Doc, in case you get back before I do, I'm taking Jake to Harvey Hollins's in West Virginia. He says he could fly alone, but I think I'd better stick with him. That bitch he has for a mother shouldn't have been the one to tell him about his father's death. If I'd known what she was like, I'd have told him myself. She blamed Jake for running off with his father and for his father killing himself, which I guess was her excuse for not wanting him anymore. I'm not going to let Jake fly up there alone, not after what he's been through.
There was a message from Jeth Nicholes, so nervously written and apologetic that the block letters almost seemed to stutter. Some kids or someone had busted down the shark pen and maybe got into the house through the window, but they didn't seem to take anything or leave any mess, but Jeth would pay for it if something was missing, only he didn't know how much sharks cost, but that's how bad he felt about it.
There were a couple of other notes from MacKinley. One said he had an important package sent registered mail, but he'd have to sign for it at the post office. Another said a man had called from D.C. and left an urgent message. It didn't say who, but Ford knew. The message was: "The antique salesman jumped bail. Whereabouts unknown." The package, like the phone message, could only be from Donald Piao Cheng. The Kin Qux Cho was at the post office waiting for him.
Ford got to his feet and walked through the roofed passageway and unlocked the door of his lab. It looked just the way he had left it, nice and neat, with microscopes under their covers and stainless-steel tables glistening. He went to the shelves of marine specimens and began to inspect the jars of small sharks and shark embryos. He took one of the jars from the shelf. The lid didn't seem to be screwed as tightly as he normally left lids, and there seemed to be more preservative in the jar than there should have been—an odd combination considering evaporation.
Ford put the jar back on the shelf and dialed Major Les Durell's home number. Durell's wife answered, sounding sleepy. Ford identified himself and said it was important. Durell came on a few moments later, sounding even sleepier, and said without preamble, "You don't follow directions very well, do you, boy?"
Ford, taken aback, said he didn't know about any directions.
"Like you didn't get my letter, huh? Like the mail between Fort Myers and Sanibel's that bad. You're not very good at playing innocent."
"I've been out of the country for two weeks, Les. I just got back. I haven't even seen my mail. "
"Oh. No kidding? Jesus, what time is it?" He made a grunting noise as if trying to clear his head, or maybe pulling a chair out to sit. "Well, it was in the letter. It was an official letter. I told you not to contact me again unless it was through your attorney. I told you we'd be seating a grand jury in a couple of weeks to look into that matter we discussed, and that any further testimony you wanted to deliver would have to be through the grand jury system."
"About Rafe's murder, you mean?"
"No, Sealife Corporation. The governor's office sealed their records on Wednesday. Really took the bastards by surprise and got everything. I mean everything. Some of the assistant D.A.'s have been going through the stuff and they already have enough to put half the city officials behind bars and keep the other half in tax court for the next ten years. That includes that scuzzball Mario DeArmand. That bastard's going to jail, even if the feds don't come up with gun-smuggling charges. "
Ford said, "They will," trying not to sound as pleased as he felt. Then: "What about Rafe?"
"What about him? If it makes you feel any better, that newspaper jackal Melinski has raked up enough muck on Hollins's ex-wife to get her and Judge what's-his-name run out of the city—if there's any city left when the grand jury gets through. He got some interesting stuff on when Hollins worked for Sealife, too, back when they were just starting to develop Sandy Key. They had a hell of a mosquito problem and they hired Rafe to fly their spray chopper. They had him spraying some kind of poison—quig-something-tox, I forget the name. "
"Queleatox?" Ford said.
"Yeah, that's it. How did you know?"
Ford was thinking that if they had been spraying queleatox in the area, maybe his squid weren't dying from electrolysis after all. In Africa, queleatox was used to exterminate weaver birds; massive fish kills always followed for a long, long time afterward. Ford said, "Just an unlucky guess."
"Anyway, this poison was death on mosquitoes, but it was death on birds and fish, everything else, too, plus it was cumulative. It never went away. According to Melinski, Rafe found out what he was spraying, raised a fuss, and got himself fired. So you can bet the city fathers were more than happy to get rid of him nice and quiet and fast enough so reporters wouldn't get the idea of poking around into his background."
"He was murdered, Les, and he's got a nice little boy who's going to grow up thinking his father committed suicide and left him in a place you can't even imagine."
"Now you're starting to sound like Melinski. I'll bet you anything his story's going to make it all sound like my fault. That vulture has had me working day and night, looking over my shoulder, second-guessing me. What gives him the right? The shithead. I don't mind when reporters act like they've been elected. It's when they start pretending they've been ordained that I really get pissed off." Durell paused, catching himself before he got madder. "Why did you call me?"
"My house was broken into. I wanted to tell you—"
"Doc, I don't know how you got the idea I'm your own private police force, but get it out of your head. Like my letter says, we shouldn't talk anymore."
"But I think the person who broke in was—"
"If it's an emergency, the number is nine one one. If it's not, look it up in the book. " And hung up.
Ford considered calling Don Cheng in D.C., but when he glanced out the window he noticed that Jessica's porch light was no longer on.
He locked the lab.
He would call Cheng in the morning.
He almost took his skiff, but that would be noisy. So he walked his bike down the dock and pedaled out to Periwinkle, Sanibel's main street. He rode the bikepath east past the restaurants and small boutiques. Coconut Grove, Mc T's, and the rest, then took Dixie Beach Road north to the water's edge where the road became shell, following the cusp of the peninsula to the mouth of Dinkin's Bay.
Jessica's house sat in the shadows of casuarina trees, its tin roof white beneath the summer moon. There were lights downstairs and he could hear music playing, saxophone and piano— public radio doing jazz. Ford leaned his bike against a tree. There was only one car in the drive, Jessica s car, and he touched the hood as he passed. It was cool. She had either been out walking, which seemed unlikely, or someone had dropped her off and left, or . . . there was another possibility. Staying in the shadows, he walked around the house to the dock. Her boat was still tied, shifting uneasily in the tidal flow. There were empty water jugs on the deck and something brown rolled into a bundle like a sleeping bag. He reached out and touched the small outboard engine. It was still warm.
Ford walked up the sand pathway to the porch but then he hesitated just before rapping on the door.
What was that noise?
The windows were open, and, through the screens, he could hear the music and he could hear the creak of the ceiling fans, but there was something else, too: a familiar low moan and the slap of belly skin against thigh.
The noise sensitized the hair on his neck even before he realized what it was, and Ford found himself being drawn inexorably to the expanse of living-room window. The television was on and the room was aglow with mercurial light—a music video station, so it wasn't public radio after all. The television's glare threw long shadows and, on the screen, two black musicians sweated over their saxophones. Ford watched the musicians for a time because he found it difficult to look at Jessica.