Pretending to enjoy the twenty-minute boat ride to the old dock wasn’t easy. Even when my full attention was required by shoal water and oyster bars, I remained subdued. Maybe Ransler sensed it, because he complimented me when I dropped the skiff off plane, saying, “Even with a chart, most people couldn’t have found this place. A couple of deputies tried over the weekend but radioed in it was too shallow.”
“It is too shallow,” I replied, nudging the throttle back, “unless you know where the deep water is.” Which might have sounded smug, so I added, “The channel isn’t marked. Local fishermen always tear down the markers if someone tries.”
“The deputies said their boat was too big.”
“Oh?”
“A twenty-four-foot Grady White, I think. Bigger than this boat.”
I didn’t want to sound critical, but I also wasn’t going to lie. “Back when they were hauling pot, I heard they ran small shrimp boats in here. A thirty-footer wouldn’t have a problem if the tide’s right and if the mangroves were trimmed-but maybe this place is harder to find from Sematee County.”
Joel had a nice easy way of laughing that made it hard not to like him. “The marine division should follow my lead and hire you,” he said. “They ran aground, that’s exactly what happened-who knows where-and it took the guys something like three hours to get back.” Then he did a slow circle with his eyes, seeing walls of green all around-mangroves fifty feet tall on the shoreward side. To the west, mangrove ledges trimmed by hurricanes, where pelicans and white wading birds were perched, warming themselves in sunlight. Shards of limestone rock, too, that pierced the shallows like teeth; sometimes a limestone outcropping that angled from tree roots into the water.
“This is Deer Stop Bay?” he asked.
“No, that was the first bay we came through. I don’t think this place has a name.”
“Prehistoric,” the man responded, his voice softer.
“How long have you lived in Florida?” I asked, because he behaved like a person who was experiencing something for the first time.
“I was born right here in Sematee County,” he answered and grinned at my surprise before explaining, “but I grew up in the Midwest. I spent spring breaks here when I was going to Valparaiso, then moved down after law school. That was four years ago, almost five.” His eyes returned to a shoal area of limestone and water. “Are those oysters or rocks?”
I told him what he was seeing, then explained, “A geologist told me a limestone ridge angles northwest from the mainland but doesn’t break the surface often. Not wide, either, where it branches off. A section runs across Pine Island. There’s another off Sulfur Wells. I know spots in only six or eight feet of water where you can catch grouper because of the rock ledges. Spiny lobster, too-I used to dive for them when I was a girl.”
It was the sort of thing fishing guides are expected to say, and my client liked it, but his eyes were busy. “I don’t see the dock-am I missing something?”
“Around that point,” I said, “unless I got us lost, too.”
Joel took it as a joke and made one of his own by hinting he wouldn’t mind being stranded alone in a boat with me. Or maybe he wasn’t joking, because he nudged the little cooler he’d brought and said, “I made a thermos of margaritas-you’ve earned a drink. Or we can be proper about it and wait until noon.”
I smiled but was thinking, Don’t let him get too familiar. Which is why I answered, “I don’t drink when I’m working, but clients can make themselves at home.” Then nodded as we rounded the point and asked, “Is it the way you pictured it?”
The loading platform Dwight Helms had built was supported by a double span of sixteen-foot stringers on telephone pole pilings that had been jettied deep. The planking was thick enough to hold a pickup truck or two plus a metal derrick. The derrick was still there but leaning badly because the wood had rotted. The diesel engine next to it appeared to be frozen in brown rust.
“Quite an operation,” Joel said, and moved forward. Because he was wearing shorts and a blue polo, he looked like a tennis player from where I stood, with his long tan legs and golden body hair. He placed his hands on the casting platform while he studied the dock, then said, “It looked smaller from the satellite photos.”
“From space, it probably would,” I replied.
The man glanced back. “I can usually read sarcasm. Not with you, though.”
Now I actually did smile. “Sorry. I don’t think making fun of people is funny, so don’t worry. What I meant is, the dock was bigger-the way I remember it anyway. So of course it would be smaller from high up.”
Ransler was interested. “Oh. You saw it back in the days when it was…”
“Operational?” I said, helping him out. “Yeah, I did. My Uncle Jake brought me in here once or twice when I was a little girl. Not because of the dock, we came here to fish, but I saw it.” Then I told the prosecutor what I remembered, which, possibly, had been colored by what I’d heard in later years. Dwight Helms, and others in the pot-smuggling trade, had rigged a shrimp net in the trees like an awning to camouflage the dock from DEA planes passing overhead.
“It was like a gigantic tent,” I said, “covered with tree branches and leaves. I remember thinking it was even bigger than a tent. You know, impressive to a girl only seven or eight years old. My mother didn’t believe me when I described it-she was so sure I was exaggerating, I remember getting mad. My uncle said it was a good lesson for me.”
Ransler looked over his shoulder again. “The lesson being?”
I had to think for a moment. “Something about It’s easier for a stranger to trick us because they’ve yet to be caught in a lie. Or maybe he said to con us, I forget. Loretta-my mother-she would have believed a stranger, that’s what he was telling me.”
“You’ve mentioned him a couple of times. You must have been close.”
“Jake?” I said. “He was a lot more fun than Barbie dolls and dress-up parties. Probably because he treated me like a friend, not his precious little niece.”
Joel hadn’t asked about my father, which was a relief but made me suspicious. He had telephoned Loretta with questions about Rosanna Helms, that much she had already admitted. But had she strayed-or been led-on to other topics? Before her stroke, my mother had avoided embarrassing topics. Now there wasn’t any word or subject too tasteless for her to share with the postman or even with passing strangers while out shopping. Worse, she had begun to confuse me with my late aunts, Hannah Two and Hannah Three, whose bad judgment and love of men had brought both of their lives to a violent end. Trying to avoid my late aunts’ errors was complicated enough without the fear of Loretta telling a stranger that To get Hannah’s panties down, just tap her on the head. I had heard her say those exact words to Christian, our good-looking UPS man, and so now began to wonder if Joel Ransler’s flattery was based on misinformation provided by my addled mother.
No way of knowing because Ransler stuck to the subject of my late uncle.
“Did he help support you two? She told me how hard up for money she was-a single woman raising a little girl. It had to be tough… on both of you.”
The man sounded sympathetic, but I didn’t like the direction the conversation was going. There was no guessing what else Loretta had said about me. One thing I felt sure she hadn’t mentioned while discussing money was her long affair with a married man-something she has never admitted and I’ve never brought up. No reason to embarrass her needlessly, plus it was a secret comfort to have the ammunition ready if Loretta ever pushed me too far. Her lover had been a wealthy man-although the source of his income was a mystery-who she had never brought to the house, but I had heard them talking on the phone often enough to know his name was Arnie-something. Thanks to Arnie, Loretta had had a nice car and money enough for shopping, which she loved. There had been a few hard times financially, but that was after Arnie or Loretta-both, possibly-had found religion, which had ended their affair. Joel’s gentle way of asking questions, however, made me feel obligated to be conversational because there was still water between us and the dock.