“Okay, now it’s finally beginning to sound like legitimate journalism.” Reevis nodded. “I can do that.”
“We knew you were our man.” A tinted window rolled down. A large, high-def video camera pointed out the window, followed by puffs of cigar smoke.
The Suburban pulled into an empty lot at an abandoned convenience store and parked next to a police car. The loitering crowd on the opposite sidewalk stopped and stared in unison at the huge lens aimed at them. Some shouted at the SUV. Rude hand gestures.
Nigel turned around again. “Here’s the deaclass="underline" I called ahead to the lounge, and they said they didn’t want anything to do with TV or interviews. So you’re going to lead the way, and we’ll come in right behind you with the camera and lights, guns a-blazing until they throw us out.”
“That’s not journalism,” said Reevis. “What about getting answers to a cold case?”
“Later,” said Nigel.
“Lighting,” said the cameraman, lacing up running shoes. “We need a quick strike.”
“Stop!” said Reevis. “Everyone just stop! Forget the lighting and peril. I know this turf, and that is not the kind of place you want to barge into with a TV camera.”
“Sure it is,” said Nigel. “The footage can’t miss. Just look at the joint.”
“Yes, look at it,” said Reevis. “This isn’t the lounge at the Hyatt, where security guards professionally ask you to leave. It’s not that we’ll be thrown out, but how we’ll be thrown out.”
“There’s a police car right next to us,” said Nigel. “What can go wrong?”
The police officers received a domestic disturbance call and drove away.
“I propose a wild new concept,” said Reevis. “Let me go in alone without all the camera lights and see if I can talk to them politely.”
“They were quite adamant on the phone, screaming in fact. ‘No goddamn reporters!’” said Nigel. “But we need footage, even if it’s just getting tossed out. Especially if it’s just getting tossed out.”
“I do this for a living,” said Reevis. “I might even be able to persuade them to allow your camera in there. What’s the harm in letting me try?”
“Except the footage won’t be fresh, in the moment.”
“But your camera won’t get destroyed.”
Nigel thought a moment and formed a cynical smile. “This could work even better. We’ll stay parked here and film you going in. Then we’ll film ourselves in the car—which we’ll refer to as Mobile Command Central—listening while you capture salty dialogue on your hidden microphone.”
“I can’t do that,” said Reevis.
“Sure you can,” said Nigel. “Nobody will see it, especially in the dark.”
“You’re not understanding,” said Reevis. “Florida is a two-party consent state for recording conversations. We’ll be committing a felony.”
Nigel quickly looked it up on his smartphone. “He’s right about the statute. And we would never, ever want to break the law . . . Okay, Reevis, we’ll defer to your expertise. But we still need to get something on camera later.”
“Great.”
“Hold on,” said the sound man, reaching in a bag. “Here’s your gun.”
“Put that stupid thing away,” said Reevis. He departed the SUV.
The camera poked back out the window as the young reporter headed for the lounge’s entrance. The sound man reached for a knob.
“What are you doing?” asked Nigel.
“Killing his microphone.”
“No,” said Nigel. “Leave it on.”
Three Hundred Miles North
U.S. Highway 98 is the scenic route along the coast of the Florida Panhandle. You might call it the hurricane-fodder coast. But when the Gulf of Mexico isn’t whipping havoc ashore, it is a pleasing panorama of gentle waves, sea oats, and sugar-white dunes rolling for miles like God’s own sand trap. Stilt houses are tastefully spread out along the beach so as not to block the view. Then it’s blocked: condos, mega-hotels, spring breakers and garish neon wedding-cake buildings so mammoth that it’s hard to fathom they primarily sell beachwear and boogie boards.
But let’s back up. There’s a stretch along 98 that remains one of the state’s few unpopulated coasts, from Alligator Harbor westward to Carrabelle, past St. George Sound and over the bridge and oyster boats at Apalachicola. If one has a leisurely schedule, there’s a side spur called Route 30 that goes all the way through Indian Pass and down to the point at Cape San Blas. It juts out so precariously into the gulf that four lighthouses have been built over the years, and four are not there.
The last light, commissioned in 1885, was a skeletal iron structure surrounding a metal cylinder that contained a spiral staircase rising ninety-six feet to the lantern. Erosion did what it does best, and the light was deactivated in 1996. In a rare Florida success story of preservation, citizens rallied to rescue the historic landmark, and since 2014 it stands safely in retirement at a public park farther up the coast. What’s left at Cape San Blas is a pristine point of beach, water all around, quiet wind, the occasional gull, all joining to create a natural retreat of sorts that nurtures spiritual peace in the undisturbed tranquillity.
A ’64 Corvette skidded into the sand. “Where the fuck did the lighthouse go?”
Coleman screamed as his head bounced back from the windshield.
Serge ran up and down the beach, yelling and grabbing his temples in panic.
Coleman fell out of the car.
Serge jumped back in the Corvette and backed out, running over Coleman’s big toe.
Another scream.
“Coleman! Where are you?”
“Down here.”
Serge hit the brakes and stood up in the convertible. “What are you doing in the sand?”
“Lying down.”
“Get back in! I miscalculated that we had a leisurely enough schedule to take the side spur!”
Coleman limped toward the passenger door.
“Why are you walking like that?”
“My toe suddenly started hurting. It can be fixed with beer.”
The silver Stingray blazed northwest up the coast until reaching the modest downtown of Port St. Joe. A camera aimed out the driver’s side as they passed the historic art deco Port Theatre. Click, click, click . . .
“Oh my God! What’s that on the horizon?”
Brakes squealed. A forehead met the windshield a second time. “Ahhhhhh!” Coleman wiped beer off his face. “That mysterious thing happened again.”
“In your case, seat belts are mysterious.” Serge chugged coffee as he whipped the sports car down Marina Drive toward a small park on the shore.
“I thought we were behind schedule,” said Coleman.
“It’s the San Blas lighthouse.” Click, click, click. “What’s that doing here? . . . Something strange is going on.” Chug, chug, chug. “I’ll inquire later . . . Onward . . .”
The Corvette navigated worn streets in a small neighborhood before pulling up in front of a white gingerbread cottage from the 1920s. The porch railing and sturdy roofing joists suggested an expert woodworker with a name like Horatio who was banished from a whaling ship after a second mate went missing during a heated card game off Nantucket.