Ten thousand isles

Two

Delia Copeland came from a family of fishermen and clammers, people who lived in tin-roofed houses and built their own boats. Like JoAnn's people, the Copelands and Smiths were spread around South Florida from Flamingo to West Palm. Delia's parents had settled on Marco Island before the Mackle brothers turned it into a famous resort and forced land prices sky high.

When Delia graduated from high school, college was not a consideration. Who had money for college? Instead, she went to work waitressing at the Marina Inn in Goodland, where she met a forty-year-old pompano fisherman out of Upper Matecumbe, though his people were from Devil's Garden, north of the Big Cypress Indian Reservation. He was part Cracker, part Miccosukee and he looked a little like Clark Gable.

"His name was Darton Copeland," JoAnn told us. "He was a strange one, Dart was. I was just a girl, but even I could tell there was something unusual about him. The way he'd look at you, his eyes had this kind of… I don't know, like a glow to them. Have you ever seen a wolf?"

I said, "Photographs, that's all."

"They were like that. His eyes. They were a sort of brownish yellow. They had a light to them."

One thing about Delia, JoAnn told us, she'd always had perfect judgment when it came to men. "Put her in a stadium full of a thousand guys and she'll pick the biggest loser and abuser every single time. Why some women are like that, I don't know. Sad thing is, they're usually the talented girls, the ones with a lot to offer. Maybe deep inside they're afraid they'd soar away if some jerk wasn't there to drag them down and make things ugly and safe."

Two months after meeting Copeland, Delia was pregnant. She was eighteen years old. Copeland married her in a drunken wedding ceremony and vanished one month later, and four months before his daughter, Dorothy, was born.

"We heard rumors that Dart was living back on the Keys with one of his wives. He had several wives, it turned out. Delia's daddy went looking for him a couple of times but never found him, so Delia raised Dorothy on her own. This little blond-haired child, she looked like an angel, she really did. Big blue eyes and very, very long, delicate fingers. That's what I remember best about her. Her eyes and those fingers of hers, like stems on flowers.

"I was twelve when Dorothy was born, and mature for my age, so I baby-sat her lots of nights while Delia did her waitressing. One thing I can tell you from personal experience, that child was different. I think you've been around me enough to know I'm the solid type, Doc. I'm a show-me person. I believe that when we die, we die, and that's all there is to it, and I've never bothered reading a newspaper zodiac column in my life. What a racket. But this child was different. I don't know what caused it or why, but she was."

JoAnn swirled the ice in her glass, looking to me for some reassurance. Tomlinson spoke before I had a chance. "You and Doc are a lot alike, no argument there. Branches of the same tough tree. And this guy"-he hammered his thumb at me-"is straight as cable. Or Wally Cleaver. You say the baby was different? We believe you."

"But how?" I asked.

"One thing was, she was always so… distant? Yeah, like only part of her was in the room with you. Only part of her heard what you said. Like most of her, maybe the most important part of her, was in an entirely different world."

Tomlinson was nodding, like he was enjoying the story but already way ahead. He asked, "Did the child tell you what she could hear?"

JoAnn paused for a moment, then said very carefully, "She told me that she could hear voices. She told me that herself. One night she looked out the window-this was down on Marco Island; she couldn't have been more than six-Dorothy looked out the window and she said, 'There are so many people trying to talk to me, JoAnn. All the talking, it makes me so tired. They won't let me rest.' She was crying. Very upset."

Tomlinson said, "When you looked out the window, no one was there. It was dark. You were on an Indian mound or there was a shell mound near by."

She said, "You're doing it again. That's one of the things that irritates me about you, Tomlinson. I know you're smart. But the tricky part of you, I don't like. I need some honesty. How do you know that Dorothy heard people that no one else could see or hear?"

Tomlinson seemed amused but also a little wistful as he said, "Because, all my life-" He stopped, thought for a moment before he continued, "Because I've known someone who's the same way. It's a very strange gig, like being able to hear through the walls of a busy hotel. People like Dorothy are born on a dimensional cusp. Half in this world, but half out, which means they're aware of other worlds as they spin by."

"Other worlds."

"Absolutely. You don't know what I mean?"

JoAnn gave a little laugh as I said, "No one knows what you mean, Tomlinson. Let her finish the story."

"Okay, okay, but keep in mind a simple truth: classic physics has no explanation for randomness. The existence of many worlds is the only explanation for what appear to be random events. You get some time, read a paper called The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. It explains it all."

I rolled my eyes, but she was nodding. "Okay, different worlds. I thought you meant like ghosts."

"Yes, ghosts, too. Dorothy could probably hear ghosts. And believe me, ghosts are no different than people. Lots of loud, self-centered shits. They're worse than drunks."

"Ghosts, uh-huh." She looked at me. "Do you believe any of this?"

I said, "No, of course I don't. Half the time, he says things like that just to irritate me. Certain people are more perceptive than others, I believe that. I also believe that some people have a tough time dealing with their own imaginations."

Tomlinson tilted his bottle of beer upward, drinking, a familiar smile on his face as JoAnn said, "Whatever the reasons, Dorothy was different. The voices, the way she behaved, all sorts of things. But the main way she was different-and no one ever has explained this-the way she was most different was that she was good at finding things. Old stuff, stuff made of metal. Dorothy would go right to it. Lose your keys? A diamond ring on the beach? People would call Delia and say, You mind if we borrow Dorothy for an hour or so?' She became kinda famous on Marco Island."

"That's a great gift," Tomlinson said. "Extraordinary."

"Yeah. I used to think so. But then, this gift of hers, her gift for finding things, I think that's what went and got that little girl killed."

JoAnn didn't know all the details. She'd been in her twenties when Dorothy died. She'd already moved away from Marco Island, but stayed in phone contact with Delia Copeland.

"I knew that Dorothy made good grades in school, but that she was kind of a social outcast. An oddball, the other kids probably figured. Delia worried about that. It hurt her that the girl didn't have friends. And there were always people around trying to get Dorothy to use her gift for reasons Delia didn't like. I know she worried about that, too. As I said, Dorothy got kind of famous on the island."

Something that contributed to the girl's notoriety was her discovery of several pre-Columbian wooden artifacts. She found them in the muck of what everyone thought to be a mosquito drainage ditch. The ditch turned out to be a canal that had apparently been dredged by the Indians who'd once lived there, the Calusa.

"They figure the Indians dug the canal a thousand years ago for their canoes. So they could cross the island and not have to go off-shore."

"Marco Island?"

"No, it was a little island right next to Marco. I've forgotten the name of it. Anyway, Dorothy, she figured it out about the canal. Delia was very excited, because the state archaeologists got involved and there was some talk of giving her a scholarship to college when she got old enough because of all the help she'd been to them. You can imagine what that meant to a single woman raising a daughter on waitress pay.

"The stuff Dorothy found was real valuable. There was a carving of a cat and two of these horrible-looking masks with real long noses. Because of the muck, they were in perfect condition; still had paint on them. I guess because they hadn't been exposed to air, or something. Also, there was this small wooden carving shaped like a paddle blade. About the size of both my palms together with very odd designs on it. Teardrops and a cross and circles within circles."

Tomlinson got up, found pencil and paper and drew what looked to be a bull's-eye over a Gaelic cross. "Was it like this?"

JoAnn squinched her jaw, thinking. "Maybe. I can't remember. The newspaper did a story on what she found, with photographs and everything. I might have it in a box if I can find it. I remember thinking that the cat looked Egyptian. You know the one I'm talking about? The tall one with its eyes closed and paws folded up. It was very strange stuff and Dorothy gave some of it to the archaeologists. The title was 'The Girl Who Finds Things.' The newspaper story, I mean."

That was just the beginning, JoAnn told us. Less than a year later, the child made another discovery. Digging near the edge of the same canal, she'd found human bones, a skull, several hundred blue Spanish chevron trade beads and what JoAnn called a golden tablet. It was the only one like it ever found. The Florida Indians weren't supposed to have had gold, but there it was, the child had uncovered it.

"Delia was so happy, it breaks my heart now. She didn't know how much sadness that damn tablet was going to bring her. At the time, I guess it represented a little break in all her bad luck. The things Dorothy had found before were valuable, but the golden tablet was worth a bundle. It was her ticket to college, that's the way Delia saw it."

Tomlinson said, "How big was the medallion?"

"Not big. Three or four ounces of gold I think Delia said. About half the size of a postcard. Beautiful, very intricate, that's the way I remember it. But its real value was historical. I guess those things, the rare Indian stuff, sell for a lot."

"That's true, I'm afraid. The designs, were they similar to the designs on the wooden totem?"

"Totem? Oh, you mean the paddle. I never saw the totem in person, but I did see a picture. It was a good picture, but I really can't remember. The gold tablet, though, wow! I remember that. Really beautiful. Maybe they were kind of similar."

Tomlinson was nodding as if he'd expected it to be so. "What makes you think the medallion had something to do with the girl's death?"

"She began to have bad dreams. Nightmares, Delia said, almost every night after she found the thing. The tablet was in the dreams. I don't know what the dreams were about. You can ask Delia if you want." JoAnn placed her glass of tea on the hatch cover beside her. Her voice had reminded calm, but I noticed that her hand was shaking.

I said, "You're still upset by this. It happened, what? fifteen years ago?"

She was nodding. "I helped raise Dorothy, Doc. I carried that little girl around and burped her and did all the stuff that mothers do. She was a sweet kid. Very gende and quick to cry at another person's pain.

"It rained the day of the funeral. One of those gray drizzles. It made her casket look so tiny and alone. I've never had children. Dorothy was about as close as I ever came. So, yes, it still hurts and it's still hard for me to talk about and it never goes away."

"How did she die?"

"The coroner ruled it a suicide, but Delia still believes it was an accident. What happened was, one of the island teenagers found Dorothy hanging from the limb of a low tree. This was on Marco, way back on an Indian mound behind the house. Her hands weren't tied, her feet were touching the ground. So Delia thinks maybe she was experimenting with unconsciousness. You know how kids will hold their breath, hoping to pass out, maybe have an out-of-body experience? Delia thinks it was like that. But I don't know. I think the child was probably so scared by the demons she couldn't take it anymore."

"Her mother wants to believe it was an accident?"

"I think so."

"These break-ins," Tomlinson said, "it must be very hard on your friend, someone going through the clothing of her dead daughter."

JoAnn was nodding. "Delia's a wreck. An absolute nervous wreck. It's brought all those old emotions back, all the pain. Someone is violating her daughter. That's the way Delia sees it. All she has left is Dorothy's clothing and some photos, and last night it happened again.

"She got back from work and realized someone had taken out the drawers where she hides her keepsakes and very carefully slit open the sealing paper on the back of the drawers. You know that brown paper I'm talking about? She called the police-third time it'd happened, and by now they think she's a nut case, which she practically is after all she's been through."

"Was anything missing?"

"Some photos, she thinks. Maybe some of the Spanish beads that Dorothy found. She'd found a lot of beads and that's where Delia hid some of them, in the little space between one of the drawers. But the point is, fellas, the woman is in trouble and needs a helping hand."

Meaning us.

There was no one else to choose from. Delia had an estranged boyfriend who was an abuser. He couldn't be trusted. And her taste in men was so consistently bad that JoAnn had taken it upon herself to find a brotherly protector.

"What she could really use is a friend. Someone to stay there for a week or so, so she can at least get some sleep at night. As it is, she's terrified of every sound. If our magazine wasn't right on deadline, I'd be down there now. It's gonna be another week or so before I can get away, and she can't come up here because she's gotta work."

Years ago, recendy divorced and broke, JoAnn and Rhonda Lister had founded a single-sheet weekly "newspaper" that they called The Heat Islands Fishing Report, and sold advertising. Within two years, it was a full-sized magazine and hugely sue-cessful. They'd both made a lot of money but they still ran every aspect of the business themselves. Busy ladies.

"Something else, Doc. It wouldn't hurt for someone to ask around, talk to the police and give them a nudge. The jerk who's scaring her needs to be caught. That's the only way she's going to feel comfortable living there."

I said, "That's not exacdy my line of work."

"I know that, but a guy like you-kind of big and bookish and solid-the cops will pay attention to a guy like you. Plus you're smart. All I'm asking is, drive down there, talk to Delia. Maybe you can help, maybe you can't. Spend a day or two. Are you that busy?"

Yes, I was that busy. I was under contract to collect for Mote Marine Laboratory, near Sarasota, one of the world's great research facilities. After months of paperwork and genuinely asinine government red tape, I'd finally received a Scientific Collecting Permit from the great state of Florida that allowed me to net and transport brood snook, a favorite game and food fish.

Getting the permit had been a bureaucratic nightmare. Never mind that the snook I caught would be released unharmed after we stripped them of milt and eggs. And never mind that Mote is the first to successfully raise snook in large quantities, then reintroduce them into the wild-something state biologists had tried but failed to do.

In the bowels of certain agencies, Florida's bureaucrats maintain a superior attitude of bored disapproval. I wanted to help save the snook population? Well, I'd have to jump through their silly hoops first! Which is why I'd missed the annual June spawning run and would now have to hustle to catch up.

I told JoAnn, "I'm supposed to deliver twenty brood snook to Mote by Saturday and, this late in the season, they're going to be very hard to find. I'll be working day and night. But if you want, I'll drive down to the Keys after that."

"I'll go." Tomlinson was standing. He found the trash bag nailed to the wall and carefully placed his empty bottle therein. " No Mas is loaded and ready. I'll leave this afternoon with the outgoing tide. I'll need Delia's phone number. There's gotta be a place to anchor near her trailer park. You said she lives on Key Largo? That's a pretty big island."

JoAnn gave me a searching, nervous look. One more private little exchange. "But Tomlinson, you've probably got stuff to do, too. Why don't you wait until Doc-"

"No reason to wait. I've been wanting to take a trip, just couldn't decide where. Now I know. Besides, I'm restless as hell. The equinox, that's the problem. And now I've got this full moon thing to deal with."

"I don't know…"

"Only plans I had was playing harmonica for Jimmy Louis at the Hardware Store, then spend Sunday sitting around the pool bar at 'Tween Waters. So what else is new? That and I've got a monograph due to the International Academy of Sociology and Science-but screw it, they waited this long, they can last another month."

I received another visual inquiry. What should she do?

I told her, "You can trust Tomlinson. If he leaves today, he can be on Key Largo by tomorrow afternoon. Let him check it out, talk to people. If he thinks I can help, I'll drive down next week."

"You're going to sail all that way? It's got to be a hundred miles down to the Keys. I'll pay for a rental car if that would be easier."

Tomlinson was looking around, seeing if he'd forgotten anything, patting his pockets for sunglasses, getting ready to leave. "Nope, a thousand miles of water is easier than a hundred miles of land. Know what? It's exactly what the doctor ordered. Blue water, lots of clean air. Get some boat beneath my feet. Yeah, that's the ticket. Then roll a couple of Maya Mountain fatties to cleanse the receptors." Now he was going out the screen door. His John Lennon sunglasses were still lying on the bookcase in plain sight. "I'm already getting some very strong vibes about this one, and not totally unexpected. Delia and Dorothy, those two ladies have both keyed into Karma 9-1-1. As of now, I'm on the job."

JoAnn was watching, listening, trying not to seem worried. "Jesus."

I told her, "He's actually not as airheaded as he seems. Your friend will love him. Almost everyone does."

"If you say it's okay, Doc, I guess it must be."

"Then you'd better call Delia. Tell her she's about to get company."