On this calm Monday morning, though, I ran north at a comfortable forty miles per hour, enjoying myself, taking in the scenery. I stopped and took a quick swim at Useppa Island. Stopped in at the Temptation Restaurant on Boca Grande for lunch; sat at the bar and talked with Tina while Annie the fortuneteller read my Tarot cards.
"Says here, you're due to have some women problems," Annie told me.
I replied, "Really? Gee, that's uncanny. Those cards say anything about me getting another beer?"
The weather held, so I cut through into the Gulf at Gas-parilla Pass and ran the outside beaches along Don Pedro Island. Just south of Englewood, off Stump Pass, I got very lucky and spotted two large balls of spawning snook working their way up the beach.
The word "ball" is appropriate because the spawning ceremony consists of many, many male fish twisting and turning around one or more much larger females. These fish were so focused on their reproductive mandate that they didn't notice as I used the push pole to swing my skiff into position above them.
I made two throws of my gigantic cast net and put six fine gravid females into my live well. Just looking at them gave me pleasure. A snook is an impressive animal, both in terms of behavior and physical beauty. It has a cartilaginous jaw that flares anvil-like beneath black carnivore eyes. The eyes are ringed with gold, its skin is pewter-bright, fringed with yellow, and there is an armorwork of scales covering a dense coniform body. It is a heavy, functional, predator's body. Beauty is secondary; a stroke of hereditary luck. Such creatures evolve over thousands of years, refine a perfect genetic design, then prosper for thousands of years more, unchanged. The black lateral line is a sporty touch, not unlike a racing stripe. It is appropriate for this very fast animal.
Trouble is, snook are not fast enough to outrun nutrient pollution from thousands of Florida golf courses. They are not fast enough to outrun illegal stop nets. They are not fast enough to outrun high-tech fishing machines such as mine. A million years of evolution did not anticipate the previous busy, brilliant and sometimes destructive century. Which is why I was so pleased to play a role in Mote's superb stock-enhancement program.
So I was feeling pretty good as I sped along the beaches past Englewood, Siesta Key and Lido Beach on my way to the docks of Mote Marine. Every now and again my mind would slip and I would think about JoAnn, the unexpected sexual charge at her touch, and I would scold myself, using Jeth and Janet as an example. See what happened when marina people dated?
I also thought about Tomlinson down there on Key Largo. Someone had been breaking into the trailer of a waitress to loot the mementos of a child. The mother had been sufficiently upset to allow Tomlinson to box her remaining valuables and ship them to a stranger.
It couldn't be important. Some freak on the prowl. There are so damn many freaks on the prowl these days. Still, I have a logical mind that probes and prods when behavior, human or otherwise, does not follow sequential, rational patterns.
I kept asking myself a simple question: Why?
Three days later, I would ask it again when I learned that someone had dug up the grave of the late and long-dead Dorothy Copeland.
Mote Marine Lab is one of a very few independent marine research facilities that still survive in the U.S. The lab and aquarium consist of a half-dozen modern buildings and several deep-water holding pools on an eleven-acre campus fronted by sea grapes, palms and Sarasota Bay. About fifty scientists work at the lab, plus hundreds of volunteers. Because it is privately funded, the imperative of private enterprise is very much in effect: if Mote Marine does not excel, it is out of business. If Mote Marine's employees do not excel, they are out of a job. As a result, this unusual lab is a busy and productive place.
But it wasn't the lab that was on my mind.
Kathleen Rhodes's pretty trawler, The Darwin C., was moored at Mote's L Dock, just down from the Salty Dog bar and restaurant. The windows of its mahogany wheelhouse were dark: no one home. Tied astern of the trawler was Capt. Peter O'Rourke's collecting boat, Ono III.
I thought I'd put Kathleen out of my mind and out of my life. If she wanted to take a break from what had become an intense physical and emotional relationship, that was just fine with me.
Or was it?
Seeing the trawler brought back memories of the nights I'd spent aboard. It brought back the shape and scent of her; the memory of her intellect and her lucid, scientist's view of life. Independent people seem to be increasingly rare. She was one of the few.
Add self-reliant to the list, too.
After getting her Ph. D. from Stanford, Kathleen had spent two years bringing her trawler down Baja through the Sea of Cortez to the Panama Canal, then along the Gulf of Mexico to Sarasota. It is not an easy trip for a single-handed sailor, female or male, but she'd made it without incident, collecting specimens and data the whole long way.
The sons and daughters of wealthy parents can be a troubled, undependable lot. An unfailing financial safety net does not contribute to character. But Kathleen was not affected by her family's money. She was a spectacular woman, indeed, and seeing her empty boat produced an unexpected stab of disappointment.
If I didn't care, why was I already inventing reasons to contact her while I was at Mote?
I tied off my skiff and found Pete O'Rourke in his funky little waterside office. Pete is in charge of collecting for Mote, and he is the perfect choice because he is an unusual combination: a first-rate fishing guide who possesses the clear eye and intellect of a scientist. His office reflects the same dual personality.
We sat talking for a few minutes amid stacks of fishing gear, lures, stuffed fish, scuba tanks, test tubes and journals. Through the front window, beyond the file cabinets and ratty green carpet, I could see the New Pass swing bridge and the cabin of Kathleen's boat.
It took some effort to look away.
Then I didn't have to think of it because Pete and I were busy transferring the snook I'd brought. We put them into what is essentially an oxygenated wheelbarrow and rolled them, two at a time, to the massive brood tank. In the tank were male snook. By carefully controlling temperature and lighting, the Mote scientists could trick the fish's biological clocks into believing it was eternally spring with many, many moonlit spawning nights.
Before releasing the females, though, Pete and I carefully stripped them of eggs. A big female will carry a million and a half eggs, each not much bigger than the head of a pin. Touch their bellies, and roe flows as if from a dispenser.
We captured the eggs in bags of seawater, then mixed them with milt from male fish. Then we deposited the fertilized eggs into 2,000-gallon incubator tanks.
At some time during the next day, thousands of tiny snook would hatch, none much bigger than mosquito larvae. They would feed on algae and rotifers, then brine shrimp. In a couple of weeks, they would look like the truly remarkable animals they are.
Back in Pete's office, he caught me looking at Kathleen's trawler. By not mentioning her name, I had, apparendy, underlined my interest in her, which is probably why he looked so uncomfortable. Finally, he said, "A guy as smart as you, it's hard to believe you can be such a big bonehead."
I said, "Pardon me, Pete."
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Kathleen. Or maybe you're back to calling her Dr. Rhodes now. A woman like that, a fine scientist and a hell of a talented musician. All the brains and class in the world, plus legs up to her shoulders and you're about to let her get away? Or maybe you already have."