The lady came asking for help on one of the most glorious autumn Fridays in the history of Sanibel Island. I was hunkered down, working in the engine well of my 24-foot trawl boat, up to my elbows in gas and oil and goo, when the familiar vibration of piney wood told me that someone was clomping along the dock, approaching my little house and lab.
It was just past noon. The September sun was bright overhead. I squinted upward to see chunky legs metronoming from within khaki safari shorts and the shampoo bounce of copper hair. Then a familiar silhouette was standing above me, hands on hips, boat shoe a-tappin'. So say hello to JoAnn Small-wood, part owner of the old Chris Craft cruiser, Tiger Lily, one of Dinkin's Bay Marina's gaudier floating homes. JoAnn is a heavy-hipped, busty lady with the sort of wide, handsome face that I associate with wheat fields or Wisconsin steetlights. She was already talking before she reached the mooring dock.
"I've got a problem, Doc. Can you spare me a minute or two?"
JoAnn's voice modulates an alto clarity. Women who are successful in business, trusted in politics, or who are very, very good teachers, speak with similar definition. But there was lots of anxiety in there, too. She was upset. No doubt about that.
I had a ratchet in my hand, and I was cleaning the ratchet head with a towel. As I fitted a spark plug into the rubber gasket, I said, "Mind if I finish this first?"
"Take your time." She looked toward the house. "Is Tom-linson inside?"
"Yeah. He's going through his record collection. He stores it here because he says his boat's too damp."
"Good. I'd like him to listen, too. He's weird, but he's smart."
"Right on both counts."
"No kidding. Did I tell you this? Rhonda and I cruised by his boat the other night and he had candles sticking out of each ear. Lighted candles. He was sitting naked on the bow, flames shooting up, his legs crossed. Inner ear purification, he told us. They were special hollow candles. The heat melts the earwax, or maybe it's the smoke that purifies the inside of his brain. Who knows?"
I said, "You just explained his sudden interest in listening to old records."
My net boat has an old standard six-cylinder engine. The name brand is "Pleasure Craft," but it is actually made by Ford. Plugs and points, and no computer gizmos of any kind. The engine had developed a nasty little miss and the habit of stalling when I attempted to dock. Boats that stall around the dock cause irritation and embarrassment, particularly flat-bottomed boats with wheelhouses and nets that act like sails in a wind.
This one was built of heavy cedar planking and brass screws; an old workhorse that I'd bought in Chokoloskee a couple of years ago and chugged up the inland waterway and used to dredge specimens for my business. She is solid as a slab of concrete and just about as nimble.
Thus the ratchet and a box of brand-new spark plugs.
I threaded the plug carefully, gave it just a tad of torque, swore softly when I clunked my head on the starter motor, then found the towel and began to wipe my hands.
"You're bleeding."
I looked at the rag. "Um-huh. Blood and oil. Mexicans say it's good luck. The blood, I mean-if you scrape your knuckles or something when you're working on an engine. So I'm lucky."
"And I called Tomlinson the weird one." The woman had a nice smile. "You two guys, you're really characters. You hold this whole crazy marina together."
I swung out of the boat and headed up the steps. "So come tell a couple of characters your problem."
Dinkin's Bay Marina does, indeed, attract its share of characters. Most of them arrive by boat, turning south off the Intracoastal at Marker 5 just west of the Sanibel Causeway and past the power lines. By car, they follow Sanibel's Tarpon Bay Road into the mangroves, through the gate to the bay.
Beyond the gate, in the shell parking lot, there's a community of wooden buildings that extends out onto the water via a latticework of wobbly docks. It is an unexpected anachronism on an island known for designer homes and elegant restaurants. There are plank tables for cleaning fish, a bait tank, and benches beneath a tin roof, so visitors have a place to sit while they eat the marina's sandwiches and chowder.
There is a gift shop, the Red Pelican, that offers sarongs and knickknacks and paintings by local artists. There is the marina office and store. Along with items that you might expect-fishing tackle and suntan oil-there are also items for sale that may be unexpected: strange ball caps in the shape of sharks or manatees, used books, foreign beers.
Inside the office, behind the glass counter, you will find stocky, pragmatic Mack, owner and manager. Jeth Nicholes, the fishing guide, lives alone in the efficiency apartment upstairs.
The other fifteen or twenty full-time residents live aboard boats: a garden variety of sailboats, cruisers and chunky little houseboats. They are umbilicaled to civilization via hoses and electrical conduits, and a couple have tiny satellite dishes. Toss off the umbilicals, though, and they are free again, alone and underway.
That is the illusion, anyway, and one reason they probably live aboard.
There are two exceptions: Tomlinson and myself. Tomlin-son anchors his sailboat away from the docks, refusing what he calls "the poisonous delusion of self sufficiency." I live on the other side of the channel, occupying two weathered cottages under a single tin roof and separated by a breezy throughway, all built on stilts and connected to shore by ninety feet of old boardwalk. One house is my lab. The other is where I live.
Toss in a couple of other fishing guides, Captain Nels and Captain Felix, a cook, two clerks, plus a fluctuating number of wives-boyfriends-girlfriends-lovers, and you have the entire population of Dinkin's Bay.
The point to all this is that the marina is small enough to create the same dynamics and interdependencies as an extended family. The men are protective of the women in a brotherly way. The women chide or organize or comfort the men, depending on the situation or their sisterly mood. The metaphor is carried to the logical, responsible conclusion: romantic involvement is discouraged.
It is a common-sense rule and so never mentioned openly.
A short time back, Jeth and Janet Mueller broke the rule. They began a relationship: two shy people in love. It should have worked. Everyone expected it to work. But it didn't work, and the gradual collapse of the affair created an escalating uneasiness among the marina family.
Which is why Janet moved her houseboat up to Jensen's Marina on Captiva Island. Jensen's is a great place, just as quirky and kicked back as Dinkin's Bay, but her decision to move still left a cloud.
The point being, JoAnn seldom came alone to my house. Over the years, I'd felt an increasing sexual interest in her; she felt the same for me. I liked her plain looks and no-nonsense manner. She knew it. We'd discussed it. Which is why we took pains not to be alone together.
So, for the lady to come running to me, I knew that she had to have a very good reason. In her mind at least, whatever the problem was, it was serious.
Tomlinson was in my lab, futzing with my equipment, peering into the rows of jars that contain chemicals and preserved specimens: the nudibranches, sponges, octopi and unborn sharks that I collect, prepare and then sell to schools and research facilities around the country.
When I opened the door, he looked at us and said, "Today's the equinox, you know."
I said, "Huh?" Then I said to JoAnn, "Oh. He's talking about astronomy."
Tomlinson was wearing a Cubs baseball jersey and patched surfing shorts. He had a plastic bottle of sodium hydroxide in his hand, tossing it in the air like a baseball. The moment I realized what he was playing with, I glanced at the other chemicals on the shelf. Volatile, accidental combinations are easily made. But nothing else was missing.
He said, "Yeah, the autumnal equinox, just two days before the full moon. It makes me restless as hell, man. Add a full moon and I go damn near goofy. Nothing helps. I spent all morning meditating"-he shrugged-"whacked off a couple of times. Didn't dent it. It may be time for some serious medication."
JoAnn said uneasily, "I'd see a doctor about that. Yeah."
Now we were in the living room. JoAnn had a glass of iced tea. Tomlinson was on his third or fourth Amber Bock, sitting cross-legged on the tattered gray rug. I was in the chair by the north window where I keep my telescope and shortwave radio.
The ladies of the Tiger Lily do not posture. They are tough, direct women who speak their minds. It didn't take JoAnn long to get to the point. "Doc, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to listen to a story and tell me what sense you can make out of it."
"I'll do what I can."
"I want to hear your opinion, too, Tomlinson. That surprised look on your face, I know why. Let's be honest: you and me, we've never been what I'd call close buddies or sympatico. To each his own, right? But I know you've got a good brain in there somewhere. That's what everyone at the marina says, at least. So, yeah, I'd be interested in your opinion, too."
Tomlinson's stringy blond hair had recendy been braided Rasta-style during what he called an "herbal research mission" to Belize. It might have had something to do with collecting chili seeds, but probably didn't.
Now Tomlinson tugged at one of the beaded ropes and said, "Odds are good, sweetie, that the goods are bound to be a little odd when you meet a guy like me." He smiled his Buddha smile.
JoAnn looked at him blankly for a moment before deciding to refocus her attention on me. "It concerns a friend of mine, Doc. Her name's Delia Copeland, but it used to be Smith before she married, back when our folks lived next door to each other on Marco Island. Delia was like an aunt to me or an older sister-she was a junior in high school when I was in fifth grade. I didn't get along very well with my mom, so Delia sort of played that role. We became very close and we've always stayed in touch, like family.
"Now Delia lives in a trailer park down on Key Largo where she works, tends bar at a funky little place called the Mandalay. A good woman who's had a hard life, but she's making it okay. She's about forty-five or so now, but still attractive. Least, I've always thought so."
JoAnn must have noticed me glance at my watch, because she added quickly, "You need to know a little background first for you to understand the whole story. That she's no neurotic goofball. She has a steady job, she's good at what she does. Delia's a woman who deserves to be taken seriously."
I said, "I will take your friend seriously, JoAnn, because I trust you and take you seriously."
I received a private little smile, those sharp green eyes intent.
"Fair enough, Doc. So I'll skip straight to the problem. Twice in the last couple of months, someone broke into
Delia's trailer while she was working. They didn't steal anything, but they went through her stuff and all of her daughter's stuff. Delia is very prissy neat. Anything gets moved, she'd notice. Whoever did it must be good with locks because they didn't break anything going in."
"She contacted the police?"
"Of course. That's the first thing she did."
I said, "But the police had no interest. If there's no sign of breaking and entering, if nothing's been taken, what can they do?"
"Exactly, that's just what happened. They told her to get new locks, maybe install an alarm system. But, yeah, that was it. In other words, don't bother them again unless something really happened."
Tomlinson was following along closely, I could tell. He is a fidgeter, a sky-gazer. There was a dazzling blue day through the window, with smoky thunderheads forming beyond the marina. The cloud towers were motionless, tinged with pink and purple, so they seemed as permanent as an Arizona canyonscape. Even so, Tomlinson was focused, intense, chewing at a strand of hair. He said, "Has your friend had any hang-up phone calls?"
JoAnn seemed surprised by the question. "Why, yes. She told me she'd received several calls like that. Phone rings, no one there."
"She doesn't have caller ID?"
"Delia does, but whoever called, it came up 'private number' or something like that. 'Shielded'? I can't remember the exact wording, but she couldn't get the caller's number because I asked."
"Did they go through her clothing? Her personal items like her underwear?"
"Her clothing drawers, yes, and her daughter's. The underwear, I don't know about. You're thinking like this is some kind of sexual kink, right?"
Tomlinson was silent for a moment, eyes closed, before he said, "Your friend's daughter, she's dead, isn't she?"
JoAnn looked at me, surprised. She couldn't speak for a moment, but then she said. "How does he know that? There's no way he could know that. I was just getting ready to tell you."
I said, "It was the way you said, 'daughter'. The intonation. I got a sense that something was wrong, too. Not that she was dead, but that she was sick or in trouble or something. Don't let it bother you. Tomlinson specializes in the unexpected. Finish your story."
JoAnn was shaking her head. "If you say so, Doc, I will."
Tomlinson's eyes were still closed. He said very slowly, "This girl… this child? She died unexpectedly… and tragically." He paused, thinking. Then he said, "It was unexpected by everyone, including the child who died. Her last cognitive thought was surprise."
I said to JoAnn, "Relax. The guy's very good at making accurate inductions from simple things most people wouldn't notice. Think about it: It's unexpected and tragic whenever a child dies." Meaning that there was nothing to be surprised about.
He added, "In her way, she was gifted. Perhaps brilliant."
My explanation had done nothing to change the expression of astonishment on JoAnn's face. "Yes, she was very gifted. Dorothy, that was her name. She died fifteen years ago. I'd moved away from Marco by then." Now JoAnn returned her attention to me. "But how Dorothy died and why she died, that's another story. Delia thinks the break-ins have something to do with her daughter's death, even though it happened a long time ago. That's why you need to hear the whole thing."
I got up, went to the little ship's galley, which is my kitchen, and got the jar of iced tea out of the fridge. I carried it into the living room as I said, "So tell us what happened, JoAnn. Me and the friendly witch doctor here, we're both at your disposal."
She grinned, then chuckled. Her face was attractive in an unspectacular way: a successful woman with her own life, her own mind and way of doing things.