Hers was a good face with a strong jaw, eyebrows darker than her red hair, full pale lips, no makeup at all, and a corn-silk down that grew below her temples. There were a few pores visible, and a faint acne scar or two that implied a difficult adolescence. She was an outdoors person with horizontal sun wrinkles on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes; the tennis-player, mountain-bike type who was also a professional. She had a sloping nose shaped like a ski jump and, yes, cat-green eyes. In that brilliant light, her eyes glowed as if illuminated from within, showing little specks of blue and bronze.
I said to her, “I’d like to help, but I’ve got a job, Ms. Gardner. The one person who I could trust to take care of my lab, Janet Mueller, is gone now. I’m sorry.”
I was surprised when she reached and put her hand on my shoulder, a fraternal gesture not often used by women, particularly women strangers. “I want you to think it over. Listen to what I have to say about what happened three weeks ago, then talk to me later. I’ll stay as late as you want. The thing is-”
I said, “What?”
She had her arms folded now, looking at me, and, from her expression, I knew she was trying to decipher the most productive approach for the brand of person she was dealing with-me. How was I best handled? What would be the fastest, most effective angle? It is an increasingly common phenomenon, a calculated brand of assessment and manipulation that may well be taught in business and law schools, yet I find it offensive.
Finally she said, “I have to follow my instincts. So here it is: There’s something I want to tell you, but you have to promise me not to tell the others. You’ll understand why later. If you promise, I’ll take you at your word. I don’t meet many stand-up guys these days, but maybe you’re one of the few.”
“Stand-up guy, huh?” I didn’t say it, but I assumed that what she had to say had something to do with her behavior after the sinking, some guilty secret, a burden she now needed to share.
She seemed surprised by my tone. “Is there something wrong with me thinking you’re trustworthy?”
“We just met.”
“Like I said, I’m going on instinct.”
I was shaking my head. “Sorry, Ms. Gardner. I’ve known the people at this marina much, much longer than I’ve known you. I respect what you did that night, but talking to me privately is the same as speaking to the entire group. If there’s some secret you want to share or maybe even confess, I suggest you contact a priest. But please don’t tell me.”
I could see that it irked her that I’d correctly deduced her religion, and she was clearly annoyed that I was questioning her intent. A friend once told me that newborn redheads ought to by law come with a warning tag on their toe.
Amelia Gardner had a temper. I saw her face flush, her eyes glitter, as she lowered her voice to say, “First of all, pal, I don’t need some oversized, sun-bleached nerd with Coke-bottle glasses to tell me when to see my priest. And second, I’ve got nothing to confess. I’m going to tell you anyway, and if you want to risk hurting Janet’s friends, go right ahead. But I will not play some little role you’ve dreamed up.”
She took half a step toward me, an aggressive move, hands set on broad hips, her nose not much lower than mine, as she added, “This is it: I can’t prove it, but I think there was another boat out there that night. Early that morning. A boat without lights. I saw it. I’m sure I saw it. And I think it may have stopped.
“Commander Dorsey says I was probably imagining things, but I know what happened, I was there. I think it’s possible that they got picked up, Janet and the others. Why else didn’t we find them? What I’m telling you, Mister Doctor Marion Ford, is that I think there’s a chance, a very slim chance, they might be alive.” Then she spun and stalked away, pissed off, demonstrating it by refusing even a chance of additional eye contact.
I stood there, watching her, and gave a private little whistle.
Tomlinson was right. A powerful woman.
I went to my house to change shirts before rejoining the party, reviewing Amelia Gardner’s words as I walked, her nuances of speech, wondering if she really might have seen a boat. Was it possible?
The woman was still much on my mind when I peeked into my lab and flicked on the lights. My pattern of thought shifted instantly. Aloud, I said, “What in the hell is going on in here?”
Two more stone crabs were missing. I’m so familiar with my stock that I knew right away. The heavy glass lid was on the tank, but the little metal vise I’d used to seal it fast lay on the lab’s wooden floor, in a streak of water. I stooped and touched my finger to the tiniest fleck of crab shell in the water.
Someone was sneaking in and stealing my specimens. Someone too sloppy or hurried to replace the vise. Who and why, I couldn’t fathom.
But my eight remaining octopi were still in their covered tanks. That, at least, was a relief. As I checked them, I sensed the solitary, golden eye of the largest Atlantic octopus tracking me from beneath its rock ledge. Its extended tentacle was still throbbing gray, pink, and brown as I switched off the light and locked the door.
5
Before we met, as a group, and listened to Amelia Gardner’s story, we made the sunset rounds in a marina caravan that increased the number of partygoers with each stop.
There wasn’t much doubt why. Word was out that the lone survivor was with us. Everyone on the islands wanted to hear what happened from Gardner’s own mouth.
We stopped at Jensen’s Marina for Claudia to join us. Seeing her come out the door of Janet’s little blue Holiday Mansion, with its curtained pilothouse windows, gave us all an emotional jolt. It wasn’t just the family resemblance, though that was part of it. It was the fact that Claudia was wearing a pale, peach-colored beach dress and makeup, and she had a bright red hibiscus bloom fixed behind her right ear.
It was exactly the sort of outfit that Janet typically wore to our Friday parties.
I was standing beside Jeth when Claudia made her entrance. I heard him whisper, “Jesus Christ, that’s almost too much to handle.”
I patted him on the back. “Nothing’s too much. That’s one of the things Janet taught us.”
We stopped at McCarthy’s Marina and boarded the Lady Chadwick for drinks, then we mobbed our way to the Green Flash, and then the Mucky Duck for sunset on the beach. Milled around swapping stories with Pat and Memo at the bar, listening to John Paul on the guitar before returning to Dinkin’s Bay.
The entire time, I noticed that Gardner kept her distance from me, still mad, apparently. Ransom, though, she liked. The two women fast became a pair.
Once, passing behind them, I paused to listen as Ransom, speaking in her musical Bahamian accent, told her “Amelia, darlin’. Let me tell you something ’bout these nice titties ah’ mine. They changed my womanly life, they surely did, and don’t let no man tell you he doan care about your boobies. A woman deserve to look how she want to look, my sister! Yes sir! I reckon they cost me four, maybe five, blow jobs apiece, and that cheap, girl! Very cheap! I were kind’a sweet on that lil’ doctor man anyway. I’d a’ made him feel good for free, no problem!”
I liked Gardner’s unembarrassed laughter-then she noticed me. She said to Ransom, “This big goon really is your brother?”
“Oh yes, oh yes, he one of the very few white ones in our family. He can be kind’a mulish sometimes when it come to women, but he good. Doan you doubt that. My brother, he a good man.”
Long after sunset, several dozen of us sat quietly listening to Amelia Gardner. She was sitting cross-legged atop one of the picnic tables, behind Dinkin’s Bay’s Red Pelican Gift Shop, facing the docks. Sitting to her left was Claudia. Ransom to her right.
The windy, high pressure system that had made our search so exhausting was gone now, replaced by a balmy, tropical low. Through the coconut palms, beyond the yellow windows of my house and lab, I could see drifting clouds and oily star paths on black water. Woodring’s Point and the mouth of Dinkin’s Bay were a charcoal hedge of mangroves two miles north.