I talked over him. “Not out of kindness, you didn’t. You could’ve blinded me, you idiot!”
“Damn right, that too. Next time, maybe I will. Any fool who grabs a MirrOlure bare-handed deserves whatever they get. Don’t make me come up there and get my fishing rod. More than just your hand will be bleeding if you cross me.”
My wrist, not my hand, was dripping blood, but the hooks weren’t barbed, and only one had bit deeply. Good—let the man believe I was crazy. Much depended on the question I asked next. “Larry, answer me. Did you look me up on the Internet? If you did, you know I don’t tolerate bullying. Not from the likes of you—or anyone else. There were plenty of articles a couple years back that prove it.”
He’d seen the news stories. What he’d read was in the nervous pretense of his denials.
“If you ever threaten me again,” I said, “I’ll do whatever it takes. That’s your choice.”
He puffed up his ego enough to answer back, “You’re saying that story about you shooting some criminal down in the Glades is true? I don’t believe it. Never read a newspaper yet I believed. He wasn’t much of a man if he stood still for your nonsense.”
“If my aim was better,” I replied, “he’d be less of a man now. Ask his friends about it your next trip to Raiford prison.” I clipped the lure free of the line and stepped aboard the Marlow as if in a hurry to fetch something.
I heard the cat’s twin engines fire up, the clank of gears, and felt the rolling wake when Larry sped away. The whole time, I sat shaking in the hollow privacy of my cabin, where I battled the urge to scream, or cry, or telephone for help. But I did neither, save for a few traitorous tears.
No one can save you from a bully but yourself. I’d been through it enough in high school to know.
On the other hand . . . it couldn’t hurt to enlist the opinions of a few trusted friends. How would they handle the situation?
On the counter lay Sabin Martinez’s business card. I didn’t consider him a friend, but the fact he’d been a confidant of a man like Harney Chatham was impressive.
Call me, he’d said, if you need help with anything at all. Anything. I’m a problem solver from way back.
The emphasis he’d given the word suggested that he was, indeed, an experienced problem solver.
I studied the card for a moment, then dialed.
• • •
When Larry was long gone, I returned to the quiet aft deck of my cruiser, where there are cushioned bench seats and a small teak table. My hands were still shaking. I had to take a moment. I used a first-aid kit and fishing pliers to remove the treble hooks, then called Mr. and Mrs. Gentry’s cell phone. They were my only clients who had an interest in citrus. I didn’t want to believe they’d go behind my back and hire another guide. Not after the talks we’d had about a partnership in developing a biotech patent.
My faith was well placed. Larry had made up a story or had someone else in mind.
“Are you referring to the crazy man who cut off my snook?” Dr. Gentry asked. “Never in a million years would we hire someone like that, my dear. I can tell you’re upset. Do you want to talk about it?”
I shared a few details, minus the threats of violence. “Somehow he knows about you and Mr. Gentry. About what we’re doing. And he used it to scare me—either that or he’s being chartered by someone else who knows.”
“I don’t like this, Hannah. It’s worth checking into. We might have to hire someone to keep an eye on you.”
“You sound worried.”
The woman remained serious but mitigated matters with a calming tone. “In the world of biotech patents, there’s always something to worry about until the patent is actually awarded. No, I’m misleading you. That’s just the start of your worries. During the process, you have data thieves, and leaks of every kind imaginable, and then the international courts to deal with. Science is a noble profession—until money gets involved. Then it’s like any other cutthroat business, only worse because . . . well, the stakes are so much higher. It’s the foreign companies that fight dirtiest of all. One of India’s recent biotech patents changed the entire economy of Mumbai—more than thirteen billion dollars the first year.”
I cleared my throat. “Did you say billion?”
My fishing client, the famous scientist, replied, “Get used to it. A million is the numerical starting point in this business. The numbers get bigger fast depending on who, and how many companies, want to license whatever intellectual property you happen to own.”
We had never talked money before, just ideas and methods. “Good Lord, Mrs. Gentry, you’re not telling me that—”
“No, no, no, it’s way too early to predict profits. And there seldom are, by the way. But big egos and the chance for big money—or even a piddly little research grant—can be a dangerous combination. That’s what I’m saying, Hannah. The man who threatened you sounds dangerous to begin with. If someone hired him, it can only be to steal whatever it is we’re after. Unless he’s just crazy. Either way, you need to be very, very careful, dear.”
Now I was worried, too. “Someone found out what we’re doing, that’s obvious.”
“They always do. I’ll bounce this off Doug when he gets home. We need to have another meeting anyway because of a conversation I just had. I told you that naturally occurring DNA sequences can’t be patented? That’s true. But I was wrong about my take on a Supreme Court ruling a few years back. There’s a loophole when it comes to seed stock. Monsanto has been patenting seeds under what’s called a stewardship clause. I knew that, but here’s how it applies to us . . .”
She went into greater detail. As hard as I tried, some of the terminology she used was indecipherable. “I don’t understand any of this,” I said after a while. “I can’t believe you and Mr. Gentry have been kind enough to guide me through the process this far.”
“Kindness begets kindness, my dear,” Dr. Gentry said. “But don’t forget, we’re businesspeople, too. If you can find that early Spanish seed stock, and if the DNA sequencing is even slightly different, we could really be on to something quite substantial, Hannah. There are a lot more ifs regarding their resistance to disease, but let’s save that for later and talk about something serious. How is Roberta, our young mother, getting along?”
• • •
There is no excuse for boredom if you live on a boat or own anything that floats bigger than a canoe. Maintenance, if not given daily attention, is guaranteed to become an annual disaster. I spent early Sunday afternoon battling a leak in the Marlow’s stuffing box, which was okay because it was mindless work. It gave me time to run through a list of people who might have hired Larry Luckheim to shadow me or to search for wild oranges.
Not a single client could I name.
He was lying, I decided, but I had no doubt he’d been tailing me for a while. Before the weather had turned foul, I’d spent two days gunkholing local islands and collecting samples of feral citrus and their leaves, plus bark scrapings. On an island off the Estero River, I had also found two prime little seedling trees—juveniles, they were called in the trade. These items all had to be bagged, labeled, and logged just so, as Roberta had demonstrated. The procedure required my full attention, so it was possible that Larry had tailed me, or at least gotten a peek at what I was doing. If true, his motives for lying were cloudy at best, but that was to be expected from a forty-some-year-old man who didn’t shave, and probably didn’t bathe, but who took tango lessons.
I dropped the subject and fixed the leak.
Missing church had left me with a residual feeling of sloth. On Sunday afternoons, the public pool on Pine Island clears two lanes for serious swimmers. Finishing first at high school regionals in the hundred-meter freestyle didn’t qualify me as serious, but I do enjoy a hard swim. The wind had swung northwest, the harbinger of a coming cold front. According to NOAA weather, the tempera
ture would plummet into the low forties tonight, and the breeze already had an icy edge. There was also a bandage on my left bicep, and a laceration the nurse had told me not to get wet. I decided to swim anyway. To doubly ensure discipline, I jotted my workout in pencil and pasted the paper it was on on the tile when I was in the pool.
Warm-up laps are the best for letting the mind wander. After six hundred yards, Larry’s threats had been replaced by thoughts of Kermit Bigalow; images of his kindly smile and fatherly attention to his daughter, Sarah. Of course I would speak to him if he stopped by my boat at seven. I hadn’t actually consented, so maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. But, if he did, how would I handle it? The news about Mr. Chatham’s will could not be shared; I had promised Sabin Martinez. Even if I hadn’t, it would be an awkward topic. I would soon inherit a portion of the very citrus operation from which he’d been fired, so how would I respond when the subject came up?
No . . . Kermit hadn’t said “fired.” He’d said that Lonnie had forced him off the property by padlocking his house. What a terrible thing to do to a man and wife with a ten-year-old daughter. Childhood was tough enough without the added hurt of legalities and changing homes.
On my flip turn, my legs snapped around with precision. Feet found the wall in synch. I pushed off . . . glided, while my legs imitated the thrusting strokes of a dolphin. When I surfaced, the easy flow of thoughts resumed.
Loretta floated into my mind. With her came a weighty sadness. All those years she had lied to me, her own daughter, yet her only regret was that she had sometimes heeded her moral conscience along with the commandments of her faith.
A part of me was indignant, a part of me understood. I could not deny a secret empathy for two people in love who had dealt as best they could with life’s obligations and a tragic run of bad timing.
The longing in my mother’s words came back: I don’t regret a single moment I spent with Harney Chatham . . . only the times I said no out of conscience. All those lost hours of happiness we could have shared!
Inevitably, my situation with Kermit took advantage of what I knew was a sly ingress. I heard his voice saying, . . . it’s the feeling I got when I first saw you . . . I’ve never done anything like this before . . . If things were different at home, maybe . . .
Kermit’s wife hated Florida. She hated bugs, and boats, and the water. Sarah had told me that.
After another flip turn, and a long dolphining glide, Kermit was repeating to me, in a whisper, You are so damn beautiful, and not in the typical . . . way . . .
This cleared my head for a moment, because I knew better. If I were beautiful, I would not be wearing a black, plus-size Speedo to disguise the extra weight I carried in too many wrong places. Nor would I have spent last night—yet another Saturday—alone on my boat, researching the history of rootstock and the citrus industry.
Why did I even care? I had kissed a married man . . . and had let it go too far. So what! At this instant, all around the world, people were probably kissing like mad, indifferent to silly rules about when to kiss and why, particularly in Europe (or so I’d read), where men and women, married or not, kissed as a matter of common courtesy—even on the streets, where everyone could see. No wonder Loretta and Mr. Chatham had snuck off to Paris to kiss themselves crazy without all the damn guilt they’d suffered here in the prudish boondocks of Florida.
After eight hundred yards, I stopped, adjusted my goggles, and consulted my workout sheet.
“Beautiful day, even if it is getting chilly,” a lifeguard said on his way to the office. “I hear a big cold front’s coming.”
“They might think it’s a beautiful day in France,” I replied with a surliness that was undeserved. After that, I began a series of middle-distance reps, but started much too fast. Soon I was plodding along—this time, my mind on Sarah. The ten-year-old who drew sad stick figures was now homeless to boot. Of course, I would discuss whatever business her father had on his mind. The poor man was desperate to care for his family after being locked out of the home that had been provided them by . . .
Locked out.
The term jolted me. It echoed and banged around in my head until the particulars fell into place. Only then did I remember Kermit saying he had been locked out of the house, and his office, too.
I snapped a flip turn and sprinted to the wall as my final lap. I gathered my belongings, pulled a towel around me for warmth, and hurried to the locker room to change. It is rare for me to quit in the middle of a workout, but I suddenly knew—no, I suspected—who had mentioned my name while hiring an unstable fishing guide to search for oranges.
If Lonnie Chatham had locked Kermit out of his office, she now had possession of his files! Quite possibly they included his notes regarding a theory about the original Spanish rootstock.
From my SUV, I called Kermit but got voice mail. “Give me a call back,” I said. “I should be home by seven—if that’s still in your plans.”
It was a bold stroke that made me bolder. I called Reggie. He was at his cottage, he said, waxing the Lincoln. “Every Sunday afternoon, if I’m not driving, it’s what I do. Why you ask?”
“Would you mind some company? I can stop on the way and bring food. Oh—and I need Lonnie’s cell number, if you have it. I think she wanted to charter my boat but changed her mind for some reason.”
After a silence, he replied, “That woman don’t fish for nothing unless it wears pants, and it’s too cold to fish anyway. What’s wrong, makes you want to speak with her?”
“That’s what I need to find out. Do you know a man named Sabin Martinez?”
“’Course I do, but I ain’t seen him in near a month. I can’t say why that’s a worry to me . . . or maybe Beano paid a visit to you and your ma. Is that what happened? I’d be pleased if he paid you a call.”
“You call him Beano?”
“Twenty years or more, that’s what the governor called him. Sabe, sometimes, but Bin don’t fit the man. As a chauffeur, of course, I’ve got to be more formal. Call him Captain Martinez, or Mr. sometimes, depends on the formality of the situation. Reckon you’d sound happier, Miz Hannah, if Beano had spoken to you. But wait . . . he must’a, ’cause how else you know his name?”
“Was he supposed to stop by your place? He strikes me as the type who travels a lot.” This confused the chauffeur, so I explained, “It worries you, you said, not seeing him for a while. We can talk about it—I’ll pick up some barbecue on the way. Or would you prefer I make sandwiches?”
Before we hung up, I reminded him, “How about Lonnie’s number?”
“The woman don’t speak to me unless she needs something or wants to holler about how useless I am. You could try the house, I suppose.”
“Stop by and see her, you mean?” The Chatham ranch was only a mile or two out of the way.
“I wouldn’t advise no person to do that—not on a Sunday. You got something to write with? I’ll give you the private number to the house.”
SIXTEEN
Double-wing gates were open beneath the wrought iron crest of Chatham’s Triple C Ranch. I hadn’t planned on turning into the drive, but I did. It was one of those snap decisions that requires a certain stubbornness of mood. Anger helped. Lonnie Chatham had told Kermit she wanted to speak with me. Fine. I’d tried to call—no answer, no message machine—so here I was.
I went through a rehearsal, while the asphalt lane wandered between mossy oaks and pasture where horses grazed, a mahogany-stained barn in the distance. Aloof and professional, I pictured myself, impervious to insults, or snubs, and all other childish behavior. I was here as a professional courtesy, after all. Did she want to charter my boat? I saw myself baiting the woman by offering the names of competent guides, then counseling her, It’s wise to be careful. The fact that a person owns a boat doesn’t guarantee a satisfying day on the water.
No . . . the word satisfying wa
s out. There were too many connotations to satisfying that might lead the conversation into awkward areas. For more than thirty years, Loretta and Mr. Chatham had kept their affair secret, but there was no telling what kind of snooping Lonnie had done since the man’s death. What if she knew? How would she react when she saw me, Loretta’s daughter? How would I handle it?
Calmly. Business-like. The ex-cheerleader could make a fool of herself if she wanted, but I would remain unshakeable.
The fact that the ex-cheerleader might also be guilty of murdering a football player named Raymond Caldwell was something I didn’t want to factor in. The thought was in my mind, though, when the drive broadened into a circle. Ahead was a long carport for guest parking, but it was empty. To my right was the barn. It was sided with beveled cypress. The wood glistened like amber beneath a gambrel roof of copper sheathing. Pasture, defined by a mile of painted fence, spread away toward the Peace River, where water sparkled beneath the shade of trees and Spanish moss.
This wasn’t just a working ranch. It was an estate built for entertaining millionaires.
My confidence stumbled. I parked anyway and followed a path, lined with scarlet bougainvillea, past a tennis court, to the main house. It was a three-story mansion, built of timbers, with balconies and skylights and high, wooded walkways, so life could be lived inside or out. The mark of Harney Chatham was in all the Western rodeo detail: branding irons and ornate terra-cotta tiles; the main entrance was a set of massive timber doors; there was a doorbell, and also a heavy horseshoe knocker.
I tried both, which produced only an echoing silence within. Strange. On a place this size, there had to be hired help somewhere, but I’d yet to see a soul. Again, I banged the heavy knocker. Nothing.
Admittedly, I was relieved. I went down the steps faster than needed. When I was on the walkway, shielded by scarlet blossoms, a vehicle started somewhere nearby; tires spun in sand, yelped when they found asphalt, then sped toward the gate.
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