Night Vision

NINE

The next morning, I was up before sunrise, 6:30 A.M., because I was supposed to meet the necropsy team at eight a.m. sharp. I wanted to get a quick workout in first, though.

Lately, I had been nursing a sore rotator cuff, but was still doing PT twice a day, taking only an occasional Monday off. I knew I’d feel like crap if I didn’t get a sweat going and have a swim. When a man gets into his forties, he has two choices-invite the pain required to maintain his body or surrender himself to the indignity and pain of slow physical decomposition that, in my mind, would be worse than death.

I wanted to make this one fast but tough.

I punished myself with half an hour on a brutal little exercise machine called a VersaClimber. HIT-high-intensity training. Thirty seconds climbing the machine at sprinter’s speed-about a hundred feet per minute-then thirty seconds at a slower pace. Over and over, nonstop, after a five-minute warm-up.

I couldn’t use the pull-up bar, so did a hundred sit-ups, a hundred push-ups, then jogged Tarpon Bay Road to the beach. The swim out to the NO WAKE buoys and back was painful, but it didn’t hurt as much as the mile-and-a-half run home.

When I lumbered, huffing and puffing, down the shell road, Mack, who owns Dinkin’s Bay Marina, was having a meeting with Jeth, Nels and the other fishing guides. So I stuck around long enough to tell them about the dolphins we had seen in the mangroves-I knew they wouldn’t believe Tomlinson-then headed for the shower. Tomlinson himself was already on his way back to Red Citrus.

An hour later, I was standing over the remains of the alligator I had killed. The thing was stretched out, belly-up, on a tarp beside dissecting trays, a lab scale, and an assembly of knives, jars and a single stainless-bladed saw.

It was not something I felt good about, looking down at the dead gator. This inanimate mass only hours before had been a tribute to the genius of natural selection and the animal’s own survival skills. The rounds I’d fired had put an end to a life that had probably spanned sixty years.

Emily Marston’s team consisted of herself, a sullen man who didn’t offer his name and a graduate student from Florida Gulf Coast University who was assigned to document the necropsy on video.

The sullen man, I soon decided, had been romantically involved with the woman biologist, but the relationship had ended recently and unpleasantly.

It wasn’t a guess and it wasn’t intuition.

The situation was easily read in the tension between the two, the curt questions, the man’s surly tone and the woman’s defensive body language.

Judging from his age, the man might have been one of Marston’s professors a few years back. In the field sciences, it’s not unusual for female students to bond with male teachers-ironic that the romantic habits of scientists often mimic the behavior of the animals they study, but it is true.

Emily Marston certainly wasn’t icy to me. She was warm and deferential. The way her eyes sought to communicate with mine caused me to wonder if her invitation to the necropsy had been more than professional courtesy. We probably had a few mutual, peripheral friends, but we’d never met. I wondered why.

“Dr. Ford, I’ve read so many of your papers-some of them a couple of times,” Marston had said, greeting me as I’d stepped from my truck. “I guess you’d call me… well, a sort of fan. Except now you’ll just think I’m an even bigger nerd than I am.”

She was a large woman, late twenties, with an angular Midwestern face that suggested the automotive crossroads of Michigan-part German with a touch of Pole and Irish, I guessed. She struck me as the librarian type: a woman who camouflaged her body beneath baggy, masculine clothing that only served to emphasize a busty, long-legged femininity.

Right away, I was interested in the woman physically. I couldn’t help myself. I prefer the closet beauties, the private, introspective types who share their physical gifts only with a few. But I also reminded myself that, by Dinkin’s Bay standards, I had been abstinent for a long, long time. And seducing women who are on the rebound from a relationship is a repugnant behavior employed only by the lowest form of predatory male.

Even so, I noticed that incidental physical contact between us was more than occasional. It seemed accidental, though it seldom is. Shoulder bumps shoulder, elbow brushes breast. It is the oldest form of human cipher, the secret language of females and males, a language that no one acknowledges but every man and woman on earth employs and understands.

Like now as I stood next to Marston, who had changed into rubber boots, gloves, safety goggles, coveralls and a heavy lab apron that she pretended to be having trouble tying.

“Do you mind,” she asked, touching fingertips to my arm before turning her back to me.

“Sure, happy to help,” I said, and tied the thing, aware of the nasty look her former lover was giving us.

When I was done, I managed to make the situation worse by letting my hand linger on the woman’s shoulder as I told the little group, “This my first necropsy. For an alligator, anyway. You know Frank Mazzotti, the saltwater croc expert? I almost had the chance to watch him work, but I had to leave the country for some reason. I really appreciate the invitation.”

“Well,” the woman replied, sounding a tad breathless, “it’s always nice to be the first at something in a person’s life. Paul”-she looked at the sullen man-“did you read his paper on filtering species in brackish water environments? It was in the Journal of Aquatic Sciences , wasn’t it, Dr. Ford? Really an excellent piece. Your writing style reminds me of the late Archie Carr, the turtle master. Formal, very orderly, but readable. No bullshit academic flourishes when clear, concise sentences will do the job.”

I told the woman I wasn’t in Carr’s league and meant it. Then added, “Let’s make a deal. Call me Ford. Or just plain Doc-which is a nickname. It has nothing to do with what I do. Having a degree, I mean.”

I tried not to sound like a self-satisfied jerk, but I bungled that, too.

Now I felt like an even bigger ass as I let the woman pat my shoulder while she continued speaking to Paul. “In the article, he referenced a necropsy on a manatee that had died during a severe red tide. Wasn’t that at Dinkin’s Bay where you live, Doc? He was the first to make the association between dinoflagellates and toxicity in sea-dwelling mammals.”

“How nice for Dr. Ford,” Paul said, ignoring me-not that I blamed the guy. I really didn’t, although he was pushing the limits when he added, “And let’s not forget that we also have Dr. Ford to thank for providing us with a dead alligator to work on this morning. Very, very thoughtful of you to kill such a beautiful animal. What did the police report say?”

The man looked at a clipboard, before reading, “‘The alligator was subdued by four shots at point-blank range from a nine-millimeter Kahr handgun.’

“Subdued,” the man continued, sarcasm creeping into his voice. “I guess that’s police jargon for slaughtered.”

He looked up from the clipboard and spoke to the graduate student. “I’ve never understood why some men feel inadequate unless they’re carrying a gun. I’m not talking about you, of course, Dr. Ford,” he added, his sarcasm undisguised. “It’s the rednecks and hicks I’m referring to. The right-wing bumper-sticker types. I’m unfamiliar with handguns. Is a Kahr one of those famous pistols that heroes use in the movies? Maybe you’re carrying it now concealed somewhere in your pants. I bet Emily would love to see it.”

I had been watching the woman’s face color, but the guy had finally crossed the line. She snapped, “Paul! Enough! Stop what you’re doing right now! Dr. Ford’s my guest, and I won’t allow you to-”

The man cut her off, saying, “Your days of telling me what I can and can’t do are over, Milly dear. The courts took care of that, remember? It was your decision, not mine. And, frankly, I couldn’t be happier. Didn’t we come here to work? I have other things to do.”

Which, from Marston, earned the man a chilly “Don’t we all have better things to do, Paul? You’re the one who insisted on coming along.”

“I volunteered to help. And, of course”-for the first time the man looked directly at me-“I wanted to see why you were so determined to meet the famous Dr. Marion Ford. I thought maybe I’d understand once I saw him. But, sorry, I just don’t get what the fuss is all about.”

I had taken a step back to remove myself from the conversation. Long ago, I learned not to participate in quarrels between lovers-particularly if I happened to be one of the lovers. So I stood there, feeling embarrassed for both people, as they argued, Drs. Paul and Emily, two intelligent people who had once been in love.

It went on for a while. The barbs they exchanged exhibited a practiced familiarity that proved these two people had become expert at hurting each other. But it ended abruptly when the woman finally called a truce, saying, “Paul… Paul, I’m sorry, Paul! I was wrong to let you come. It was mean of me. It was thoughtless, and I’m sorry. I truly am.”

The man, Paul Marston, Ph. D., I would learn later, responded by throwing his apron and clipboard on the ground as he said, “Yes, your behavior has been very mean and thoughtless. For once we agree. And how refreshing to have you finally admit it, for a change.”

Then the man turned, strode to his Subaru and drove away.

“Damn it,” Emily said when he was gone. “I’m so sorry you two had to witness that. Paul isn’t like that. Not really. And neither am I. But we signed our divorce papers less than two weeks ago, so it’s an emotional time. I’d hoped we could continue our professional relationship, but clearly…”

The woman allowed silence to trail off.

The grad student, who had pretended to be busy organizing her camera gear, spoke for the first time, saying, “I think they both behaved like jerks, Dr. Marston. What is it about men?”

It took me a moment to realize that the girl had included me. What the hell had I done besides allow myself to be used as a foil? Even so, I decided it was time to try to reverse the dark momentum on this pretty spring morning.

“There’s a lesson for ladies everywhere,” I said to them both. “The male of the species is equipped with a prick for reasons that exceed the demands of basic human reproduction.” I looked at Marston. “If you come up with an explanation, I’d like to be among the first to hear it.”

I was hoping to see a pair of smiles. It took the grad student a moment-maybe we both shared the same physical awareness of Emily Marston.

Finally, though, the girl gave in.

Fifteen minutes later, I was saying to Emily, “I’m particularly interested in seeing what’s in the animal’s stomach.”

She was wearing a digital headset. She nodded and said, “An animal this age, you never know what you’re going to find.” She nodded again to the grad student as a cue, touched the POWER button on the mini-recorder, selected a knife and then began dictating as she started the necropsy.

“The specimen is an adult male alligator. Length and weight have already been noted. Scutes at”-she was looking at the ridges on the animal’s back-“scutes seven and ten show distinctive scarring, but I judge it to earlier injuries. There is no evidence the animal has ever been tagged or documented. We’ll begin by making a standard Y-cut from the animal’s sternum to its cloaca.”

The woman looked at me, adding as an aside, “There’s no scalpel big enough for something like this. So I use a Gerber Gator Serrator. Really. That’s the name of the knife. I found it at some outdoors store and couldn’t resist.”

The tool in her hand looked like an oversized pocketknife, and it was sharp. I watched her saw through the dense scale work of the gator’s belly as the grad student moved to a better angle with her video camera.

Marston was good. She worked with speed and a minimum of wasted effort. I watched her remove and weigh, in precise order, the animal’s heart, its liver and other vital organs, before she said, “Next we open the stomach. As I told Dr. Ford, you never know what you’re going to find, particularly with an animal this age.”

She looked at the grad student with concern before adding, “How are you doing? I know, the smell can be tough to deal with. Are you okay?”

The student had gone a little pale. “Maybe if I get a bottle of water,” she said, “that might help. Mind if we take a short break?”

With Marston’s permission, the girl hurried off to the shade, where there was an Igloo filled with ice and drinks.

The smell of the alligator didn’t bother me. I found it heavy and distinctive. There was a musky sweetness that reminded me of the way a fresh tarpon smells-a delicate, vital odor that was mixed with an acidity that I presumed to be cavity fluids and blood.

I said, “Do you mind if I use that extra pair of gloves and help you with the stomach when you get it open?”

“Sure,” the woman replied. “You sound more than casually interested. Are you looking for something in particular? Last night. .. the person the gator attacked, he didn’t lose any-”

“No,” I said. “The man still has all his parts. Just puncture wounds.”

She was nodding. “That’s what I thought or the police would have insisted on being here. Or EMTs would’ve opened the belly last night.”

I said, “What I’d expect to find is the stomach empty. Or almost empty. We’re only, what, a month or so away from their dormant season?”

“The last real cold front was in January,” Marston corrected me. “This animal has certainly eaten since then.”

“Even so,” I said, snapping on a surgical glove, “he had to be pretty hungry to attack a full-grown man. Not only that, he came back and tried to attack a second man, even though I had already wounded the thing. What I’m interested in finding is those rocks I’ve read about. The ones you find in a gator’s belly. Gastroliths? I’ve never seen one.”

“How’s the man doing?” the woman asked, meaning Carlson. “I haven’t heard anything since last night. In fact, I’d love for you to tell me the whole story sometime-if you ever have time. I’ve been studying alligators for seven years and I can’t imagine anyone jumping into the water at night and wrestling around with something this size. I certainly wouldn’t have tried it. That takes a very unusual man, in my opinion.”

I caught the friendly implications. I also sensed that the woman was providing me with an opening to ask her out. It was in the airy way she said it-something I would act upon but later. In reply, I told her I hadn’t gotten an update on Carlson and turned the conversation back to gastroliths.

“We still don’t know for certain that alligators swallow rocks for ballast,” the woman told me, sounding more relaxed and in charge now. “But I can’t think of any other reason they’d bother. In an animal this size, I would expect to find quite a few. They don’t look like much until you clean off the patina. But then some of them can be quite interesting.”

She was right. With the grad student filming, Emily slit the animal’s stomach lining, then held it open as I fished my hands in. At first, I thought there was nothing to find. But then, closer to the intestines, I found several hard, globular objects. I removed one that was about the size of a baseball and handed it to Emily. She appeared pleased.

“This is one of the larger gastroliths I’ve seen,” she told me as she used the knife to scrape part of it clean.

I used a paper towel on my glasses, then knelt beside her to see. I’m not a geologist, but there was no mistaking the crystalline facets of the rock, soon glittering in the morning sunlight. It was a chunk of gypsum.

Marston caught the significance immediately.

“This is very strange finding a stone like this,” she said softly, studying the thing.

“That’s what I was thinking.”

The grad student had zoomed in on the rock. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” the girl said. “It’s pretty-sort of. But what’s so special about a rock?”

Emily asked me, “You found this animal in a pond on San Carlos Island, right? It’s really is quite surprising.”

I told her it was a brackish lake, only a few miles from Fort Myers Beach, before telling the grad student, “In Florida, the only gypsum I know of comes from the highland regions in the north and central parts of the state. Alligators travel, I understand that. But is it possible this thing could have crossed a hundred miles of swamps, then crawled through cities, across highways, this far on its own?”

The woman was thinking about it, lips pursed. She was wearing safety goggles, and I liked the nerdy dissimilarities of her elegant jaw, the sweep of autumn-shaded hair. Only a male biologist is capable of undressing a woman with his eyes and then completing the fantasy by projecting how she would look naked, sprawled on white sheets, all the while kneeling on a tarp beneath buzzing flies, his hands slick with gastric fluids.

That’s exactly what I was doing. But then my conscience intervened by reminding me that this woman had been divorced for only a couple of weeks. No matter how confident Emily Marston appeared, she was vulnerable, probably an easy target for just about any decent-looking, unprincipled jerk who came along. Although I am, admittedly, an occasional jerk, I do embrace the conceit that I am a jerk with at least a few principles.

I listened to the woman say, “If the gastrolith was a lot smaller, and when you consider how old this animal must be, I wouldn’t have a problem with the distance. Over a period of thirty or forty years, yes, it could have traveled a hundred miles on its own. But my guess is, only a large alligator would ingest a rock this size, which suggests to me that someone may have transported the animal-”

The grad student, still filming, interrupted, saying, “Maybe a dump truck hauled a load of gravel to the beach. You know, from around Lake Okeechobee, as fill or something. That would explain a chunk of gypsum being this close to the Gulf of Mexico.”

I smiled at the girl, pleased by her quick reasoning, and I told her exactly that as I fished my hands into the gator’s stomach again.

I removed several more gastroliths. Then I found a chunk of what appeared to be a turtle skull. Then several more bones, bleached white from acid, that were not so easily identified.

Not at first, anyway. It wasn’t until I had placed the bones on the tarp in an orderly fashion that I began to suspect what we had just found. Collectively, they resembled the delicate flange of a primate’s hand-not necessarily a human hand, because feral monkeys are common in Florida

I became more certain they were primate bones when I added a radius bone and pieces of what might have been metacarpal bones.

“My God,” Marston said, voice soft, “I think we need to call the police. This isn’t fresh, obviously. It has to have been in the gator’s stomach for at least a few months, but even so…”

I told the woman, “Wait. There’s something else.”

I had been holding my breath while I felt around in the animal’s stomach and started breathing again as I leaned into the stomach, then placed yet another bone on the tarp.

This one was unmistakable. The grad student stumbled for a moment, almost dropped the camera, but then she leaned to zoom in on what we all could identify.

It was a wedding ring. Cheap and brassy, but set with a minuscule stone that may or may not have been a diamond The ring had been crushed, probably by the gator’s teeth, so that it was crimped into the bone of what had once been a human finger.

“A woman’s hand,” the female biologist said, and had to work hard to keep emotion out of her voice.

“A woman’s ring, anyway,” I replied, holding the bone close to my eyes, seeing what might have been a bit of inscription. “The medical examiner will know.”

At sunset, I was on my back porch, lathering beneath the outdoor shower, when I felt the vibration of unfamiliar footsteps. Tomlinson was in the house, probably guzzling the last of my beer. Plus, the snowshoe slap of his big bare feet is distinctive. It wasn’t him.

The person approaching was decidedly female. Wearing hard-soled shoes, I guessed, possibly high heels.

With a bar of soap, I attempted to cover what I could cover as I turned to see Emily Marston, although I didn’t recognize her at first. True, I wasn’t wearing my glasses. True, I only got a glimpse before the lady sputtered an apology, then ducked behind the corner of my house. Still, I did not associate the long glossy hair and a white tropical suit with the boot-wearing biologist I had worked with that morning.

When I heard the woman call, “Sorry! I’m really… sorry,” I recognized the voice, though.

My reaction was immediate and adolescent-which is to say, I did what most men would do under the circumstances. I made a quick visual survey of my personal equipment, hoping I had been enhanced, not diminished, by the sun-warmed water in the rain cistern overhead.

First impressions are important. Particularly in the primate world, where proportions are emblematic.

Not bad, I decided. Not bad at all. Yet I attempted to deepen my voice as I called to the lady, “The house is open, go on in. Make yourself at home. There’s a bottle of red wine, maybe some beer-if there’s any left.”

She would discover, soon enough, that I had company.

I reached for a towel, then my clothes, taking my time at first until I remembered that every minute I lingered was another minute that Emily Marston would be alone inside with Tomlinson.

It was a risky combination. A divorcee on the rebound and my randy pal.

Even sober, my boat-bum friend has the sexual discipline of a lovebug. By now, seven p.m., he was already a six-pack and a couple of joints into this balmy March evening. Stoned, there are no depths to which the man will not sink in hope of luring fresh prey to his sailboat and, at the very least, getting the lady’s bra off.

As Tomlinson is fond of saying, “There are few experiences in life more satisfying than unveiling a pair of fresh breasts.”

Speaking of women as if they were festively wrapped presents-a metaphor that, for Tomlinson, made every new day a potential Christmas morning.

As I came into the house, though, Emily was sitting primly at the galley table, looking elegant in a copper blouse and white linen jacket, while Tomlinson talked about the phenomenon we had witnessed the night before-the two dolphins we had seen charging out of the mangroves. That was probably a good thing because he had been obsessing about the Guatemalan girl, who had yet to reappear. He had called me earlier that day to report no luck and that he was coming back. I wasn’t sure what else to do, but we had decided to keep the problem running in the backs of our heads to see if something came up.

“Sorry to show up uninvited, Doc,” Emily said as I knelt at the refrigerator, looking for a beer. “I should have yelled. Or rang the bell… or something. But I did knock-”

“I had my earbuds in,” Tomlinson explained, motioning to some kind of miniature device that played music. “I was listening to a new download. A four-hertz theta frequency, trying to get my head straight.”

Emily looked at him, interested, as she continued speaking to me, saying, “So I walked around to the back of the house because I could hear someone humming-”

Tomlinson interrupted, “Doc was humming?” as if he didn’t believe her.

I said, “Isn’t that what people do when they shower? Sing, hum. I was showering.”

Emily said, “Yes, you were,” sounding as if she approved, her eyes locking onto my eyes. “I hope you aren’t pissed-and you certainly shouldn’t be embarrassed. I was restless tonight-we had ourselves quite a day, didn’t we?”

Yes, we had. Emily and I had spent all morning together, waiting for the county forensic team to arrive, and then most of the afternoon answering questions, first from the authorities and then from a couple of reporters.

I avoid media types. It’s an old habit. Putting my name or face out for public scrutiny is unwise when you’ve lived the life I have lived. When a guy has determined enemies, he protects his privacy with determination.

The woman, though, didn’t have a problem with it. She had handled the reporters politely and with just the right amount of professional reserve. I was impressed.

“That’s why I had to get out and go roaming tonight,” she was explaining now. “I decided to risk surprising you to see the amazing Dinkin’s Bay”-she smiled-“where bottlenose dolphins walk by moonlight.”

The woman glanced at Tomlinson, and I could tell that she hadn’t expected me to have company-for good reason. I had dropped more than a few hints during our hours together, telling the lady that I lived alone, wasn’t dating anyone special, and that I usually worked late in the lab-if she ever happened to be in the area.

Not that I had anything sexual in mind.

Right.

Now here she was, and her uneasiness was palpable.

Tomlinson has an uncanny ability to read people. He helped the woman relax by making her laugh, saying, “Know what the weird thing is? When I tell people about the dolphins, they don’t believe me. But the moment Doc says it, it’s like gospel. I just don’t get it.” He leaned toward Emily. “From what I’ve heard, you’re an educated woman. Any insights into how some people can be so damn misguided?”

Emily laughed, then asked if we’d take her outside to see the area where the dolphins had come ashore. She was wearing hard-soled shoes, not heels, but I told her it was a bad idea.

“It’s all muck and mangroves,” I explained. “Your clothes would be a mess. Plus, the mosquitoes. It’s no place for a lady at night.”

That earned me a smile and another potent look. “Thanks for noticing. After the way I was dressed this morning, I went out of my way to look like a woman tonight.”

For an instant, I wondered if the woman wasn’t being a little too obvious, then decided it was okay. I liked her, she liked me and was letting me know it. Nothing wrong with that. “You succeeded,” I told her.

“Then I’ve already had a good night,” she replied. She held my gaze for a moment, then turned to Tomlinson. “Doc told me that you found pieces of crabs’ legs and carapace when you checked the area. But, to him, that wasn’t enough proof the dolphins were feeding. What do you think?”

Tomlinson had been doing some staring of his own, and I was relieved to hear him say, “I always defer to Doc in matters that require a brain but not much heart. But what I really think is, I need to get going. It’s sushi night at the Stone Crab. And Rachel told me they just got in some fresh conch from Key West.”

“But wait,” Emily said as she watched him get to his feet. “You mentioned something I wanted to ask about. Were you practicing deep theta-wave meditation? I wanted to hear more.”

Now she definitely had Tomlinson’s attention. “It sounds like you know something about the subject.”

“At home, I’ve got a few four-hertz theta tracks. But I prefer the higher frequencies.” She included me in the conversation with a look. “The higher frequencies are associated with brighter colors, feelings of well-being. After what we found in that gator’s stomach, I went straight home, showered and put the headsets on.”

Tomlinson was smiling, and I could sense that his determination to exit courteously had been replaced by a growing interest in Emily.

“Biofeedback and brain harmony,” he said. “We are chemical-electric beings, grounded only by spirituality. Kindness and passion in most of us. Lust in a few cases, too. Quite a few, from what I’ve seen in this part of the world.”

I said, “Lust?” aware that Tomlinson was an expert at planting subliminal suggestions into the heads of unsuspecting females.

Emily was laughing, a smart lady who apparently had pretty good antennae of her own because she took control of the conversation, saying, “I’ll discuss the subjects of passion and lust with Doc- if he’s interested. But not in mixed company, thanks. The thing I wanted to ask about is, if you were listening to a theta track, I’m guessing you’re upset about something. Doc told me a little bit about what happened last night. The gator attack and the girl disappearing. Not everything, of course. He’s a hard one to get to open up. He mentioned he had a best friend. That’s you, I take it.”

Tomlinson grinned, and said, “It requires someone who’s forgiving. And not easily bored.”

“Then it is you. How do you get him to talk?”

Tomlinson came close to winking at me as he replied, “I fed him psychedelic mushrooms once-by accident, of course. And once I got him stoned on some very fine weed-same thing, by accident. At best, even when high I would describe him as vaguely chatty. But in a very careful way.”

Emily was having fun with this, but I felt like they were teaming up when she asked, “You don’t smoke, Doc? Or is he kidding?”

I had opened a Diet Coke because all my beer was gone. Compliments of Tomlinson, of course. I shook my head slowly, no, took a sip and listened to Emily talk.

“I guess I’m surprised-that’s not a judgment, by the way. Personally, I can’t believe it hasn’t been legalized. It makes me feel all loose and relaxed. I laugh a lot. And act stupid. I think it’s good for people like us to act stupid sometimes. Don’t you… Doc?”

Now the expression on Tomlinson’s face was telling the world I’m in love, which is why I spoke up, saying, “You mentioned sushi night at the Stone Crab? They close at nine, don’t they? You’ve only got two hours.”

The restaurant was only five minutes away on a bike. He knew exactly what I was telling him.

Tomlinson countered, “We could all go. I could tell Emily about Tula. Maybe later we can even drive across the bridge to Red Citrus and have another look around. I like this woman, Doc. What’s your last name?”

“Marston,” Emily said, watching my friend’s face. “Emily Marston. Or Milly. Or Em. Or whatever you want.”

Tomlinson let that settle, retreating into his brain to think about it. “Marston, that’s not very tribal-specific. You have olive eyes… no, gray-green. Polish, maybe, which tells me Chicago, or maybe Detroit. A bit of Irish, too, plus some German? Doc,” he said to me, “this person is intuitive. She has a gift. I think she can help us find the girl-after I fill her in.”

Once again, the woman took charge, making me her ally by saying, “Nice try, but Marston isn’t my maiden name. Another night, maybe. Until then, Doc can fill me in just fine. We have a lot to talk about.”

“ Well… all righty, then,” Tomlinson said, aware that he’d just been dismissed. His inflection, though, suggested a truce but not capitulation.

“Doc could use some downtime,” Tomlinson offered, getting to his feet. “The dude has been pretty restless himselflately. He doesn’t have to say anything. Everyone at the marina can tell. He spends time looking at maps and listening to foreign news on his shortwave. He works out harder, he drinks fewer beers. The one sure sign?” Tomlinson gave me a knowing look. “His lab begins to smell of a very specific kind of oil that folks like me don’t associate with fish and boats.”

“Oil?” Emily said, confused, then sniffing. A moment later, I was taken aback by the look of recognition on her face. “Oil,” she said. “Yeah, I can smell it. Very faint, but it’s there.”

I stood and opened the screen door. “If you think of it, you might stop by the 7-Eleven and buy some beer. See you in the morning-but not too early. Okay? ”

Tomlinson was laughing as he headed out the door but turned to say to the woman, “Or maybe I’ll see you two at the Rum Bar later. We just got in a shipment of twelve-year-old Fleur de Cana from Nicaragua. Really superb stuff.”

I was heartened by Emily’s green-eyed gaze and by her response: “It’s entirely Doc’s call. Whatever he’s up for, I’m with him.”

Whatever concerns I had about Emily Marston’s vulnerability were set free when she slipped her arm through mine as we walked toward the marina and she told me, “I didn’t divorce Paul because I was unhappy with him. I did it because I was unhappy with myself. Oh, I pretended it was his fault. Came up with all sorts of reasons why we had to end the relationship and move on. He’ll always be the professor. To him, I’ll always be the student. And another big problem was…”

I waited through several seconds of silence before I told her, “Talk about it or don’t, that’s up to you. I was impressed by the way you stood up for him, after your argument this morning. That was nice. Unusual for an ex-wife or -husband to do.”

It was as if she didn’t hear me because she picked up the thread, saying, “For some reason, I want to be honest with you about what happened, Paul and me. One of the problems was, he doesn’t enjoy physical contact-not really. Not with me, anyway. But not with anyone, I think. I’m amazed at how many people dislike being touched. Aren’t you?”

No, but I didn’t say it. Instead, I walked and listened, giving the woman time.

It took a while. Finally, she asked, “Know what I was doing, Doc? I was making excuses. I was using a device that doesn’t make me look very damn nice at all. I blamed Paul to justify what I did. The truth is, I ended the marriage because I wasn’t happy and I wanted out. Blaming him was a way of getting what I wanted.”

I replied, “I think it’s common for the species Sapiens to do whatever it takes to justify pleasure by manipulating our own guilt. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“But that doesn’t make it right,” Emily countered. “Seriously, I’m not trying to punish myself. For me-and it drives me nuts sometimes-for me, the way my mind works, it’s important to get the facts straight. My dad used to say something that was cute at the time, but now it makes sense. He’d say, ‘You lie to your friends and I’ll lie to mine, but let’s not lie to each other.’ I try not to lie to myself, Doc. I think that’s maybe what he meant.”

I smiled and said, “The age difference between you and Paul wasn’t a factor?”

“Fifteen years is just about perfect,” she replied. “It puts the male and the female at about the same level of maturity.”

“You’re not joking.”

The woman said, “Maybe twenty years. It depends on the guy,” but didn’t hit it too hard, which told me the subject was unimportant to her.

We were walking through the shell parking lot, toward the marina docks, after stopping to admire the lady’s new car. It was a midsized Jaguar, black and tan, that didn’t mesh with her occupation or her probable income. Now I could see boats moored in rows, windows glowing, and an American flag at the end of the dock, flapping in a star-bright breeze.

I said, “Are you always this frank?” letting her know that I appreciated it.

“Doc,” she replied, “I’ll be twenty-eight in October, and I plan on living to be a spry and very active ninety. I don’t want to live a screwed-up, unhappy life. Or a selfish life. We receive peace in exchange for helping others. I really believe that.” Then she grimaced and said, “Jesus, I didn’t mean that to sound so naive and girlish. Did it?”

“You have it all planned out,” I said.

“It’s not being selfish,” she replied, “to take responsibility for our own lives. And that’s the only plan I have. This morning, when you laid that poor woman’s bones on the tarp and I saw that ring, I felt so goddamn sad I wanted to cry. Did it show?”

I lied. “No.”

Emily said, “It was my wedding ring I was looking at. That’s the way it felt. My ring finger, and I had been swallowed by something as predatory as any alligator that’s ever lived.”

“Predatory?” I said.

“By fear,” she said. “I think fear rules unless we fight it. But not many people do, you think? We just go with the flow, doing what’s expected. Letting our lives drain right down into the gator’s belly.”

“Some, maybe” I said. “I’m in no position to judge.”

“Well, that’s not for me. I’m going to try my damnedest to live a life that matters. Cut the safety net and throw it away. Which sounds idyllic, but it’s actually scary shit when I think it through. That’s what I plan to do, Doc. In fact, I’m already doing it. Starting two weeks ago.” She leaned her breast into my arm. “If I have regrets later, it’s not because I was afraid to, by God, try something new.”

I patted the lady’s hand and steered her past the bait tank, toward the bay, where dock lights were tethered to black water, golden shards roiled by wind. The fishing guides were in, their flats skiffs rocking in a buoyant line, and a whisper of big band music seeped from one of the sleeping yachts, out of sync with the tapping flagpole halyard.

It was a little after seven p.m. on a Wednesday. A quiet time at Dinkin’s Bay.

I was feeling good. The decision that Emily would come to my bed had just been made without even discussing it-an exchange made via silent subtext. The unspoken dialogue that takes place minute to minute between fertile males and females, generation after generation.

This female had not only said yes. She had fronted the wordless invitation. She had also put me at ease by allowing me to fish for answers to unspoken questions.

Was she emotionally stable? Yes.

Did the age difference matter? No.

I was enjoying the moment, aware that it was among the rarest of transitional times. I would soon undress this woman. “Unveil her,” in Tomlinson terms, for the first time. And there would never be another first time for Emily and myself.

There was no rush, no need for more complicated sexual maneuvering. I could luxuriate in what was to be. I’m no romantic, but I do love women. Hidden beneath a cotton blouse, bound by elastic, what would Emily’s breasts look like unveiled in the back-bay light of my bedroom? Her hips, her thighs… and what subtleties of layered coloring in the lady’s shadowed triangle?

“Did you hear what I said, Doc?” Emily asked, nudging me. “You just disappeared on me. Where’d you go?”

I noted the lady’s intuitive smile, which told me she knew full well where my mind had gone-probably because her mind had been there, too.

Yes, I was right, because she turned to a subject that had all the freeing implications of seeing the bones of a dead woman’s hand. The bawdiest of sexual behavior can be excused-even celebrated-by reflecting on unexpected tragedy, the inevitability of death.

As I had told Emily: People do whatever it takes to justify pleasure by manipulating our own guilt.

“I was thinking about the Guatemalan girl,” she said. “I asked if you’d read the story in the Naples Daily News last week. It was about human trafficking. I’m interested because I joined the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking. I’ve been to only two meetings, but I’d like to get a lot more involved.”

I said, “A biologist doing social work?”

“I can’t think of a better cause.”

I said, “When I put that together with you new car, it suggests to me you’re wealthy. Isn’t that an oxymoron? Wealthy biologist?”

“Normally about now,” she smiled, “I would get very self-righteous and ask what money has to do with a social conscience. But you guessed right, our family has money. My father did well for himself. Maybe I should have mentioned it. He’s an ornithologist.”

I replied, “A wealthy bird-watcher. Another oxymoron.”

“Oh, that is the least of the mysteries about my dad,” the woman said, giving my a searching look. “He gets a big kick out of telling people that bird-watching was an inexpensive hobby-as long as you had a passport and your own private jet.”

I was struck by the mix of her inflections. Emily said it in a joking way, but she also seemed to be baiting me with information that invited further investigation.

Because I couldn’t discern her purpose, however, I dodged the temptation. “So your paternal family has money,” I said.

Emily replied, “My grandfather left me a trust fund when I turned twenty-one. Not a ton of money but enough. Paul had a problem with that. He’s a nice man. He really is. But he has ego issues. Would you have a problem if your wife had a lot more money than you?”

I found the word “wife” startling so shrugged and dodged that question, too. “The human-trafficking thing,” I said, “I’ve always had an interest. Probably because I worked in Central America for several years. I spent some time in Africa, too. Tell me what you know.”

A moment later, I had to ask, “Why are you smiling?”

“Because you’re funny,” Emily said. “The way you guard your secrets by asking questions. Your interest is real, though-that’s makes it okay for some reason. You care about people. I can tell. By the way, you left out the time you spent in Southeast Asia and Indonesia and a bunch of other places, too.”

Before I could reply, the woman told me, “I know more about you than you realize-including all the traveling. I already told you, I’ve read your research papers. In your writing, the really interesting stuff is always between the lines. Like when Tomlinson mentioned the smell of oil in your lab. I recognized it. I know what kind of oil it is. Do you want me to tell you?”

It was gun oil and specialized solvent. Tomlinson had surprised me by mentioning it. He had never mentioned it before.

“The pumps and aerators in my lab require special lubricants,” I said. “There’s no mystery about that.”

Emily replied, “Really?” to let me know that she was aware that I was lying. “You became sort of a hobby of mine, Dr. Ford. Paul embarrassed me so bad this morning when he mentioned it-which was precisely what he intended to do. Not that there’s a lot out there about you. Only two photos. That’s all I could come up with on the Internet. And I’m pretty damn thorough when I get on a research binge. Does that bother you?”

“Money and the attention of a beautiful woman,” I said, turning to face her. “Why would that bother anyone?”

“I’m not beautiful,” Emily said, her face tilting suddenly downward. “You don’t have to say that. We’re both pragmatists. People like us prefer the truth. I might be handsome on a really good day, but I’m not beautiful. I never have been. So there you are. I came to terms with it long ago.”

I replied, “I’ll be the judge of what’s beautiful and what isn’t. If you don’t mind.”

The woman hesitated, wondering if I was going to kiss her. She gave it a moment, looking into my face, then she took my hand and tugged. Suddenly we were returning to my stilt house, walking faster than before.

After a minute or so, she was talking again, back on a safe subject. “Trafficking is big business,” she began. “A lot bigger than the average citizen realizes.” Because I was momentarily confused, she explained, “You asked, so I’m telling you what I know. More than a thousand undocumented workers, men, women and children, arrive in Florida daily. They’re smuggled in by Mexicans, mostly. And a lot of the smugglers are Latino gang members. Coyotes-that’s what they’re called in the trade. But you know about all this. Of course you do.”

I was thinking about recent headlines that detailed the gang wars now going on in Mexico and California. Mass murders, men, women, and children pulled from their beds and shot in the back of the head execution style. Eighteen near Ensenada. A dozen gangbangers killed the same way in Chiapas. “Ceremonial-style murders,” as one survivor had described it.

I replied, “I’ve never learned anything in my life while my mouth was open. Keep going. You just filled in a couple of blanks.”

“Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want. Coyotes are usually in the drug business, too. It’s a natural. Prostitution and pornography, those are the other primary sidelines. The people they screw over… it makes me furious to even talk about it because the people they use have nowhere to turn for help. They’re slaves by every definition of the word. The way coyotes and their gangs abuse women and children is beyond despicable.”

Emily started to continue but then hesitated. “I’d rather not go into some of awful things they do. It’s really upsetting to me. Not if you already know.”

Along with the news stories, I had also read Florida Law Enforcement reports that detailed how traffickers recruited sex slaves and controlled them. Fear was the common weapon. One gang, the Latin Kings, had videoed a live vaginal mutilation. They showed it to new recruits to keep them in line. There had been at least one ceremonial beheading, the perpetrators all wearing bandannas to cover their faces, their tattoos hidden by long-sleeved raincoats.

Cell-phone video cameras. It was what they used.

“No need for details,” I told Emily. “Keep it general.”

The woman let her breath out, relieved. “I’m not going to tell you why I appreciate that, but I do. Okay… so come up with the very worst punishments you can imagine and that’s the daily reality for a lot of small brown women and boys. These are people we see every day working in the fields, riding their bicycles, hanging out at the supermarket and cashing their checks to send money home.”

I said, “That’s why Tomlinson’s so worried about the girl. Me, too.”

“Tula Choimha,” Emily said. “Is that how you pronounce it?”

I said, “The girl… she’s a very different sort of thirteen-year-old. Religious, but religious to a degree that borders on hysteria. You know what I mean? For the wrong sort of egotistical asshole, she’d be an inviting target. Humiliate the saintly little Guatemalan girl. There’s a certain breed of guy who’d stand in line to do that.”

“That’s a volatile age. For girls especially it can be a nightmare,” Emily said, sounding like she had lived it. “Fantasies range from sainthood to whoring. A scientist from Italy published a paper that gives some credence to what’s called poltergeist activity. You know, crashing vases, paintings falling from the walls-all caused by the turbulent brain waves of adolescent girls. Which all sounds like pseudoscience to me, but who knows? Maybe there’s a grain of truth.”

I had stopped tracking the conversation when Emily mentioned poltergeists. I was reviewing what Tomlinson had told me earlier on the phone. He had returned to Red Citrus, but Tula was nowhere to be found. Her few personal possessions were still in the trailer, untouched since the night before. But it looked as if her cot had been slept in.

Tomlinson had called and asked me to join in the search. But, at the time, Emily and I were stuck at the necropsy site, waiting for the medical examiner’s investigator. So he had driven his beat-up Volkswagen, hopscotching from one immigrant haven to another searching for Tula, but no luck.

“Did he stop at churches?” Emily asked me now, regaining my attention.

“Tomlinson didn’t mention it. You’re right, that would’ve been smart. Maybe the girl was afraid of something. Or someone. And ran to the nearest Catholic church for protection. She couldn’t risk turning to the authorities.”

The woman said, “Please tell me your friend contacted the police, right? Her safety’s more important than her damn legal status.”

“Of course,” I said. “I called, too. Tomlinson insisted.”

“Because he was afraid the police wouldn’t take him seriously?”

I said, “It wouldn’t make any difference. The state has a whole series of protocols that go into effect when a child is reported missing. Illegal immigrant children included. There’s a long list of agencies, from cops to the Immigrant Advocacy Center, that get involved. Tomlinson thinks they’re going to issue an AMBER Alert tonight, if they haven’t done it already. It’s the best system in the world for protecting kids. But it’s still an imperfect system.”

I continued, “The problem is that people at her trailer park-the family Tula lives with?-they don’t believe the girl’s missing. At least, that’s what they told the cops as recently as this afternoon. They say she goes off by herself for hours at a time. Police will do more interviews tomorrow. We may not like it, but that’s the way it is for now. An AMBER Alert, of course, if it happens, will change everything.”

Emily asked, “Do you think she was kidnapped? It’s a possibility, I hate to say it. The coyotes, the things men like that do to young girls and boys… I don’t even want to think about.”

I said, “She left behind a family photo that she’d carried for three thousand miles. That bothers me. There was a book we found, too. And some clothing. So, yeah, I think something happened.”

“A book?” Emily asked.

“Not a Bible,” I said. “It’s a book of quotes from Joan of Arc. I took a close look. A lot of dog-eared pages and fingerprints. Some underlined passages. She kept it with her for a reason.”

“Joan of Arc,” the woman nodded as if that somehow made sense to her.

I gave it some more thought. “A church could be the answer,” I said. “It’s plausible. She got scared and ran. There were cops all over the place, so she probably scooted off to the nearest church so she wouldn’t be questioned.”

I wasn’t convinced, though, and neither was Emily. Why hadn’t church authorities contacted state authorities if they had a runaway girl on their hands?

“Doc?” Emily said. “If you’re going back there tomorrow to check the churches-let me come with you. My Spanish is pretty good. Your friend was right. I think I can help.”

I found it interesting that she seemed to intentionally avoid using Tomlinson’s name. Was it to reassure me that she had no interest? Whatever the reason, I found it endearing.

From my pocket, I took a little LED flashlight. I clicked it on, took Emily’s hand and led the lady down the mangrove path to the boardwalk that crosses the water to my house. When we got to the shark pen, I switched off the underwater lights and pocketed the flashlight.

We stood for a moment in the fresh darkness, listening to a waterfall of mullet in the distance, seeing vague green laser streaks of luminescence thatch the water.

“Enough talk about coyotes and kidnappings, and every other dark subject,” I said, putting my hands on the woman’s shoulders.

I felt Emily’s body move closer, her face tilted toward mine. She was ready and smiling. “Is that why you turned off the lights? To brighten the mood?”

“No,” I said as I slid my hands down to her ribs. I took my time, stopping just beneath her breasts, my index fingers experimenting with a warm and weighted softness.

“I was starting to wonder if I’d have to make the first move,” Emily Marston said-said it just before I kissed her.