by Dan Ames
"Does that happen very often?” Pauling asked. “Early evening they start feeding, right?”
"Oh, it happens all the time but you’re lucky to see it. Then again, you see a lot of things out here,” Janey said.
Pauling wondered what she meant by that. She noticed Janey had a glass of wine in her hand, too.
"Did you know Paige Jones very well?" Pauling asked.
Janey laughed.
"You aren't really here to look at our computer systems, are you?" Janey said.
"Well, I am collecting data if that's what you're asking," Pauling said.
Janey laughed again. "Okay," she said.
Pauling saw a dark shadow pass about 600 feet from the shore. It cruised slowly and at first she thought it was a school of fish and then her breath caught in her throat.
"Is that the shark?"
"It sure is."
Pauling watched as the shadow slowly disappeared.
"I didn't know Paige very well, actually," Janey said, finally answering the question. "We talked occasionally being the only women here at the Nest. But we were both very private people and the conversations never really got too personal."
"Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Anything that made you think somebody would have wanted to hurt Paige?"
Janey shook her head. "No. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary," she said. "But honestly, everything out here is abnormal. This is an unusual place. I mean, think about it. A group of people obsessed with a tiny bird. Academics, really, who spent most of their lives with their noses in thick textbooks studying arcane patterns of wildlife.” As she talked, she gestured with the wineglass in her hand. “And now, out here, they’re surrounded by men who, for the most part, have a very basic education but extensive knowledge of how to kill people, shoot guns, blow things up and make their enemies disappear."
Janey finished her outburst and looked at Pauling. She was smiling, but there was a strange energy behind it, powered by emotion.
Pauling hid her curiosity by taking a sip of wine.
“So I guess the question is, since you’re out here and asking questions about Paige, do you think it wasn’t really a drowning?”
“No, I’m not saying that, nor do I have any evidence of that,” Pauling answered. “I'm just curious about what happened. What was she really doing out there? This doesn't seem like the kind of place a young woman who doesn't like the water would decide to go out and swim."
"Some of us thought the same thing," Janey said. "We tried to tell them but nobody seemed too interested in our information."
Pauling already knew there wasn’t anything in the police report about interviews with Paige’s co-workers.
“Was there anything you can think of?” Pauling asked, sensing there was a lot more Janey had to say. She just didn’t seem to be ready to divulge.
"Look, I can tell you this,” Janey said. “It did seem like there were an awful lot of nights where Paige didn't come home. Back to the Nest. Now no one here is a babysitter or a warden. And in fact, there is a rich history of young women coming here to study birds ending up getting a very close-up study of the anatomy of some of these young military guys."
"I see," Pauling said.
"There isn't a lot to do on this fucking island," Janey said. "I couldn't blame her. If that many guys were to hit on me, I probably would spend a lot fewer nights here too."
She got to her feet and tossed the rest of her wine onto the grass. Pauling wondered if she didn’t want to drink anymore, or if the conversation had caused her to lose her desire.
"Okay, I've got to go tend to my plants. Good luck collecting your data," she said. She smiled at Pauling and it was a friendly smile, but with an edge.
Pauling was glad they had connected. Janey left and she looked out at the ocean, at the broad expanse of silver water stretching toward the distant horizon.
Instead of the beauty of the image, Pauling found herself looking in the water for shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The wine tasted really good so Pauling afforded herself another glass. She sat outside and watched the sun slowly sink below the horizon. The sunsets were spectacular here. When the case wrapped up, if it ever did to anyone's satisfaction, she was going to miss the sunsets. Pauling highly doubted she’d see any again so stunning.
Pauling went back inside to the corkboard that held the keys to the conservatory’s vehicles and selected the white jeep that Dr. Sirrine had picked her up in when she’d first come to the island.
She went outside, fired it up and there was a rap on the window that startled her. She jumped.
"Hey, are you going up to the Salty Crab?" Gabe Rawlins looked in at her, a big grin on his cherubic face.
“Yeah, hop in," Pauling said.
Gabe opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. Pauling pulled out of the driveway of the Nest and minutes later they arrived at the Salty Crab, parked and went inside. There were a few guys sitting at various tables, another group of men shooting pool.
Gabe and Pauling went to the bar, each ordered a beer and sat down near one of the picture windows.
"So what do you think of this whole thing so far?" Gabe said.
"What do you mean?" Pauling answered.
Gabe shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I don't know," he said. "I guess I'm just wondering since you're new to this and you just met everybody what do you think? Anything strike you as odd? What do you think of all these people? Dr. Sirrine? Ted? Janey?”
Pauling smiled. "Everybody seems cool," she said. "I guess the big question is what do you think of everybody? You‘ve been here longer than I have."
Gabe took a long drink of his beer, which was already almost empty. He had pounded that beer fast. "To be honest I think you got a bunch of second-rate scientists stationed to this outpost because they're losers." He nearly spat the words at Pauling.
"I appreciate you being direct."
"More like being honest," he said. He stood with his empty bottle and Pauling tossed down the rest of her beer. She’d better slow down or she’d get trashed. Best not to try to match Gabe beer for beer.
Gabe went and brought two more beers back to the table.
When he sat down, Pauling asked him, “So how well did you know Paige?"
He shrugged his shoulders as if it was a subject he was tired of discussing. "I hit on her a couple of times,” he said. “She wasn't interested, if you can believe that," he said, his voice rich with sarcasm.
He nodded his head toward the military guys sitting over at the tables and playing pool. "She seemed more interested in those kind of guys. You know, ripped bodies, raging hard-ons and IQs in the 70s."
Pauling reconciled the answer with what Janey had told her. Gabe put his beer down on the table and toyed with the napkin underneath it.
Gabe looked up at the man who had suddenly appeared at their table. He was a young guy in a t-shirt and jeans with tattoos covering both arms. He was carrying a tray with three Dixie cups on it.
“Just thought you two might like something stronger than your beers,” he said, but his eyes were locked on Pauling. He ignored Gabe completely.
“How thoughtful,” Gabe said.
“My name’s Tom,” he said, and stuck his hand out toward Pauling. She shook it and then picked up one of the Dixie cups.
Pauling hadn’t done a shot of liquor in years but she raised the Dixie cup toward Tom and Gabe and tossed it down.
Tequila.
Not her favorite.
Pauling was starting to feel lightheaded.
Tom was looking at her and she realized she hadn’t said her name.
“I’m Pauling,” she said.
“We were kind of in the middle of something, Tom,” Gabe said.
Tom ignored Gabe.
“Thanks for the shot,” Pauling said. “But we were talking about some private stuff.”
Tom smirked at both of them and then joined his buddies at their table, all of th
em turning and looking openly at Pauling.
She looked down and saw a slip of paper with a cell phone number on it next to the tray.
Pauling waited until Gabe took a drink of his beer and his eyes were tilted to the ceiling to slide the slip of paper into her hand.
“Want to get out of here?” she asked.
"Sure."
They went up to the bar and got four beers to go which Pauling didn't know was a possibility. They walked out to the jeep and Pauling gave the keys to Gabe.
“You better drive,” she said.
They got inside and Gabe immediately cracked a beer.
“Can I show you something totally bizarre?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “Why the hell not?”
Chapter Thirty
"They call it Rag City," Gabe said.
They had wound their way around the island in the dark, the only light provided was from the headlights, but with the nature of the twisting road, it was easy to become disoriented.
Of course, the alcohol and pot didn’t help, either, Pauling mused. She was starting to feel a little carsick. Or just plain sick.
Pauling had no idea where they were or where they were going. It seemed as if Gabe had come to this place quite a few times because he knew exactly how to get there despite the lack of road signs.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to wander off from the main roads," Pauling said. "Aren't there guys with guns training at night all over the place shooting their guns and blowing shit up?"
Gabe chugged the rest of his beer. He turned to her.
"Sure, that's what makes this little outing so interesting," he said. “I’ve always found the idea that I could be shot at any moment kind of invigorating. It gets the juices flowing.”
Gabe slammed on the brakes and they skidded to a stop. A cloud of dust overtook them. Gabe left the headlights on and the twin beams of light shot through the dust cloud and illuminated some vague shapes in the distance.
Pauling got out of the jeep and in the dim light saw something that shocked her.
It was a town.
An actual little city block.
Although it was dark she could certainly make out the rows of buildings, the narrow streets running between them, and the size of the place to make her feel like it was a real community.
Sans any people.
"What the hell?" she said.
Gabe laughed. "Come on, I'll show you," he said.
He grabbed himself a new beer and offered one to Pauling but she didn't take it. She’d had enough. She was already walking a little unsteadily on her feet.
Gabe confidently walked ahead and was even whistling a tune. It sounded like a Cat Stevens song.
They walked around the edge of the first building and found themselves in the middle of the street. Pauling’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness and combined with a sliver of moonlight, she could see pretty well.
"They use this for training," Gabe explained. "This is supposed to look like a little neighborhood in Iraq or Afghanistan. Except without all of the bad guys."
They strolled up the street and there was enough light so Pauling could see a few feet inside the buildings. They were empty except for structural elements like support beams and staircases.
"How big is this place?" Pauling asked.
"It’s really just a couple of city blocks. But they keep adding on to it all the time," Gabe said. "You can hear the engineers up here working on it constantly. The rumor is they had some FBI guys out here last week."
Pauling almost wondered out loud if she would recognize any of them.
"Yeah," Gabe said. "Try to watch where you step. Supposedly there’s unexploded ordnance all over the place.”
“Great,” Pauling said.
“Hey, I want to show you something,” he said.
He turned down one alley and then another and went into a building. He used the flashlight app on his phone and waved it around the middle of the room. There was a couch and a couple of chairs. Pauling’s foot scraped the floor and a bunch of brass scattered around the space.
Empty shell casings, she realized.
Gabe sat down on the couch and she could see him drinking a beer thanks to just a touch of moonlight filtering in through one of the windows. Although there wasn’t an actual glass window but rather a square opening in the wall of concrete.
Pauling went and stood by the couch and suddenly felt Gabe's hand on her ass. She took a step away.
"Hey," she said.
"What? You got a great ass," he said. He laughed a little and drank again from his bottle of beer. “Here we are, alone in the big city, it’s so romantic.”
“Thanks, but–”
“But what?” Gabe stood and walked toward her and she held her ground. He went to put his arms around her and she put her hand directly on his chest and pushed him back.
"Gabe, I don't know what you had in mind by bringing me up here but whatever you’re planning, it isn’t going to happen," she said.
There was silence from him and then he turned and hurled his beer bottle against the concrete wall where it shattered. Little bits of glass rained down on the concrete floor and their echoes filled the air.
"Christ, I hate this fucking place," he said.
And then he was gone. Pauling waited a moment and then walked out of the building and into the alley. She saw no one. She tried to make her way back to the jeep but took a wrong turn and ended up walking the long way around the building. She heard an engine rev and tires spinning out.
When she got to where the jeep had been parked it was gone.
She stood there, waiting.
What could she do?
Suddenly a jolt of electricity went down her back. When Gabe had flashed his cell phone camera in the room there’d been a brief glimpse of some graffiti on the wall, and in the darkness the image popped back into Pauling’s mind.
It hadn’t sunk in because a moment later she was fighting off Gabe.
Now, she raced back to the building recognizing it in the dark as best she could. She went into the room and used her phone’s flashlight on the wall.
It wasn’t there.
She thought for a moment and realized she might not be in the right spot. She had to go back and figure out exactly where Gabe had been standing.
Pauling retraced her steps and did it again. This time the light illuminated some writing on the wall. She walked toward it with her flashlight app slowly gaining in intensity until she stood before it.
She examined the wall and her breath caught in her throat.
PJ was here.
Paige Jones.
Chapter Thirty-One
Gabe came back.
Pauling wasn’t surprised, she had pretty good instincts when it came to people and he seemed like the type who would come to his senses. Plus, he was a little drunk and a little high, but Pauling didn’t think he was cruel.
He pulled up and she opened the door.
“Sorry about that,” he mumbled as she climbed in. “I just got a little crazy. You know, sometimes those guys at the Crab just piss me off and I wonder why I’m not more aggressive. And then something like this happens and I know why.”
“You just had on your beer goggles,” she said. Gabe chuckled and they pulled out of Rag City with a spray of dirt and gravel.
“Seriously, it won’t happen again,” Gabe said. Pauling knew he believed himself, but she knew it wasn’t true. In a day or two Gabe would forget it and go back to being his sexually frustrated self.
Back at the Nest, they said their good nights and Pauling went to her room, undressed and got into the shower. She felt woozy and unstable. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much to drink.
The hot water felt great and she let it pound onto her face and neck. Afterward, she toweled off, brushed her teeth and collapsed onto her bed. She hadn’t learned a whole lot, but tomorrow morning she knew her head would recognize the effort.
&nb
sp; As she closed her eyes, she thought of the graffiti she’d seen at Rag City.
PJ was here.
When had Paige been there? And with who? Gabe? And how often had she gone? Just the once, and the novelty of being there had inspired her to leave her mark?
There were plenty of questions and no answers.
It did make Pauling think, though. Janey had just said that Paige often didn’t return home at night. And it had been made clear to Pauling that certain parts of the island were off-limits. So while it made perfect sense that a wannabe rebel like Gabe had sneaked into Rag City, it was somewhat surprising to Pauling that Paige had done the same thing.
It made her wonder how many other things about Paige she didn’t know. Human beings weren’t just people, they were unique collections of secrets.
In the morning she awoke with a surprisingly mild hangover. In the kitchen, she put some sugar in her coffee and carried the oversized mug back to her room.
She fired up the laptop and drank coffee while she waited.
Gabe must have made the coffee because it was strong as hell. She was glad she’d cut it with some sugar otherwise it would have been nearly undrinkable.
Immediately, she felt her blood start to pulse and the small headache was already gone.
Her screen had come to life and now she looked at the email Blake had sent her.
There were a ton of attachments he had put into a zip file. But his instructions were clear: immediately open the folder marked “Sirrine.”
Pauling did as instructed.
She scanned the first few lines and leaned back in her chair.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The first thing Pauling saw was the headline of a newspaper clipping.
Respected Professor Forced to Resign Amid Sex Scandal Rumors
The article continued:
Renowned Ornithological Professor Dr. Abner Sirrine announced his resignation yesterday from California State College. School administrators were alerted to a sexual abuse complaint filed by one of Dr. Sirrine’s students. Although investigators found the results inconclusive the administrators felt that due to the severe nature of the complaint, Dr. Sirrine should be forced to resign.
