Marcia Talley - Without a Grave

‘Officially pronounced dead.’ I shuddered. As if there ever had been any question of that.

After the Net, I puttered over to Hawksbill in Pro Bono and went looking for Gator Crockett, dive shopowner, unofficial constable, island point man for reckless teens, Mr Knock-a-Few-Heads-Together. I found him in the shack he laughingly called his office, patching a wetsuit with DAP contact cement. Justice, the potcake, lay snoozing at his feet.

I watched Gator work for a while before he noticed me.

‘Morning.’ He waved a glue brush. ‘Sit.’

I parked my buns in a plastic lawn chair that see-sawed alarmingly on the uneven dirt floor. ‘Can you talk for a minute?’

He nodded, pressing the edges of the patch together with his fingers.

‘I was the one who tripped over the body after the wildfire.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘I’ve been waiting to hear that the body’s been identified, but nothing’s been reported so far. I was wondering if you’d heard anything.’

Gator tossed the glue brush into a tin can, considered me with pale-blue eyes, saying nothing.

I tried again. ‘Who can I call?’

The corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile. ‘You don’t call. You don’t want to get involved. If the police find out you’re the one who stumbled over the body, and it turns out that there was foul play…’ The smile vanished. ‘Best case, you’re tied up in the court system for years. Worst case, they’ll turn you into a suspect.’

Don’t get involved . The same advice I’d received from Mimi, but still I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’

Gator shrugged. ‘It’s happened.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘You keep your mouth shut.’

Hannah Ives keeping her mouth shut. If Paul had been there, he’d have been laughing hysterically.

Perhaps it was the Anglophile in me, but I tended to trust organizations with the word ‘royal’ in their titles, organizations like ‘The Royal Bahamian Police Force.’ That said, I hadn’t exactly been dazzled by the notices I’d read about the outfit on the Abaco tourist blogs. Consider this: Police have few emergency vehicles, streets and houses are unmarked, so the best thing to do when you are a crime victim is go to the police station nearest you and provide transportation to the crime scene. CSI it wasn’t.

‘If I knew anything, I’d certainly tell you,’ Gator had concluded before powering off with Justice and some tourists for an all-day, two-tank dive on Fowl Cay.

And I had to be satisfied with that.

As if to compensate, it had been happy days on the Net. No email emergencies except the good kind – a baby granddaughter for the couple anchored behind Scotland Cay on Always Something - and lost-and-founds with happy endings.

A boat cat answering to Marmalade had gone missing after an altercation with a local potcake, but had turned up the following day snacking happily on conch bits behind George’s conch salad stand next door to the Harbour View Marina on Bay Street. It’s a troubling thought, but more people were worried and out searching for that cat than cared about whoever it was who had burned to a crisp on the preserve.

Happily, the wildfires were out.

The weather continued happily, too. Sunny, highs in the eighties, chance of widely scattered thunderstorms.

And, ugly as it was, every cruiser seemed to share a we’re-all-in-this-together camaraderie as we watched our stock portfolios go up and down like an Episcopalian in church.

Like I said, it was Same-Old-Same-Old on the Net, until the morning Tony Sands called in on open mike.

I was taking calls as usual.

‘ Sea’s the Day , I hear you. Stand by. Anyone else?’

‘ Reel Time ’ I hear you, too. Stand by. Anyone else?’ When no one else spoke up, I continued. ‘Nothing heard. Go ahead Sea’s the Day .’

Brian Jones on Sea’s the Day was a new arrival to the Abacos and needed to know where to get a haircut (Lanie’s Cuts and Curls in Memorial Plaza), and where to find an ATM that dispenses US dollars. (As if!) With Brian half satisfied, I moved on to Tony.

‘ Reel Time , go ahead Tony.’

We knew Tony fairly well. A charter fishing boat captain operating out of Man-O-War Cay, he’d taken Paul deep-sea fishing, but the only fish Paul ever landed was a thirty-pound barracuda. Not particularly edible, but it made a great picture. At least his colleagues back at the Academy were impressed.

‘I’m looking for the sailing vessel Wanderer ,’ Tony broadcast, ‘a Reliant 41, green hull, three days overdue from Lake Worth, Florida. Wanderer is skippered by Frank Parker. His wife, Sally, is also aboard.’

My head swam. We knew Frank and Sally Parker! I took a deep, steadying breath and tried to remember what, as Net anchor, I was supposed to say next. I tried to keep my voice neutral as I pressed the talk button and repeated Tony’s announcement in case anyone missed it. Meanwhile, I was gesturing frantically to Paul with my free hand. As I spoke, I watched Paul’s expression change from surprise to worry.

‘Anyone seen the vessel Wanderer , a Reliant 41, come now,’ I said. The airwaves were heavy with silence as I waited hopefully for someone to call in with a positive sighting. I hated having to say, ‘Nothing heard.’

‘Is there anybody in range of Green Turtle Cay who can relay for the Net?’ I asked.

Knot Hers volunteered, and I listened again as the message about Wanderer was repeated, but again, the only response was a disappointing silence.

I tried not to worry as I hurried through a recap of the weather, completely skipped the trivia question (trivial, under the circumstances) and wound up the Net.

‘If there’s nothing further…’ I took my thumb off the talk button and waited. ‘Then the Net is clear.’

I slotted the mike into its cradle, leaned back in my chair and sighed. ‘Frank and Sally. Dear God, I hope they’re OK.’

While I had been wrapping up the Net, Paul had powered up his laptop. Now he looked up from the screen. ‘I’ve got Frank’s cellphone number here somewhere.’ He tapped a few keys. ‘After Frank retired, he and Sally were supposed to be cruising the Intracoastal. Why is Tony looking for them, I wonder?’

Paul crossed to the radio and picked up the mike, still hot and sweaty from where I’d been clutching it for almost an hour. ‘ Reel Time, Reel Time , this is Windswept . Come back.’

The airwaves crackled. ‘ Reel Time here, Paul. Switch and answer seven three?’

‘Seven three.’

‘Tony, what’s up?’ Paul asked after the connection was made. ‘I know Frank Parker. He used to teach oceanography at the Naval Academy, went on to consult for the Smithsonian’s environmental research center south of Annapolis. What’s he doing in the Abacos?’

‘You know the meeting in Hope Town on Wednesday?’

‘Right?’

‘Parker was going to testify on behalf of Save Hawksbill Cay.’

‘If the government didn’t believe Jean Michael Cousteau, what would make them believe Frank Parker?’

‘Parker has contacts at the University of Florida. They were refuting the claims of the environmental impact statement made by Mueller’s so-called experts. Parker’s not being paid – the scientists who wrote that report are on Mueller’s payroll – so he’s got no personal interest in the project.’

‘Do you know what Parker was going to say?’

‘That the project is an environmental catastrophe.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Well, it’s true.’

‘When did you hear from Parker last?’