I was slogging around with the man cradled in my arms, trying to find enough footing to swing him up onto the dock, but Tomlinson interceded. There would be less stress, he said, if we rolled him into his rubber boat. 'Plus, we can flood it with cold water. That's what he needs now. Until the paramedics arrive.'
The two of us lifted the man into the inflatable; then Tomlinson took charge, calling for the water hose, calling for buckets of ice while he got the man's legs elevated, already treating him for shock.
I had a dim memory of Tomlinson telling me that, at some time in his life, he had taken an emergency medical technician course. Tomlinson, an unlikely person, often did unlikely things. Already, there were a couple of marina regulars sloshing around with us . . . people who seemed to know more about first aid than I. Once they had a blanket over the guy, I left them to their work and hoisted myself onto the dock to help fight the fire.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was pretty bad: four small sportfishing boats—known locally as flats boats—were ablaze. Mack, who owns the marina, was doing what he could, getting people organized. While some cut the lines of nearby boats and drifted them to safety, others used fire extinguishers and water to control the fire. Just as a precaution, I took another look at the fuel tank's emergency shutoff switch—and was very glad I did. Some well-intended person had come along after me and switched it off again, thereby switching it on.
The marina is connected to the main road by a sand road. The Sanibel Fire Department is located just a few hundred yards from that intersection. The trucks arrived in minutes, lights flaring, and they had the fire under control not long afterward. But they couldn't save the four boats, and two others were badly damaged. Nor could the emergency room doctors save the man I had pulled from the bay.
He died later that morning, with Tomlinson at his side.
Chapter 2
I helped around the marina until my help wasn't need, then shuffled back to the cottage to hang bomber jacket and clothes out to dry. I'd been slogging around in boat basin muck; the stink of it was still on me. I took a cold-water shower. Kept lathering and rinsing, lathering and rinsing. Decided there are some things—the memory of an odor, for instance—that cannot be washed away with soap.
By then, it was nearly ten a.m. I felt as if I had been awake for days, but didn't feel like sleeping.
Because of the petroleum and spent chemicals that had gone into the bay, I was worried about the fish tank aquarium where I keep live specimens—some to sell, most just for my own research and pleasure. I had built the fish tank on a reinforced section of my lower deck, using half of an old wooden cistern. From a distance, the thing looked like a whiskey barrel. Raw water is constantly drawn into the tank by a Briggs pump housed on shore. Then the water is aerated and clarified by a hundred-gallon upper reservoir and subsand filter, then sprayed as a mist into the main tank.
But even the multiple filter systems couldn't protect the aquarium from big doses of chemical contaminates. That's why I was concerned. Because of the cold weather, I had a Styrofoam cap on the tank. But the sun was out now—the norther had blown through, and the temperature had already climbed to 65—so I removed the cap and let the sun in. The water in the tank was clear, three feet deep. I released a long slow breath, relieved: everything was still alive. Snappers, with their black masks, were doing slow figure eights, flushing shrimp before them. There were whelks and banded tulip shells, and one great big horse conch, its orange foot out, suctioned to a clam. There were also sea squirts and tunicates—the bay's natural water filters. The most delicate animals in the tank are my reef squid. It took me a while to find them. They can change colors and blend in, their chromatophores changing with the background. But they were alive too . . . and so were six immature tarpon that I had recently rescued from a drainage ditch near the island's Pirate Playhouse.
I stood watching the tarpon, debating whether to switch off the raw-water intake. The fish held nose-first into the current; thin bars of silver that seemed to generate their own light. Over at the marina, the cleanup continued. The tide was still carrying out charred fragments and white pellets of synthetic goo. I decided that cutting the raw-water intake was the safest course. For a day or so, the recirculation system and aerator could keep my animals isolated and alive.
'Dr. Ford? It's doctor, right?' I looked up to see a sheriff's detective: sports coat, loose tie. He had introduced himself earlier, asked a few questions, then dismissed me. Ron Jackson. He was on the boardwalk that connects my stilt house to shore, coming toward me.
I waited until he was closer before I said, 'Just Ford. I'm not a physician.'
He smiled a cop smile, illustrative of genial mistrust. 'Out on the islands, I keep forgetting. Everything's informal. Probably why the tourists like it.' He had his notebook out; found a piling on the lower deck and leaned against it, making himself at home. 'Let's see . . . I've already got your number, your name. So . . .just a coupl'a other things. You got a spare minute?'
I'd already told him everything there was to tell. 'Not really. I was getting ready to ...' I cast around for an excuse. Sleep was out of the question and I didn't feel like working. 'I was just getting ready to go for a run.
The smile again. 'There you go; best way to get rid of stress. I'm a runner myself. You don't mind, I'll follow you around while you change. It'll save us both some time.'
Jackson didn't look like a runner—short, bull-necked, hair sprayed smooth—but then I don't look like a runner either.
He followed me through the companionway into the cottage and took a seat at the dinette table, allowing me to change in private while he made small talk. Stress fractures were on his mind—he'd recently recovered from one. The Gasparilla Run, he'd done that, was thinking about the Seven Mile Bridge run, and wasn't it hot as hell, running in the summer? Then he got to the point, saying, 'I have two or three more questions.'
'Ask away.'
'Let's see. . . . You didn't know the deceased, right? That's what you told me.'
I hesitated. 'The guy died?'
'Yeah . . . you couldn't have known. One of our guys just talked to them, the hospital. Tentatively, we've got his name as Jimmy Darroux, a commercial fisherman from Sulphur Wells. That's an island near here, huh?'
I said, 'That's right. Darroux . . . the name's not familiar. It took us about an hour to count heads, me and the others from the marina. Make sure it wasn't one of us. But the way he was, I wouldn't have recognized him if it had been my best friend.'
Jackson had the soft, rounded speech pattern of the southern regions of the Middle Atlantic. All
He told me about finding a boat with a commercial sticker hidden in the mangroves; they had traced the numbers. As I listened, I guessed he was from Virginia, maybe Maryland. Hadn't been here long; wasn't familiar with the agricultural and fishing island of Sulphur Wells.
Jackson was reviewing his notes. 'You described the explosion . . . the fire . . . what you did. You and your buddy out with the telescope. ... Is he around? I need to speak with him, too.'
'Tomlinson rode in on the medevac, him and a paramedic. He didn't know the guy either. But I've got your card, I'll have him call you.'
'He didn't know Darroux, then why did he—'
'Tomlinson is ... a very religious person. He went to the hospital because he felt he could help.'
'I see. Um-huh . . . what I was wondering about—'Jackson looked up when I came around the locker that separates my bed from the kitchen. I had changed into shorts, sweatshirt, and Nikes, and began to stretch, hands against the wall. 'What I was wondering about,' he said, 'were some of the things you told me earlier. Some of the phrases you used.'
'Oh?'
' 'Point of detonation.' You said that. 'Accelerant flare.' What you said was'—he was reading from the notebook—' 'I saw the accelerant flare before the noise reached me.' You said 'magnitude of compression.' '
'So? I was telling you about the explosion, what happened. It was a small explosion with a lot of fire. I don't understand your—'
'The way you told me, that's what made me curious. The phraseology'
'Phraseology? What was I supposed to say?'
Jackson's laugh dismissed it as unimportant. 'Before my wife and I moved here, I was in D.C., the capital.
