Randy White - Dead of Night

When he started to protest, I interrupted. “Tomlinson? Thanks for the surfboard.”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Yep. Very gnarly.”

“Doc?” I stared at him, hoping my pained expression would tell him I was done with it. “The only friend you don’t take good care of is yourself, and the only friend I think you’re capable of hurting. I want you to know I’m aware of that.”

“People can consider themselves as friends?” “Lots do. And you should.”

I remembered a blind carney telling me I’d one day take the life of a friend. Suicide? An unlikely new interpretation.

“Thanks. I think.”

The house phone began to ring. I let the door slam behind me, went inside, and checked caller ID.

It was Frieda Matthews on her cell phone.

I listened to Frieda say, “I’m still in Kissimmee, but Bob called a few minutes ago. Guess what a UPS truck just delivered to our house?”

Bob was her husband.

“Something from your brother?”

“His laptop computer. The one missing from his home. In the note, Jobe said to keep the computer until he asked for it back. That’s all. ‘Dear 6-6-4, please keep my computer.’ ”

I waited a couple of seconds. “No mention of why he sent it?”

“No. I had Bob open the laptop and take a look, but our seven-year-old son knows more about computers than my dear, nonconformist hubby. He even refuses to get cable TV”

I said, “There’s another reason why I like the guy.”

“Uh-huh. But he did find a folder on the desktop labeled Tropicane Sugar-slash-EPOC. As in Environmental Protection and Oversight Conservancy. Both names on the same folder.”

“Same organizations Jobe called the night he died.”

“Exactly. I walked Bob through how to use a mouse to double-click on an icon. There was only one document that he could open and read. It was a copy of a contract sent to Jobe as an Acrobat file. Tropicane and EPOC had hired him jointly to collect and test water samples over a two-year period in areas where Tropicane diverts water into the Everglades. If I remember right, diverting water to keep their fields dry is a common practice in the sugar industry.”

I said, “They all do it. Fields would be flooded half the year if they didn’t. But why would a big sugar company hook up with an environmental watchdog group to hire your brother? Organizations like those two, they’re usually at each other’s throats. Unless… unless the sugar company voluntarily invited EPOC to participate. They’d only do that if they were confident test results would be favorable.”

Frieda said, “That’s what I was thinking. We both know the ecobusiness. Corporate America doesn’t invite independent oversight unless the news is sure to be good.

“Bob read me some of the contract details. Jobe was making decent cash. Basically, his job was to collect water from various areas, test it, then deliver the results independently to both organizations. Contractually, the data sheets were due every Monday morning.

“For better or worse,” she said, “each side wanted original data. No chance of doctoring the results, or trying to hide the truth between the lines. So, yeah, Tropicane had to be darn confident that the water they’re pumping into the ’Glades is clean.”

I was standing, phone to my ear, near my Celestron telescope, and the desk that holds my Transoceanic shortwave radio. As I listened to Frieda, I could also hear Tomlinson in the galley, rummaging through the refrigerator and cupboards.

I get nervous when the man’s alone in a kitchen. He once used mushrooms as garnish for a snapper he’d baked. I didn’t know the mushrooms were psychedelic until I’d eaten nearly half the damn things. They were psilocybin “ ’shrooms,” as they are known, personally handpicked by him in some Central Florida cattle pasture. We happened to be down on the Florida Keys at the time. My memory still generates brief, strobing colors when I hear someone say, “Key Largo.”

I interrupted Frieda, saying, “Excuse me a second, okay?” then covered the phone with my palm before calling to Tomlinson, “It’s too early if you’re making lunch. Unless I’m in there watching.”

Slighted, Tomlinson called back, “Relax, Admiral Paranoia. What I’m trying to do is find some olives for my martini. I have one of those big beakers from the lab filled with Stoli and ice, but I need olives, man. That would seem totally, like, normal to most folks. But you have a way of making whatever I’m doing sound peculiar.”

I told him that a fresh jar of olives was in the food locker next to the fridge, then returned my attention to the lady. “How long had your brother been under contract?”

“Nearly eighteen months. He was almost done. Only six months left.”

“What day did he send the laptop?”

“The UPS slip said Saturday.”

The day before he died.

“Then his weekly report was due yesterday, so the report’s probably still on the laptop. A portion of it, anyway. That might tell us something.”

Frieda was ahead of me. “I know, I know, I had Bob open files related to the project. But he couldn’t read them because there was nothing to read. No words, anyway. Only numbers. Every document. Like the computer drawings we found upstairs in my brother’s house? Instead of the water symbol, page after page of numbers.”

“Numbers?”

“Jobe could remember numbers. Words gave him trouble.”

I thought about that for a moment, hearing the sound of ice cubes rattling in glass. “Did your husband notice if any of the numbers were larger than twenty-six? Or mention punctuation marks?”

“Twenty-six…? Oh, you’re thinking it’s some kind of code. Twenty-six numbers, twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Talk about feeling dumb. I didn’t ask.”

We discussed other explanations. Frieda told me she’d e-mail the Tropicane-EPOC folder to me once she got her hands on the laptop, which would be soon. Her husband and son were arriving in Kissimmee tomorrow, Wednesday, for the funeral, which was to be Thursday morning.

“It’s going to be a small service, Doc. Jobe didn’t have friends. But do yourself a favor, do us a favor. Stay home. Get some work done. You’ve invested enough time and emotion. I completely understand.”

Inwardly relieved, I told the lady I’d use the time to do some research on the Florida sugar industry for both of us. Refresh my memory on a few things.

I said, “You’re going to want to check into the kind of work your brother was doing, who he was working with.”

Her voice steely, Frieda said, “Oh, you can bet that I will.”

LOG

14 Dec. 17:35 (addendum)

Collected copepods w/plankton net from Bailey Tract. Sample count using Wolffuegel grid: 5,000 specimens +/-. Dominant species, Macro Cyclops.

Separated undetermined numbers into three 1,000 ml beakers, plus 1 shallow soup bowl. Have introduced Dracunculiasis into beakers #1 amp; 2. Samples hourly.

Order 2 doz Pyrex beakers 200 ml to 1,000 ml.

– MDF

The two of us sitting beneath the helicopter shadows of the ceiling fan, Tomlinson confided, “You’re right. I had the dream. I’d smoked a couple of blimpies around the fire after surfing. It was the same in every detail but for one. This time, I didn’t die.”

I said, “See? I told you. It’s all a bunch of baloney.” I was sitting on a lab stool watching the little bull sharks, pleased by their attack displays as they began to feed on the tiny, fast baitfish I’d put into the tank. Backs arched, dorsal fins down, the sharks were doing approach elliptics, then attacking.

The deformed sharks weren’t as successful.

“This time when you shot me, it didn’t hurt. Before, it always hurt like hell, even dreaming it-”