“I expected them to arrive at any minute,” she added, once again struggling to keep her emotions in check. She paused, took several slow breaths, before finishing, “They… the three of them… those three good people… they never did show up. I was there alone for another day and another night, and I kept screaming for them, calling their names. But they never answered, they never came.”
Tomlinson stood, suddenly, walked to Amelia, and touched his palm to the back of her head as she sat there, face now in her hands, still taking slow, controlled breaths. The woman needed a break. Her voice had gotten softer and softer, as if revisiting that tragic night, the horror of it, was once again leaching the strength out of her. There was no way she could continue to talk without breaking down completely. For reasons I don’t understand, the stronger a person is, the more painful it is to watch them founder.
Which is why we were all a little relieved when Tomlinson said, “That’s enough for now, Amelia. And thanks for the courage it took and the love it took to come to us and tell us what happened.”
He stood there, patting her head, as he then looked to us and said, “This woman’s our guest and we need to take good care of her. So here’s what I suggest. She can tell us more later, if she feels like it, or maybe tomorrow, if Ransom or the good ladies of the Satin Doll can talk her into spending the night with us here at the marina. But I warn you right now, Amelia, stay at Dinkin’s Bay tonight, and you’re in for an evening of blissful excesses…” He smiled at her, his haunted eyes telling her something, offering comfort, perhaps, as he added, “Blissful excess or maybe even some wholesale debauchery. We’ll have all the food and drink you can handle.”
Right on cue, people hooted and applauded.
That quick, he’d changed the mood. Amelia lifted her face from her hands. He’d earned a little smile.
6
Later that night, what started as a typical bar fight nearly escalated into a riot, and, as I told Tomlinson later, we should have both seen it coming and found a way to put a halt to it before it got started.
“How was I supposed to stop anything?” he asked me. “I had a pitcher of margaritas in me, four Singapore slings, three grande mojitos made with delicious fresh mint, a six-pack of Corona, plus two joints of very fine Voodoo Surprise. There also may have been pills involved-I remember very distinctly speaking to that lady anesthetist from Englewood. We both know she tends to be overly generous with her recreational pharmaceuticals. No telling what poison that Asiatic brute may have put into my hands. My friend-” he was shaking his head, being serious, “it is impossible for one to impose social order when one is lying facedown, puking, in the sand next to the totem pole at Jensen’s Marina.”
Then he pointed out: “I do remember that you seemed a little drunk yourself, Marion. That’s not something we see in these parts very often, Doc Ford out of control. I don’t think you were in a position to stop what happened, either.”
Well… not out of control, but I did have too much to drink. Tomlinson was right. It’s something I rarely do. Alcohol poisoning makes it impossible to do the quiet, articulate work in my lab at night or to enjoy my run or ocean swim the next morning.
But like everyone else at the marina, Amelia’s story had ripped the emotional bottom right out of me. I’d believed everything she’d said, which is why in retrospect her confidential assertion to me that a boat might have picked the others up really knocked me off my own personal tracks.
I’d already accepted the fact that Janet was lost. She was dead and gone, and I’d said good-bye to her in my own private way.
Now, though, Amelia Gardner had opened a tiny little corridor of uncertainty and hope. I was so shaken by it that I immediately understood her wisdom when she asked me not to share the information with the others.
There is nothing in life so unsettling or so painful as the unknown.
Alcohol is a favorite analgesic for both.
The traditional Friday parties at Dinkin’s Bay are usually relaxed and conversational, with pauses for music and maybe a little dancing. Fifteen or twenty people mingling on the docks, discussing esoterica that would be of interest only to those of us who live on the islands.
This party was different, though. It had a different attitude and a different feel, probably because of the stress we’d all been under-not just because of Janet, but because, for the last many months, we’d all been living with the knowledge that Dinkin’s Bay soon might be closed to all powerboat traffic.
If that happened, the feds would come in, rip down the old Florida fish camp that is Dinkin’s Bay, and replace it with some sterile, pressure-treated, and poured-to-form clone of the government’s idea of a marina. They would equip it with regulation buildings and docks. It seemed unlikely that, on Sanibel, they’d be able to find and hire the breed of seniority-system employees such buildings required, but that was a sad possibility, too.
For one or both reasons, everyone at the marina that night seemed more intimately aware that life is brief and that our interaction with the people and places we love is temporary. Those feelings caused the party to move with a complex intensity and at a much faster pace.
A final contributing factor to the near riot that occurred may have been presaged earlier that day by Dieter Rasmussen, who’d told us that the fourth stage of mourning usually included anger with a potential for violence.
What began as a celebration of a good woman’s life later turned very violent indeed.
By the time the limbo contest started, I’d had four or five tumblers of fresh grapefruit juice and vodka and was enjoying myself very much. First time I got a chance, I went up to Amelia Gardner and apologized for apparently suggesting that she had some guilty secret to confess, explaining, “It’s not that I was suspicious of you, I just don’t know you well enough. When someone asks me to keep something confidential, I need to know who and what I’m dealing with for a very simple reason-if I give my word, I will keep the information confidential.”
It seemed to mollify her, put us back on friendly footing again, which pleased me more than I expected. I liked her rangy looks, her private, businesswoman’s grin, the way she moved from group to group, socializing comfortably. Liked her plain, handsome face, her Irish hair. Liked the way she stood, hands on hips, one knee bent slightly-a cattle wrangler’s stance-and the way her expression narrowed, focusing, when people spoke to her, giving them her absolute attention. She was a person alone among strangers, but one who could take care of herself, no problem.
One thing I was unable to do was get her by herself long enough to ask about the boat she said she’d seen. At one point, I tried, and she touched a finger to her lips very briefly, and said, “Later, okay? I’m going to spend the night with your sister. She said she has a house near here?”
True. Along with her Hewes Bonefisher, Ransom had used the inheritance from her father, Tucker Gatrell, to buy a tiny little bungalow just down from Ralph Woodring’s place, off Woodring’s Point, near the mouth of Dinkin’s Bay. Ralph let her keep the skiff at his dock, so she could run back and forth to the marina anytime she wanted.
“Okay,” I told Amelia, pleased that she was staying. “We’ll get together late tonight. Or tomorrow, maybe, for breakfast.”
The big fight began at Sanibel Grill, moved to the Crow’s Nest at ’Tween Waters Inn on Captiva, then spilled out onto the deck of the pool bar, spreading to the little beach that angled into the bay.
It started an hour or so after the limbo contest, which Tomlinson won, though I did not see the finish for the simple reason that I preferred not to watch. When Tomlinson limbos, he wears nothing but his sarong, which is why Mack, Jeth, and I, along with most of the other fishing guides, made it a point to stroll out on the docks and talk among ourselves-unless it was Ransom’s turn. Except for me, there wasn’t a man at the marina who didn’t want to watch her.