Night Moves (Doc Ford)

13




NOON THE NEXT DAY, TOMLINSON PUTTERED UP IN his dinghy and called my name through the open windows of the lab. I wanted to talk to him about Cressa, but I couldn’t just then. I’d almost forgotten about a rush order I had to fill and now I was seriously behind.

On the counter were four Styrofoam containers used to ship live specimens. Two were already loaded, two dozen hermit crabs in each, plus heat packs to keep the animals warm on their flight. It was part of a drop-shipment order I’d received from Carolina Biological Supply: send the crabs to Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota; box and ship sixty marine invertebrates, at least eight genera, to the science department, East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.

Which was why I was busy selecting a mix of small whelks, sea urchins, brittle stars, and sandworms when my self-absorbed pal hollered from outside. And why I didn’t answer. When I felt his dinghy bump my dock, though, it was time to act. I threw my rubber gloves into the sink, removed my apron, and went to the screen door, which I didn’t bother to open.

“I’m right in the middle of something,” I told him. “I can’t stop now.”

I could see Tomlinson’s head bobbing above the dock. “I know what those straps are,” he hollered back. “What looked like leather we found in the tree . . . where bark had grown over the straps? Flight 19. I can tell you now, but it would be better if I showed you.”

I replied, “If you’d ever had an actual job, maybe you’d understand—I’m working.”

“Doc, we found a parachute harness! Plus, something I should have shown you and Danny but didn’t. Here . . . it’s in here. It all makes sense now!”

I had turned away from the door but looked back to see a boney hand holding a small bag. He was waving the object like a surrender flag. Tomlinson, I realized, had taken something from the crash site.

When irritable, I’m prone to snappishness. When angry, however, I retreat into a sphere of calm. Emotion clouds clarity, which is why I opened the door and in a tone that crackled with clarity said, “When the feds bring charges against you, I’ll be the first witness. So, you bet! I’d love to see what you stole and then lied to us about.”

Tomlinson’s hand and head disappeared beneath the dock, and his became an invisible voice. “If I caught you at a bad time, just say so, man! No need to fly off the handle. How ’bout I come back, oh . . . say, around six?”

I was peeved but also curious. He’d found something interesting, that was obvious. I was eager to have a look, but I wasn’t going to fold that easily. Tomlinson’s uninhibited zeal can also be read as shameless manipulation.

“Give me an hour,” I countered, “I’ll be done by one-thirty,” then had to add, “as if being punctual means anything to you.”

The phone rang. At first, I didn’t recognize the area code but remembered calling the offices of Gun Dog Magazine, Retriever Magazine, and a couple of others. So I answered. It was one of the editors. I put the lab phone on speaker so I could work while we talked.

“This would make a terrific article,” the editor said after I had given her the condensed version. “What kind of snake attacked the dog? Poisonous?”

My eyes shifted to a jar where the reptile’s skull, recurved fangs bared, was curing in preservative. “A Burmese python,” I said. “Or possibly an African boa. I sent photos to a herpetologist friend, but she hasn’t gotten back yet. An anaconda is a longer shot.”

“Incredible. A dog who survived a snake that size, my god,” the editor said. “And you say he’s well trained. Field trial quality, do you think?”

I had yet to work with the dog on retrieving, which I told her, then added, “I’m a novice on the subject, so I’d be a poor judge. But he’s definitely been through the upper levels of obedience training.”

“A Lab or a golden? You didn’t say.”

“A Chesapeake, maybe, or one of the rarer breeds,” I said. “I’m guessing.”

“A Chesapeake,” the editor said as if it was significant. Apparently it was, because a minute later she was explaining. “A common mistake people make is thinking that retriever breeds are all similar. You know, sweet, good-natured—but they’re not. In terms of breeding, Chessies have nothing in common with Labs and goldens. Totally different animals. All great in their way, but Chessies are . . . well, they have a much harder edge to them. They’re not a breed I’d recommend to the average owner.”

“He’s so skinny and scarred-up,” I told the woman, “it’s hard to be sure what breed he is. Not from photos on the Internet, anyway. But someone put a lot of time and money into this dog. No way of telling how long he was lost in the Everglades, but yesterday I picked him up and stepped on the scale. He weighs fifty-two pounds. An adult male retriever, average size, should weigh seventy or eighty, right?”

“Poor thing!” the editor sighed, then became overly polite to excuse what was on her mind. “A fascinating story. But before we go any further, well . . . thing is, we have to be careful when it comes to animals that disappear, then show up in the hands of a second party. I believe you, of course, but there are other types out there. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

No, but I took a guess. “I don’t want publicity or a reward unless they want to pick up the vet bills. In fact, I won’t allow my name to be used if you do write something. I called about a lost dog, not to suggest an article.”

“The way I put that was clumsy,” she said. “Dognapping. I should have come right out and said it. We just ran a piece. The FBI goes after kidnappers, everyone knows that. But a blue-chip stud, or a field trial champion worth forty, eighty thousand dollars? Sure, dog theft is against the law, but low priority. The highest ransom on record is twenty-five thousand—a toy Pekingese owned by an actress—but most owners don’t report it. Why would they? Police can’t do much, and all they want is their dog back alive.”

She added, “So if a blue-chip retriever was stolen, chances are we wouldn’t hear a word—not if ransom was demanded. Dognappers, the real professionals—and there are probably a hundred theft rings around the country—have it down to a science. They demand an amount just low enough to stay under the radar but high enough that it adds up to a multimillion-dollar industry.

“Another technique these people use is they pretend to find the dog. Usually under terrible circumstances—save it from being run over by a truck or find it starving in some garbage dump. See what I’m getting at? They contact the owner anonymously, then hint around about a big reward for their trouble. To a family, of course, a dog’s real value has nothing to do with a price. It’s purely an emotional decision. There’s a rumor an oil sheik in the Hollywood Hills paid half a million for his daughter’s missing Afghan.”

Interesting.

We talked for another ten minutes. The editor provided me with a few names to call, and I promised to e-mail a couple of photos.

Then back to work. While I packed the Styrofoam containers, I took occasional breaks to check on the retriever. Early that morning, to stop him from vandalizing boats, I’d loaded a crate of crab buoys onto my stand-up paddle board, then paddled toward the marina basin. The dog had followed, swimming as if at heel until I granted him freedom with a wave of my hand.

While he freestyled after birds and chased dolphins, I used the weighted buoys, dropping one every ten yards, until they formed a perimeter that made the marina off-limits. To each buoy I also tied surveyor’s tape, Day-Glo orange, to make them more obvious.

When finished, I had summoned the dog. It took half an hour for the retriever to learn he could not breach that sacred perimeter. Once I felt confident, I had returned for a quick morning workout: forty minutes on a ballbuster of a machine called a VersaClimber, made tougher by wearing a forty-pound vest. Then ten minutes of stretching followed by abs, then squat thrusts, but no pull-ups, although the bar beneath the lab summoned me. A partially torn rotator cuff is a bitch of an injury that heals—if ever—at its own lazy pace.

Sunset was for running, swimming, and surfing—on those rare occasions when Sanibel Island has waves. Hours nine to five, seven days a week, were for work.

Working now, packing the order for Carolina Biological Supply, I went to the north window and searched for the dog. It took awhile. Finally, I spotted him. He was a quarter mile offshore, laboring toward the lab with something large and dark in tow.

Geezus. The marina was now off-limits, but I had allowed the animal the option of open sea.

I used Soviet binoculars, forty-some pounds of glass on a tripod, the superb optics once used to snipe East Germans crossing the wall to freedom. Palm fronds, that’s what he’d found. A large section of a tree canopy blown down by a squall. Good. The dog was neatening up Dinkin’s Bay. No one, not even Mack, could complain about that. The man’s story about purloined boats and kayaks had seemed far-fetched until now. Never had I seen an animal move so powerfully through the water.

A Chesapeake Bay retriever? Maybe. Or . . . otterhound. The name popped into my mind because the animal was oily-coated and swam like a damn otter. I’d seen the name somewhere, but did such a breed exist? There was probably a long list of esoteric retrievers. Later, it would be a fun topic to research.

I returned to my work, aware I had to have the Styrofoam coolers at Pak-n-Ship by one. Time and the UPS truck wait for neither man nor invertebrate.

—

TOMLINSON TOLD ME, “One of the crew injected himself with morphine. Or someone else who survived the crash. See where the needle’s broken off?”

Glasses on my forehead, I was looking through a microscope at an object two inches long, half an inch wide, trying to get the focus just right. “How in hell did you find this? Something so small . . . Pretty weird.”

“The tube’s made of an alloy—lead and tin, I think. I felt it through my feet. Like an electrical charge, I don’t know how else to describe it. So I dug down a few inches. It didn’t look like much, that’s why I didn’t mention it. Just a glob of mud, so I put it in my pocket for later.”

I was thinking, He can’t sense camera surveillance, but his radar picks up a speck of buried metal? Even so, I grunted to communicate disapproval, then asked, “How far from the parachute harness?”

“Ten yards, I stepped it off. The tube’s rolled flat, see? Like an empty tube of toothpaste, which proves it. I found photos on the Internet. Mind if I use your printer? Space is one of the drawbacks of living aboard.”

“Nice of you to bother asking,” I replied, then told him, “The tube’s made of a lead alloy, you’re right. Or rust would’ve . . .” I paused and changed power by rotating the lens head. “The label isn’t paper. It was die-stamped, red on white. Squibb, that was the drug company. Morphine Tartrate, but I can’t make out the dosage. The needle . . . yeah, it’s a very simple injection system.”

Because I’d been angry with him, Tomlinson was eager to make amends. “I’ll never take anything from the crash site again, promise. A syrette, that’s what they called it. A first-aid kit was attached to every parachute issued to aviators. A half grain of morphine, which is a decent hit if it’s recreational—but not nearly enough if you’re in serious pain. Someone survived the crash, I knew it first time I stepped into that telegraph office.”

I rotated the lens head again and said, “The muck probably saved it. No oxygen, no oxidation, so we need to get photos, then figure out the best way to preserve it.” I stepped away so Tomlinson could take a look, adding, “Because the tube’s smashed doesn’t prove a wounded man used it. You’re guessing. More likely, it was damaged in the crash. See how delicate the needle is?”

“Ten yards from where we found the parachute harness?” Tomlinson argued. He gestured toward his little Mac laptop, where he’d opened several photos. “You knew what it was, didn’t you?”

I cleaned my glasses, then sat in front of the laptop, seeing photos of parachute harnesses issued in the 1940s and another of a small yellow box labeled Solution of Morphine WARNING: May Be Habit Forming! Beneath the box was a syrette tube of malleable metal, the needle protected by a glass tube and a safety key. The die stamp matched what I’d seen through the microscope.

I leaned back and said, “The D rings and clips told me it was some kind of harness, but the canvas fooled me. I could have sworn it was leather.” After scrolling through several more photos, comparing what we’d found melded into a tree with vintage harnesses, I added, “These are so simple compared to what they issue at Fort Bragg. Integrated parachute systems, sort of like BC vests for diving. But, yeah, I suspected.”

Tomlinson stooped beside me, the scent of patchouli not as strong as usual. He’d done his homework and pointed out similarities that seemed to prove we’d found what the old Army Air Corp called a Quick Attachable Chest harness. A remnant of red material at the shoulder, he claimed, proved the harness had been produced after 1943. Then he turned toward the door, asking, “You want a beer?” and left me alone to try to picture the unlikely scenario he was suggesting.

Just before his Avenger crashes, a pilot or crewman throws open the heavy canopy and jumps into the darkness. His chute opens, but he’s so badly injured when he lands he needs morphine. Or he finds an injured crewmate and injects him with the morphine. All possible but for one glaring detail: on a stormy night, how in the hell had a parachute drifted down within fifty yards of where the Avenger had crashed? Where pieces of the airplane had landed, anyway. Even if the man had jumped at a crazy low altitude, the parachute would have put on the brakes while the plane rocketed onward. Unless . . . unless there was a strong tailwind and the chute had followed the same trajectory and landed after the plane had crashed or—as I still suspected—broke up before hitting the ground.

I was interrupted by the sound of the screen door banging open and I looked around to see Tomlinson, fresh beer in hand, a wild smile of discovery on his face. “We’re idiots!” he said. “All three of us, it was right there and we missed it!”

I edged my chair back to create more space. “Are you okay?”

“Move . . . move—I’ll show you!”

Tomlinson couldn’t wait to get at the computer, so I stood and got out of his way. It took him awhile, but he finally brought up a photo of an Avenger taken in the 1940s. Then he opened a photo he’d taken of the tail rudder we’d found, a portion of a 3, or possibly an 8, faintly visible. He touched his finger to one, then the other. “Now do you understand?”

No . . . but I was working on it. In the old photo, the bomber appeared pristine, painted black or navy blue, the number 79 stenciled in white, huge, on the tail. The shot was taken from the plane’s starboard side. In Tomlinson’s photo, the rudder section Dan had found was also shot from that side. The top edge of the rudder was crowned with a hinge but otherwise flat, angled slightly aft. Distinctive. No chance the number we’d revealed was upside down.

My eyes moved back and forth. Finally, it hit me . . . a detail so damn obvious that I could only agree with Tomlinson.

“Absolute idiots,” I said. In the old photo of Avenger 79, the number 7 covered the rudder. The 9 covered the solid section of the tail. On the port side of the tail, though, the numbers would have been reversed. To prove it, I ripped a sheet from a notepad and just for the hell of it wrote 36 on both sides of the paper—the ID number of one of the missing Avengers.

“The second number will be on the port side of the rudder,” I said, flipping the paper to illustrate. “If there is a second number. And if there isn’t, it proves we found Torpedo Bomber FT-3—one of the five missing planes. How many crew was she carrying?”

I moved to my own computer and opened a folder I’d created for research on Flight 19. Tomlinson was up and pacing, tugging at a strand of hair, when my cell rang. Dan Futch.

Ideas are in the air, Thomas Edison once wrote. Maybe so, because I heard Dan tell me, “We’ve got to get back there, Doc! I just realized something about that tail section—”

A minute later, I said to Tomlinson, “Dan’s booked the next four days, so we fly down Saturday morning. Or you and I take my new boat and go without him. He doesn’t have a problem with that.” Then I said into the phone, “Are you sure?”

“Tomorrow!” Tomlinson replied, “Or . . . Thursday—I’m teaching Beginner’s Mind Wednesday night.”

I covered the phone with my hand because I didn’t want Futch to hear. “First, we need to have a serious talk about your married girlfriend,” I said. “Then we decide.”