“That’s too bad,” Gamay said. “NUMA had no problem finding accommodations for your director on the B3 project. Why don’t you talk to Dr. Kane? I’m sure he would love to reciprocate NUMA’s hospitality if you asked him.”
“That’s not possible.” Pause. “We have a guest room free, but only for tomorrow night. Too bad you’re on the other side of the country.”
Gamay saw the opening and struck with the speed of a cobra.
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want you to come all this way for just one night.”
“No problem, I can revise my schedule. So let’s make it twonights, then. How do I get out to the key?”
There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line. “When you get to Fort Myers, call a man named Dooley Greene. He works for the center and has a boat.”
Mayhew almost hung up without giving her Greene’s phone number. Cute,she thought as she jotted down the information. When Paul returned a few minutes later, she already was packing her duffel bag.
“Are you in?” he asked.
“Just barely.”
She told him how she arm-twisted Mayhew.
“Slick,”Paul said. “You’d make a deadly telemarketer. You’re in luck, by the way. The travel bureau at NUMA has booked you on an early-morning flight to Fort Myers. I’ll come out after I wrap up my seminar.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon walking and riding around the campus, visiting spots from their grad-student days. After a late dinner, Gamay finished packing her bag, and they got to bed early. The next morning, Paul drove Gamay to the airport, gave her a good-bye kiss, and said he would see her in a couple of days.
THE PLANE LIFTED OFF the ground and leveled out at thirty-five thousand feet. Gamay settled back in her seat and read about Bonefish Key on her laptop. It was a narrow strip of land near Pine Island on the Gulf of Mexico. Indians inhabited the island before the Spaniards turned it into a combination fort and trading post. Later, it became a fishing center named after the bonefish that abounded in nearby waters.
Around 1900, an enterprising New Yorker built a hotel, but it was wrecked in a hurricane. The island then passed through a series of owners. After another hurricane stymied an attempt to operate an inn, the owner sold Bonefish Key to a nonprofit foundation and it became a center for the study of marine organisms with pharmaceutical potential.
The flight was smooth, and Gamay used some of the time to work on a report about her work at Scripps. When the plane landed at Fort Myers Airport late in the afternoon, the efficient NUMA travel bureau had arranged for a van to deliver her to the Pine Island ferry landing.
A twin-hulled powerboat was tied up at the dock. The grizzled man at the wheel had a nut-brown tan that only partly hid the creases in his genial face.
“I guess you’re going out to Bonefish,” he said. “I’m Dooley Greene. I make runs for the marine center, which kinda makes me the official greeter.”
Gamay tossed her duffel bag in the double-hull and stepped on board with the sureness of someone who spent a lot of time on boats.
“I’m Dr. Morgan-Trout,” she said, shaking his hand with a grip that surprised Dooley with its firmness. “Please call me Gamay.”
“Thanks, Dr. Gamay,” he said, unable to avoid the honorific. Despite her informality, her almost-regal self-confidence could be intimidating. Emboldened by her friendliness, he added, “Pretty name. Unusual too.”
“My father was a wine nut. He named me after his favorite grape.”
“My father’s favorite booze was cheap gin,” Dooley said. “Guess I should be grateful he didn’t name me Juniper.”
Dooley uncleated the line and pushed the boat away from the dock. As they headed out into the bay, he seemed in no hurry.
“How long have you worked for the center?” Gamay asked.
“I was the dockmaster for the Bonefish Key Inn back when every fisherman and boater on the waterway used to hang out at the bar. After the hotel got beat up by Hurricane Charlie, the owner went bankrupt. When the marine center bought the property, they fixed up the inn. Dr. Kane asked me to run the water taxi and carry supplies. I used to be pretty busy running staff people back and forth, but that’s all quieted down some.”
“Aside from staff, do you bring many visitors out here?”
“Nope. The folks at the lab aren’t the friendliest people . . . Scientists.” He shook his head. Then, realizing his faux pas, he added, “Oh, hell, you a scientist?”
“Yes, Dooley, but I’m a friendlyscientist,” she said with her engaging smile. “And I know what you mean. I talked to Dr. Mayhew on the phone.”
“Preachin’ to the choir,” Dooley said with a grin like an old picket fence.
He reached into his work-shirt pocket and pulled out a worn business card that he handed to Gamay.
“I don’t live on the island,” he said. “Call me if you want to get off it. Phones don’t work there unless you climb up the water tower.”
“Dr. Mayhew called me from the island.”
“They got a radiotelephone setup for emergencies and for the mucky-mucks to use.”
The boat left the open water and wound its way through a green maze of mangroves. Gamay felt as if she were heading into Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.Eventually, they rounded a turn and headed to an island that was mounded higher and appeared more solid than its surroundings. The pointed top of the white water tower Dooley had mentioned rose above the trees like a coolie hat. He tied the boat to the small dock and turned off the motor.
A grassy slope rose up to a patio and the veranda of a white-stucco building. It was practically hidden in the sun-baked palmettos, the light breeze carrying their damp perfume to Gamay’s nostrils. A snowy egret waded along the shore. It was a picturepostcard perfect Florida scene, but the place gave her an uneasy feeling. Maybe it was the remoteness, the burned-up look of the vegetation, or simply the unearthly stillness.
“It’s so quiet,” she said, unintentionally speaking in almost a whisper. “Almost spooky.”
Dooley chuckled.
“The lodge’s built on an Indian mound. The island belonged to the Calusa before the white man killed them off or made them sick with disease. People still pick up on the bad stuff.”
“Are you saying the island is haunted, Dooley?”
“No Indian ghosts, if that’s what you mean. But everything that’s been built here seems to have come to a bad end.”
Gamay picked up her duffel bag and climbed up on the dock.
“Let’s hope that doesn’t include myshort visit, Dooley.”
She had tried to leaven the gloomy mood with her joke, but Dooley wasn’t smiling when he followed her up on the dock.
“Welcome to paradise, Dr. Gamay.”
CHAPTER 18
AS DOOLEY ESCORTED GAMAY DOWN THE DOCK TO THE ISLAND, they encountered a young Asian woman coming their way.
“Afternoon, Dr. Song Lee,” Dooley said. “I got your kayak all ready for you before I made my run to Pine Island.”
“Thank you, Dooley.”
Lee’s eyes darted to Gamay, who assessed her expression as neither friendly nor unfriendly. Neutral, maybe.
“This is Dr. Morgan-Trout,” Dooley said. “She’s visiting the island for a couple of days. Maybe you two could go kayaking together.”