Randy White - Deceived

“Once you meet Marion,” I said, “you’ll understand why I’m not interested in Joel, even if he is an attorney-or any other good-looking man.” I had my hand on the throttle when I realized how clumsily I’d spoken. Birdy, with her sharp sense of humor, couldn’t resist.

“You prefer guys who aren’t good-looking, huh?” she asked. “Smithie, you need to think this over.”

“You need to hang on,” I replied, and shoved the throttle forward. The redhead gave a startled whoop, and we were both laughing while I made a slow turn, then pointed my skiff south.

At South Seas Resort, I cut through Redfish Pass, dropped off plain and was soon idling along the back side of Captiva Island. To keep the off-duty deputy quiet, I pointed out houses owned by people I knew-multimillionaires, many of them, and some my clients-before I killed the engine and got off the first question, asking, “Remember the fishing reel missing from the attic?”

“That charity, nonprofit thing,” she said. “I’m glad you took the job. You’ll get to know your hot attorney better. Plus, I can help you if the bastards turn out to be con men.”

“I was talking about Teddy Roosevelt,” I said. “This is where he anchored his houseboat. Nineteen seventeen.”

“No kidding?” Birdy swiveled her head as if expecting to see a brass plaque.

“Maybe not the exact spot but close,” I said. We were drifting between Buck Key and Captiva, the gas dock at Jensen’s Marina to our right, several skiffs anchored off the pool bar at ’Tween Waters just ahead.

“Do people still harpoon giant stingrays? That reel must be worth a ton of money. Sounds to me like your grandfather must’ve been Teddy’s favorite fishing guide.”

The woman seldom asked one question at a time, but I was getting used to it. “Manta rays,” I corrected, “and it was my great- grandfather. But he was too young to captain a boat.”

“Teddy must have liked him, though. Vom Hofe, was he a famous reel maker? Quite a present to give a boy-or was he a teenager?”

I replied, “There was a local girl the president made friends with, too. She was younger, only nine or ten, but they say he liked people with spirit. He gave her a pair of boots. If I find the book he wrote-or maybe the library has a copy-there are photos of the manta rays they harpooned. Huge animals, the size of cars.”

“Teddy Roosevelt slept here,” Birdy said, smiling, her eyes taking in the scenery.

I told her the boat the president had lived on was a one-room house built on a barge that was fifty-some feet long. “For a while, it was anchored behind Castaway’s-that’s a nice place to stay when you get some time off. Years later, a storm pushed it way back in the mangroves. One day, if you want, we’ll try to find what’s left.”

In reply, Tupplemeyer asked several questions nonstop, which I didn’t have to answer because a friend of mine, Nathan Pace, appeared on a dock not far from where we were drifting. Nate had been skinny in high school but was now a bodybuilder and good-looking, despite a crooked tooth and his shyness.

“Damn, who’s the hunk?” Tupplemeyer whispered as we idled over to say hello. “I like guys with muscles. He’s gotta have money, too, if he lives there.”

No, but the famous photographer Nate sometimes slept with was wealthy-a nice man named Darren. I didn’t explain all this to Birdy, though, until we were a mile or two from Captiva. The tide had risen, and we soon had the mounds of Cushing Key in sight.

AS WE MUCKEDour way toward the island’s interior, Deputy Tupplemeyer, who oozed confidence but who knew nothing about swamps, sounded uneasy when she asked, “Any snakes around here?”

By then, we were friendly enough to have traded several more barbs, so I was tempted to reply, No-alligators eat them all. I might have said it, too, if I thought she would have slowed her pace. Now that we were on land, following Birdy was like being pulled along by a propeller that had been revved too high or a generator that discharged currency into the ground. The woman’s energy seeped in through my feet, my ears, and was beginning to short-circuit my own more careful method of thinking.

Normally, I wouldn’t have put up with such a person. In fact, when she had latched onto the subject of Joel Ransler, I had come close to inventing an excuse to end the trip early. But I didn’t, and was glad. I admired the woman’s spirit. She was curious and enthusiastic about… well, everything , and her positive attitude was seeping into me as well. Plus, she was funny-often crude, true, but at least she came out and spoke her mind.

“I’d bet my ass there are snakes galore,” Birdy insisted, finally stopping for a breather. She used a tree limb to steady herself, looked to the left, then the right, seeing muck, spiderwebs glistening in the shadows, and a tangle of mangrove jungle where prop roots hung like bars in a cave. “Nothing else would live in a place like this.”

“Except for mosquitoes,” I said, then couldn’t help saying with a straight face, “Gators eat the snakes. No need to worry about them.”

Automatically, the deputy’s hand moved toward the holster she wasn’t wearing. “ Alligators! You serious?”

“We get an occasional saltwater croc, too,” I replied.

“Shit, now she tells me. I should have brought my Glock.”

“They’re a protected species,” I reminded her.

“I’m a protected species, too, when I’m carrying a Glock,” the deputy answered. “Screw the law, how big?”

I was losing control, so walked ahead of her and didn’t look back. “Ten, sometimes twelve feet long. I’ve never seen a really big one. Not on this side of the island anyway.”

“ This side of the island! Jesus Christ, I pity the poor guy you’re dating-what do you consider big?”

Now my chest was shaking, couldn’t help myself, so I kept walking.

She called after me, “Maybe we should head back to the boat. Hannah… where you going? Hey… Jungle Jane ! Goddamn it, I’m talking to you!”

I stopped and turned and let my laughter go. When Birdy realized I was joking, she gave me a fierce look and hissed, “Asshole!” but soon was laughing, too, then tried to imitate a Southern accent. “Yep, big-ass gators’ll eat you city folk. Diddle you up the be-hind, too, if rattlers and rednecks turn scarce. Ya’ll gotta be mindful .” Her voice returned to normal. “ Shit! Can’t believe I just got taken in by some rube chick.”

Now I was tearing up, I was laughing so hard. “Sorry… sorry,” I croaked. “The look on your face when I said gators… My lord!”

“Paybacks are hell, Smithie,” she fired back, then plucked a foot out of the muck and inspected her shoe. Almost new Reeboks-Tupplemeyer had gotten hooked on jogging while at the police academy and had shown me the soles to prove she ran three to five miles daily but had a pronation problem, or possibly the term was supination -she wasn’t sure but had promised to look it up when we got back.

“Those shoes are ruined,” I said. “At least I told you the truth about that.”

“Okay, okay, you were right, so stop harping,” she said, pulling her other foot out of the mud. “How much farther?” To the Indian mounds, she meant.

I was wearing cheap white rubber boots I always keep on the boat and was secretly pleased by her admission. “We’ll hose those down and throw them in the washer later,” I suggested. “You can meet Loretta.”

“Your mom? I’d like that. The poor woman has to be a saint to raise a daughter like you. Did you hear what I just asked?”