“Noon?”
“I have an afternoon charter,” I told him.
Birdy Tupplemeyer wasn’t paying me, but that didn’t make my excuse any less true.
15
After an hour with the redheaded deputy, I was beginning to agree with her mother that a hash cookie or two was just what the doctor ordered for a girl whose mind never stopped working and who wanted to be everywhere at once, especially any island with a beach or high ground, even if it meant trespassing, or wading through swamp.
Birdy’s willingness to trespass had almost gotten her into trouble the previous night. She had slipped under the gate of a landfill, only a mile from the condo where she lived, and was hiking among the piles of raw earth and asphalt when a security guard in a golf cart had appeared out of nowhere.
“He was pretty good, had his lights off,” she explained. “I don’t know if he saw me or not, but I went over the back fence anyway. I’m trying to borrow a night vision unit from a friend. If he doesn’t come through, our next visit will have to wait for a night or two.”
Something else that had to wait was our trip to Cushing Key, but that was because of low tide, not our lack of equipment. When we left the dock at one, the flats resembled green meadows, the bay was so shallow, so I drove us straight through Captiva Pass and into the Gulf of Mexico.
“That’s the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen,” the redhead grinned, then asked, “What’s the name of the island?” We were running along the outside in water that was turquoise, wind-streaked. To our right floated a strand of silver beach, miles long, with coconut palms that leaned westward.
“Cayo Costa,” I told her, then explained that some locals still called it La Costa. “Years ago, Cuban fishermen kept fish ranches there-rancheros. They caught mullet but made most of their money smuggling rum.”
“Some things never change,” the off-duty deputy replied.
I wasn’t sure how to take that, so I continued to tell her about the island. “At the north end, there’s a tiny cemetery and a park where you can camp. Next time, bring a swimsuit. We’ll anchor off a patch of rocks that’s good for snorkeling-fire coral and a lot of fish to see. I’ll bring a speargun.”
“I’ve got a bra and panties,” Birdy replied. “There’s nobody around. Plus, I’m so flat-chested, who’s gonna notice?”
“Up to you,” I said, then anchored near the rocks and waited while she splashed around, using my mask and fins. I was playing tour guide, which wasn’t as interesting as fishing but fun and more relaxed, even though the redhead fired question after question at me. For the last hour, too many of her questions had been about Joel Ransler, so it was a relief to get a break while her mouth was plugged with a snorkel.
Fifteen minutes later, wearing clothes but hair still wet, she was lecturing, “It happens every time, Smithie, I swear to Christ. I’ll go months without a date, then finally meet a decent guy. Moment we start sleeping together, you can count on it, an even better-looking guy appears out of the blue. Total stranger. Would I like to go to dinner, maybe fly to Paris for the weekend? That actually happened to me, by the way.”
“How’d you like Paris?” I asked, giving it an edge.
“Didn’t go, smartass. I should’ve-I’m not dating anyone now, so see where it got me? When God needs a laugh, He hauls out His list of single women and tacks it to a dartboard. Keep your options open, Smithie, that’s all I’m saying.”
Smithie, that’s what she had decided to call me, which was okay. I had made a mistake by describing the special prosecutor as “handsome,” then mentioning the name of the movie star he favored. This was after telling her I had accepted Ransler’s job offer, but I hadn’t gotten around yet to the more unpleasant topics of Alice Candor’s behavior last night or the unsolved murder. Nor had I told her much about Marion Ford, but it was time, I decided, to set her straight.
“Once you meet Marion,” I said, “you’ll understand why I’m not interested in Joel, even if he is an attorney-or any other good-looking man.” I had my hand on the throttle when I realized how clumsily I’d spoken. Birdy, with her sharp sense of humor, couldn’t resist.
“You prefer guys who aren’t good-looking, huh?” she asked. “Smithie, you need to think this over.”
“You need to hang on,” I replied, and shoved the throttle forward. The redhead gave a startled whoop, and we were both laughing while I made a slow turn, then pointed my skiff south.
At South Seas Resort, I cut through Redfish Pass, dropped off plain and was soon idling along the back side of Captiva Island. To keep the off-duty deputy quiet, I pointed out houses owned by people I knew-multimillionaires, many of them, and some my clients-before I killed the engine and got off the first question, asking, “Remember the fishing reel missing from the attic?”
“That charity, nonprofit thing,” she said. “I’m glad you took the job. You’ll get to know your hot attorney better. Plus, I can help you if the bastards turn out to be con men.”
“I was talking about Teddy Roosevelt,” I said. “This is where he anchored his houseboat. Nineteen seventeen.”
“No kidding?” Birdy swiveled her head as if expecting to see a brass plaque.
“Maybe not the exact spot but close,” I said. We were drifting between Buck Key and Captiva, the gas dock at Jensen’s Marina to our right, several skiffs anchored off the pool bar at ’Tween Waters just ahead.
“Do people still harpoon giant stingrays? That reel must be worth a ton of money. Sounds to me like your grandfather must’ve been Teddy’s favorite fishing guide.”
The woman seldom asked one question at a time, but I was getting used to it. “Manta rays,” I corrected, “and it was my great-grandfather. But he was too young to captain a boat.”
“Teddy must have liked him, though. Vom Hofe, was he a famous reel maker? Quite a present to give a boy-or was he a teenager?”
I replied, “There was a local girl the president made friends with, too. She was younger, only nine or ten, but they say he liked people with spirit. He gave her a pair of boots. If I find the book he wrote-or maybe the library has a copy-there are photos of the manta rays they harpooned. Huge animals, the size of cars.”
“Teddy Roosevelt slept here,” Birdy said, smiling, her eyes taking in the scenery.
I told her the boat the president had lived on was a one-room house built on a barge that was fifty-some feet long. “For a while, it was anchored behind Castaway’s-that’s a nice place to stay when you get some time off. Years later, a storm pushed it way back in the mangroves. One day, if you want, we’ll try to find what’s left.”
In reply, Tupplemeyer asked several questions nonstop, which I didn’t have to answer because a friend of mine, Nathan Pace, appeared on a dock not far from where we were drifting. Nate had been skinny in high school but was now a bodybuilder and good-looking, despite a crooked tooth and his shyness.
“Damn, who’s the hunk?” Tupplemeyer whispered as we idled over to say hello. “I like guys with muscles. He’s gotta have money, too, if he lives there.”
No, but the famous photographer Nate sometimes slept with was wealthy-a nice man named Darren. I didn’t explain all this to Birdy, though, until we were a mile or two from Captiva. The tide had risen, and we soon had the mounds of Cushing Key in sight.
AS WE MUCKED our way toward the island’s interior, Deputy Tupplemeyer, who oozed confidence but who knew nothing about swamps, sounded uneasy when she asked, “Any snakes around here?”
By then, we were friendly enough to have traded several more barbs, so I was tempted to reply, No-alligators eat them all. I might have said it, too, if I thought she would have slowed her pace. Now that we were on land, following Birdy was like being pulled along by a propeller that had been revved too high or a generator that discharged currency into the ground. The woman’s energy seeped in through my feet, my ears, and was beginning to short-circuit my own more careful method of thinking.