mindless social ceremony, but neither do I allow rude behavior to go unquestioned.

  I moved close enough so she couldn’t ignore me. “Maybe you didn’t hear my question. Is Doug Waldman still on the island?”

  There was something in her expression and her tone akin to contempt. She braced both hands on the gunbelt around her waist and said, “Why? You had your chance to cooperate last night.”

  I took a couple of slow breaths before I said, “So maybe you got a lumpy bed and couldn’t sleep. Or the husband and you had a fight over the phone. What I’ll do is give it one more try. Is Waldman around? I want to ask him something about the investigation.”

  The deputy told me, “We can handle it, believe me. We don’t need your assistance,” and walked away.

  I received the same strange, inexplicable animus from Gale Storm, who touched me on the shoulder and, when I turned around, said, “Thanks for the help yesterday. I appreciate it.” But her tone said she wasn’t thankful and her quick, limp handshake told me she couldn’t wait to get away.

  “No need to thank me,” I replied. “From what I saw, you handled yourself pretty well in a situation most people can’t even imagine. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about.”

  That seemed to infuriate her. “Ashamed? Why the hell would I be ashamed?”

  I was tempted to say because she froze and lost her weapon, but instead I said, “Exactly the point I was making. No reason at all.” My shrug tried to tell her, How would I know anyway?

  But she wouldn’t drop it. She was wearing navy blue shorts, gray Izod shirt, and a golf visor, plus the same little gray belly bag. She’d either retrieved her weapon from the dock or she’d found a backup. She removed the visor, wiping her forehead, as she said, “Look, before I went into the private sector, I graduated from the FBI academy at Quantico and three or four other schools you wouldn’t even know about. If there’s one thing I don’t need it’s some fisherman trying to insinuate that I somehow blew an assignment. So please don’t.”

  Was everyone on the island in a foul mood? Or maybe Storm had received some kind of royal ass-chewing from Lindsey’s father. No way of knowing, but this time I wasn’t going to let it pass. I said, “One thing I can say for you, Ms. Storm, is you’d be a great train engineer.” When she raised her eyebrows quizzically, I added, “You’re always on time and on schedule. Your afternoon runs? I could set my watch by them. Plus you never varied your route. Not once. Just like you were on tracks. Very dependable. And predictable. I guess I wasn’t the only one who noticed, huh?” Then I looked into her face until she turned away.

  Then Lindsey was beside me. She grabbed my hand and began to steer me away toward a hedge of hibiscus that separated the grassy landing area from the bay. She said to me, “I don’t care how shy you are, how proper, I’m not leaving without a good-bye kiss.”

  I let her pull me along, saying, “What the hell’s wrong with these people? Yesterday I was a hero, today I’m poison. Even your bodyguard—what did I do to make her mad?”

  “Gale?” Her expression said it was unimportant, why waste the energy? “Don’t worry about her. Gale’s always pissed off about something. It might be that she’s jealous.”

  “She’s jealous because of me?” I smiled. “I don’t think so. She hasn’t shown the slightest interest. But I’m flattered you’d think that.”

  “Not you, you big dope. She’s interested in me. She’s been wanting to come on to me for, like, the last month, but couldn’t work up the nerve. Too professional, probably.” She turned to face me, laughing. “That’s hilarious! Gale interested in you? She’s gay. Man, are you out of it sometimes.”

  “Yeah, I don’t doubt that, but the question’s the same: Why would she be jealous? Unless you told her about last night. Which you didn’t . . . did you?”

  “I don’t tell her anything. She always, like, goes straight to Dad.” She paused for a moment. “Now that you mention it, though, um-huh, she is acting weirder than usual.”

  Lindsey was still thinking about it. She stood close enough to speak confidentially. “Or it could be because of Dad. Yeah, that might be it. My father spoke to her this morning on the phone and had her close to tears, he was, like, yelling a
t her so much. I was in the next room and could hear him. That’s how pissed off he was.

  “Same with the two women cops. With them, what happened was, my dad did a conference call this morning. Them and their boss at the Sheriff’s Department, Dad’s point being that they hadn’t done what they were paid to do, which, when you think about it, they didn’t. . . .” She let the sentence trail as we were approached the bushes. She turned to me again, made herself as tall as she could be on tippy-toes. Held my right hand to her chest as she kissed me gently, then harder. “I like you, Ford. We need to get together soon. Real soon.”

  “It’s something to think about.”

  She kissed me again. “No, it’s not. You think way too much. That’s your problem. Like the shoe commercial: Just do it.”

  Smiling, I used my good hand to hold her away momentarily. “Okay, sure, you’ve got a point, so we’ll get together. But you know what I’m thinking about right now?”

  In a torch singer’s smoky voice, she answered, “If it’s the same thing I’m thinking of, we’ve only got about five minutes, so drop your shorts and let’s get started,” then laughed at her own parody.

  “No, what I’m wondering is how’d your dad know the two women cops screwed up? They were assigned to guard you, but you snuck out. How could he know that? That’s my point.”

  She made a face and shrugged. “I’ve never figured out how my dad knows all the things he knows. I quit worrying about it long ago. He’s always watching me, always finding out stuff.”

  I experienced a slow, uncomfortable dawning. “You mean he knows and the deputies know where you went last night, where you stayed? That we were together?”

  “Maybe not but it’s possible. They usually keep track of me every damn second of the day. The bodyguard I had before Gale, she was like that, then Gale, and always because of Dad. They bug my room, bug my phones, tail me when I’m out. Because of the drug thing, only that’s not going to be a problem anymore. I’m serious, Doc, I feel like I’ve changed.”

  “Phone?” I said, thinking of the cell phone she’d carried with her. I was aware of a satellite surveillance system, controlled by the National Security Agency, known as Echelon. An NSA operator could sit at his little screen in Fort Meade, Maryland, tune in on a cell phone conversation on the other side of the earth. Could also use the conversation as an effective direction finder; laser in on the precise location, know what street they were on in Singapore or Perth, know if the person using the phone was turning right or left. It was that exact.

  Lindsey said, “I don’t know how he finds out all the stuff he does, but don’t worry about it. Plus, who cares? The only thing I really care about right now?” She gave me a slowly lingering kiss, then a slap on the butt. “All I care about is you calling those numbers I gave you, letting me know when we can get together again. You promised, so don’t forget, damn it.”

  I was nodding, still considering the probabilities. “Yeah, it would have to be the cell phone. You wouldn’t even need to add a mini-transmitter into something like that. Just dial in on the phone’s preprogrammed number. Or . . . yeah, maybe they would have to install one more little chip.”

  “Ford! You are going to call me. Leave a message at the numbers I wrote down, let me know where you are. I’ll call you here on the island, just as soon as I get to wherever in the hell it is they’re taking me. But if they won’t let me call, don’t think it’s because I don’t want to.” She had gray-green eyes with flecks of gold on the iris. Looking at me, her expression became affectionate, her eyes intense. “I like you, Ford. It’s nice not to feel that itch. That destructive itch. I want to stay in touch.”

  I became certain that someone had eavesdropped via the girl’s phone a few minutes after I watched the chopper bank away, swinging northward, gaining speed, when I was summoned to the island guests’ services desk.

  Someone had called my room three times; left the same name, the same number.

  The first two message slips were blank, but the third read, “Hal Harrington wants to discuss recent Apollo mission. Call immediately.”

  7

  Ransom Ebanks asked me, “Why would our daddy lie about somethin’ like that? About you and me being brother and sister? You look at the papers I’ve been trying to show you, the ones back on the island, then you understand.”

  In Tomlinson’s bungalow, in a small black backpack, she had a manila envelope filled with papers. Letters mostly, some legal documents and photos. I’d glanced at them long enough to notice that there was a drawing of some kind, too.

  I said, “Tucker would lie because—” I almost said Tucker Gatrell lied because he was a fraud and a pathological liar, but caught myself.

  Tomlinson was right. The genetics were unmistakable. The eyes, the vocal tones, even the way she turned her head and paused before speaking: all characteristics that reminded me of Tuck. Not that it was surprising my bawdy old uncle had sired a daughter down in the islands. He’d spent a lot of time in Cuba, the Bahamas, and Central America, drinking and carousing. I reminded myself that daughters tend to be sensitive and protective about their fathers no matter who they are. It wasn’t Ransom’s fault that she was Tucker’s daughter. No need to be cruel, so I started over.

  “Tucker would lie because he was . . . let’s just describe him as an unusual person. He was theatrical. Prone to exaggeration, almost like an actor. That’s one way to describe him—the man would have been a decent actor. Which is what he was doing when he told you I was your brother. Exaggerating. Acting like it was true. His little way of having fun. Isn’t that right, Tomlinson? Tomlinson knew the guy. Oh, he was wild about Tomlinson.”

  I was being facetious. Tucker’s common greeting when he saw Tomlinson approach was, “It’ll be a couple hundred more years before you hippie bastards should be allowed to mate with human beings. But that doesn’t mean I won’t let you buy me a beer.”

  “Wild about me,” Tomlinson echoed. “Describes our relationship perfectly.”

  I said, “My mother was Tuck’s younger sister. Much younger. She and my father were killed in an accident a long time ago. But you and I are fairly close to the same age. So see? It’s impossible. If we are related, Ransom, you’d be my cousin.”

  She turned away then paused, that familiar cowboy actor pose. Toyed with the big gold ring on her right hand, thoughtful, then shook her head.

  Why was it so difficult for her to accept?

  We were aboard my twenty-four-foot trawl boat, dragging nets and culling the catch so I could finish my fish survey. Tomlinson and the woman had agreed to help because I was temporarily one-handed and couldn’t operate the trammels alone.

  It was a winter-blue morning with a light chop out of the south. The breeze was balmy, scented with jasmine and mown grass. We were less than a hundred meters off Guava Key, both outriggers down, nets in the water. They created a brown swale that, if seen from above, would be an expanding vortex contrail as I steered us in wide circles and the rollers pressed themselves along the bottom.

  I hadn’t called Harrington yet. For one thing, I dreaded it. Talk to a man about a one-night stand with his daughter? For another, my work took precedence—or so I told myself.

  My trawl boat is a specialized vessel, built to drag shallow water, and ideal for collecting on the flats around Sanibel Island and the Gulf littoral. It is made of cedar planking and painted gray on gray, with a gray wheelhouse.

  No, it is not built for style, nor is it maintained for looks.

  I’d bought her used in Chokoloskee a couple years ago and single-handedly chugged up the inland waterway past Mango and Naples and Fort Myers Beach, and put her to work. It’d paid for itself in less than a year. When a university or lab sends me a big order for a species of plant or animal that I can’t collect by hand at low tide, or with a cast net, I fire up the net boat and rumble out into the bay.

  “Rumble” is the appropriate word. It is powered by an old standard six-cylinder engine. The name
brand is Pleasure Craft but it is actually made by Ford. Plugs and points, and no computer gizmos of any kind. In the little pilot house is a wheel, a throttle and the minimum of gauges—water pressure, oil pressure, and temperature. Above the pilot house, folded like the wings of a pterodactyl, is a complicated rigging of wires and steel booms to raise and lower drag nets, port and starboard. On the stern, a plywood culling table runs across the transom, with a twelve-volt light system so I can work at night. There are two huge live wells and a storage hatch on the port side built the size of a bunk, so I’ve got a place to doze if I get sleepy or just choose to lay out late, looking at the stars.

  The trawler is slow, dependable, and about as graceful and easy to maneuver as a floating slab of cement.

  But it’s functional—all I care about—and easy to use.

  Tomlinson had been out with me enough to know how to set the nets while I steered. Ransom stood next to me in the wheelhouse, talking, not wanting to believe that I was telling her the truth.

  She illustrated a component of the human quandary: When you have wholeheartedly accepted one vision of reality, it is very difficult to have that reality challenged, then replaced by another.

  She was still shaking her head as if perplexed. “Whenever he mentioned you, I could hear the daddy sound in his voice, him telling me about the brother I had back in Florida. Like the sun rose and set on you. Tell me about how you so smart and big and strong, jes’ about the best at everything you did. From what I saw out there on the dock yesterday, the way you handle yourself with them bad men, sweet Jesus, he tol’ me the truth, he did. Get yourself shot and you act like, hey, it no big deal. Like you knew exactly what to do, zoomin’ around out there on that fast boat.”