Randy White: Everglades

I asked again, “But why? ”

“I think it has to do with Geoff, my husband.”

“Your husband? Does he think you’re having an affair?”

Why else would he have her followed?

“No, it’s not that. I’d never do something like that. My husband. .. Geoff, he disappeared. He’s dead.”

It took me a few moments before I could find the voice to answer. “ Dead. Sally, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t hear a thing about it.”

“I wish I felt the same. But I don’t. Six months ago, October twenty-seventh, on a fishing trip to Bimini, Geoff supposedly fell overboard. It was at night, so no one realized it until the next morning. No witnesses. His body was never found.”

I said, “‘Supposedly.’”

“I don’t believe it. I’ve never believed it. I don’t think the insurance company does, either. If the man out there is a private investigator, they probably hired him.”

I said, “Good God,” surprised by her reappearance, by the situation, by the implicit obligation. Friendship comes with responsibilities-reliability during crisis being among them. If an acquaintance does not behave accordingly and dependably, he or she is not your friend.

“The insurance company doesn’t want to pay off?”

Sally was shaking her head. “No, of course they don’t. But they will. They’ll have no choice. Not with all the evidence my attorney’s presented to the circuit court-which she says is standard in any death settlement case where the body hasn’t been found. Otherwise, the state waits five years before issuing a death certificate.

“My attorney’s really first rate. She knows how the system works. Which means they’re going to have to pay. A big figure with lots of zeros behind it deposited right into a money market account. She expects the court to rule in our favor within a couple of weeks. Two weeks-that’s about the same time I noticed skinhead in his car, following me.”

“Has he ever said anything? Confronted you?”

“No.”

“Have you been getting any hang-up calls?”

If he was a stalker, not a P.I., hang-up calls would be evi dential.

She replied, “No. I occasionally get a hang-up, like everyone else, but not enough to worry about.”

I put my arm over her shoulder, and began to walk her up the wooden steps toward my house, still not risking a glance behind me. “What’d he say when the police questioned him?”

“The guy? They’ve never managed to catch him. He’s pretty tricky. They think maybe he has a scanner or something, because he’s always gone by the time they show up. Or that I’m nuts and imagining things. So maybe I’m glad he’s out there and you’ll see him, too. If he’s still there. I was beginning to doubt my own sanity.”

Standing, holding the screen door wide open for her, I finally turned and took a quick look shoreward.

Sally was not imagining things.

There he was: a large man trying to hide himself in the mangroves, binoculars in hand, using them to scan the area in our direction.

“Nothing wrong with your sanity,” I told her. “Maybe the Sanibel police will be luckier. Let’s go inside and call.”

“Call if you want. ’Far as I’m concerned, though, he can stand in the bushes all night. Let the mosquitoes carry him away. Now that I’m here, back on the island, I feel safe. For the first time in a long, long time, I feel safe.”

I thought for a moment before I said, “That might not be a bad way to handle it. With this storm coming, let him stand out there and get soaked. Then I’ll use the noise, the rain in the trees, to slip around behind him. Maybe he’ll be more cooperative, more talkative, if I surprise him.”

She held herself away from me. “Storm? What storm? I don’t understand what you mean.”

Her reaction was disconcerting. Sally’s an accomplished sailor. She’d once sailed the entire west coast of Florida single-handedly, yet she hadn’t noticed the approaching rainsquall. The storm cell was to the north, sailing across the bay, the rain visible as a precise demarcation of platinum, dense as winter fog.

In a minute or two, the storm wall would collide with the warmer air of the shoreline.

Which was good, because Florida was just coming off one of its driest winters in history. It hadn’t rained for nearly a month.

“Doc, before you confront anybody, even try to talk to him, I need to tell you what happened, why I’m here. I don’t want you getting hurt on my account, or to cause you any trouble.”

Looking back at her, I said, “I don’t plan on getting hurt. Or hurting anyone.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

I shrugged. “First things first. You don’t like being followed. Maybe it’s time someone told him.”

“We could both go. I’m a big girl. I can talk to him myself.”

Before I could answer, a partition of Arctic wind blasted us, followed by the molecular sizzle of electrical discharge. Then the earth was shaken by a shock wave of expanding, superheated air that rattled the windows of my lab: klaaaa-BOOM.

“God, that was close!” She jumped through the doorway, pulling me with her, eyes wide, but what I noticed-to my personal discredit-was that the woman had aged disproportionately to our years apart, and she had not aged well. Gaunt cheeks, skin too loose on her face, frown lines, blond hair frazzled by lack of attention and too much hair spray.

I picked up my backpack-the only gear I’d taken for four nights in the Everglades-and, as I steered her through the breezeway that separates house from laboratory, she said, “The way my luck’s been going, I’m surprised it missed.”

It took me a moment to realize what she meant. She was talking about being struck by lightning.

I used my fingers to separate the blinds, and took a longer look at the man who was following Sally.

On Sanibel, people use binoculars to look at birds. We get lots and lots of birders because we have lots and lots of birds. Birders are a strange, but likable, type, not averse to standing out in the rain. But this guy wasn’t dressed like a birder.

Instead of the L.L. Bean, eco-awareness look, everything in earth tones, he was wearing a hooded blue rain slicker, the kind the yacht-club types wear, and dark slacks. A city-looking guy, standing there bareheaded, bald, in the bushes next to a couple of big buttonwood trees, thinking he was hidden, but he wasn’t.

I’ve been followed and spied upon more than once in my life. An earlier life, anyway. I’ve spent a lot of time in Third World countries, jungle areas, the remaining dark places on this earth. Which is why I much prefer the peaceful little community of Dinkin’s Bay, and my current occupation-a marine biologist who runs a small company, Sanibel Biological Supply. I collect sea specimens of all varieties and sell them to schools and labs and research facilities around the country.

From old habit, I made careful visual notes, then turned away from the window as Sally said, “Geez, Doc, it’s been such a long time since I’ve been inside this place. Like people always say, I remember it being bigger.”

I stood and watched her move around the single open room that is my living quarters. She wore sand-colored pleated shorts, a crisp cinnamon blouse and tan sandals. An expensive yacht-club effect. The colors looked good on her; made hers eyes bluer, her hair more golden than I remembered. I watched the lady turn dancerlike, in slow, nostalgic review.

There’s not much to see. The kitchen is a galley, really, not much bigger, or differently equipped than a galley found on a commercial-sized fishing boat: propane stove, small ship’s refrigerator, pots and pans hanging on hooks suspended from the ceiling.

Adjoining, but separated by a serving counter, is a wall of books, a floor lamp and a reading chair. My ancient Transoceanic shortwave radio, and smaller portable shortwave, both sit on a table beside the chair. My Celestron telescope stands at the north window nearby.