I dipped my chin toward the boat dock as we passed by. “You get into the lake by taking one of those boats and traveling the rim canal.”
He frowned. “They don’t look very seaworthy.”
“Well, nobody plans to take them to sea. This isn’t exactly ocean-fishing out here, Carlos. Most everybody at a camp like this one would just load in a cooler of beer and some bait and shove off.”
As he cast another glance over his shoulder at the boats, I scanned the dock and the fish cleaning table. No sign of Darryl.
As we approached the cabins, I felt a vibration through my left boot in the floor board of the Jeep. Rolling down my window, I got a blast of Rabe’s oldies rock. If the boy was going to indulge his inner head banger, he really should learn to balance the treble and the bass.
Carlos grimaced and stuck a finger in his left ear. “¡Ay, Dios! What is that?”
“Megadeth,” I answered. “Countdown to Extinction.”
He shot me a skeptical look.
“What can I say?” I shrugged. “I went through a brief arena rock phase in college.”
Slash, the dog, barked from the porch. I could barely hear him over the music. Rabe stepped out of the door to Cabin No. 7, wiping his hands on a red mechanic’s rag. He leaned to turn down the boom box, which sat on the warped wooden floor of the cabin’s porch.
I tooted my horn twice, and waved out the window. Rabe walked down the steps into the bright sun, squinting at us from under his worn straw cowboy hat. He gave a slight nod, and commanded the hound to stay.
As Carlos and I got out of the Jeep, Rabe glanced over each shoulder. Then he plodded toward us across the weed-filled yard.
I made quick introductions. As they shook hands, Carlos’ eyes narrowed, taking measure of the younger man. Rabe towered over him, but he had none of the chest-puffing posture of some big men. His face was blank; neither friendly nor hostile. If anything, he seemed a bit nervous, eyes darting from the camp’s entrance, to the cabins, to the boat dock.
I wondered if that was leftover from childhood, when Rabe must always have worried about what corner Darryl would come around next.
“I told Detective Martinez how you and I talked,” I said. “He’s very interested in finding your stepfather.”
His gaze lit on Carlos’ eyes. “Yeah, that’s what I figured when I heard you were out here yesterday askin’ questions. I told Darryl you’d want to talk to him, and all. ’Bout an hour ago, though, he said he planned to go fishin’ off Osprey Bay Island. Said if you wanted to see him, you could take a boat and come on out there.”
“Can we get there by car?”
Rabe looked at me, local to local.
“No,” he said slowly. “It’s an island. In the lake. You get there by boat.”
I saw a flicker in Carlos’ eyes. Annoyance at being talked down to? Something else?
“We’ll wait for him here,” he announced.
Rabe shrugged. “Suit yourself. Be a long wait. Darryl usually don’t come in until close to sunset.”
My watch said it was twenty-two minutes past noon.
“I can’t stay here all day, Carlos. I’ve got work to do at the park. Plus, Mama will truss me up and shove me in the oven like a Thanksgiving turkey if I’m late for her bridal shower.”
I thought about our agenda of shower games. Maybe sticking my head in the oven wasn’t a bad alternative.
Carlos surveyed the boats next to the dock. “Are there life jackets?”
Rabe and I exchanged a glance.
“Yeah, we keep ’em under the seat up front. But the boats at that dock belong to guests. You’d be taking the camp’s boat. It’s pulled up over yonder next to the chickee hut, at the dock by the beach.”
“A beach?” I said.
“Yep. Unusual for these parts.” His voice swelled with pride. “We hauled in a bunch of sand and made a fake shoreline on the canal for when we have cookouts and such.”
“Was that Darryl’s idea?” I asked.
Rabe spit on the ground. “No way. My mom and I have been pretty much running this place. All Darryl does is drink, brawl, and fish.”
Carlos pressed his lips together. Swallowed again. “Will the camp’s boat be any newer than those at the dock?”
“Do you have a problem with boats?” I asked.
“I don’t have a problem. I’m just not crazy about being on the water.”
“You’re Cuban. You lived in Miami. And you don’t like the water?”
“Not every Cuban comes to the United States on a raft, Mace. My family is from the interior, the island’s agricultural region. We were always cattle people, not coastal people.”
Rabe dug into his pocket, and extracted a green tin of chewing tobacco. He offered some to Carlos, who declined the hospitable gesture.
“Listen,” Rabe said, as he tucked a pinch beneath his bottom lip. “The boat’ll be fine. It gets a lot of use. Nobody’s gotten hurt yet.”
“Always a first time,” Carlos grumbled.
“For real, man.” Rabe’s grin revealed the dark tobacco staining his bottom teeth. “You’ll be fine.”
Finally, Carlos nodded his assent.
“Good, then.” Darryl’s stepson stuck his hands in his overall pockets and turned toward the beach. “Y’all can follow me.”
Navigating slowly through a lock leading to Lake Okeechobee, I broke into the Gilligan’s Island theme song from behind the boat’s wheeclass="underline" “Well, sit right down and hear a tale …”
By the time I reached the verse about the ill-fated three-hour cruise, storm clouds had gathered on Carlos’ face.
“Sorry,” I said. “Couldn’t resist.”
As we hit open water, several moments passed in silence as I opened the throttle, familiarized myself with the give in the steering, and settled as comfortably as possible in the elevated captain’s chair behind the wheel. There was a big rip on the seat’s plastic upholstery, and I felt a damp spot from the soaked stuffing spreading across the butt of my work pants.
The fish camp’s boat was a 16-foot fiberglass skiff, and only half as crappy as some of the vessels we’d seen at the dock. Carlos sat in the front, on the flat surface of the bow, facing me. I spotted a fish hawk pass overhead, fat prey squirming in its talons.
“Better watch out.” I pointed skyward. “If that osprey drops his dinner, it might knock you out. Talk about your unidentified flying objects.”
Carlos barely raised his eyes. Not even a chuckle. He sat stiffly, his fingertips touching a life vest next to him. There’d only been one vest in the hold. It was mildewed, ratty-looking, and faded by the sun from orange almost to white. Darryl apparently wasn’t big on strict compliance with Coast Guard safety standards. I’d handed the sole life jacket to Carlos.
Frowning, he pinched it between two fingers and held it out for inspection. Even from the back of the boat, near the stern, I could smell the fish stink on it.
“Just keep it within reach,” I’d told him. “I don’t think we’ll be hitting any icebergs.”
Now, we were heading into a notoriously shallow area of the lake. I tilted the motor up, bringing the propeller closer to the surface and away from the sharp rocks and thick grasses that lurked below. The boat’s flat bottom was a blessing. When the lake was low, I’d seen many vessels with V-shaped hulls run aground in these waters.
As soon as we were through the shallows, I lowered the prop and throttled up again. Carlos scanned the vast surface. “All I see is lake. Where’s this Ostrich Island?”