The day before, the death of Jimmy Darroux had made front-page headlines. I had read the story carefully. Darroux had been described as Hannah described him: a native of Louisiana. A commercial fisherman who had migrated to Sulphur Wells only a few years before. The story related that he had had several minor run-ins with local law authorities. He'd been arrested in a bar brawl, charged with public intoxication, but the charges had been dropped. On his record was also a charge for misdemeanor battery related to spousal abuse. He had pled no contest, was fined five hundred dollars and given a year's probation. Within the last two months, he had been arrested for possession of less than three grams of cocaine. The case had been scheduled to go to court in early February. He had also been arrested and fined for fishing outside proscribed times, and for having illegal fish in his possession.
Judging from the newspaper article, Jimmy Darroux had been just one more habitual loser. Not so hard to imagine him getting a belly full of booze, or a head full of crack, and setting out with a jerry can of gasoline to punish the people he perceived to be responsible for the net ban and his own troubled life. The article said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was assisting local authorities in the investigation. An A.T.F. officer said it was too early to tell if an explosive device had played a role in starting the fire, or in the death of Darroux. I knew that the A.T.F. officer wouldn't have admitted it even if he had known.
I glanced over to where the crane was stilling gobbling up wreckage. The yellow crime-scene tape was gone. The A.T.F. people, apparently, had found all they needed to find. If not, they wouldn't have released control of the area.
In today's paper, though, Jimmy Darroux rated only a token mention. His name was included in a story about the increase in thefts and vandalism up and down the coast. The story implied a connection between the crimes and the recent vote to ban the nets. In the last two months, the story read, fifty-four boats had been stolen, stripped, and destroyed—most of them small sportfishing boats. Sixty-seven outboard engines had also been stolen. A sheriff's department spokesperson speculated that a well-organized theft-and-chop-shop ring was involved. Two other skiffs had been set afire at their dock. In Naples, an unknown and unsuccessful arsonist had attempted to raze a marine storage barn. A night watchman had smelled the smoke and put out the fire before it had a chance to spread. In other places, arsonists had been more successful—they had burned several of the few remaining old stilt houses to the water. Also, sheriff's department records showed a report of someone stringing a cable across a waterway near Useppa Island.
I was relieved to see it reported. The more people who knew, the better.
The story also named several local sportfishermen who claimed that net fishermen were harassing them on the flats. Intentionally spooking the fish, yelling threats, throwing bottles. Finally, the story quoted an anonymous net fisherman: "They're taking our jobs away. They're taking our houses, boats, everything. They expect us to smile and be nice about it? You tell them paybacks are hell."
I folded the paper and dropped it in the trash can beside the bench outside the marina store. I had grown so accustomed to the roar of the diesel engine that when the noise abruptly died, the fresh silence made my ears ring.
"Hey, Ford, get your butt over here!" I looked to see Rhonda Lister waving to me from the stern of her water-bloated Chris-Craft cabin cruiser. There were Japanese lanterns hanging from the cabin framework, and painted in red script on the stern was the name: Tiger Lilly. Rhonda was wearing an elaborate green gown and a lot of complicated jewelry. Her caramel-bright hair was coiled into a towering bun, and there was a pale yellow hibiscus blossom behind her ear. Rhonda is a big, busty, hippy woman. Dressed the way she was, she looked like the proprietor of an 1850s-whorehouse.
I walked over, accepted the bottle of Steinlager she held out to me, and said, "You are unusually lovely tonight, Miz Lister."
She curtsied daintily. "Thank you, kind sir." Then did a quick double take. "Hey—how'd you get those scratches on your face? You get in a fight? You look like hell."
I felt lucky that a few scratches and a knot above my ear were the only injuries I'd suffered.
"I spent the day wrestling sea horses."
"Which means you don't want to talk about it?"
"Which means I'd rather talk about that gorgeous dress. Why the costume?"
Rhonda made a flittering motion with her hands; a regal effect. "The ladies who inhabit this fish palace have discussed it among ourselves, and we've decided that tonight should be a special night. A real celebration. Our little family of gunkholers and misfits endured a great trial by fire on Thursday, and we . . . and we . . . we . . ."
"Triumphed?" I offered.
"Damn right we did. Triumphed. So what we ladies have decided is, we are all going to wear our best gowns this evening. Show you men just how tasteful we are. Show we own something besides boat shorts and aren't always up to our elbows in engine grease. But mostly to prove that those sonsabitches can't scare us!" She smiled demurely and fanned herself with an imaginary fan. "Because we are, after all, ladies, sir."
I laughed as she whirled around, billowing her skirts. "What do you think, Doc? Pretty fancy, huh?"
"Stunning. The tennis shoes make just the right statement."
"It was JoAnn's idea. She said we'd get stuck in the dock. If we wore high heels? She said it wouldn't be ladylike because we'd fall and spill our drinks. Plus, it would make us easy prey for you vultures."
JoAnn wasJoAnn Smallwood. She and Rhonda were roommates, and co-owners of Tiger Lilly. Several years ago, they pooled a couple of hundred dollars and started an advertising sheet they called The Heat Islands Fishing Report. The advertising sheet was well accepted. Sanibel and Captiva certainly qualified as heat islands, and advertisers knew there was money in any publication that had to do with fishing. JoAnn and Rhonda worked eighteen hours a day, and pumped every dollar they made back into the business. Now their advertising sheet is a magazine-sized weekly. They've started a sister publication that deals with real estate. They are in the process of buying their office complex over near Periwinkle Place Shopping
Center. They've made way too much money to be living on a rot-pocked cabin cruiser in Dinkin's Bay. JoAnn says they stay on the boat because their business eats all their liquid assets. But I know, from a good source, that each of the women owns at least one island home—which they lease—plus a couple of choice building lots. I suspect they continue to live on their roomy cabin cruiser because that is how they started life on Sanibel, and they still enjoy being a part of the marina community.
Rhonda said, "Look, do me a favor. If Tomlinson shows up wearing that Dorothy Lamour thing of his, the sarong, send him back to the boat and make him change. I don't mind, but I've got a couple of important clients coming later. No matter how many times I remind him, he still spreads his legs whenever he sits down. God knows, he's not the only one around here doesn't wear underwear, but it upsets some people."
I was in the process of telling her that Tomlinson was still on Sulphur Wells. But Rhonda interrupted me, saying, "My God, it's ... it's .. . it's Princess Di!"
I followed her gaze down the dock to see Janet Mueller approaching. Janet had a shy, crooked grin on her face and was making a hushing motion with her hand. Her gown was some kind of peach-colored gauze over a silver skirt and peach bodice. Apparently she, too, had visited one of the Dinkin's Bay hibiscus bushes. A bright red flower bloomed from her mouse-brown hair. She wore a light dust of makeup—pale lip gloss, some cheek highlighter, a darkening mascara—that reduced the roundness of her face. It was strange to see Janet wearing makeup. But she looked . . . nice . . . sweet. There was something touching about her appearance, as if she were a plump, wistful little girl who had used her older, prettier sister's clothes to play dress-up.