Randy White - Black Widow

What had the lens captured? Why was the tough girl so frightened?

The cassette was tiny, half the size of my palm. It was unsettling how easily the lives of four complex women had been harvested, digitized, and trivialized on a few ounces of recyclable plastic.

Put this videotape in the wrong hands, and touch play? Their futures would be erased.

Tomlinson was in the lab, barefooted, wearing a baseball uniform, jersey unbuttoned, hair braided Willie Nelson style. He was talking on the VHF radio when I pushed the screen door open, and he paused to wag a warning finger. Quiet.

He’d been as irreverent and optimistic as ever, but was also dealing with a loss of personal confidence, so I attempted humor. “Sorry. I thought this was the men’s room.”

I closed the door, crossed the breezeway to my quarters, and went inside, switching on lights. I use yellow bulbs near windows because mosquitoes have primitive eyes that don’t recognize the color yellow. The little bastards do not fly toward light they cannot see.

Mosquitoes come with the location. I live in what is known as a “fish house”-two small houses built over water on stilts, under a single tin roof. In the early 1900s, fish were stored in one house, fishermen in the other. I now own the property-outdoor shower, rain cistern, and wobbly boardwalks included. Shay was right. I like the place. It’s become part of who I am.

Dinkin’s Bay Marina, three hundred yards down the mangrove shore, is a neighbor. Another is Tomlinson, whose sailboat, No Mas, is moored equidistant from the docks, although he behaves as if he owns my property, too-irritating, at times.

Tonight, though, it was okay. He’d been at the propane stove earlier-I could smell fried fish-and he is one of the few self-anointed gourmets who doesn’t overcook seafood. Just as uncommon, he cleans up after himself.

I walked beneath ceiling fans to the galley, where I found a platter of snapper, fresh lime, and mango slices. I squeezed lime on the fillets until they glistened, I squeezed lime on the mango, then went through the day’s mail as I ate.

There was a manila envelope from a medical lab in Tampa. It contained copies of an MRI brain scan my neurologist had ordered because of headaches that had become more than occasional. I assumed they were caused by a head injury. The doctor wasn’t convinced, so I spent half an hour in a tube that bonged and clanked while electron magnets scanned.

The neurologist had already called with the results, so I only stared at the envelope for a moment before I pushed it aside. Then I stacked bills atop it, separating envelopes that were addressed by hand.

There was a letter from an Iowa attorney that I knew would be distressing-it concerned my daughter, and visitation rights. Two other letters from women were of mild interest. A fourth letter, from a man, was of uncommon interest. I studied the labored handwriting. The return address read, Merlin T. Starkey.

Merlin Starkey had been a cop in the Everglades south of Sanibel. Years ago, he’d investigated the boat explosion that killed my parents, back when I was a kid. Officially, it was ruled an accident of “undetermined cause,” but Starkey and I both knew better. For years, I blamed it on a faulty fuel valve installed by my crazy uncle.

Wrong, Starkey informed me awhile back. He knew who did it, he’d told me-but he wouldn’t share the name until after his own death.

I had read Starkey’s obituary in last week’s newspaper. Even so, to see the man’s shaky handwriting days after he, too, had gone to ground was unexpected, and I was momentarily flummoxed.

Merlin Starkey was an old-time Southern cop: Stetson hat, boots, string bow tie with ingratiating manners that masked a nasty disposition. He’d bait punks with his slow, dumb drawl-“You tellin’ the truth, young captain?”-professional enough to baton the big city out of them without leaving a bruise. But the man kept his word.

Here was proof, the letter he’d promised. Inside was the name of the person responsible for the deaths of my mother and father… the person who’d murdered them, or so Starkey had insinuated.

I am not sentimental. Even as a child I was impatient with the ceremonies of childhood. By the time I was nineteen, I’d logged too many miles to abide unnecessary baggage. But I have a sustained interest in learning the truth. Not a driving interest, but an interest. As a biologist, assembling puzzles is what I do.

Finally, here was a puzzle’s last piece.

Who did it?

So why did I now find myself reluctant to open Starkey’s letter?

Strange.

I held the envelope between thumb and index finger, as if it were evidence, then held it to the light. It was inexpensive paper, taped at the back, stationery folded inside, no writing visible. I shook it, sniffed it, and nearly smiled. It smelled of horse stalls. Distinctive. Starkey had used Copenhagen snuff until the end.

He’d written my name and Sanibel Island, FLA with a fountain pen. But my address was squeezed between in blue ballpoint, a woman’s hand-the old man had sealed the envelope, but didn’t know my address, so a nurse or maybe an attorney’s secretary had added it later.

What did these additional fragments matter? I was stalling. Why?

Did I fear the truth? Or treachery? The same crazed uncle I’d blamed for the explosion was guilty of swindling Starkey, and Starkey had nursed a grudge for fifty years. Maybe duping me, a nephew, was a way of finally getting even. What if the note was blank? Or Starkey had named an innocent person?

Or… did I fear something else?

Enough.

I placed Starkey’s letter on the counter by the stove with the rest of the mail. I’d waited a lifetime to learn the truth. I could wait another hour… if there was truth to be learned.

There were more pressing matters. I opened the letter from the Iowa attorney I’d hired-distressing, as expected, and out of my control. So I turned my attention to things I could control. I’d promised Shay that her video would be safe. My past was past. Her future was bright. Maybe brilliant.

I washed the platter, then carried the briefcase to my sleeping quarters and pushed the bed aside. Beneath was a recent addition: ship’s carpentry. By turning two flush-set brass locks, I could remove a section of flooring and access a locker that was roomy, dry, and difficult to find.

From the locker, I took a fireproof box, swung it onto the bed, and unlocked it. Inside, I hid the evidence of Shay Money’s secret weekend among mementos of my own secret life: notebooks, counterfeit passports, emergency euros, emeralds, and Mayan jade from the jungles of Central America.

There was also a gold locket engraved with a smiling full moon. I held the locket for a moment before sealing the box away.

At the laboratory door, I called, “Permission to enter?”

Once again, Tomlinson raised an impatient finger. He turned from the radio’s mic and said, “You’re not gonna believe this one. Something very weird’s happening out there tonight.”

I asked, “Weird on the Tomlinson scale, or by amateur standards?” as I placed my briefcase on the dissecting table, and crossed the room to a row of saltwater aquaria. The aquaria were glowing rectangles inhabited by fish, squid, octopi, and predatory shells that I’d collected from local waters. There were also a couple of new specialty tanks.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. There’s a lady in distress. But I lost contact.”

“Why am I not surprised? I bet she’s beautiful, too. So hail the lady again.”

“I just did. I’m giving it a few seconds.”

I’d stopped to inspect the new aquarium systems. They were unconventional. One contained poisonous shrimp. The other, venomous jellyfish. Both were projects recently contracted. The research was interesting. My new employer, less so. It was a State Department intelligence agency that had offered me a fat, full-time contract to work as a “preemptory specialist.” My task was to anticipate ways the bad guys might attack the U.S. economy through tourism and saltwater food products.