The crew at Indian Harbor Marina had seen the artifacts, as well as half a dozen deputies. By tomorrow, people would be talking about the diamond swastika from Key West to Tampa.
“Perfectly fine. Your girlfriend, why’s she interested?”
“No, not a girlfriend. I’m open about my girlfriends…not in an ungentlemanly way, of course. Neither of us are that damn crass. But her, well…she’s different. You probably noticed I haven’t said much.”
“We’re discreet,” I said agreeably.
It was true. Morally, Tomlinson has the sensibilities of a Zen Buddhist monk—which he is—but he’s also as randy as a rabbit. He loves women. Loves them without apology, without device. His girlfriends know he’s not monogamous, and they don’t seem to care. The only guy I’ve ever met who can pull that off.
One of them tried to explain it to me. “When it comes to sex, most men are hunters. They plot, use camouflage, set up traps to get what they want. Not Tomlinson. He gives sex. Makes it a present. You receive his absolute, complete attention, so you feel like the most beautiful, desirable woman on earth. With him, sex isn’t a biological function, it’s ceremony. He’s fun.”
Sounding serious now, not fun, Tomlinson told me, “The lady you’re going to meet, she’s a woman.” Meaning, not a girl.
Once again, I asked why she was interested in the wreck.
Shaking his head, he replied, “She wants to tell you herself. There’s personal history involved, I’m sure. Hers. Maybe hers and yours. Even for me, this lady’s a tough one to read.”
There it was again: personal history. I smiled. The only time Tomlinson says he can’t read someone is when he doesn’t want to tell you what he thinks they’re thinking.
“This isn’t the first time she’s asked to meet you.” He paused. “She’s extraordinary, man, trust me. One of the most beautiful women I’ve met in…well, name a time. Forever.”
That was an odd way to put it.
I made a gesture of consent.
“Around nine? She’s a night person. I told her it would have to be after sunset anyway, because we do drinks at the marina. And Doc? She’s…classy. The way she dresses, especially—”
I caught his meaning. “I will try to remember to remove my lab coat, and rubber gloves, and wear clothing that doesn’t smell of fish. Are shorts okay? The way my face looks, she’s not going to notice anyway.”
“Shorts, well…”
“Slacks and a jacket, then.”
Tomlinson was silent for a moment. He had been staring at the tray of sodium hydroxide for a while. The liquid’s surface convexity magnified the objects slightly. “The cigarette lighter,” he said, “it’s not in great shape.”
“No. It may be silver coated, but it’s cheap ferrous metal beneath.”
“Someone cared enough about it to have it engraved. Any guess what the first initial is?”
I said, “Too early to tell. Speaking of initials, you didn’t tell me her name. Your lady friend.”
Tomlinson replied, “Mildred. I love that name—old, for an old soul. Mildred Engle. But she goes by her middle name, Chestra. Chessie, if she likes you.”
11
At 8:40 P.M., I turned down the drive to Mildred Engle’s home, the lights of my old pickup sweeping across a mailbox, a nameplate—SOUTHWIND—then trees, patches of cactus, a gazebo, and, to my left, what looked to be a rock garden.
Rock gardens are not common on Sanibel, an island composed of sand. Particularly gardens of symmetrical, knee-high stones.
I was early. I left the truck running, and got out to have a look.
Through stripped trees, I could see the shape of the house silhouetted against a spacious darkness that I knew marked the Gulf of Mexico. There would be a rind of white beach between, the Yucatan beyond.
Stars, too. They were immobile above clouds that sailed a twenty-knot wind toward Cuba.
Weather was deteriorating.
I placed my hand on the first stone I came to. Gray marble, but not a solitary stone. It was a slab of marble that had been fitted atop a marble box. I explored with my fingers. There was an inscription.
This wasn’t a rock garden. It was a small cemetery—not unusual on the islands. The bridge to the mainland hadn’t been built until the early ’60s and bodies don’t store well in the subtropics.
I knelt and removed my glasses, attempting to read the inscription in the peripheral light from my truck.
“The name on the grave is ‘Nellie Kay Dorn,’ Dr. Ford,” said a woman’s voice from behind me. “She was born in eighteen…eighteen fifty-eight? She died in the early nineteen thirties. Am I right? My memory has gotten so spotty. I hope the dead will forgive me.”
My headlights shot a golden tunnel through the trees. Moths orbited through incandescent patterns of dust. A black figure stood at the tunnel’s edge.
“It’s a family cemetery. Dorn and Engle, some Brusthoffs, too. Fourteen of us in all. I doubt if the local government will ever let it become fifteen. Modern times. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”
Her tone was ironic; her voice a note lower than most women, with a hint of accent—Scandinavian?
I stood. “Ms. Engle?”
“Chestra.” The figure dipped—a slight curtsy that somehow mocked its own formality. “I hope I didn’t scare you, Dr. Ford. I’m a sucker when it comes to long walks at night. Please…come inside. Ladies shouldn’t introduce themselves to men in bars…or in graveyards, I suppose. And I at least
The figure turned. For an instant, I saw a face in profile—a nose…section of cheek…an eye—the face whiter than the new moon visible through the trees.
“Not at all,” I said. “I prefer women to ladies.”
Laughter.
“Come to the house, then, while I change. The door’s open.”
The figure moved away.
C hestra Engle wasn’t wearing sequins, as when I’d watched her from the beach. She was wearing a black chemise, ankle-length, with a pearl applique on the bodice that, at first, I thought was a brooch, the lighting was so poor. I had followed her through a hall, up a stairway, into this room of antique furniture where Tiffany lamps were soft, and candles flamed on the fireplace mantel.
Seen from behind, she was a lean-hipped woman with silver hair, in a dress that clung. Nice.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I keep the lights dim this time of year. It’s because of turtles nesting. From May to October, they bury their eggs on the beach, and if the baby turtles see lights they crawl away from the ocean and die—” She stopped, catching herself. I heard her alto laughter once again. “Listen to me—telling a marine biologist his business. It would be like telling Charles LaBuff, someone who’s studied turtles forever.”
“Not quite the same. I’m a fish guy, mostly.” I was looking around the room, seeing the kitchen to my left, photos on walls and mantelpiece, a grand piano in the next room, its lid a glossy black ramp beneath the crystal chandelier. On a nearby desk, a single framed photo was visible, black-and-white. A woman.
I said, “You didn’t get much storm damage. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky, and good. This house, anyway. It was built by one of my relatives, Victor Dorn, in the late eighteen hundreds. How many hurricanes do you think it’s weathered in a century? I hope I’m as solid as this old dame when I’m a hundred.” She bent to dim a lamp, then stood, and turned.
For the first time, I got a clear look at her face. Tomlinson had described her as extraordinarily beautiful. She undoubtedly had been—two or more decades ago. Skin looses elasticity as we age, desiccated wrinkles multiply, and it hangs from our bones as we shrink.
The disappointment I felt was immediately replaced by guilt. Dismissing a person because of age? I’m not so shallow that I don’t recognize my own shallowness.
If Chestra Engle noticed, she was amused, not hurt. “Don’t you look dapper tonight. Here—let me turn the light brighter, so I can get a better look.”
She did. I stood there in my khaki slacks and black sport coat, face bandaged, and watched the woman age
