Dark Light

24

At 10:15 P.M., Bern Heller was standing near the marina’s boat ramp watching a thunderstorm dump rain on distant islands—Captiva and Sanibel both smudges beneath mountainous blue clouds—and thinking: The perfect ending to a perfect day: I get struck dead by lightning after finding out the old man’s Jewish, and being so seasick I wanted to die.

There. He could get his wish—but a day late and a dollar short, as usual.

Moe, the goof, had finally noticed that he was standing there like an idiot, wanting to ask him why he was charging around on the bulldozer this late at night, long after everyone else had gone. Was it maybe, just maybe, an effort to make up for tossing his cookies on Bern that afternoon?

The Hoosier looked at him, did a double take, waved, and put the bulldozer in neutral. He left the machine idling and scrambled over the armored tread to the ground, removing his hat to let his boss see how hot it was up there pushing levers two hours before midnight.

“Thought you’d be asleep by now, Bern. Pretty rough day we had ourselves out there on the water. But what’s done is done, thank God…”

Bern gave him a look, and Moe changed subjects without taking a breath. “So you’re probably wondering why I’m out here instead of home gettin’ some z’s. Guess I’m a workaholic. You give me a job to do, I can’t sleep until it’s done right.”

“A workaholic, huh?”

“Yep, always have been. Guess it’s in my genes.” The man was using his jeans right now to wipe his dirty hands.

Bern half listened as Moe explained that he was working late because the EPA people had postponed their tests until Monday, so he’d decided to make sure the water and soil samples they gathered didn’t leave any doubts about the pollution caused by hurricane damage. That way, the marina would be guaranteed the extra month they needed to process and sell all those boats.

“…a government job, like working for the EPA, wouldn’t that be nice? Show up anytime you damn well please, sit on your ass, with all those benefits.”

Bern tuned in long enough to interrupt. “I thought I told you to dump the barrels and all that crap last night. Workaholic, my ass. Alcoholic, is more like it.” Bern swatted at a mosquito, and saw the Hoosier flinch.

“I did dump that stuff, Bern. But I thought I’d do a little extra”—Moe had a wink in his voice—“I figured, while I was out here, on a nice dark night like this? I might as well make a little more of that mangrove swamp disappear.”

Bern said cautiously, “Okay. But where’re you getting the extra fill?”

He was beginning to feel uneasy.

For the first time, Bern focused on what there was to see around him: dark night, lightning still dumping rain on distant islands, a slash of moon to the west. Docks, dark water glistening in the security lights, the boat ramp only a few yards from where he stood. The fifty-gallon drums he’d lined along the seawall were gone, just as Moe had said. Rows of boats in the parking lot far to his left…then an open space with survey stakes. It was where he planned to build more condominiums.

Everything looked normal. Except for……except for that green boat with the twin outboards. It was the Cuban’s boat. The crazy black guy the cops hauled off. It was still on its trailer, but now much closer to the boat ramp. Why? He started to ask Moe but stopped midsentence, feeling a chill.

Beyond the Hoosier’s shoulder, Bern could see the bulldozer, a couple tons of yellow metal and hydraulic hoses, CATERPILLAR in black on the side. The machine’s blade was elevated higher than its cab, the bucket holding several hundred pounds of dirt and limbs. Bern noticed, for the first time, a fifty-gallon drum beneath the limbs, enough of the metal showing for him to see that the barrel was capped but leaking oil.

The oil was black as blood in the machine’s headlights, a steady drip-drip-drip dripping off the blade’s cutting edge.

Below, the fresh fill dirt was stained a dirty, petroleum brown.

Where had the barrel come from? This one had been buried somewhere, judging from the amount of dirt atop it. Bern knew where there were two barrels on marina property that he wanted to stay buried.

He looked beyond the green boat, seeing fresh bulldozer tracks disappear into the darkness toward the little hill he’d created; built it himself, he told people, to remind him of Wisconsin.

Bern was thinking, Dear God, no. Don’t let this be happening.

Bern spoke slowly, forcing himself to sound calm. He said, “Moe? I don’t think you heard me. I asked a question.” Bern was also trying to breathe slowly, not wanting to show the sick feeling in his stomach or the pulsing cold chemical sensation now creating pressure on his brain. “I’ll ask you again—where’d you get the extra fill dirt?”

Moe began to fidget, twitch, was messing with his hat.

“Moe? The fill you used. Where’d it come from?”

Moe wanted to run because of the look on his boss’s face—but he couldn’t run, couldn’t even manage to form words right now. He turned his eyes slowly toward the darkness beyond the green boat where the clouds were filled with lightning. It was also where Bern had built his own hill because Florida didn’t have any hills. He’d told the staff not to touch it.

Bern focused on the bulldozer once again, the fifty-gallon drum still drip-drip-dripping from fifteen feet above. “You took the dirt from my hill, didn’t you?”

The man nodded but didn’t reply.

“Didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Moe was looking at his boots.

“That’s where the oil drum came from, too. You dug it up.”

“Um-huh, yeah, I found it there. Which made me think it was a good idea. There’s another barrel buried out there, too. I figured, while I was at it, with them EPA people coming—”

Much louder, Bern said, “Without my permission, you excavated the hill. Took all this stuff from where I planned to build my house.”

“Your house? You never told me—”

“I told you not to touch it!” It was impossible to stay calm now.

“I didn’t take much dirt, Bern. Honest. Fifteen, maybe twenty yards of fill. Enough to make another buildable lot, and you know how much a buildable lot’s worth. I’m trying to think, just the way you told me. Like an executive. I wanna be more around this place than just some big lazy buck, working for beer money who doesn’t give a damn—”

Buck? The Hoosier racist probably hated Jews, too.

Bern lunged at the man as Moe scrambled backward, scared shitless, seeing his huge boss coming at him. Moe high-stepped onto the bulldozer and swung himself into the cab.

“I’ll put it all back, Bern. Just the way I found it. Promise!” Moe was hurrying, aware that the bulldozer’s cab was his only refuge. It was caged with steel, and the machine was intimidating, the way the blade could lift and turn.

“Get off that thing, goddamn you! Come down here right now!”

Moe yelled, “This won’t take but a few minutes. Watch!” The transmission lever was on Moe’s left and he slapped it, throwing the machine into reverse, foot on the accelerator, using the steering sticks to spin the machine around, smelling the stink of diesel exhaust.

What he didn’t want to do was run over his boss, so he pivoted in his seat to look over his right shoulder…which is when his elbow accidentally hit the lever that operates the dozer’s cutting blade and bucket. With robotic precision, the bucket rotated downward, dumping a quarter ton of dirt and debris, including the fifty-gallon drum, the entire load coming this close to crushing Bern Heller, who jumped out of the way.

For a moment, Moe’s boss looked at the sky. I haven’t suffered enough? What next?!

The steel drum, that’s what was next. On impact, the lid shot off like a volcano blowing, spewing a geyser of oil as the drum tumbled toward the boat ramp, steel on gravel causing a terrible clatter that was abruptly muted by the shock of seeing something else slide out of the barrel—a broken-bird-looking creature, but human-sized, its wings folded at grotesque angles.

No…not a bird.

Human.

M oe’s eyes were locked onto a detail. He watched a tiny pale object become buoyant in the sludge pouring out of the barrel. The pale object was shaped like an autumn leaf…a maple leaf. Slowly…slowly the autumn leaf ascended, oil pouring off it, and finally breached the pool’s surface.

No…not a maple leaf. It was flesh. It was human. It was a pale white hand.

Moe had switched off the bulldozer’s engine. He sat in the steel cage, staring, then swung down from the dozer, moving slowly as if the abrupt silence had weight.

“This is terrible. Who could have done such a thing?” At first, Moe didn’t recognize Bern’s voice. It sounded mechanical, like a robot, saying words that were emotional, but with no emotion to them, as if his boss had been programmed with a computer chip.

“God only knows,” Bern said, “how long she’s been in there. Years, maybe. Someone probably killed her, and stuck her in that barrel, before we built the place.”

Moe couldn’t take his eyes off the delicate white hand—a child’s?—but was aware that something else was going on now. Something not associated with the broken-bird-looking creature that appeared to have been melted, stored in petroleum.

Nearby, there was an unexpected sound…unexpected movement.

The green boat. Bern was now staring at the green boat.

In his robot voice, the boss was saying, “Drug smugglers, I’ve heard they used to smuggle in marijuana. At this dock, right here where we’re standing. Cocaine. Illegal substances.” Bern was walking toward the green boat now, his movements also mechanical. “If this poor dead girl was involved with those sorts of people…drug smugglers? Pimps, maybe. I hate to say this, but she probably got what she deserved.”

There was someone in the boat, Moe realized. That’s what Bern had noticed. A shadowy figure…a man, just his forehead and eyes showing over the side of the boat, watching what was happening.

Didn’t think he’d been spotted. But now…?

Bern continued talking, probably to cover the sound of his footsteps on gravel. “A real stroke of luck, Moe, you almost dropping that barrel on me. The poor woman. She could’ve been in there for decades, and maybe has family still wondering what happened to her. That’s if her family’s still alive or cares anything about a girl who hung out with drug filth like she must’ve…”

It was the colored guy hiding in the boat. The Cuban who’d gone nuts and got arrested—Javier, who Moe had always enjoyed talking with, sometimes standing on the dock drinking coffee together before the man’s fishing clients arrived.

Javier was standing now, realizing he’d been spotted. He seemed undecided about whether to run or not as Bern continued toward him, walking slower now so as not to scare the man, a sick-looking smile trying to form on Bern’s face. “Javier? Is that you? Javier! How you doin’? It’s okay. No need to be scared. You think you’ve had a bad day? Personally, I’ve had a heck of a day. Climb down out of there and I’ll tell you about Augie taking us out in the Viking—you’ll get a laugh out of this one.”

In his mind, Moe was yelling at the Cuban, telling him: Run! Get the hell out of here, you idiot! You can’t see why he’s being so nice?

Moe wanted to run, too. He wanted to get in his truck, leave the marina, leave Florida, go back to Indiana and get a factory job; dump his fiancée who never stopped badgering him to get a better job, make more money, move up the ladder. Join the Kiwanis? He told her he’d do it, and it still wasn’t enough.

But he couldn’t run. Not now. Not after witnessing what had come out of that barrel.

In Moe’s mind, a question kept cycling over and over: How did Bern Heller know that the bird-looking creature with the human hand was a woman?

Something else: How much would it be worth to Bern if Moe didn’t ask?