Captiva

Jesus, it was like living in Ghetto National Park. Nothing but brothers and half-assed political flakes, and all these squirrelly little bombers. You ask somebody what they saw, they say, 'It just went boom!' Or, 'Blowed up, man.' Or, 'Ka-POW See where I'm headed? In D.C., I heard a lot of people describe a lot of explosions. But you say, 'I saw the accelerant flare before the noise reached me.' You say 'point of detonation.' '

'I was trying to give a precise account of what occurred.'

The notebook again. 'A guy at the marina told me. His name is Graeme . . .'

'Yeah, Graeme MacKinley, the owner. Mack.'

'Mr. MacKinley told me that you're a biologist. I wouldn't expect a biologist to be familiar with those terms.' Jackson looked at me blandly. 'So how do you know so much about bombs, Dr. Ford?'

'Bomb? I never said anything about a bomb—'

'Well . . . explosions then. Were you in the military or something?'

I paused a beat before I said, 'I worked for the government for a while. We had a few courses, I probably picked up the language there.'

'The government. What did you do for the government?'

'I was with the foreign service.'

Jackson chuckled. 'Up in D.C., saying you work for the foreign service is like a hooker saying she works with people—no offense. But it's pretty broad—'

'I did clerical stuff,' I said. 'A paper shuffler.' I was getting tired of Jackson. Law enforcement people are the standard—-and the victims—of the unappreciated imperative. Day in, day out, they deal with misfits, liars, drunks, and head bangers. Their only reward is low pay, bad hours, and a firestorm of criticism if they make a mistake. If you're a bureaucrat and screw up, you get a private memo from the department head. If you're a cop and screw up, you get headlines. As a result, law enforcement people are usually a hell of a lot more efficient and professional at their jobs than professionals in other fields. But they also develop a myopic under-siege view of the world. They trust no one—why should they? I didn't blame Jackson for being suspicious. But now he was prying into unrelated affairs—things that were none of his business.

'Where did you work? Countries, I mean.'

'Quite a few. Lots.'

'Don't get shy on me, Dr. Ford.'

'Then let's get something straight: You're not suggesting I had anything to do with the explosion?'

'You mean you didn't do it?' He was looking at me, smiling like we were buddies and it was a joke. But it wasn't a joke. He wanted to see how I reacted.

I didn't react. I didn't smile. I said, 'I've got a lot of work to do today, Detective Jackson. Anything else?'

He was nodding his head, confirming something. 'The people I talked to, that's exactly what they said. You're kind of bookish and straighdaced, everything's work work work. No, I can't see the motive. Everybody over there likes you, so why blow up their boats? See, what I'm doing . . . I'm trying to neaten things up, get them straight in my mind. It was bugging me. But the way you told about it—it makes sense now.'

Fine.

He tried to parry my sudden coolness by being conversational. 'You ever get to Central America?'

'Once or twice.'

'Yeah? I almost went there with my wife on vacation. Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia—one of those cruise ship deals? But all the stuff you read, the violence and stuff. I asked this guy I knew, if we went, should I maybe pack a side arm. He worked for one of the federal agencies. Least, I'm pretty sure he did. Know what he said? He said, 'You take a gun down there, make sure you file off the front sight before you leave. That way, it won't hurt so bad when the guerrillas stick it up your ass!' '

I had gone to the screen door, was holding it open. 'I think of anything else, Detective Jackson, I'll call you.'

'And your buddy—'

'He'll call you too.'

'Those were his last words; the last thing he said to me. Practically the only thing he said.'

I asked, 'What? His name?'

'His name? He never said his name. Man, he could hardly speak. The ER doctor said the vacuum—from the explosion?—it forced this intense heat down him. His pharynx, his lungs, everything. I know there's perfect symmetry to every event, every little thing that happens, but that is one shitty way to go, man. No, the last thing he said was, 'Take care of Hannah for me.' He told me that. 'Take care of Hannah.' Said it about three times, the name. Hannah. I was holding his hand. By then, the ER doctor said that contact, the risk of infection . . . well ... it just didn't matter.'

Tomlinson was flopped down in the reading chair by the north window. I was on my bed, head propped up with pillows. Crunch & Des, the black marina cat, was down by my feet, projecting enough lazy indifference to create his own space. I had been trying to read my new BioScienceJournal but kept dozing offuntil Tomlinson rapped at the screen door. It was a little before six p.m. The chemical stink of melted fiberglass, charred wood was still in the air.

'Who's Hannah?'

Tomlinson shrugged. 'Jimmy Darroux's daughter? His wife? I don't know. Maybe his one true love. He didn't say.' Tomlinson looked exhausted, shrunken, all the joy sucked out of his eyes. He was wearing green physician's scrubs. Apparently the sarong had seemed out of place in an emergency room, even to him.

'That's what I was asking you. How did you find out his name?'

'One of the cops gave me a lift to the marina. Mack told me. A detective told him.'

I got up on an elbow and looked out the window to see if Detective Jackson was still around. There were a few gawkers milling near the site of the fire, but they couldn't stray into the area because of the yellow crime-scene tape. There were a couple of policeman in uniform and a couple of men wearing blue windbreakers, ATF in white letters on the back. The feds. But no one wearing a green, checked sports coat like Jackson's.

'Did Mack also tell you the guy probably blew himself up with his own bomb? That's what the police are working on. He was a commercial fisherman, probably mad about the net ban. That mullet boat you and I heard— they found it tied over in the mangroves. He'd apparently waded in, had the flats boats targeted. They got his name through the registration.'

Tomlinson put his face in his hands and made a wincing noise, like pain.

'That poor, poor fool.'

'Jimmy Darroux isn't getting much sympathy around here. Two of the guides are out of business because of him. Nelson and Felix both. They'd just gotten those boats, a new Parker and a Hewes. The one just like mine.'

'He was carrying the bomb?'

'I don't know. Carrying it, trying to put it someplace. That's what they're working on.'

'But they're not sure.'

'They didn't confide in me, but it's not that hard to figure out, Tomlinson. Renegade commercial guys have been vandalizing marinas up and down the coast, stealing engines, electronics. Setting boats on fire, trying to even the score. They blame the sportfishermen for pushing the vote.'

'Revolution, man, right on. That's how it starts. I thought they'd been stealing stuff just for the cash.'

They'd been doing that, too.

Tomlinson paused. 'So now I've got to find Hannah.'

It took a moment for it to register—Darroux's last words. 'If he and Hannah were close, I'm surprised she didn't show up at the ER.'

'I told you, no one knew who he was. By the time I left, they still didn't know. If they did, they didn't tell me.'

'So, you find her, what are you going to do?'

'I don't know—ride the Karmic Highway. Nothing happens by accident, man. There's no such thing as