It was one of the rare times in my life when I wasn’t carrying some kind of flashlight, which I regretted, because the creatures began to take form as I got closer. When my dock lights had first surprised them, one of the creatures had been on the bank, several feet from the water. The other had been in the mangroves, many yards beyond.
I watched, transfixed, as first one, then the other animal, finally wiggled its way back into the shallows. Soon, the crash of foliage was replaced by a wild, rhythmic splashing as both creatures hobbyhorsed toward deeper water.
Visibility wasn’t good in the March darkness, but I could see well enough now to finally know what we were looking at. Particularly telling were the fluked tails and the distinctive pointed rostrums of the two animals.
From the deck, I heard Tomlinson whoop, “Wowie-zowie, dude!” then laughed as he called, “This is wild, man! Have you ever seen anything like that in your life?”
No, I had not.
I had stopped running because I wanted to concentrate on what was happening. I watched intensely, aware that it was one of those rare moments when I knew that, later, I would want to recall each detail, every nuance of movement, in the scene that was unfolding.
The two creatures we had surprised were mammals. But they weren’t land mammals. They were members of the family Delphinidae, genus Tursiops. They were pure creatures of the sea-at least, I had thought so until this instant.
I watched until the pair of animals had made it to deeper water, where they submerged… reappeared… then vanished beneath a star-streaked sky.
After a moment, I walked in a sort of pleasant daze to the house, where Tomlinson stood, grinning. He held out an arm so we could bang fists and said in a soft voice, “Bottlenose dolphins. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Completely out of the water, feeding on dry land.”
I was smiling, too. There are few things more energizing than the discovery of something profound in a place that is so familiar, you think all its secrets have been revealed.
Tomlinson was feeling it, too. “My God,” he said, his head pivoting from the mangroves to the bay. “How could anyone ever get tired of living on the water? This place is magic, man, it’s just pureassed magic. Dolphins foraging beneath the trees while Sanibel Island sleeps. The freaking wonder of it all. Wow!”
He paused, both of us listening to the distinctive Puffffft! as the dolphins exhaled in synch, out of sight now but their images still clear in my mind.
Tomlinson asked me, “Have you ever in your life heard about something like this happening? Not me. Never ever. And I know a lot of devoted druggies who see crazy shit all the time.”
Tomlinson was so excited that he was talking too fast, thinking too fast, and I wanted to slow everything down.
I replied, “Hold on a second, I’m trying to think this through. We don’t know for sure they were feeding. That’s an assumption.” My mind was working on the problem, delighted by the challenge.
Tomlinson tried to interrupt, but I shushed him with a wave of my hand.
I said, “Granted, it’s the first explanation that came into my mind-that they came ashore to feed. But we need to take a look in the mangroves. A close look. And photograph the entire scene, too. If they were feeding, they might have left something behind. I’ll get a flashlight.”
Tomlinson repeated himself, saying, “In all the literature, in all the crazy dolphin stories I’ve heard, this is a first. What about you?”
His reference to crazy dolphin stories was an unusual thing for someone like Tomlinson to say, but he was spot-on. Bottlenose dolphins are the unwitting darlings of every misinformed crackpot who has ever yearned for a mystical link between humans and the sea. That includes more than a few misguided biologists who have credited the animals with everything from paranormal powers to the ability to heal children stricken by disease.
Dolphins-and these were dolphins, not porpoises-are brilliantly adaptable pack animals. Intelligent, true, but they are still pack animals, which includes all the ugly mob behavior that the term implies: assault, gang rape, occasionally the attempted genocide of competing species.
Dolphins are brilliantly adapted for survival-and they survive relentlessly, as all successful species do.
I waved for Tomlinson to follow me toward the house as I answered, “In Indonesia, I heard stories, maybe Malaysia, too, from people who claimed to know people who said they’d seen dolphins foraging in the mangroves, feeding on crabs. But it’s never been documented-not that I know of, anyway. I just figured it was part of the dolphin mythology. You know, the sort of stories that date back to mermaids-bull dolphins sneaking ashore to have intercourse with virgins. That sort of baloney.”
I left the man there and went up the steps, two at a time, to fetch flashlights. Mentally, I was assembling a list of dolphin experts I could call, pleased not only because of what we had just seen but because it had taken Tomlinson’s mind off the Guatemalan girl.
When my pal is fixated on a subject, he becomes repetitive and tiresome. I had invited him to dinner earlier in the day, so there was no getting out of it, and I didn’t want to have to endure his brooding theories about what had happened to Tula Choimha.
I believed that he was underestimating the girl. She had managed to travel solo, with very little money, from the mountains of Guatemala to Florida on her own with no problems-none I was aware of, anyway. The territory she had crossed included some of the most dangerous country on earth-particularly the migrant trails of Mexico, where outlaws and warring gangs prey on travelers. Robbery and rape are commonplace.
The fact that Tula had negotiated the trip successfully, and alone, said a lot about her character. But it said more about her instincts. The girl was street-savvy. I thought it unlikely that she would have allowed herself to be victimized in the markedly safer environment of a Florida trailer park, Harris Squires or no Harris Squires.
Inside the house, I grabbed two potent little Fenix LED flashlights, hesitated, then decided, what the hell, first I would change into clean shorts and a shirt. The dolphins wouldn’t be coming back, so there was no hurry now.
I leaned outside and told Tomlinson he should do the same. In the lab, I found a 500-milliliter bottle of reagent-grade propyl alcohol. I tossed my clothes outside, doused myself good, ears included, then placed the jug on the deck for Tomlinson to use.
As I changed, I checked my phone messages. One was from a state biologist whose name I had heard, but I’d never met. Her name was Emily Marston.
Emily-common nicknames included Emma, Milly and Em. Probably because it had been a month since I’d had a serious date, I wondered if any fit.
“Dr. Ford, in the morning I’m leading the necropsy on the alligator that was killed tonight. Since we’re working at the park station on Sanibel and since you were involved, I thought you might like to join us. But only if you’re interested personally. This is not an official request.”
I found the woman’s voice attractive, and her last sentence an alluring addendum that was, at once, both welcoming and dismissive.
Yes, I was interested.
I made note of the lady’s name, her number, the time of the necropsy, then went out the door after slipping a little Kodak pointand-shoot camera into my pocket.
As I did, my mind returned briefly to Tomlinson’s assertion that the bodybuilder Harris Squires was responsible for the Guatemalan girl’s disappearance. Was there even a small possibility that he was right?
I’m a careful man-particularly when a child is involved and when my own conscience is on the line. I gave it some more thought.
“Every paranormal receptor in my body is convinced that the guy grabbed her,” Tomlinson had told me, or something close to that. It summarized his entire argument. Everyone else at the trailer park had told us that she disappeared at night all the time. If they weren’t worried, why should we be? But just in case, while I was at the necropsy tomorrow morning, I decided I’d make sure Tomlinson went back to the trailer park to dig around.