In the vertical rod holders bolted to the console, between my fishing rods, I keep a stainless scissors. I reached for the scissors now, held it for a moment, then touched the point to
Rossi's neck. "You watched that girl die. You did nothing to stop it."
"Hey! What was I supposed to do? The man was on his own private property with a girl I'd never even met. It wasn't none of my business."
I said, "So she deserved it. That's what you're saying."
"The girl who died? Who knows? Maybe she got smartass with Teddy. It ain't my problem." Rossi was looking up, into my face. There was more light now, a pale dawn rising, and he could see what was in my eyes. "Hey, wait a minute, pal. I don't like what you're thinking. Wait… don't. You got no reason to blame me. Really, I'm begging you. Don't kill me, please."
With a slash, I cut the tape that bound him to the anchor, then I cut the tape around his legs.
"Get out of the boat."
"What?"
I repeated myself.
'Jesus Christ, you're not serious. It's gotta be a quarter mile to that island, and with my hands tied?"
"Get out of the boat!"
I grabbed him by the belt and throat, lifted him and threw him over. Watched him thrash and splash for a moment… until he got his feet under him, then he stood.
"Fucking water's only three feet deep! You bastard, you fucking lied to me!"
I said, "You got conned, Frank. So you're not very bright. Who you going to blame? Me?"
I told him he could wade two miles to Key Largo where his car was waiting at Shell World. Or wade to the island and hope to flag down a boat. He was still screaming at me when I started my engine and left him.
Back at the Mandalay, Reefer Vinny, one of the locals had already popped a sunrise beer. He was wearing a T-shirt that read, Think Globally, Drink Locally. When I told him I'd been out by Ronrico Key, he became concerned. "Watch your step out there, Captain. You didn't know? They should note it on the charts. Someone released a bunch of circus chimps there years ago when they got too big and mean. A deserted island, what's the harm? they figured. Plenty of wild monkeys around the Keys, islands full of them. But these chimps, they bred. That's why no one goes there. They're big. There's not much to eat, and they hunt in packs."
Twenty-two
Tomlinson said, "Just because Ted had some emotional problems when he was younger, it doesn't mean he's crazy now. I myself spent a year or so in, well, let's just say a confined, safe environment."
I looked at him sharply. "You ever murder anyone?"
In his expression, I could see the question jolt him; could see that it hurt. He said softly, "I think you know the answer to that. I think you've known for a while."
We were in the upstairs apartment, and I was packing. I was also hitting the redial button on the phone, trying to contact Detective Parrish, trying to warn Nora.
It was a little after eight a.m.
Parrish didn't answer. I got an infuriating recording when I dialed Nora: "The Cellular-One customer you have called is unavailable or has traveled outside the coverage area…"
I said, "Once again, I don't know what you're talking about."
He ignored the evasion, looking at me. "There are things I've done in my life that I will regret for eternity. There is no absolution. None. Not from outside or from within. Some things make me wince, others make me want to cry. I try to make up for those sins as best I can."
"Ted Bauerstock doesn't strike me as the crying type. Delia and Nora need to get the hell out of there. If I can't get Parrish in the next twenty minutes or so, I'm leaving. I'll have to go by boat."
"You already spoke to the Sheriff's Department?"
"The woman on the desk treated me like a crank. Mr. Bauerstock is dangerous? She laughed at me."
The apartment's dining table was made of glass and chrome. On it was a fax I'd found tacked to my door when I came up the steps from the fueling dock. It was from Dieter Rasmussen. At the top of the first page he used precise block letters to note: This is consistent with the man in question.
There were four pages. Some parts were more telling than others:
Date: (Confidential) Place: St. Elizabeth's Hospital Fargo, ND
This is a report of a psychiatric observation requested by the sole parent of padent 05715 and approved by Circuit Court Judge Amos Johnsleur. The examiner is the head of a team of psychiatrists that has examined the patient over a four-week period. All procedures were videotaped.
The patient is an adolescent male who is 17 years old. He is 75 inches tall and weighs 185 pounds…
… The patient also underwent several batteries of psychological examinations including Rorschach and Meyers-Briggs tests. An abnormality was found in the EEG, the PET scans and the CAT scans.
Tests confirmed a distinct abnormality in the right amygdala portion of the subject's brain. Studies showed that the patient's amygdala did not respond to a series of actual news photographs of individuals who were about to be shot or burned or who were falling. Victims included children and women. This battery of photographs produces marked electric activity in the amygdala of normal subjects. Perhaps because his intellect was measured at 160 on the Stanford-Binet Test, the subject was immediately aware of the proper response. He voiced compassion for the victims, even while his brain registered none…
… Commentary: The subject was also found to have very low levels of noradrenaline. Lack of noradrenaline causes under-arousal and is associated with predatory violence. It is also possible that some of this patient's behavior may have been shaped by trauma in his late infancy and by his nanny during childhood.
The subject claims that his earliest memory is that of watching his father choking his mother. Since the mother died from a self-inflicted gun wound when the subject was three, this incident may well be apocryphal.
Between the ages of three and fifteen, the subject was raised by a Colombian female who, the subject says, practiced shamanry or witchcraft. The subject is very resentful of his father's apparent sexual relationship with the woman. The subject does not admit it, but it seems likely that he also had sexual encounters with the woman.
This woman apparently shaped the subject's religious beliefs which have manifested themselves in a series of fixations. Fixation is often associated with religious fervor. The strangest of these, though, is that the subject maintains his "power" through certain objects, and that it would "strengthen his own soul" if he ate the eyes of certain animals, although he maintains he would never do this…
At the bottom of the final page, Dieter had written: "Dr. Ford, The human brain is especially vulnerable to such defects. During the last 1.5 million years, it has tripled in size. Any organ that changes that rapidly is increasingly prone to genetic error. There will be more and more of these people, yet society allows their defecdve genes to be passed on through conjugal visits in prison!"
Now I put a small bag over my shoulder. "Keep trying to call. I'm going to load the boat."
"It's going to be rough out there."
"I'll run backcountry, cut up through Whitewater Bay and the islands, hug the beach and stay in the lee. It won't be bad at all. The hurricane's still five or six hundred miles away."
Tomlinson had already agreed to take my truck, drive up to Sanibel and board my windows. The Florida Keys were no longer in danger. I'd asked him to release my sharks just in case.
"Can you do me one more favor? Go down to the bar, ask around, see if you can borrow or buy some goggles. The kind the motorcycle guys wear."
"Goggles?"
I went toward the door. "Yeah, for the first time, I think I'll open the throtde. See what my boat can do."