Stavis turned his tight smile on me. “Haven't seen you since that night at the dunes. Boy oh boy, huh?”
I said, “We've just been at the Diablo nuke plant. That was a real boy-oh-boy.”
“Oh yes. That. It's already on the news.”
“We parked at that dock in the intake cove. You know the dock, right?”
He took a moment. “Why do you ask?”
“We learned about the anti-fouling jacketing of the pilings. And I recalled that you told Walter and me, out at Morro Rock, about the jobs your company does. Like installing piling wraps. So here's my first question—did you do the job at the Diablo dock?”
“We've done that kind of job. Matter of fact, one of my vessels is up the coast at the Cayucos pier right now doing a jacketing.”
“I'm talking about the Diablo dock.”
“Okay, sure. But, uh, why ask about that?”
“Because a marine scientist who was there with us discovered a recruitment plate attached to the dock. It collects samples of the organisms in the water, including polyps of moon jellyfish.”
“Oh yes?”
“Did you install the plate?”
“Good golly, never heard of a recruitment plate. We just did the jacketing.”
“Did Lanny work that job?”
“Um, it was a good while ago.”
“Might we check your records?”
“No need. Now that I think about it, Lanny did work that job.”
“Did he ever refer to moon jellyfish as devil moons? Diablo means devil in Spanish.”
Stavis just stared at me. Then he shifted position, facing the boatyard next door, angling his body away from me and directly facing Tolliver. “Doug? Like I said, I'm busy. I don't know where she's going with this but I answered. Can we wrap this up?”
Tolliver said, “You didn't answer her question about devil moons.”
“That's because it's an absurd question.”
“Answer the damn question, Fred.”
“No. All right? You know how Lanny is. If he was talking about 'devil moons' who knows what he was talking about? I sure don't.”
“Where is he?”
“Home? It's not one of his days with me. And I need to get back to work.”
“Mr. Shaws has a couple of questions for you now.”
Stavis's face pulled into a you're-kidding-me look. He let out a loud sigh and angled slightly to face Walter.
Walter got straight to it. “I presume in your work you have occasion to use buoys and floats?”
“Yes, sure. Obviously.”
Walter opened his cell and tapped the screen to pull up the photo of the red float and passed the phone to Stavis.
Stavis looked, shrugged, returned the phone to Walter.
“This morning, Cassie and I found that float buried in the dunes. More or less where you were last week, as you mentioned.”
“Oh yes?”
“The history of the float is interesting. Joao Silva, the diver Sandy Keasling rescued last week, had the float. Lanny took it from his dive bag. Lanny eventually buried it in the dunes. A puzzle.” Walter rubbed his chin. “Would you have any idea why Lanny would take that float? And then hide it?”
“You got me.”
Walter cocked his head.
“Look, the floats we use are standard polyform. Standard colors—yellow and orange.”
“This float was the standard yellow, but somebody painted it red. Specifically, somebody used a granular pigment—a red iron-oxide pigment. Would you be familiar with that sort of marine paint?”
Stavis appeared to give it some thought. “Sounds like an anti-corrosive.”
“That's what I thought. But the binder in the paint is slowly soluble in water. And let me add that there is no biocide in the mix, so it's not an anti-fouling paint.”
“Well, it wouldn't be. Not without a biocide.”
“So we're left with a red iron-oxide pigment and a temporary adhesive. Does that make sense?”
“Not to me.”
“Would someone ever use such a paint in a marine environment?”
“Can't see why.” His eyes flicked again toward the boatyard.
This time, we all turned to look.
It was a fenced lot with barrels and drums and winches and hoses and ropes and a big overhead crane holding up a cabin cruiser with a crumpled hull. A cinder-block building with a red tile roof had a sign that said Morro Marine. I realized this had to be the place Sandy mentioned in regard to the replacement of the damaged rub rail on the Sea Spray. And now that I was looking, I noticed the Outcast at anchor in front of the boatyard—Tolliver had said that Donie's boat would be moved to a storage dock. Aside from that tingle of recognition, I didn't get what was so interesting to Fred Stavis over there.
Tolliver said, “You seeing ghosts, Fred?”
Stavis gave a little jerk. “What?”
“You keep looking over at the Outcast. Thinking of Robbie?”
“Why would I be thinking of Robbie? I was watching for Jorge. He borrowed a tarp from me and I need it.”
Walter said, “Mr. Stavis, you didn't answer my question. I'll rephrase it. How would my mysterious paint be used in a marine environment?”
Stavis wiped a line of sweat from his forehead. “You know, I'm just wracking my brain but I can't come up with anything helpful.”
Walter said, “That's a shame.”
“Then let's come at it this way,” Tolliver said. “What other things are this red oxide used for?”
“The production of steel,” Walter said.
“And as a pigment in cosmetics,” I said, having read over Walter's shoulder. The female, I thought wryly, being the one to notice it.
“Hey,” Tolliver said, “how about fertilizer? My azaleas were dropping leaves and the nursery said it was iron deficiency. Sold me a special mix.”
Stavis laughed. “I don't have a green thumb and I don't use makeup so all I can suggest is the anti-corrosive. And now I'd like to get back to work.”
Tolliver turned to Walter and me. “Do you have any more questions for Fred?”
“Not unless he can explain devil moons,” I said.
Stavis chose to laugh, again.
We were starting to move toward the Breaker when Tolliver suddenly shouted, “Lanny!”
We looked where Tolliver was looking, at the Outcast.
Lanny Keasling stood at the bow of Robbie Donie's fishing boat, back against the railing, facing the wheelhouse, looking like a captain assessing the state of his ship. An interrupted captain. He was frozen, head swiveled to face us.
“Lanny.” Tolliver started toward Jorge's dock. “What are you doing?”
Lanny dashed past the wheelhouse to the stern of the boat and pointed to the drum roller upon which the net was wound. “It's tangled,” he said, “I'm going to fix it.”
“You can't fix it, the boat doesn't belong to you.”
“I'm going to buy it.”
“That very well may be, and I'll be the first to congratulate you.” Tolliver's tone was calm, without a hint of condescension. “But currently the boat is in police custody. You shouldn't be aboard.”
Lanny stared at Tolliver. His face was pale.
Pale as a moon jelly, I thought.
“Why don't you climb off and come over here,” Tolliver said. “Let's have a chit-chat.”
“I can't, I have to go, I can't have a chit-chat with you and I'm not supposed to talk to Cassie any more and I have to go.”
Lanny nimbly leapt off the boat onto Jorge's dock and dashed up the boatyard and disappeared around the cinder-block building.
CHAPTER 33
I said, “Bless Doug Tolliver and his azaleas.”
Walter went to find his cell phone.
I gazed out the Shoreline Motel's sliding glass door at the golden afternoon. Sunlight angled in and made me squint. Still a gorgeous day.
A long day.
A day of tragedy and a vision of swimmers that I feared w
as going to revisit me in my dreams.
A day of puzzles.
A day of accomplishment, too, balancing the ledger. It had begun with the discovery out at the dunes and, just now, it became a day of revelation.
“Bless Google search,” Walter said, opening his phone.
Yes, give credit where credit is due.
Still, it was Tolliver's azaleas that had set us on the search path.
I regarded the shining blue sea, flat and calm and vast. Looking utterly untouchable. I squinted, blurring the scene, picturing what lay out there, somewhere between the beach and the horizon.
I supposed one could say that the marine equivalent of Tolliver's azaleas was phytoplankton—if one were to take metaphoric license. I took it.
“Doug!” Walter said, his voice honeyed. “The red float—we've had a breakthrough.”
The azalea breakthrough.
No need to contact Walter's forensic paint analyst.
“What breakthrough?” Tolliver's voice, tinny through the speakerphone, sounded drained as I felt.
Walter's own voice turned brisk. “I believe you'll want to bring Oscar Flynn in for questioning.”
I listened as Walter explained to Tolliver what we had discovered, and I nodded when Tolliver emitted a long low whistle.
“I'll want you here,” Tolliver said. “You need to do the techy talk with him. I'll give you a call when I get hold of him—let you know when to come in.”
***
It was almost an hour before Tolliver called back.
Walter put him on speaker again.
“Never mind coming in here, I've located Flynn and we're going to go talk to him where he is now. You won't goddamn believe this.”
“What?” Walter asked. “Where?”
“The aquarium.”
CHAPTER 34
The tank was circular, a good ten feet in diameter. It gave the impression of a huge blue eye, awash in tears.
Tolliver stood with his back to the tank, facing us. “Here's what we know. This is as-of when I got the call, before I called you. Keep in mind, the natural history center is undergoing upgrades, new exhibits. They're not open to the public yet so nobody was in here until a couple hours ago when a worker passed through and saw... Well, you see.”
Yes. The empty tank.
I saw but I could not yet bring myself to believe.
The identifying plaque was already in place: Aurelia aurita.
The room itself had a nearly-finished look. A wall of photographs showed local marine life—crabs, fishes, anemones, kelp. A touch pool sat in the center of the room, already populated with starfish and sea urchins and hermit crabs. The room's bamboo floor was polished, unscuffed. The walls were painted an eggshell white. A painter's tarp was bunched in one corner and open cardboard boxes were shoved in another.
Staff were coming and going, passing through the aquarium room, to and from other rooms. Most wore casual you-caught-me-off-duty clothes, shorts and T-shirts and flip-flops. Most looked blown-away.
“Way I understand it,” Tolliver continued, “the aquarium has what's called an open system. Basically, water gets pumped out of the bay and into the exhibit to bring in, you know, the nutrients, and then it exits back into the bay. You get this gentle flow through the jelly tank, keep the buggers suspended, and then the screen over the outflow keeps them from getting funneled into the pipe. And then there's filters and that kind of thing but I didn't get into that, I only got the dummy version. Anyway, you can see that the screen became unattached, as I was told.”
Hanging by a screw was more like it. Stuck to the dangling screen was a gelatinous blob. Collateral damage. Not all the jellies made it out alive.
“And also, the screen on the pipe that goes into the bay became unattached. So I was told.”
“Sabotage?” Walter asked.
I looked around the room for Oscar Flynn but did not see him.
Tolliver said, “Sabotage would be my first call. But, I'm told, it could be just mishaps, the kind of thing that happens in the final stages of a project. Last minute changes, equipment problems, rush rush rush. I asked for a report. Should get something that makes some sense of it all real soon.”
I said, “So the moons we saw today...this is where they came from?”
“Seems so.”
“An aquarium. The kind of place you visit on vacation.”
“They'll need to do their tests but it looks like this is the source. It does explain the timing of what we saw today. Ebb tide last night around midnight starts taking the escaping jellies out the channel and then they ride the prevailing currents southward. By the time that bunch is arriving at Diablo Canyon, the next ebb tide, around noon, is sweeping the remaining jellies out through the channel. Past the beach. What we saw.” His lean features were drawn even leaner, grim.
“Then Dr. Russell was incorrect?” Walter asked. “Regarding the source?”
“Not necessarily. I'm told the aquarium collected its, uh, starter batch of jellies just offshore, with some kind cup-on-a-stick gadget. From those, they've been culturing new batches.”
“All of them cultured from a new strain of Aurelia? Meaning the aquarium has been growing toxic moons from the get-go?”
“So it would seem.”
“My God,” Walter said.
Tolliver nodded. “I didn't even think of this place as the source, earlier out at Diablo. Out at the beach. I knew they were adding an aquarium to the facility. But I didn't even think...”
“Who would?” I said.
***
Walter looked around the room. “And where is Oscar Flynn?”
Tolliver led us to the glass doors that opened onto a balcony.
The balcony overlooked the bay. An afternoon breeze rippled the water. I estimated the spot where I had kayaked four nights ago. I shifted my focus across the bay, to the sweep of the dunes, that long sugary white spine that separated the bay from the sea beyond. I looked for but could not spot the elephantine dune where Walter and I had found the red float this morning. That was farther south, toward the end of the bay. The field of view from the aquarium balcony did not encompass the entire bay.
Neither did the view from the balcony penetrate the murky water down below to reveal the intake and outflow pipes.
If there were Aurelia stragglers caught in some eddy down there, they were invisible from up here.
“Oscar,” Tolliver said.
Flynn stood at the far end of the balcony, gazing out over the water. I wondered if he was looking at his boat—there were quite a few big boats at anchor farther up the bay. I saw a big black boat but I could not make out the name from here. Flynn's back was to us. He wore the now-familiar outfit all in black. Black polo shirt, black jeans, black high-top sneakers.
He turned and favored us with a scowl. “Somebody's head is going to roll.”
“If you have any candidates,” Tolliver said, “speak up.”
Flynn was silent.
“Dr. Flynn,” Walter said, “we've just learned that you're a volunteer with the aquarium.”
“Docent. When the aquarium opens.”
“But you're here today.”
“I heard about the disaster with the jellyfish exhibit. I'm on a call list. I rushed here. Everybody on staff rushed here, not just full-timers but volunteers like me. This place couldn't run without us.”
Tolliver said, “Then you're familiar with the aquarium plumbing system? The pipes, and all that?”
“That's not my playground.”
Tolliver jerked a thumb, indicating the sea beyond the bay. “That your playground, out there?”
Flynn's black eyes went flat. “Are you mocking me?”
“I'm questioning you.”
“What about them?”
“Shaws and Oldfield will do the science-y talk. I'll just jump in when I feel like it.”
Flynn regarded Walter and me. “You keep barging into my life.”
Walter tipped his head. “W
e found something that might belong to you.”
“I didn't lose anything.”
“I fear that you did. A marine float, painted red?”
Oscar Flynn pressed back against the balcony railing.
***
Walter said, “Our story of the red float begins with a diver by the name of Joao Silva.”
“I didn't know him.”
“So you said, yesterday at sea.”
Flynn folded his massive arms. “Why should I care now?”
“Because he found your float.”
Flynn shrugged.
Walter continued the story, explaining the rescue of the diver, Lanny taking the float, our discovery of the float in the dunes, the mysterious paint. He concluded, “You can understand our bewilderment.”
Flynn shrugged.
“And then,” Walter said, watching Flynn closely, “Cassie and I had a breakthrough. We discovered something that could explain the puzzling use of a water-soluble glue with an iron-oxide paint in a marine environment.”
“The azalea breakthrough,” Tolliver put in. “That's what they call it. My azaleas gave them a lead.”
Flynn kept his focus on Walter. “What did you discover?”
“How to cool the climate.”
Flynn snorted.
“It's simple,” Walter said, “at least in theory. To reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, look to the plants of the sea. Phytoplankton, via photosynthesis, gobbles up large amounts of CO2. When the plankton die and sink to the seafloor all that CO2 is sequestered. If you want to remove more carbon dioxide—make more phytoplankton. One of the plant's major nutrients is iron, which is often in limited supply. Solution—fertilize the ocean with iron to make the phytoplankton bloom.”
“That's what you learned? That's called iron seeding. That's not a new thing.”
Walter cocked his head. “You're familiar with it?”
“I just said I was.”
“Well it was new to us. To continue our story, we learned that one form of iron used for the seeding is Fe203. I'm sure as a double PhD you know the formula for hematite. In fact, hematite is the form of iron in the paint on our red float. And so—with the iron seeding thing in mind—the problem of the water-soluble binder now becomes an asset. You want the paint to dissolve, to slowly release the hematite particles. To seed the water. To make the phytoplankton bloom.” Walter eyed Flynn. “When Cassie and I learned about that, it brought us to you.”
Skeleton Sea Page 21
