Without a Grave

by Marcia Talley

  The cable dead ended at the pier. Mueller’s crew had done a piss-poor job of clean up. As I snorkeled along the length of the structure, I could distinctly see ruins not all that obvious from above. Ragged netting, rotten and sunken pilings, the upside-down hull of a wooden boat, that might have been casualties of a hurricane. Clearly there was a lot of work still to be done. No wonder Mueller brought visitors into the resort on the marina side of the development.

  A small, eco-friendly marina for twenty boats up to 200 feet in length. I smiled grimly. Everything about that phrase was an oxymoron.

  I surfaced for a moment, clutching the tatty remains of an old fishing net to keep the tide from carrying me sideways. I heard the growl of an engine starting up – a chainsaw? – then continued working my way along the pier, looking for something, anything even remotely suspicious.

  The pipe I had been following appeared not to have been used in some time; parts of it lay in pieces, like elbow macaroni. Sea grass flourished on the sand bottom. Nearer shore, I noticed rectangular patterns in the grass, each roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase. Something had lain there long enough to smother the sea grass, and recently, too.

  I surfaced under the dock, breathing fast. Is that what Frank had seen? What he’d died for? I held on to a piling, thinking furiously. The first thing that came to mind was drugs, but I’d never seen a package of drugs that hadn’t come from a pharmacy. Were they small as a brick? Large as a footlocker? And could they be waterproofed?

  I had taken a breath to go down for a second look when I felt it. Vibrations. Somebody was heavy-footing it along the pier.

  Hugging the piling, I eased around under the pier just as his shadow passed overhead. Through gaps in the planking I could see the zigzag tread of a boat shoe, a bit of bare ankle. I hoped he couldn’t see me.

  My visitor began whistling tunelessly. ‘Here you go,’ he said. There was a whoosh followed by a red-tinged splash as a bucketful of mahi-mahi heads, backbones and tails hit the water not eight feet away from where I hung, still clinging to the rotting net.

  Gross. I had picked a bad time to explore. I loved eating fish, but getting so up close and personal to their remains made me want to barf. One particularly large fish head stared at me reproachfully, as if chastising me for all the seafood meals I’d enjoyed both now and in the future, as it floated on the surface for a moment, then spiraled slowly to the bottom.

  Drawn by some underwater radar, schools of yellow jacks and smallmouth grunts flashed in out of nowhere to chow down. A nurse shark, brownish-grey and about eight feet long, moseyed over from where he’d been dozing in the mangrove, joined by another one, slightly smaller. Then a third joined the banquet. Instinctively, I moved away. Nurse sharks are relatively harmless – they prefer to suck down their prey rather than bite it – but the mouths on these fellows looked as big as aircraft carriers from where I was hanging, and I wasn’t sure how keen their eyesight was.

  The whistling stopped.

  Something was wrong. The nurse sharks sensed it, too. Ignoring the free lunch, the trio shied away. Had they spotted me?

  It’s a common misconception that shark attacks are preceded by ‘dah-da, dah-da, dah-da, dah-da,’ grating strings and blaring horns, accelerating rapidly as the shark gets closer.

  Not true. It’s silent, eerily so.

  A fish I recognized immediately sleeked into view – a reef shark, his skin flashing silver in the sun. There are several varieties of reef shark – white tip, black tip, gray and silver – but when they’re swimming in your direction at five hundred miles per hour, you don’t stop to check your Fish Watcher’s Field Guide to find out which kind. As I hung there, frozen in fear, he circled the pier, coming so close to me at one point that I could have touched his fin.

  I had no intention of sticking around and becoming the main course among the sea of floating hors d’oeuvres, but I didn’t want to call attention to myself.

  What had I read in the survivor’s guide?

  One. Remain calm. (Easier said than done.)

  Two. Don’t splash around like an injured or dying fish. (Noted.)

  Three. If a shark approaches, strike it repeatedly with a balled-up fist on its most sensitive parts, the eyes and the gills. Uh, right. The eye in question was passing me again, black as wet coal, round as a silver dollar.

  I’d seen sharks in aquariums, but they never looked so big. The shark made another circuit, looming bigger, ever bigger. Blood pounded in my ears. I balled up my fist, holding it close to my chest, getting ready.

  The shark shot by, so close I felt the backwash. Its tail touched my leg, scraping along my thigh like sandpaper. His jaw yawned open, his black eye closed, and two yellow jacks that had been wrangling over a mahi-mahi head disappeared in a single snap. Last time they’d scrap over a meal.

  While the shark was busy swallowing the jacks, I took the fourth piece of advice from the handbook – I turned and slowly swam away.

  I didn’t look back until I reached Pro Bono, hoisted myself up on the rope ladder and threw myself in.

  When I dared to look back at the pier, the water was churning as the shark finished off what was left of his feast.

  The man still stood at the end of the dock. It was Jaime Mueller.

  And I could hear him laughing.

  FIFTEEN

  LOBSTERS USUALLY MOVE AROUND AND HUNT FOR FOOD AT NIGHT. IT WAS ONCE THOUGHT THAT LOBSTERS WERE SCAVENGERS AND ATE PRIMARILY DEAD THINGS. HOWEVER, RESEARCHERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT LOBSTERS CATCH MAINLY FRESH FOOD (EXCEPT FOR BAIT), WHICH INCLUDES FISH, CRABS, CLAMS, MUSSELS, SEA URCHINS, AND SOMETIMES EVEN OTHER LOBSTERS!

  Lobster FAQ, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries

  Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center

  It wasn’t until I got back to Windswept and had sprawled on the bench at the end of our dock that I was able to think, let alone catch my breath.

  Did Jaime know I was under the pier? Did he chum the water on purpose, or was it simply a case of my being in the wrong place at the wrong time? I didn’t have an answer.

  When I thought I would be able to talk about what had just happened, I slogged up the dock to the house.

  Paul stood at the kitchen counter holding a fork like a weapon, stabbing the life out of some meat. As I dragged myself into the room he looked up. ‘Thought we’d barbecue some steaks tonight.’

  I frowned. When Paul volunteered for cooking duty, it was usually because he wanted something.

  ‘Hey, Hannah, what’s wrong?’

  I plopped down in a kitchen chair. ‘I could really use some iced tea.’

  While Paul assembled a glass, ice, tea and some lemon slices, I decided that nothing was wrong. The last thing that I needed just then was a lecture.

  ‘How was your expedition?’ he asked, handing me the glass. ‘Successful?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied, hoping that he wouldn’t ask to inspect my haul of sand dollars.

  ‘Good.’ He turned his attention back to the meat, drowning it in salad oil, red wine and vinegar. ‘I hope you’re in a good mood because I need to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He unscrewed the cap from a jar of lemon pepper and started sprinkling it over the steaks. ‘It all started with Euclid.’

  I closed my eyes, pressed the cool side of the glass to my temple. ‘Doesn’t it always?’

  ‘He wrote “Elements of Geometry” way back in 300 BC. It was so good that no other texts from that period even survive. Euclid wiped out the competition.’

  I opened one eye. ‘To quote someone I know, don’t build me a clock, Paul. Just tell me what time it is.’

  ‘I need to go to Baltimore.’

  I sat up straight in my chair, slopping iced tea down the front of my shirt. ‘You what?’

  Paul grabbed the back of the chair opposite me, pushed it so close that our knees touched when he sat down on it, and took my hand. ‘Just for a few days. I need to consult a copy of the first Eng
lish translation of Euclid’s Elements, the one Sir Henry Billingsley wrote in 1570.’

  Marsh Harbour had a library, a small one, but I doubted they kept ancient Greeks on their shelves. ‘What’s wrong with the copy you’ve got?’ I asked. The book with the familiar green cover had been sitting on Paul’s bedside table ever since our arrival in the islands.

  ‘Brent Morris has an original copy, and I need to see it. Billingsley illustrates the theorems in book eleven with three-dimensional pop-ups that are glued to the pages.’

  ‘Can’t you use your imagination?’ I pouted.

  He squeezed my hand. ‘I need to see the book, Hannah. Brent’s also trying to arrange a meeting with Andy Gleason for me. If that pans out, we’ll take the train up to Cambridge for a day. Andy’s done for calculus what I plan to do for geometry, and talking to him will be enormously valuable.’

  ‘When do you leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Fine.’ There was no point in arguing. Paul had to work, I understood that. I was simply along for the ride.

  ‘It’s charming,’ Paul said a few minutes later, coming up behind me and laying a kiss on my neck.

  I backed away, still steaming. ‘What’s charming?’

  ‘“If therefore a folide angle be contayned under three playne fuperficiall angles euery two of thofe three angles . . .”’

  I pinched his lips together, cutting him off. ‘Do shut up.’

  He enveloped me in a bear hug and rested his chin on the top of my head. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I won’t be away long.’

  ‘That’s what you always say.’

  He tipped my chin up until he was looking directly into my eyes. ‘I mean it. This sabbatical has been the closest thing to paradise . . .’ He paused. ‘Well, except for the fire.’

  ‘Yes. Except for that.’

  And except for Frank, and Sally, and their little dog, Duffy.

  And whoever thought it was a good idea to frighten me away from Poinciana Cove.

  The next morning I waved Paul off on the eleven thirty ferry just as Molly was pulling Good Golly up to her dock.

  ‘Where have you been so early?’ I shouted across the stretch of water that separated our two docks.

  ‘Teaching a class at the school,’ she called back. ‘Poetry, if you can believe it!’

  ‘Where’s Paul off to this morning?’ Molly asked a few minutes later as she joined me in my front yard.

  ‘Baltimore,’ I said. ‘For work.’

  ‘So it’s just you and me, then?’

  I hadn’t thought about it, but Molly was right. Unless someone had come in overnight, Windswept and Southern Exposure were the only homes presently occupied on all of Bonefish Cay.

  Molly patted my arm. ‘I vote we have lunch in town. I found another sheet of plywood under the house, so I was going to ask you to join me anyway. Thought we’d take it to Winnie. Game?’

  ‘You bet.’

  As we pulled Good Golly up to the government dock we saw Gator standing at a wooden counter, cleaning a large snapper. The tide was out and Molly’s Zodiac sat so low in the water that I had to crane my neck to see him. ‘Hey, Gator,’ I yelled.

  Fine spray misted my face as Gator used a hose to rinse fish guts off the counter. I shivered, thinking about my last encounter with fish parts.

  Apparently he hadn’t heard us.

  ‘Gay-tor!’ This from Molly, using her outside voice. It apparently worked because water stopped trickling through the gaps in the planking.

  Gator leaned over, holding on to a piling with one hand. ‘Mornin’ Hannah, Miz Molly.’

  Molly pointed to the bow of her boat. ‘Got another sign for you, Gator.’

  I helped Molly untie the plywood and hand it up to Gator, who promptly manhandled it down the dock and parked it temporarily against the trunk of a tree.

  ‘I’m heading over to Tom’s Creek,’ he said when he rejoined us on the deck, standing near the stern of Deep Magic. ‘Got a few lobster traps out that way. Going over to check.’

  ‘For lobsters?’

  Gator picked up a blue plastic case about the size of a lunchbox that had been sitting on the fish-cleaning counter. ‘Hear that Mueller’s started running his desalinization plant. Low-impact, ha ha ha. Want to see what it’s doing to the creek.’

  ‘Is that a testing kit?’ I asked as we watched Gator climb into his boat. We’d used something similar to test the ancient pipes in our Annapolis home for lead.

  ‘Yup.’

  Molly looked at me and I knew what she was thinking. An adventure. ‘Can we come along?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. Hop in.’

  While Gator manned the helm and Justice rode on the bow like a figurehead, his ears flapping, Molly and I shared a bench in the stern, our heads just inches away from a honking big Yamaha 225 outboard. If we’d wanted to talk, we’d have had to use sign language. I knew a little bit, but I wasn’t sure about Molly.

  Gator throttled down as he guided the boat through the harbor, skirting the Tamarind Tree Marina and its mooring field, but once he nosed out of the cut, he gunned it. Before Deep Magic had even reached twenty miles per hour, she popped up on a plane, dancing over the waves as if they didn’t exist.

  We flew past Poinciana Point heading northwest. We passed Kelchner’s Cove, where the family’s locked up cottage lay, rounded the tip of the island and headed into the open sea.

  ‘How do you know where the traps are?’ Molly screamed over the thunder of the engine.

  ‘GPS!’ he shouted back. A few minutes later I heard a faint peep-peep-peep as Gator throttled down, cut the engine and dropped anchor in about ten feet of water.

  I looked overboard. Bingo! Deep Magic floated almost directly over a lobster trap. A cinder block weighted it down.

  Gator donned his mask, strapped on a weight belt, and gathered up his tools – a narrow rod about three feet long called a tickle stick, and a net.

  Molly and I knelt on the white vinyl seats, our elbows resting on the gunwale, watching Gator as he slipped over the side. He floated over the trap for a moment, took a deep breath, then dived. We watched him circle the trap, the tickle stick in one hand, the net in the other.

  After two circumnavigations, Gator surfaced, spit out his snorkel to say, ‘It’d be easier if you helped, Hannah.’

  ‘I’d be glad to.’ It was a hot day; the water would feel good.

  ‘Got a bathing suit?’ he asked.

  I tugged on my tank top. ‘Underneath.’ I turned to Molly. ‘Want to come?’

  Eyes wide in mock panic, she pressed a hand to her chest and said, ‘Moi? No thanks. I think I’ll just watch.’

  It took only half a minute for me to strip to my bathing suit and join Gator overboard.

  What appeared from the deck of Deep Magic as an undulating square of metal, I could see clearly now. A forest of long, whip-like feelers and the smaller, spiny limbs that gave the lobster its name, waved at me from the perimeter of the trap. Using his hands, Gator showed me how to plant the net. Meanwhile, he used his tickle stick to entice one of the lobsters out of his hiding place. As I watched, keeping the net firmly pressed against the bottom as instructed, he tapped smartly on the lobster’s white-spotted shell, annoying the creature until it scooted backwards into the net I was holding.

  Gator collected the net from me, and we bobbed to the surface. ‘Easy to see if the bug’s legal size,’ he burbled as he popped his snorkel, ‘but we need to make sure it’s not female.’ He turned the brownish-green lobster over while still in the net, examined the shape of the fins, checked for telltale eggs.

  ‘Good to go! How many you want?’

  Looking up into the boat, shielding my eyes from the sun, I had a silent consultation with Molly.

  ‘Dinner at my place tonight, then,’ Molly said. ‘So four? Five?’

  ‘You can freeze them,’ Gator suggested.

  ‘Six, then.’
>
  Gator transferred his catch from the net into a lobster bag hanging from a rope tied to one of Deep Magic’s cleats. ‘Your turn.’ He handed me the tickle stick.

  I examined it like some skinny alien being, then handed it back. ‘I’d like to see you do it one more time.’

  Gator nodded, dragged his mask down over his eyes and nose, and ducked once again under the surface. I took a deep breath and followed.

  Once again, I placed the net and held it steady while Gator used the tickle stick to walk a lobster backwards into it. We shot to the surface to check the legal status of our catch and transferred it to the bag. This time, Gator handed me the tickle stick and we headed back down.

  Back at the trap, I picked an unlucky lobster and tried to tease it out from under the trap. It was harder than it looked. Instead of coming out, the creature backed away. I used the tickle stick to probe for it, but he’d disappeared under the siding.

  Using a scooping motion that was probably not quite kosher, I swept the stick under the trap, trying to coax the lobster from its hiding place, but it must have scuttled out of range.

  I shot to the surface, took a deep breath of air, then headed back down to try again. When I withdrew the stick this time, I’d caught something on it, but it wasn’t a lobster. It was a bit of white knit fabric.

  I extended the tickle stick in Gator’s direction, shrugged. He picked the fabric off, and we bobbed to the surface, where Gator slid his mask to the top of his head and examined the object in the sun. ‘Looks like a bit of sock.’

  ‘You use socks in your traps?’

  ‘Nope.’ He looked puzzled.

  ‘Do lobsters drag objects into their dens with them?’

  ‘Never known it to happen, Hannah. Let’s have a look.’

  We repositioned our masks and sank to the bottom again. Gator pushed the cinder block off the trap, and with me standing on one side and he on the other, we lifted the platform.

  There were lobsters under it all right. Dozens of them. Startled by the sudden blast of sunlight, they scampered in every direction.