“How does it work? Do they own the land?”
“The land was divided up into one hundred lots and each lot was sold to pay for the price of the island. They have a board of directors and a set of bylaws and each resident has one voting share. Everything is done democratically, so nobody can complain that something has been foisted on them. But it makes for some fireworks when there is disagreement.”
“You mean like the horses?”
“Yeah. Some of the islanders feel that the horses are a natural part of the island and should be allowed to procreate. They feel strongly that this is the philosophy of the island — to let things take their course.”
“But the horses are not endemic to the island?”
“No, but the islanders don’t care. The horses got here through an act of God — a shipwreck — and therefore they are a natural part of the island. Or that is their philosophy.”
“Is God a factor here?”
Sam laughed. “No more than anywhere else. I mean he always pops up, doesn’t he? Even among a group of people trained in science.”
His comment begged a question.
“Who?”
Sam laughed. “Well now, I don’t like to gossip, but our esteemed director is a devout Catholic.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that one and he continued, “Tricky situation for her. She believes in the conservation of the island but how does she square her Catholicism to birth control for horses? Or does her religion spread that far?”
“Fortunately for her,” I said, “it’s all moot.”
“Why’s that?” Sam looked puzzled.
“Well, she doesn’t have a voting share, so there are no worries.”
“Actually, you’re wrong. She owns a cottage on the island. Bought it last year. So she is very much in the thick of things here.”
“And which side has she weighed in on?”
Sam stared at me. “Dunno,” he said gruffly, but I got the distinct impression he knew exactly what side she was on. He just wasn’t going to tell me.
chapter five
Sam dropped me off at the stairs to the mess room and, in daylight, I climbed those countless steps in a twisty turny path to the top. It was pretty impressive now that the no-see-ums were gone and I could actually see. The main building, which housed the dining room, blended in like a Frank Lloyd Wright building and was bracketed by the branches of a dozen oak trees so that it looked like a treehouse of awesome proportions. I could see our cabin down in the large U-shaped clearing, or rather the pathway to it as the trees, with their cloaks of Spanish moss, hid the cabin from view. There were six or seven pathways into the bush, presumably leading to more cabins, and the clearing was partially filled with various vehicles. When I walked in the door of the dining room it took awhile to adjust to the light.
“Cordi!” shrieked someone from the gloaming. I squinted and saw Martha waving her hands up and down and pointing to the picnic table where she was sitting. I waved back and went and got myself some breakfast. It was a full logger’s meal — bacon and eggs, hash browns, toast, pancakes, sausages. There was so much of it that I felt a little sick. I brought the plate over to Martha’s table.
“Holy crap, Cordi. Where have you been? I wake up at 5:30 and you’re not there!” She glared at me.
“Just out watching the sunrise with Sam,” I said, and the woman across from me choked on her breakfast.
Martha glanced over. “Melanie, this is Cordi, my boss.” Melanie was about nineteen years old, with a smooth, pale complexion and wild red and blue streaks in her blond hair. She was very thin, but the kind of thin that looked genetic rather than self-induced. Her cheeks were little hollows and her clothes hung loosely to her frame. I glanced at her breakfast plate. One apple and a glass of milk. Could have been worse, I thought.
Melanie was still trying to control her choking and flapped her hand around until she was able to say “Hi.”
She was staring at me closely with a look of surprise on her face, making me feel most uncomfortable. “With Sam?” she asked, her voice croaking, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from the choking or something else.
Oh, boy. Was I stepping on toes?
She recomposed herself and said, “He was supposed to meet me for breakfast, but I guess he forgot.”
I looked at my watch; 7:35. He wasn’t late by much if breakfast started at 7:30. As I started to sit down the squeak of the dining-room door alerted everyone and in walked Sam. Minus the shirt buttoned too high, and with his pant legs hanging over his boots, not tucked into them, he looked exceptionally masculine, his shirt opened to reveal a mass of curly black hair trying to escape. He nodded at us and went to get his breakfast. I looked at Melanie and she smiled back uncertainly.
“You’re the birdsong lady,” she said as Sam slipped in beside her and brushed her hand with his hand.
“That’s right,” I said. She flicked a strand of electric blue hair out of her eyes, as she moved her hand away from Sam’s.
“What do you do?” I said.
“Snakes,” she said. “Rattlesnakes.” The way she said it reminded me of Bond, James Bond. But it also sounded like a taunt.
I took the bait. “How did someone like you come to pick rattlesnakes as a research topic?”
Her answer surprised me. “I was terrified of snakes. One of my questionable friends put a snake in my bed one night as a joke. Some joke. Have you any idea what it’s like to be in bed and stretch out your feet, in that luxurious way you can only do in bed, and have this slithery creature dart over your feet?”
I was having a pretty good go at reenacting that scenario and gave an involuntary shudder. And I’m not even afraid of snakes.
“Exactly,” she said. “So choosing to work with a venomous snake seemed like a good way to control my fear.” I could think of other ways to do that — like avoiding them altogether.
“And did it work?”
“You can’t spend hours milking a snake, looking at its fangs under a microscope, watching it eat, watching its habits, videotaping it, without developing respect for it and once you have respect the fear fades. Not completely — these are venomous creatures — but it fades to a normal level. I mean, if you’re not afraid of venomous snakes you’d better take out a life-insurance policy. As for non-venomous snakes — they’re a breeze now.”
She smiled at Sam, her face lighting up, but even as it did she clamped down and the smile altered, the warmth draining from it to be replaced by something unidentifiable. I followed her gaze and saw Stacey, food tray in hand, coming over to join us. She really was a big woman, not big boned, just plain and simple fat. In all my years as a zoologist I had never met a fat scientist. She still looked like hell, only worse. The only colour in her face was her tiny perfect lips. Several rolls of fat bracketed her chin and jowls, each a perfect replica of her jawline. It was quite alarming, but the worst of it was her eyes. They looked trapped, like a wild animal trying to get out. Was she burning out too, or was there something else haunting her?
I looked down at the picnic bench and back up at Stacey and wondered how on earth she was going to fit. But she had it well in hand. She placed her tray at the end of the table nearest me, went over and took a chair among many lining the wall of the room, and pushed it over to our table.
She nodded at us all and the rolls of fat around her face jiggled as she sat down beside me. She was not carrying her cane and when, much to my embarrassment, she saw me looking at her bad leg she said, “Just a little sprain.” I glanced up at her face then, but she looked away and began fiddling with her food.
“Welcome to Spaniel Island,” she said, and unexpectedly she turned and smiled at me. All the fat lines that had dragged down her face suddenly accentuated the loveliness of her smile, which was contagious. Every negative thing I had thought about her was wiped away by that one small smile. Maybe burn out, but not burned out yet.
I smiled back. How could I not?
“Darcy has
reminded me that you need some equipment for your experiments.”
I nodded.
“I’ll get you set up after breakfast.” She picked at a plate of food that looked as though it was on a diet itself — a few pieces of dry toast, a glass of skim milk, and a couple of apple slices. More than Melanie but not a lot.
Martha couldn’t stand the silence that descended. “So, you’re a botanist, right?” she said to Stacey, who swivelled her eyes over to meet Martha’s.
“Yes and no.” She sat back on her chair. “I’m doing dune succession studies. Looking at how naked dunes become colonized by plants, animals, and insects over time.”
Martha’s mouth dropped open. “But that would take years.”
Stacey smiled again. “Fifteen good ones and counting.”
“Are you here every summer?” I asked.
“Every summer. I live in Halifax and got involved in succession when I spent a summer on Sable Island studying their wild horse population for my thesis. It kind of grabbed me how the dunes grow.”
“Halifax, eh? A fellow Canadian,” I said. Why is it always so nice to meet one of your own when you’re away from home?
She nodded.
“Dalhousie?”
“Yeah, for my undergrad, and then McGill.”
“But Halifax pulled you back?”
“Halifax has a habit of doing that. And Dalhousie offered me the best job in the best city in Canada. How could I refuse?”
I smiled. Pride of city comes a close second to pride of country. Or maybe they are both in first place, just different versions of the same pride.
“I have to do turtle patrol tonight. Would you like to come?” Stacey asked me.
“Turtle patrol?”
“We patrol the beach every night looking for female sea turtles laying their eggs. Ten o’clock in the clearing?”
I nodded and said thank you, wondering if she was well enough to go on turtle patrol, and then didn’t know what else to say so I looked over at Sam and Melanie for relief. He was talking to her about something interesting, his face animated and his hands illustrating whatever he was saying. Melanie was paying rapt attention. Stacey reached over and touched Sam’s arm. He stopped in mid-sentence and looked over at Stacey. He hesitated a fraction of a second before he smiled.
“Stop by my office before lunch,” she said. “I want that diagram.” She dropped her hand then and he nodded, but his mind was definitely elsewhere.
“Dr. Stacey Franklin!”
Stacey froze, toast halfway to her mouth. He had come up behind her and she had to twist to see him, which was difficult for her. Wyatt was dressed in white pants and an indigo rugby shirt that made his blue eyes leap off his face. It somehow seemed criminal for anyone to be as handsome as this guy was.
He’d walked around Stacey’s chair and was holding out his hand.
“We didn’t properly meet last night,” he said. Stacey tried to get up, a look of sheer frustration on her face. But Wyatt planted his hand on her shoulder to keep her in place while waiting for her to offer her hand. She looked unsure of herself, as if she felt at a disadvantage, or maybe it was just my imagination because she suddenly reached out her hand and gripped his hard.
“A belated welcome to the Spaniel Island Research Station, Dr. Sinclair.” I was struck by how much Stacey had notched down the temperature of her voice. It was too strong and too hard and the emphasis on the last name was just plain weird, unless she was nervous for some reason. His good looks must make many a woman do stupid things.
“Call me Wyatt, please. And I trust you are over the flu?” he said and included us all in his invitation, as if we all wanted to call him Wyatt and had all had the flu. Stacey rallied her manners and introduced us all, but instead of sitting down to join us he remained standing by Stacey’s right arm.
“I got your note. We need to talk,” he said matter-of-factly. She looked at him then with such a vacant look that I thought she couldn’t possibly have heard him.
But I was wrong. She looked up at him and smiled a cold, thin smile. “About what? The vaccine?”
He looked discomfited, as if she had said something rude. It appeared the tables had turned and she had the upper hand now, although it was not at all clear why.
“As you must understand, Wyatt, I want to keep things as quiet as possible for the sake of the station. Are you absolutely sure there has been a theft?” She stared at him unblinking and he stared back. “Darcy intimated that you have a reputation for being absentminded. Perhaps you have just misplaced the vaccine? It was just one vial after all.”
He stared at her without moving, the two of them like two rams in rut facing off against each other. Stacey won. He backed off, but before he left he said, “Sometimes things aren’t as you see them.”
“And sometimes they are,” she replied.
chapter six
Stacey pushed back her chair and rose slowly to her feet, her plate still full of food.
“I’ll send Darcy to show you the equipment,” she said to me, and then she was gone.
“Is she always so abrupt?” I asked as I looked over at Sam and Melanie.
“She’s got a heart of gold,” said Sam “She just doesn’t know how to show it.”
“She means well,” said Melanie.
“Some people find it uncomfortable to be around a weight-challenged person,” said Sam, “and she feels that, that she is being judged by her weight and not her mind. It’s given her a bit of a chip on her shoulder.”
I looked at Melanie, whose face was neutral, and at Martha, whose face was screaming sympathy from every overweight pore.
We had just finished our breakfast when Darcy appeared at our table, his iPod dangling out of one pocket and his iPhone in his hand.
“Latest news — hot off my iPhone,” he said. “I’ve been making the rounds warning everyone. There’s a hurricane coming and we are right in its path. If it holds to course we will have to evacuate within forty-eight to sixty hours. If it veers north we’ll be okay, but the mainland will get the worst of it.”
Martha and I glanced at each other in alarm and she said, “But we just got here.”
“Maybe you should have checked the weather forecast,” he said, but when I looked at him he was smiling.
“Are they evacuating the mainland?” I asked.
“Not yet, no.”
“Surely we’re not that much different?” I really did not want to get back in that boat so soon, especially if the seas were swelling.
“It’s a barrier island. It got that name for a reason. It can take quite a punch from any hurricane that hits it.”
“But we have several rows of pretty impressive dunes between us and the sea,” said Martha, who was fiddling with her orange juice, swirling it round and round just like the sea in a storm. I dragged my eyes away from it and back onto Darcy.
“Thing is, Spaniel Island is barely above sea level and a bad hurricane or a direct hit could flood it badly. Those dunes can’t hold back the power of a really ugly sea. The barrier islands are always being evacuated, just in case. So please prepare a bag and be ready at short notice.” Darcy paused to catch his breath.
Martha’s eyes had widened to the size of saucers and the fact that she made no comment was a comment in itself.
“No worries,” said Darcy. Martha looked dubious. “It’ll probably miss us entirely. Meanwhile — business as usual. I have to go and help Trevor board up some windows but I’ll take you to your equipment now if you want.” Martha and I collected our dishes, said goodbye to Sam and Melanie, and deposited our trays in the kitchen. Darcy led us out a side door, which led onto the wraparound verandah. We were on the dune side of the building, among the trees, and it was quite dark. The sun had trouble penetrating the canopy. Martha excused herself, saying she had something to do, and I followed Darcy across a wooden bridge to a larger two-storey building. I was amazed that I had not noticed it from the clearing, until I realized it was hidde
n from view by the turning of the dunes, as the two main buildings followed the curving dune line. It was the exact opposite to the other building, made as it was from cinder blocks three stories tall. It looked like exactly what it was: a research station, with a nod to aesthetics in the vinyl siding that covered most of the cinder blocks. When we entered the new building we entered the universal world of a biology station, from the faint whiff of animal feces to the sickly scent of formaldehyde.
Darcy led me down a pale yellow corridor, lined with prints of cheetah and lions, gazelles and eagles. On each side of the corridor were doors that opened into lab space. Darcy disappeared through the last door on the left and I followed him into a room that was at once familiar and strange. Familiar because it contained the apparatus and equipment of biologists everywhere, from the live traps and mist nets to the radio transmitters and antennas to the binoculars, telescopes, raingear, and hip waders. Strange, because I’d never been here before, despite the familiarity. Darcy pulled out a parabola and handed it to me. It looked like a giant soup bowl and it helped to concentrate and amplify sound and funnel it into a recorder.
“How long have you been Stacey’s assistant?” I asked, and at once realized that it sounded rather abrupt. But he didn’t seem to mind.
“’Bout two years. I was her student and she offered me the job. I thought it would be a lark.”
“And has it?”
He grinned at me. “You bet. Beats a sit-down job any day.” I laughed. I couldn’t imagine him sitting down for long.
“Do you think we’ll have to evacuate?” I asked.
“That will be Stacey’s decision, but it’s not looking good. Just one more worry on her back.”
“Obviously I don’t know her,” I said, “but she seems kind of stretched out.”
“Yeah, well she’s had some kind of stomach flu or something and has been under the weather for the last five days, so she hasn’t been about much.”
Dying for Murder Page 4
