She snatched up the Island Examiner and sped through Miles Umlatt's article, grumbling the whole time.
“Hunger strike!” she huffed when she was done, slapping the newspaper on the table. “What's wrong with him? Is he dense or what?”
“Abbey, don't talk that way about your father,” Mom said, “and the word is ‘deluded,' not ‘dense.'”
“But this is so embarrassing. Can't he understand that?” She slumped into a chair and laid her head on her arms.
“How about some scrambled eggs?” my mother asked.
“Ack!” said Abbey.
I excused myself and hurried out the door.
The scene at the jail wasn't as laid-back as before. At the door a deputy actually frisked me, like you see on TV. All I'd brought was a paperback book about chess-I figured my father ought to learn the game for real, before the lieutenant figured out he was faking it. The deputy examined the puny little chess book as if he was expecting to find a false compartment and a skeleton key. When he finally returned it to me, he announced that the visitation time had been cut to five minutes, on orders from the sheriff himself.
I waited a long while in the interview room. The big jowly deputy was there, too, but he stared right through me. When my father eventually came out, he was wearing a faded orange jumpsuit with the words MONROE COUNTY INMATE stamped on the back.
“Nice fit,” I said.
“Oh, they're just ticked off at me because of the newspaper story. Did you see it?” he asked.
“Oh yeah. So did Mom and Abbey.”
“And?”
“Nobody's buying the hunger strike,” I told him, “and you definitely need to back off this Mandela thing.”
Dad seemed disappointed at the family's reaction to the Island Examiner article, but I couldn't lie to him.
“You need to come home. Seriously,” I said.
“Noah, please don't start with that again.”
I gave him the chess book. He winked and said thanks.
“You seen Mom?” I asked.
“Not in a few days. I know she's been real busy with work.” He shook off the question, like it was no big deal.
“Haven't you talked to her on the phone?”
“I've tried to call, but the machine always picks up.”
I could see that my father was concerned, which was healthy. When it came to Mom, he needed to be. It's pathetic for grown-ups to pretend everything's okay when it's not.
“Listen, Dad, there's something you need to know.” I lowered my voice, as if it mattered. The room was so tiny that the deputy could hear me blink.
“We snuck down to the dock last night after the Coral Queen closed,” I said. “We hid aboard one of the charter boats.”
“Who hid-not you and Abbey?”
“Yes, me and Abbey.”
I didn't dare tell Dad about the stranger grabbing my sister, because I knew he'd bail himself out of jail in a flash and go hunting for the guy. In no time he'd be back in the slammer, for doing something even worse.
“Guess what?” I said. “Dusty's crew didn't pump the wastewater into the basin. They hooked up to a sewer tank onshore.”
At first Dad was stunned. “You sure?”
“We saw it with our own eyes,” I said.
My father rubbed his jaw and made a faint clicking sound with his teeth. “You know what it is? Dusty's freaking out because of all the publicity about me sinking his stupid boat. He's going to lay low and act like a model citizen, in case the Coast Guard comes snooping around.”
It was possible, for sure. But if Dusty Muleman was starting to obey the law, I thought, how would we ever prove that Dad's accusations were right?
As if reading my thoughts, he said, “Lice Peeking knows the truth about the Coral Queen. What'd he say about my skiff? Will he take it or not?”
“He's picking it up at noon.”
“Excellent!”
“And he promised to sign a statement, like you wanted.”
“Noah, that's super!”
Dad slapped me a high five. I didn't want to spoil his mood by reminding him that Lice Peeking wasn't the most reliable human being on the island. Obviously my father had let his hopes go sky-high, but since I wasn't the one sitting in jail, I kept my mouth shut.
“Time's up,” the jowly deputy said to me. He jerked his head toward the door.
“Everything's gonna work out just dandy,” my father said. “You're doing a great job, son, but no more sneaking around at night-especially with your sister. You hear me?”
He stood up and tucked the chess book under his arm. The orange jumpsuit had no pockets-I guess the sheriff didn't want prisoners carrying anything that couldn't be seen.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Dad said. “Channel 10 is running my interview tonight on the five o'clock news! Be sure to tell your mom.”
“Cool,” I said, though I was seriously tempted to rush home and break the television.
After lunch I sat down under a tamarind tree and waited for Lice Peeking. I had a story ready for when Mom asked me why he was taking the skiff. I planned to tell her that Dad was loaning it out for a few weeks. The truth was more complicated, and Mom wouldn't have approved.
After an hour or so I got restless. I walked around to the backyard and climbed up the trailer and sat down in the skiff. I started thinking about all the great times we'd had-Dad, Abbey, and me-on our sunset trips. My mother wasn't keen on fishing, but she was always happy when we'd come back with a cooler full of snappers. Abbey said Mom was just relieved that we'd gotten home in one piece, but I think it was more than that. Mom really loved it when we were doing things together-she and Abbey fixing the salad and potatoes, Dad and me cleaning the fish.
Those nights are the best times ever. My mother's always waiting on the front stoop when we pull into the driveway, and the first question she asks is: “Did you see the green flash?” Abbey says Mom's only kidding, but I think she really believes in it.
And my father always gives her the same answer. “Maybe next time,” he says, “but it won't happen, Donna, unless you come along.”
But she usually doesn't. The skiff is kind of small for all four of us.
After a while Abbey came outside and hopped in the boat with me. I told her that Lice Peeking was late.
“Maybe he chickened out,” she said.
“For twelve thousand dollars? No way.”
“Maybe Dusty Muleman offered him more if he kept his mouth shut.”
Leave it to my sister to think of something like that. From what I'd seen of Lice Peeking, I didn't think he'd sneak back to Dusty in hopes of a better deal. Lice had seemed perfectly satisfied with the idea of taking Dad's boat and selling it.
“He's probably still working on his statement,” I said.
“Or his hangover,” said Abbey.
“Maybe I'd better go check on him.”
“I'll come with you.”
“No, Abbey, you need to stay here in case he shows up for the boat.” More important, I didn't want her to see Lice Peeking passed out drunk in that smelly trailer, if that's where he was.
“If you're not back in an hour,” my sister said, “I'm either telling Mom or calling the cops.”
“Whatever,” I said. One was just as bad as the other.
I grabbed my bike and headed full speed down the old road. I'd had a bad feeling about Lice Peeking from the beginning, and now it looked like I might be right. If he was Dad's best hope for a witness against Dusty Muleman, we might be in deep trouble.
Halfway to the trailer park it started pouring, and I was drenched by the time I got there. I knocked so hard that the door swung open.
Dripping like a dog, I stepped inside. The TV was blaring-some station that shows country-music videos all day long. I turned it off and called out, “Helloooo?”
Nothing.