“Now how do you fix it?”
“It’s not that simple. There are approaches to be taken, ways to mitigate certain aspects.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning, we’re having this conversation a little late.”
“Meaning?”
She paused, then said, “What the hell — I'm going to get poetic on you.”
Walter sat up straight.
“You asked about algal blooms. There is a diatom that has caused some nasty blooms here and there. It's adaptable to warming seas. It's called Skeletonema costatum. Under the microscope it looks, well, skeletal.” She shrugged. “After I've had a strong whiskey or two I've been known to employ S. costatum in a metaphorical sense. We're in danger of reducing our oceanic ecosystem to a skeleton of its former self. Oceanus skeletonema.”
After a moment Tolliver said, “Skeleton sea.”
“You got it.”
“I don't want it.” He added, “But I'll take a rain-check on the whiskey.”
We moved on to the skeletal coral.
Dr. Russell led us from the auditorium across the campus to her office. The office was compact and neat. So neat that a neatnik like Doug Tolliver said, “Nice place.”
Necessarily neat, since the office was crowded with a wall of bookshelves, a large roll-top desk and desk chair, a worktable, and a three-tiered bamboo basket filled with seashells.
Russell offered to bring in chairs for us and we offered to stand.
She laid out a bathymetric map on the worktable and put Walter’s coral on the stage of a stereoscopic microscope. She switched on the attached monitor, which showed the coral in magnification.
Deep purple, lacy, and altogether looking like a coral to me.
“Stylaster californicus,” she said. “Otherwise known as purple hydrocoral. Technically, it’s not a true coral — in true corals the living tissue is what has the color and that's why when they die, their skeletons are white. Now, Stylaster's color is contained in its skeleton, so even after it dies the color remains. More skeleton talk for you…” She shot a glance at Tolliver, parked against the wall beside the basket stand. “I’ll spare you the lecture.”
He shot her a grin. “Nah, I’m fine now. We’re talking evidence. I can talk evidence all day long.”
Walter, who could talk evidence all day and all night, said, “And the coral’s range?”
She moved to her desk and consulted the site she’d pulled up on her computer. “San Francisco south to Baja California. Still, it’s not all that common. As to habitat…” She read. “Let’s see, looks like Stylaster prefers the steep sides of offshore banks and ridges, where the currents are strong and turbidity is low.”
Walter rubbed his chin. “We’ve narrowed our area of interest to a number of sites on Cochrane Bank.”
She tapped her keyboard. “Give me a minute.” She took five. She moved back to the map. “All right, those are your best bets.” She pointed out a pinnacle and a stretch of reef.
“There, and not elsewhere?”
“There, and not elsewhere…probably. I’m going by a database of marine species that’s still a work-in-progress. It compiles reports from scientists, divers, what have you. I’ve pulled up references to Stylaster on Cochrane Bank. It’s been reported there, and not elsewhere.” She added, “I realize this is somewhat inexact for your purposes.”
“It’s most helpful,” Walter said. “We work with inexact often enough.”
I said, “Much preferable to no freaking idea whatsoever.”
She laughed, a rich bell-like laugh.
Tolliver said, “What about something to give you geologists a better look at the coral? That scope you needed before, the electron scope?”
Russell said, “We have one here at the university. I could try to get you time on it.”
I said, “Thanks. If we need one, there’s a guy in Morro Bay with a lab and….”
“Oscar Flynn.”
“Oh, you know him?”
“Just in passing. He once consulted me about, actually, the subject we were discussing — algal blooms. He volunteers for an organization that monitors their effects. He wanted to educate himself further on the topic.”
Tolliver and Walter and I exchanged a glance. Small world.
“I wouldn’t rely on him, though. He’s something of a rogue wave.”
“How so?”
She took a moment. “Well, rogue wave is a bit theatrical. My take is he can't stand not being the expert in the room. He's something of a know-it-all.” She gave a brief laugh. “As am I, I'm afraid.”
“Nah,” Tolliver said, “you just really know your stuff.”
CHAPTER 23
“Whassup, Sis?”
Sandy Keasling nearly jumped out of her skin. What she did, instead, was spin around and shoot a killer look at her brother.
Jake sauntered into the game room. “Scare you?”
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. She did wonder how he’d managed to open the door without her hearing. The hinges squeaked. The game room was a separate building, connected to the main house by a covered walkway, and maintenance was lower priority here than maintenance on the house.
Hell, the whole hacienda was squeaking and flaking and rotting and sinking.
She glared at Jake.
He grinned. “Just wanted to see what you found in the closet before you get the chance to cover it up.”
“None of your business,” she snapped.
It was all she could do not to slam the closet door shut.
Not that she’d found anything worth covering up.
The closet was jammed with games. You could not see the floor, what with the croquet set, Frisbees, horseshoes, every manner of ball from soccer to softball. Bats. Tangled badminton net. Two shelves were stacked with board games. Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Sorry — Sorrreeee — relics from the past. Checkers, no chess, the Keaslings weren’t a brainy family. Monopoly, now there was a Keasling game. Battleship, even better, stepping it up a notch in their teens. That’s when she’d had to really help Lanny. Jake had accused them both of cheating. Jake cheated, himself. God, they were a gaming family. On the top shelf in the place of honor was Clue, an enduring favorite. Nobody cheated. No need. Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.
What better place for Lanny to hide a clue?
Although damned if she could figure what the red float was a clue to.
The float wasn’t in the closet, that’s all she knew.
Jake was looking around as if he couldn't believe how shabby the Keasling game room had become.
Sandy couldn’t argue with that. The felt on the billiard table was scabby. The corduroy couch sagged in the middle. The wet bar had a broken faucet and broken tiles. The windows were so dirty you couldn’t see if it was cloudy or sunny outside.
The only time Sandy came here anymore was when Lanny begged her to play a game of darts.
And now, she came when she’d had the brainstorm to look for the float in the closet. Sandy stepped away from the closet, leaving the door open.
Let him look.
He didn’t. “I assume you’re hunting for a certain object that Lanny is purported to have taken? About yea long.” Jake spread his hands, shoulder span. “I’m not a hundred percent sure about the size. Hard to tell from that cell phone photo that hot geologist flashed us. Let’s just call it a marine float.”
So big whoop, Jake knew what she was looking for.
She moved to the wet bar mini-fridge, which still worked. She took out a Coke. She didn’t offer one to her brother. No beer in the fridge, that's all Jake cared about. Sandy didn’t drink alcohol. Sandy didn’t want Lanny to get any ideas.