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8

One of the names on Effie’s list was Katia Marsh, an employee of the Oceanography Research Center. After lunch, Carver found the handful of tourist brochures he’d picked up before crossing the narrow bridge to the island. The research center had its own brochure, a slick foldout that showed a low, buff-colored building perched on the edge of the sea. There were several fenced-in areas near it that reminded Carver of enclosed tennis courts, but he saw that inside the cages of chain-link fencing were rectangular pools that must contain sea life. There was a shot of a room where various tidal-pool creatures could be observed and handled by visitors. The back wall of the room was a glass window looking in on a tank wherein a large shark swam. A dark-haired man in a white smock and a stoop-shouldered woman with a pinched nose and pointed chin were smiling and observing the observers. Carver wondered if the woman was Katia Marsh.

It took only about ten minutes to drive the Olds down Shoreline and then follow the signs to the research center. It looked exactly like its photo in the brochure, but there was also a businesslike, functional feel to the place that gave the impression it existed primarily for research, and the tourist angle was merely a side endeavor to provide financing.

Carver noticed immediately that the research center provided an almost clear view of the Rainer estate, certainly a better view than from Henry’s cottage. It was no mystery to Carver why Henry had spent time at the center and gotten to know one of its employees.

He left the Olds parked in the shade of a grouping of gigantic palm trees with their lower trunks painted white. Beyond the palms was a low buffer of what looked like old telephone poles laid out horizontally and fixed in place with heavy stakes, then a stretch of rocky soil and a wooden pier jutting out to deep green water. A dock was built perpendicular to the pier, but no boat was there. Old truck tires were lashed to the weathered wood of both pier and dock to prevent damage when hulls bumped against them.

Carver turned his back on the sea and limped through the sun’s glare to the research center. He pushed open a door that led to a cool, gray-carpeted room whose walls were lined with information charts and underwater photographs. A thirtyish couple dressed like tourists was staring at some of the photos, moving in the trancelike shuffle of people combining vacation and edification. The man was holding an infant who gazed at Carver with incredibly round, curious eyes. In the back wall was a door lettered tide pool room, please touch.

A small stuffed hammerhead shark was mounted in a glass case in the center of the room, swimming perpetually toward the door. The guy carrying the infant glanced at it, then left the woman and ambled over to stand and stare. Other than that, not much seemed to be happening here among the posters and enlarged photos of sea horses and sharks. Carver limped over and opened the door to the Tide Pool Room.

He was on a square steel landing from which half a dozen black-enameled metal steps descended to a concrete floor. The Tide Pool Room was blue-painted cinder block, the bottom half of which was below ground level. Not the usual sort of construction in southern Florida, but Carver figured it was to lend strength to the sides of the tank where the big shark swam in endless circles, eyeing the outside world with the unconcerned expression of an expert poker player with aces in the hole. What, me wanna get out and devour a couple of tourists? Naw!

The seaward wall was thick glass from top to bottom to provide a view of the shark. Lined along the other three walls were what looked like large trays on wooden legs. There were a few inches of seawater in the trays, and coral and plant life. And an assortment of creatures that might be found in the shallow reaches of the sea and in tide pools left by receding waves. Two elderly women were standing near one of the trays. They wore baggy knee-length shorts and identical blue T-shirts lettered last heterosexual virgin on key west. The larger of the two was poking an exploratory finger at the top of a starfish. The other woman was glaring with distaste at a large crablike creature that was furiously waving its antennae as if warning her to keep hands off, it had had enough of people like this for one day.

Watching this all with an expression as unreadable as the shark’s was a blond woman in her twenties, wearing a white smock like the ones in the brochure photos. But she wasn’t at all like the woman in the brochure. She was enticingly on the plump side and almost beautiful, with a squarish face, large blue eyes, and a ski-jump nose. Her blond hair was cut short and hung straight at the sides and in bangs over her wide forehead. It was a simple, convenient hairdo, just right for jumping in the water and frolicking with the dolphins, then shaking dry, but on her it seemed stylish.

She noticed Carver on the landing, smiled at him, then looked back at the tourists to make sure they didn’t hurt the starfish. Carver set the tip of his cane and descended the steel stairs. He was wearing moccasins as usual, since they had no laces to tie, and the only noise on the steps was the clunking of his cane. Down in the room now, he could hear the throbbing hum of a filter pump, or maybe simply the air-conditioning. It made him feel as if he were in a submarine.

He stood before the nearest display and stared at the largest snail he’d ever seen. The elderly woman got tired of the starfish, volunteered without being asked that she and her friend were from Canada, then left. Carver continued to stare at the snail. For all he knew, it was staring back at him.

The blond woman in the white smock said, “You can touch anything you’d like.”

He thought he’d better not touch the answer to that. He said, “Are you Katia Marsh?”

“You asking me or the sea snail?”

He turned to look at her. She was smiling. “You,” he said.

“You’re not really interested in the snail, are you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m not sure. You don’t strike me as a tourist. Or a scientist.”

“Maybe I just like French cuisine.”

She looked slightly ill but her smile stayed.

“I’m a friend of Henry Tiller.”

“Oh.” She took a small step toward him. “How is Henry?”

“He’s doing all right. He’ll be in the hospital in Miami for a while, though.”

“I want to send him a card. Can you tell me what hospital he’s in?”

Carver told her, along with the room number. She carefully wrote down the information in a spiral notebook she’d removed from one of the smock’s big square pockets. Water flowing into one of the trays made a soft trickling sound.

“Now,” she said, retracting the tip of her ballpoint pen and slipping it and the notebook back in the pocket, “you’re Fred Carver.”

“How’d you know?”

“Word gets around Key Montaigne in a hurry.” Behind her the shark was circling, circling, easily ten feet long, and streamlined and deadly. “You’re staying at Henry’s cottage.”

“Sort of house-sitting,” Carver said.

“I thought you were investigating the hit and run.”

“My, my, word really does get around.” He used his cane to point to the circling shark. “Doesn’t he ever rest?”

“No,” Katiasaid, “they never stop swimming. If they do, they drown.”

“Drown?”

“The water forced through their system by their forward motion is what provides their oxygen.”

“Interesting.”

She brightened. “Really?”

“Sure. I know people who can only breathe during forward motion.”

She cocked her head and looked him up and down as if he were interesting sea life. Her gaze snagged for a moment on the cane and stiff leg, then moved on. “Would you like me to give you the tour?”

“That’s why I came here,” Carver said.

She smiled in a way that let him know she didn’t believe that for one second.

She stood next to him and they moved along the displays while she identified each sea creature, some of them by their Latin names. Most of them she merely pointed to, but a few she picked up so Carver could view them more closely, or look at their undersides.

“You’re a biologist?” he asked, when they’d made the circuit of the room.

“Oceanographer, actually. However, I’m interested primarily in the habits of sharks, which is Dr. Sam’s field.”

“Dr. Sam?”

“Dr. Samuel Bing. He’s very big in shark research. Dr. Sam’s what everyone calls him. He’s chief researcher and director of the research center and aquarium. When I graduated from college last year, one of my professors suggested I write him and ask if he needed an assistant. I was surprised when I got an answer, even more surprised when I got the job.”

“Why sharks?” Carver asked.

Katia crossed her arms, hugging herself as if chilled, but she was smiling. “Did you know there are sensory areas all over them that pick up distress signals of prey?, In fact, their entire bodies are sensors, with a compulsion to feed. They’re like living fossils, as primitive as anything on land or in the sea, yet so little is actually known about them. It’s the mystery that attracts me, I suppose.” The shark behind the glass glided close, gazing out with the round, merciless eyes that had seen the Paleolithic era.

“They intelligent?” Carver asked.

“Not in the way we think of intelligence. But they’re ideally suited for what they do.”

“Which is?”

“They’re perfect predators. They eat and eat and eat.”

“I remember that from the movie.” Looking at the shark’s torpedo-shaped, powerful body and toothy, underslung jaw, he could believe everything Katia told him, and almost share her fascination. Something about predators. “This Dr. Sam, does he live here at the research center?”

“Almost. He and his wife, Millicent, have a house about quarter of a mile down Shoreline. Practically next door.”

“She the woman in the brochure photo?”

Katia seemed confused for a moment, then said, “Oh! Right. That’s Dr. Sam and Millicent.”

“When I drove up,” Carver said, “I noticed this place affords a clear view of the Walter Rainer estate. Henry ever ask about that?”

She hesitated, carefully sizing up Carver before sharing. He liked that. “I’m sure Henry doesn’t want me spreading it around, but yeah, he wondered if I’d seen anything suspicious going on over there.”

“And had you?”

She looked down at a display of anemones. “I’m not sure. I live in town, but occasionally I stay overnight here. There’s a lot of activity over there some nights. Early mornings, actually.”

“What kind of activity?”

“Can’t tell from here. All I ever saw were lights, people moving around. And that big boat over there puts to sea now and then at odd hours.”

“Any of it mean anything to you?” Carver asked.

She laughed. “I thought you were the detective.”

“That’s why I asked. I’m a snoop.”

“No, it means little to me. But on the other hand, I haven’t given it much thought. My mind’s on my work.”

“Sharks,” Carver said.

“And my other duties. I’m a scientist, not a busybody.”

“You think Henry Tiller’s a busybody?”

She slid her hand into a pocket but wasn’t reaching for anything. Left it there. “No, Henry gets a little befuddled at times, but he’s not someone I’d take lightly.”

“But you’re not concerned about his suspicions.”

Her square chin jutted forward aggressively, though her voice remained pleasant. “I told you, I’m interested only in my work. That might sound cold, but it’s what’s important to me at this point in my life. It’s why I moved here.”

“You could never be cold,” Carver assured her. “I’d like to talk with Dr. Sam.”

“Can’t do that for a while,” she said. “He’s on his way to Mexico on the Fair Wind, to buy for the research center.”

“The Fair Wind his boat?”

“The center’s, actually. It used to be a fishing boat, but Dr. Sam converted it to a diving platform for research at sea.”

“You’re not one of those people who go down in metal cages and stir up the sharks, are you?”

“You guessed it,” she said. “Of course, we also use the Fair Wind to collect aquarium specimens. Tourism’s what keeps this place in the black.”

“Well, I’ll talk with Dr. Sam another time.”

“Millicent might be home, if you wanna talk to her.”

“I think I’ll do that,” Carver said. He took a step toward the exit, then stopped and leaned with both hands on the crook of his cane. “I appreciate the tour. I learned something.”

“About sea life?”

He smiled. “I’m single-minded about my work, too.”

“I could sense that in you,” she told him. “That’s why I liked you right off. But then, I like sharks.”

She watched him as he clomped up the steel steps with his cane and shouldered through the door to the upper level.

The Bings’ house was constructed of the same beige brick and cinder block as the research center, and probably built at the same time. It had a green door and shutters, and bougainvillea with lush red blossoms climbing a trellis in front of the picture window. Bees droned and darted in among the blossoms. There were three small date palms in the front yard, and a larger palm tree that leaned over the side of the house and touched the roof. The sea wind rattled their fronds. The drapes were closed behind the trellis, and no one answered Carver’s ring.

He stood patiently in the sun, listening to the big tree’s palm fronds scrape the roof tiles, watching a brown and lavender butterfly flit about and sample the bougainvillea, unmolested by the bees. A rivulet of sweat ran from his armpit down the inside of his right arm, almost making it to his wrist before evaporating.

The brass plaque on the door was engraved dr. samuel and millicent bing. Carver was at the right house, but Millicent simply wasn’t home. He didn’t mind too much. He could catch up with Dr. Sam or his wife within the next few days. It probably wasn’t important to talk to them anyway. They weren’t on Effie’s list.

He limped back to the Olds and lowered himself behind the steering wheel. Even in the short time he’d been out of the car, the sun-heated leather upholstery had become almost too hot to sit on. He started the big V-8 engine that was now as prehistoric as sharks, shoved the hot metal gearshift lever to R, and backed out of the driveway onto Shoreline. As he drove away, he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a black van with darkly tinted windows parked on the shoulder near the Bings’ driveway.

A short distance down the road, he looked again in the mirror.

The van was following him.