It was my third twenty-one-footer built by the same manufacturer, but I had never paused to appreciate the skiff’s symmetry. Its lines were as elegant as an aspen leaf but functional. So simple in appearance that only an expert would recognize the engineered complexities. No cabin, no windshield. Cut a surfboard in half, sink a rectangular space for a console, steering wheel, and throttle. Add three swivel seats mounted low, and an oversized outboard that ensures velocity.
Clean. Efficient. Just looking at it gave me pleasure.
“Doc? Are you listening to me?”
“Oh sure.”
“Are you okay? You’ve been standing there for, like, ten solid minutes, man. Hey. How about some music? When’s the last time you listened to Buffalo Springfield? No. America! ‘Ventura Highway’, ‘Sister Golden Hair’—the classics, man. But close the hatch. It’s gonna be pouring rain here, like, in two minutes.”
I felt the walls of the boat move as Tomlinson went to the stereo.
I said, “Tomlinson? Have you ever noticed how…exacting my skiff is made? Seriously. Minimalism. It’s an art form. The way it’s designed, I mean. Clean.”
“It’s gorgeous, man. Yeah, and you keep it spotless.”
“The color, too. Gray-blue. I really like the color.”
“Gray-blue is not a color, Doc. It’s camouflage—your boat’s invisible on the water. Which…now that I think about it, makes gray-blue the perfect color for you. Like your birth-stone, or something. Boats, man”—he was now calling to be heard from the sailboat’s cabin—“don’t let yourself get lured off on a boat tangent, man. You’ll sit there catatonic for hours. I look at No Mas sometimes, I start bawling. Doc? Doc! Where’re you going?”
I was aboard my skiff, starting the motor. Beneath me, through fiberglass skin, I felt a familiar vibration, similar to riding bareback on a horse, the rippling muscularity.
I let go the line, touched the throttle—a slight nudge of the knees was all it took to get the animal moving. I idled into the night, toward my home. A man alone in his boat.
Y es, it was a cigarette case. That was evident, now…
I didn’t have the photo of Marlissa Dorn, but the cigarette case was similar. Silver, ornately embossed. On one side, a small medieval-looking cross, but with double horizontal arms, the upper arm longer than the lower. On the case’s other side were initials. The first letter now visible: M.
Marlissa.
I didn’t know the significance of a doubled cross. Tomlinson would.
I was standing in my lab, staring into trays of sodium hydroxide. The cigarette case was in the middle tray of three. The diamond death’s-head and the bronze eagle were in the tray to my left. The table was too small to push that tray out of my peripheral vision and so I finally covered it with a towel.
Much better.
The death’s-head was impossible to ignore. Drew my eyes as if transmitting an invisible tractor beam. Light discharged by the diamonds was so penetrating it made me wince. The laughing skull was like ice on a bad tooth.
I concentrated on the cigarette case.
More of the black patina was gone. The double-bladed cross was unmistakable, but there was something at the bottom that required more cleaning. The base of the cross tapered into a dagger’s point, touching something—a symbol? Couldn’t tell. It was undecipherable.
Same with the other side of the silver case. An initiaclass="underline" M. Black sulfide covered the rest.
I was concentrating on the cigarette case because…? Well, for no particular reason. The case was there. It meant something…what?
A woman.
Yes. But which one? That was the question.
I continued to stare, seldom blinking.
The first squall edge of tropical storm was over Sanibel. Outside, wind was gusting; rain pellets rattled at the windows. My laboratory lights flickered with each blast of lightning. Power outages were common of late. I might have to start the generator soon…
It was unpleasant, the prospect of starting the generator. The effort it required: rechecking oil and gas, priming the carburetor, then pulling the cord. Made me tired to think of it…
What’s wrong with sitting in the dark? Nothing! Big moon. Sit inside and…do what?
Nothing.
No, having light was better. I would rally. I would find the energy. Start the generator, fill oil lamps if needed. Make tea. Read. Listen to shortwave radio; find out what was happening in small places on the far side of the earth.
I liked that idea. It made me smile.
My head moved, eyes searching until they found my left arm, then my wrist watch: 11:15 P.M.
Had I been standing, looking at the cigarette case, for ten minutes? Impossible.
My eyes moved around the room until I found my wristwatch again. 11:16 P.M. No, it was possible.
Listen to shortwave radio, that’s what I would do. Delicious, the prospect of that. Make tea. Get some food—did I have potato chips? Sit and listen to radio broadcasts—Radio Singapore, perhaps—the storm outside, isolated on this island by the weather and…something else.
I found my watch again: 11:17.
Oh yeah. They closed the bridge at 10:30 because of the storm instead of midnight as usual. Mack had told me, not that I cared. That’s another way I was isolated. No car traffic, so Sanibel was cut off. Like being on a ship at sea, riding out a big blow. I would stay alone in my cabin, because no person in their right mind would be out in a storm on a night like this…
At the north window, there was a dazzling explosion of light, then another. Wind sounded passages through my windows that were reed-sized, a moaning pitch, warbling variations of oboes and flutes. My eyes, once again, were locked on the cigarette case.
Chestra.
The woman’s name was important for some reason. Why?
I thought about it.
She loved storms.
She could be out in a storm like this.
Yes, it was a possibility.
There was another lightning blast; wind screamed. Chestra’s voice came into my head. “I adore storms. Never miss one. I take energy from them!”
My mood changed from lethargy to slow panic.
Chestra would be out in this storm. Of course she would. She lived for this sort of thing. Insane. Fifty-knot winds were no reason to evacuate an island, but they were much too strong to risk a walk outside. A woman who didn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds? She would blow away like a palm frond…or be hit by a palm frond and killed.
I had to go get her.
I began to pace the room, searching for something—what?
My foul-weather jacket. I found it. The keys to my truck. I found those, too. And a flashlight—proof my brain was beginning to work again.
Panic had become fear; fear was becoming concern. My head was clearing, forced to focus…
The woman was probably on her way to the beach right now, indifferent to the danger. Fifty-knot winds from the southwest. What did that mean?
I processed it carefully: Water on the bay side of the island would appear calm because it was in the lee. Little wind ripples but no waves. The beach, though, could be fatal. Rogue breakers; tidal surges…
Yes. I had to find Chestra, then talk her into returning home.
Before I shut off the lights, the cigarette case caught my attention—something that would make her happy. I could use it to lure her back to her house. I’d planned on making a gift of it to her in a few days, anyway.
I wrapped the cigarette case in a towel, put it in my jacket pocket, and hurried out into the storm.
T he storm moved across Sanibel in bands, wind howling, calming for a few minutes, then howling again. The wipers on my old Chevy couldn’t handle the volume of sluicing rain as I drove Tarpon Bay Road toward the Gulf of Mexico. My headlights were feeble yellow cones. Lightning bursts illuminated the way. Trees wrestled in an agony of wind; debris tumbled. I passed a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. Then another. Water wakes battered my windshield.