Randy White - The Man Who Ivented Florida

Walker thought, Just when I thought he was softening up… She said, "There're no set questions, just background stuff. I'm trying to-"

Ford cut her off. "You're trying to establish who in the area has a history of violence. You have a profile built, and you want me to supply a few pieces of Tuck, see if they fit. Who would kidnap or kill three men? Who knows those islands well enough to get away with it? I imagine the county law-enforcement people did air searches until they got frustrated, then called you in. Your department. And if you had suspects, you'd be talking to them, not doing deep background."

Walker had been looking at all the flopping, crawling, oozing creatures on the table, watching the man sort it so quickly, putting most of the mess back in the water. She was thinking, I'll never go swimming in the ocean again. She said, "That's right." She looked at Ford, who was shaking the nets out, getting ready to head back. "You know him. Is he prone to violence?"

"You've checked his priors. You know he is. But not in that way."

"He knows the region. I mean, there are thousands of islands, like a jungle-"

"He guided in the Everglades, I already confirmed that. Tuck grew up in the islands. He knows them."

"Considering all he's done in his life, he's certainly shrewd enough. Maybe even brilliant."

Ford said, "I wouldn't say that."

Walker said, "Do you think he fits the profile? I'm only asking for his own good."

"How would I know anything about the profile of a kidnapper or killer?" Ford started the boat, smiling at her. "I'm a biologist. Isn't that what it says on the data sheet they gave you?"

"Yes… from what they gave me-"

Ford kept talking. "Tucker Gatrell can be irritating as hell, and he has a temper, but he's not the guy you're after. He's an old man, for God's sake. He should probably be in a home or something."

Agent Walker said, "I'd love to meet him. Maybe I'll drive down there tomorrow," using her tone to tell Ford she'd be the judge.

Ford said, "You do that. See for yourself."

Ford sorted the specimens, putting sea horses and horseshoe crabs into the big saltwater tank on the deck, watching the sea horses right themselves in the aerator stream of raw water, finding tailholds on blades of turtle grass, while the horseshoe crabs plowed along the bottom. Ford's eyes lingered there, the cool haven of salt water, then looked to see whether Agent Walker's car was gone from the parking lot. It was. No strange cars, anyway. Jeth's four-by-four-he'd left it there while he was traveling-and MacKinley's Lincoln, Ford's own old blue Chevy pickup, then the cars that belonged to the live-aboards.

He checked his lab to make sure everything was orderly, the stainless-steel dissecting table sponged clean, all the specimen and chemical jars in their places. Then he stripped naked and stood beneath the rainwater cistern, showering the sweat away before changing into fresh shorts and a blue stone-washed cham-bray shirt off the clothesline.

It was sunset, the pearly after time, and the sky over Sanibel Island was wind-streaked with cantaloupe orange, purple swirls of cloud. Beyond the docks, mangroves settled charcoal black, blurring into smoky hedges as light drained from the bay. The lights of the marina bloomed on, and out of the closing darkness came the squawk of night herons hunting crabs on the mud flats and the mountain stream sound of tidal current dragging past the pilings of Ford's house.

He stepped out onto the porch and looked at Tomlinson's sailboat. It was a dark buoy on the copper-glazed water, and he could see Tomlinson's silhouette, lean as a bird, straggly-haired, sitting on the bow of the boat. Meditation time. The man was out there every dawn, every dusk, even in storms, as if the sun might drift off station if not for his shepherding. Communing with nature, or maybe talking with God. No telling with Tomlinson. Or maybe thinking about his baby daughter, Nichola, with her mother up there in Boston, where Tomlinson had flown at least once every two weeks since the baby had been born-until recently, suggesting to Ford that things weren't going too well between Tomlinson and the child's mother.

Even mystics have their problems…

Ford hated to interrupt him, but he didn't relish the idea of driving to Mango and seeing Tuck one-on-one. Tomlinson would be just the right buffer. Give the crazy old fool someone to hound while Ford stayed on the periphery and tried to decipher just what kind of scheme he was cooking up now.

Three men missing… well, he'd wondered about it since the first time he saw it in the paper. Christ… Tuck couldn't be involved… But then Ford thought, The hell he couldn't.

He stepped down to the dock and started his flats boat-a skiff with low freeboard and a poling platform over the outboard motor-and idled toward the west side of the bay. At the channel opening to the marina, he heard a hoot and looked over, to see JoAnn Smallwood and Rhonda Lister sitting on the stern of their old Chris-Craft, waving to him. Holding something in their hands for him to see-margaritas, probably, inviting him over for social hour. Maybe they'd broken up with their boyfriends. Or maybe their boyfriends were out of town. Two good-looking working women-one tall with short hair, one small with a body-who lived aboard at the marina, so Ford had not allowed himself to get physically involved. Didn't want to risk emotional discord in the small marina community. But now, knowing he had to go see Tuck, he found them more tempting than ever.

No wonder I don't have any social life…

At the sailboat, Tomlinson said, "Hey, you bet man. Love to meet the old dude, your uncle. But maybe I should change clothes."

Ford said, "Well, yeah… I don't think a sarong's the thing to wear." He could smell incense burning in the cabin below, sandalwood or rosewood, something musky.

Tomlinson said, "Sarongs are nice and cool, though. Perfectly sensible when you think about it. But we're slaves to fashion in this country. You ought to see the looks I get when I wear this thing to town. And it's the best, top of the line, pure silk I bought in Jakarta. The Pierre Cardin of Indonesia, but people just don't appreciate that kind of quality here."

Ford said, "I think I'll run my boat back. I'll wait in the truck for you."

"Hell, I ought to give you a sarong for your birthday, Doc. 'Bout time you wore something that didn't come from Cabelia's catalog. Just the thing for you, out there wading the flats. Except you get kinda weird tan lines."

Ford started the boat. "You could wear a shirt, too. People are old-fashioned down there in Mango."

They drove across the causeway off the island, then turned south onto Highyway 41, the coastal highway that linked Tampa and Naples before crossing the Everglades to Miami-the road that pioneered South Florida's development. Built with a floating dredge, it was also known as the Tamiami Trail.

The Tamiami Trail had become the region's trunk line of growth, a stoplight artery of shopping malls, 7-Elevens, Kentucky Frieds, and shoe outlets, with access roads that led to planned country club communities with their guarded security gates, Bermuda grass vistas, and dredged lakes. Spring Meadow, Royal Hawaiian, Coral Reef-names invented by advertising agencies that had no linkage to reality, to the makeup of the land, but the logos looked great, and sanctuary from the crush of Florida-bound humanity sold big. They scraped the land bare, trucked in the sod, the prefab house frames, the PVC, and plasterboard. Then they built the boundary walls high.

Ford drove along at a steady fifty-five, windows down, taking in the night scenery and smells, listening to Tomlinson, slowing through Estero and Bonita Springs, then took the Naples bypass south and almost missed the narrow road that angled west into Mango. It had been so long, perhaps fifteen years, that he didn't recognize it. But he remembered the twisting mud-flat route well enough. The tide came right up to the road and crossed it in some places. Then the road curved sharply beneath palm trees. Mango Bay rose out of the mangroves to the right and the village was on the left: moon-globe streetlamps and a few old houses on a low ridge of Indian mounds that looked over the water. Tuck's ranch was at the end of the road on the highest mound, a low gray shack with a tin roof and a sand yard cloaked by trees. Lights from the windows glimmered through the leaves.