“That’s a nasty case of fibropapillomas the fella has there,” Trainer said as he shook hands with Swartzman.
“I’m afraid it’s more than that,” the professor said.
Aaron gently wedged his fingers beneath the sea turtle’s head. This time the shell-brain bobbed its head up and down and snapped at him. He had seen sea turtles act so aggressively only when fighting for mates. Aaron hoped he wasn’t giving this sea turtle the wrong idea. Finally, he caught the turtle under the jaw and lifted it so they could see the purple tumor.
Nodding plainly, Trainer didn’t seem the least surprised. The Lagoon Watcher had just about seen it all in this 156-mile estuary.
“I take it you’ve seen this before,” Swartzman said.
“Sure have,” Trainer said.
“What the hell is it?” Aaron asked. His professor shot him a demeaning glare for interrupting the conversation between the real scientists.
“Well, shucks, I wish I knew,” the Lagoon Watcher said with a yellow-toothed grin that gave Aaron the willies. It reminded him of a carnival worker’s assuring smile as he welcomes people on a creaky ride where he knows they’ll puke their guts out.
“It has me stumped too, but we’ll take a sample back to our lab,” Swartzman said.
“Yeah, I tried that,” Trainer said. “Still working on the results. I’ll tell you though. This is what happens when you dump sewage and lawn pesticides and motor fuel into the lagoon. And then there’s all the sulfuric and phosphorus run-off from the farms. They’re turning a national treasure into toxic soup. This is what happens!”
He waved his hand at the sick turtle. It flinched.
After encountering the Lagoon Watcher on missions with other professors, they told Aaron that Ocean Village had fired him after he “went off the deep end” and started publicly criticizing the theme park’s management for holding dolphins and orcas in captivity. He compared their crowd-pleasing shows to slavery and their marine mammal plush toys to the old derogatory depictions of blacks in cartoons. Then he called for the closure of every farm in Central Florida until they built water purification systems along the canals leading to the lagoon. Bringing too much controversial pub to the tourist attraction, Trainer got the boot. His former bosses didn’t exactly write him any glowing endorsement letters that he could leverage into a new job.
Aaron couldn’t tell whether Swartzman still respected Trainer for his groundbreaking research or whether he admired him for doing something the docile professor couldn’t: showing he had a pair and sticking up for what he believed in.
“There’s no doubt that conditions in the lagoon are worsening,” Swartzman said. “Just the other day, I read a report from the Water Management District saying the pH level in the lagoon has dipped a little low-hedging dangerously towards acidic. But it occurred in isolated spots only.”
“Maybe that’s why this tumor is purple,” Aaron said. “The changing water conditions are causing new diseases and mutations.”
While Swartzman ignored him, Trainer eagerly nodded. “You see what I’m talking about, don’t you? We must sound the alarm. We must put strict measures in place to protect this lagoon before it spirals out of control.”
Swartzman shrugged and scooted away from the Lagoon Watcher. All of a sudden, he couldn’t lock eyes with his old pal. “I don’t know, Harry… I need to understand this better before I declare a full-blown emergency. It’s one purple bump on one turtle.”
“It’s more than that and you know it!” The Lagoon Watcher stepped up and shook his finger in the professor’s face. “Don’t make this like the NASA incident where you crawled under a rock when it was time to go to war.”
Swartzman rubbed his palm across his sweaty forehead. Aaron had never heard about Swartzman and NASA. As much as it piqued his curiosity, he figured his professor had suffered enough degradation for one day. Turning his back on the turtle, Aaron nudged between Swartzman and the Lagoon Watcher.
“All right, hombres, no need to dig up all your battle stories from the Civil War,” Aaron said. “We’ll slice up this purple tumor like a sushi roll and then we’ll ring you up, Watcher man.”
The Lagoon Watcher chortled as he clutched his dried-out sea star pendent. “I’ll be waiting for that call.” He turned and bounded back aboard his boat.
As delighted as Swartzman had looked when Trainer had arrived, he looked twice as relieved when he left his skiff. Those two old men had a real love-hate bromance, Aaron thought.
While they watched the Lagoon Watcher ride off, they heard a big splash behind them. Aaron whirled around so fast that he nearly fell overboard. He saw the restraints that had held the sea turtle stretched out and torn. The sickly shelled one had gotten away. He didn’t think it possessed the strength to wiggle out of those restraints, much less have its flippers hoist it over the side of the skiff.
“Oh crap! Now look what you’ve done!” Swartzman shouted. “I told you to keep your eye on the thing.”
“Come on. I had to save your ass from that guy.”
“Who said I needed saving? Harry is not a violent person.”
Aaron didn’t have any evidence that suggested otherwise, but he had a hunch that the passion Trainer had for defending the lagoon could turn ugly if the guy got worked up. Yet, he should have known that Trainer didn’t pose a physical threat. Otherwise, there’s no way Swartzman would have let him on board.
Aaron’s paranoia had cost Swartzman his most important discovery in years.
“I’m sorry, doc.” Aaron hung his head and took a seat. “I should have let you handle it while I watched the turtle.” He gazed out over the water, where the beads of sunlight bounced off the gently-sloping waves. “I swear I’ll get him back.”
“There’s no need for that.” Swartzman turned a dismissive shoulder to his student and took the skiff’s wheel. “I stuck a GPS tracking device on the sea turtle. He won’t get far, but he needs time to calm down after this traumatic day. Next time he’s in our area, we’ll pick him up.”
Even though Aaron hadn’t completely blown it for them, Swartzman still carried a hefty dose of disappointment in his voice. That was a tone Aaron recognized all too well from his father. If this relationship deteriorated that severely, he’d never get his degree.
Luckily for Aaron, he’d have no shortage of opportunities at discovering freakish phenomenon in the lagoon.
Chapter 3
They finally called her by her name: Mariella Gomez. The girl didn’t bat an eyelash. Her thin lips didn’t come unglued. They might as well have called her, “Paper Bag.”
Moni couldn’t believe how deep the girl had fallen down the well of debilitating post-traumatic stress. She had comforted children who had lost their parents, but never right before their eyes. Sometimes the children were in school or asleep when it happened. A few times, Moni had spoken to kids after they awoke in the hospital from an accident that claimed their parents. Usually, the first task was helping them accept that their parents were actually gone. That wasn’t a problem for Mariella. Seeing a mad man hack off the heads of her mother and father and do unspeakable acts to their corpses would make an even deeper imprint on the psyche of the young mind.
Moni discovered the names of Mariella’s deceased parents from the identification cards on the bodies. The killer hadn’t touched the Mexican immigrants’ cash. The DCF officer and the child psychologist that joined Mariella and Moni in the counseling room knew of Pedro and Rosa Gomez as well, yet none of them would dare mention their names in front of Mariella — not on the same day the girl had lost them. They feared it would spook her deeper into her hole like a burrowing mouse.
The eight-year-old girl had shown mild improvement in the hours since her rescue. She had wet her pants twice, including once on Moni’s lap, and sat in the filth without saying a word. After following Moni into the bathroom and watching her do her business-since Mariella stuck by her everywhere-the girl had used the toilet once by herself. The child had become so cautious she could hardly take a step without making sure Moni walked beside her.
Moni tried setting the girl down on one side of the psychologist’s couch and letting Tanya from the DCF sit between them. Mariella immediately jumped down, scooted in between the two women and rested her head on
