Normally, I wouldn’t have put up with such a person. In fact, when she had latched onto the subject of Joel Ransler, I had come close to inventing an excuse to end the trip early. But I didn’t, and was glad. I admired the woman’s spirit. She was curious and enthusiastic about… well, everything, and her positive attitude was seeping into me as well. Plus, she was funny-often crude, true, but at least she came out and spoke her mind.
“I’d bet my ass there are snakes galore,” Birdy insisted, finally stopping for a breather. She used a tree limb to steady herself, looked to the left, then the right, seeing muck, spiderwebs glistening in the shadows, and a tangle of mangrove jungle where prop roots hung like bars in a cave. “Nothing else would live in a place like this.”
“Except for mosquitoes,” I said, then couldn’t help saying with a straight face, “Gators eat the snakes. No need to worry about them.”
Automatically, the deputy’s hand moved toward the holster she wasn’t wearing. “Alligators! You serious?”
“We get an occasional saltwater croc, too,” I replied.
“Shit, now she tells me. I should have brought my Glock.”
“They’re a protected species,” I reminded her.
“I’m a protected species, too, when I’m carrying a Glock,” the deputy answered. “Screw the law, how big?”
I was losing control, so walked ahead of her and didn’t look back. “Ten, sometimes twelve feet long. I’ve never seen a really big one. Not on this side of the island anyway.”
“This side of the island! Jesus Christ, I pity the poor guy you’re dating-what do you consider big?”
Now my chest was shaking, couldn’t help myself, so I kept walking.
She called after me, “Maybe we should head back to the boat. Hannah… where you going? Hey… Jungle Jane! Goddamn it, I’m talking to you!”
I stopped and turned and let my laughter go. When Birdy realized I was joking, she gave me a fierce look and hissed, “Asshole!” but soon was laughing, too, then tried to imitate a Southern accent. “Yep, big-ass gators’ll eat you city folk. Diddle you up the be-hind, too, if rattlers and rednecks turn scarce. Ya’ll gotta be mindful.” Her voice returned to normal. “Shit! Can’t believe I just got taken in by some rube chick.”
Now I was tearing up, I was laughing so hard. “Sorry… sorry,” I croaked. “The look on your face when I said gators… My lord!”
“Paybacks are hell, Smithie,” she fired back, then plucked a foot out of the muck and inspected her shoe. Almost new Reeboks-Tupplemeyer had gotten hooked on jogging while at the police academy and had shown me the soles to prove she ran three to five miles daily but had a pronation problem, or possibly the term was supination-she wasn’t sure but had promised to look it up when we got back.
“Those shoes are ruined,” I said. “At least I told you the truth about that.”
“Okay, okay, you were right, so stop harping,” she said, pulling her other foot out of the mud. “How much farther?” To the Indian mounds, she meant.
I was wearing cheap white rubber boots I always keep on the boat and was secretly pleased by her admission. “We’ll hose those down and throw them in the washer later,” I suggested. “You can meet Loretta.”
“Your mom? I’d like that. The poor woman has to be a saint to raise a daughter like you. Did you hear what I just asked?”
“Weird,” I smiled. “I’ve been thinking the same thing about your mother.” I continued walking before answering, “Not far. Once we get on the mounds, there really could be rattlesnakes. Pygmy rattlers, mostly-I’m serious this time. But they’re not aggressive, so don’t worry.”
“Not aggressive,” she says, “my ass. You go first. I’ll follow from now on.”
Near the center of Cushing Key were two shell mounds that rose abruptly out of the swamp like miniature volcanoes but cloaked by trees, Spanish bayonet plants, and cactus. We saw no snakes but used cell phones to photograph shards of pottery and tools made from big whelk and conch shells. Artifacts everywhere.
“It’s pronounced konk, not cawnsh,” I corrected Tupplemeyer for the second time. She had summoned me to the western edge of the highest mound where she’d found a wall of conch shells embedded like bricks, the sharp ends pointed outward.
“A defense against invaders,” the former archaeology major told me. “I read about this. There’s no rock around here to quarry-that’s what the Maya and Aztec did. So they used shells. All four sides of the pyramid covered with shell spikes except for one path to the top. Smart, huh? These things would cut the hell out of someone.”
She was referencing the sketches she’d seen by Frank Cushing-the island’s namesake-who the Smithsonian had sent to Florida in the 1890s.
The redhead knelt and took more photos but had yet to so much as touch a shell or a piece of pottery-shards of baked clay, yellow-orange, that had accumulated over the thousands of years people had hunted and cooked and lived their lives here. I was impressed by the respect she was showing for the state that was her new home.
“Whoa… look at this!” Birdy called after pulling foliage away. Then began snapping more photos while I squatted beside her. She had found a large conch horn, its point sawed off as a mouthpiece, and part of a bowl with a triangular pattern etched around the rim. It was so simple and eloquent, I tried to imagine the artist-a woman, no doubt-who had lived on this island and who had done her work with extra care.
The redhead, apparently, felt a connection, too, because she stood, tilted her nose up, and said, “Does the air seem… heavier here to you? In Tikal, it was exactly the same.”
“That’s in Guatemala?” I asked.
The deputy nodded while she rearranged leaves to cover the pottery shard. “Some jerk will cart this off if he finds it. I don’t know why I’m so attracted to places like this, but… they give me the weirdest feeling. Powerful, you know?” She looked up, her expression intense, a tinge of anger showing, too. “We’ve got to find those artifacts that bitch had hauled away. You still up for it?”
I replied, “I’ve got a story about Dr. Candor. She’s an alcoholic, I think. Or crazy. Maybe both. One thing I know for sure is, she’s trying to run the locals out of Sulfur Wells, Loretta and me included. That woman’s vindictive, and I don’t want you to lose your job.” I described last night’s scene on the dock, then started to share what I’d uncovered about the couple, but no need-Tupplemeyer knew more about the Candors than I realized.
“They’re both dirty,” Birdy said. “This morning, I figured out where they sent those dump trucks-and it wasn’t to a public landfill. They filed for a zoning variance on some wetlands near one of their rehab clinics. Documents that were dated Monday, but they’ve owned the property for more than a year. The application claims the land’s actually above the floodplain.” Tupplemeyer’s tone emphasized the importance of the time lag.
“Where?” I asked.
“Inland, near some little town in Sematee County. About an hour’s drive.”
“That’s Joel Ransler’s area,” I said. “He’s got a friend who works in the planning department, Delmont Chatham, an older man. He’s been on my boat. Is planning department the same as zoning?” I was thinking that Mr. Chatham, a charter client, might be willing to speak with me.