Deadly Waters (9 page)

“OK. Night, Jack. Night, Bridger. See you.”

Ordinarily Jack would have leaped to look at his pictures, but he was so discouraged about his camera that he just stayed slumped in the green vinyl chair, the twin to the one in his parents' room.

In front of the air conditioner, Bridger was building some kind of pyramid with his suitcase. On it he'd stacked one of the drawers he'd pulled from the scarred dresser, a phone book, and a couple of towels to top it off.

“What's that for?” Jack asked.

Carefully, Bridger set his boots on the wobbly structure, with the open tops pointing toward gusts from the air conditioner. “I need to dry these things out,” he said. “They're starting to smell. Don't know if it's from the swamp water or my feet.”

That struck Jack as funny. He began to laugh, and soon Bridger was laughing with him.

“Why don't you give in and wear sandals tomorrow?” Jack asked him. “Dad said he'd lend you a pair. If you keep wearing those boots, you're going to get jungle rot and your toenails will all fall off.”

That set them off again, and when they quit laughing, Bridger said, “Wel-l-l-l, I just might. Borrow the sandals. Hey, how'd your pictures turn out?”

By then, Jack was ready to look at them. Carefully he took them from the envelope. Holding them by the edges, he examined each print, one by one. “Not bad,” he said, “but not good enough for N
ATIONAL
G
EOGRAPHIC
.”

“Let's see.” Bridger sat next to Jack on the bed. Imitating Jack, he held the pictures by the corners and studied them. “This is good, the one of the gator going after that bird.”

“The anhinga.”

“And you got a pretty good one here of the eagle and the osprey fighting.”

“Yeah, but the one I like best is the last one on the roll. The great blue heron flying.”

When Jack held it up, Bridger said, “Yeah. Good job.” He yawned. “But I'm tired, so I'm going to sleep.” He peeled off his jeans and another, fresh plaid shirt he'd taken out of his suitcase when they returned from Frankie's boat that afternoon: one he'd put on after showering off the murky mangrove water. Flopping onto his own bed, Bridger fell asleep instantly, without saying good-night.

Even with the air conditioner going, it was too hot to sleep under a bedspread. Jack sprawled on top of the sheets, planning to replay in his mind all that had happened that day, hoping for just one more clue that would help him get his camera back.

Methodically, he tried to call up all the details he could remember, beginning with his first sighting of the man's boat.

The room was a comfortable temperature, not too hot and not too cold. Since the motel was out a ways from the center of town, there weren't any streetlights to shine through the windows, and the motel itself was very quiet. Jack tried to force himself to stay awake so he could think, but he couldn't fight it. Sleep overtook him.

Much later, he reared up in bed. It was still dark; he groped for his watch and read the luminous numbers: 3:37. At first he only saw the 37, because his thumb covered the 3. And something clicked in his brain.

That picture of the great blue heron flying was not the last one on the roll. There'd been another one of it landing in a tree. In one-hour photo labs, like the one where his dad had taken the film tonight, the automatic print machines were set up to print exactly 36 pictures from a roll of 36, or exactly 24 pictures from a roll of 24. But Jack always managed to squeeze an extra shot onto each roll. He always got 37 or 25 negatives, depending on what size roll he was using. Today, he remembered, he'd shot 37. The lab hadn't printed number 37, but it would be on the strip of negatives.

Cautiously, hoping he wouldn't wake Bridger, Jack turned on the little lamp on the stand between their twin beds. Carefully, he took the negatives from the envelope. There it was, the 37th, although it wasn't numbered, because film numbers stopped at 36.

Negatives are hard to read, and the bulb in the lamp probably wasn't stronger than 40 watts, but as he held it up in front of the light, he felt a stab of excitement.

There was the heron in the tree, and farther beyond it, the man in the boat. He was reaching out to one of the pilings he'd stopped beside. Not reaching straight out, but down, toward the water level. Netting a fish? No, Ashley had said there was no fishing gear in his boat.

Straining his eyes, Jack could barely make out that the man wasn't looking at what he was doing, but had turned to face the Watson Place. He must have seen Jack taking pictures. And whatever he was doing there at the pilings, he didn't want anyone to know about it. That's why he stole the camera. But Jack had already taken out the roll of film.

Three fifty in the morning now. Jack burned to tell someone, but he thought he shouldn't wake Bridger, or wake his parents, either. His mother was having enough trouble of her own, worrying about the manatee mystery. He'd just have to wait till morning. Excited as he was, he thought he'd never fall back to sleep.

He was wrong.

J
ack tasted salt. A fine mist of Everglades water, carried by the wind, sprayed his lips as they traveled farther into the channel. The
Pescadillo
moved more quickly than it had the first time they'd ridden in it. The bow cut through wave after wave as Frankie, eyes squinting against the sun, pushed ahead with determination. She'd set a course for the one spot that might answer the questions Jack's photograph had raised and that might explain why Gordon had been willing to steal a camera and try to kidnap Bridger and Jack. They were on their way to the Watson Place, and this time Olivia and Steven were with them.

“I'm guessing drugs,” Frankie said loudly. She had to speak up to be heard over the engine's roar, so each word had more space around it, as though she were talking in exclamation marks. “I've been thinking about it since you called me. What we saw in the photo might be some kind of drop-off point.”

Olivia's expression clouded. Pulling on Steven's arm, she said, “Drugs? Steven, we've got the kids with us. Maybe we should turn back and let the police handle it.”

Jack shook his head hard. “They wouldn't believe us, not without proof. Even when Dad showed them the picture this morning, they said it didn't look like anything suspicious. And Sheriff Carlos still wouldn't give my camera back.”

“Jack's right,” Steven agreed. “First, we need to see what, if anything, is out there. Then we can decide our next move.”

Ashley didn't say a word, just held her stomach tight with crossed arms. She sometimes suffered from motion sickness, but now she seemed determined to fight it—today was too important. Bridger, too, was quiet, but Jack sensed there was another reason besides the rolling of the boat. Bridger looked deep in thought, trying to figure things out, oblivious of the flock of birds moving lazily across the mangrove treetops, landing in the foliage as lightly as butterflies.

Sliding further into the white vinyl deck chair, Jack looked into the endlessly blue sky and the clouds that brushed against it, and started to think things himself.

His dad had taken his negative into the one-hour photo lab as soon as it opened, then brought back an enlarged photograph, an eight by ten.

“There's definitely something here,” Steven had told them, studying the picture closely. “I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but Gordon's doing something—do any of you kids remember this box thing in the water?”

Jack, Bridger, and Ashley had all shaken their heads no. “From where we were,” Jack said, “it just looked like some posts sticking out of the river.”

And that's what the police concluded when Steven showed them the picture. “Nothing unusual there,” they'd said. “The guy's just stopped beside some pilings. But we'll keep checking on the boat, like we said we would.”

After that the Landons and Frankie had decided, over the phone, to investigate things themselves, Frankie insisting that they leave as soon as they could meet her at the dock. “I've got a personal stake in this,” she'd told them. “The kids were attacked on my watch. I'd like to hook this Gordon and reel him in.”

And as soon as they met her, Frankie identified the object in the photo. “It's a water-monitoring device. Checks the water level and a few other things, like temperature and salinity. There are a number of them at different spots in the Everglades.” Since then, all of them had been turning over and over in their minds what this mystery could possibly involve. And now, 20 minutes away from the Watson Place, Frankie had suggested it might be a drug drop-off operation.

Ashley unfolded herself and slowly made her way to the bridge deck, stopping next to the three adults. Since Bridger seemed lost in his own thoughts, Jack decided to join the others. Walking unevenly, he made his way to where they were.

The life jacket was too big for Ashley's thin body; the edge of it kept creeping up underneath her chin. It made her look like a turtle in an orange shell. “Mom,” she called out, “I've been searching for the manatee mama who got hit. Do you think she's OK?”

Olivia answered, “I asked my manatee experts about her, and they said that after they got Frankie's radio message yesterday, they went right out to find her. They're monitoring her and her baby, and so far, both are doing fine.” Reaching out a hand, she ruffled Ashley's hair and said, “The sad fact is, almost every adult manatee has scars on its back or tail fluke from being hit. It's so common that researchers use the scar patterns to identify individual manatees.”

Shaking her head, Ashley groaned, “That's awful.”

“I know. But until people are more careful, manatees will keep on getting cut and sometimes killed.”

“I'm always careful,” Frankie declared.

“What makes it even more serious,” Olivia went on, “is that manatees take so long to make babies. The average manatee produces only ten babies in her lifetime, one every two or three years. All manatees are doubly precious, for themselves and for the few babies they'll produce.”

“Do the manatees wear tracking collars, like the wolves in Yellowstone?” Jack asked, thinking back to their trip to that park.

“Not collars. Sometimes belts with monitors are put around the narrow section of their tails, but most manatees aren't tagged, since it's quite a job getting anything on an animal that big. Usually they're just left alone.”

Jack nodded, remembering how huge the manatee had seemed when he and Bridger had tried to lift it.

“If they don't wear monitors, then how do the researchers find them? I mean, look at how dark the water is—you can't see anything in it,” Ashley mentioned, pointing to the tea-colored depths.

A smile crept across Olivia's face, and she gave a little chuckle. “Well, now, they use some very ingenious ways, one of which I'm sure you kids will find awfully funny. First of all, how do you think a manatee stays afloat when it wants to come up for air? Adult manatees can grow up to weigh 3,000 pounds. Don't you think they would sink?”

“Blubber!” Ashley guessed, just as Jack said, “I bet it's the air in their lungs. In pictures, those lungs are awfully big—they'd be like two great big balloons.”

“Partly right. Good tries, but not completely correct.” She looked from one face to the other, expectant, but Jack had no idea what she was after. Steven, who'd been listening from the bow, joined Olivia and said, “Come on, now, you're not telling the kids the how-do-manatees-stay-afloat story, are you?”

Giving Steven a playful tap on the chest, Olivia answered, “Hey, guy, don't get so uptight. It's perfectly natural, especially when you consider their diet. All they eat is plant material. They're total vegetarians.”

“So, Mom, how do they do it?” Jack pressed, sensing a good story.

“Well, manatees have large intestines that are 60 feet long and 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Their vegetation-only diet puts a lot of gas in their gastrointestinal tracks. In fact, manatee guts may have three to four times the volume of gas in them that their lungs have, and it's all that gas that keeps them buoyant. Now,” she said, wiggling her eyebrow, “isn't that interesting?”

“But I don't get what all that has to do with finding them,” Ashley said, looking puzzled.

Pleading in mock horror, Steven cried, “No, Olivia, you're not going to tell the how-the-researchers-locate-the-manatee story!”

Frankie was already laughing as Olivia answered, “It's a legitimate scientific question. Ashley, the little bubbles you see coming up onto the surface of the water aren't from their lungs. Marine scientists actually use something called a hydrophone—it's an underwater microphone they put it into the water—and they just ‘listen' for the manatees to…well…expel some of that gas that's filling up their guts. Amazing, but true.”

“You mean they hear the manatees—”

“That's exactly what I mean.” Olivia grinned, then added, “Hey, whatever works.”

Ashley and Jack broke into a fit of giggles. Evidently Bridger had been listening, too, from back in the stern, because he looked like he was trying to hold back his laughter, and at the same time trying not to blush.

“Gross,” Ashley said.

“Natural,” Olivia answered.

“There's the Watson Place,” Frankie announced, slowing the boat. “I'll pull close to the dock so you can see where all the excitement took place yesterday, but we won't stop.”

“Dad, you have your camera,” Jack said. “Take some pictures, will you? I'm gonna want to remember this scene.”

All of them stared at the Watson Place while Steven photographed it, using both zoom and wide-angle settings. “I guess the old Indian curse is still working,” Ashley murmured. “It started because the earth was bleeding when hunters slaughtered the alligators and egrets. Then people died at the Watson Place, so their blood got spilled, too. After that, Mr. Watson's blood. And now the manatees are dying.”

“But no one's slaughtering the manatees, Ashley,” Steven commented.

Ashley blurted, “How do you know? Mom hasn't been able to find out what's killing them. Maybe some mean person who hates manatees—”

“Honey, that's silly,” Steven said, shaking his head. Olivia looked thoughtful, though, for a moment, as if she were considering something she might have missed before. Then she, too, shook her head.

“Well, we've visited the scene of the crime,” Frankie announced, “so let's go find out what our friend Gordon was up to.” Pushing the throttles forward to bring the boat out of idle, she quickly covered the short distance between the Watson Place and the pilings, maneuvering close to them as she reversed the
Pescadillo
's engines.

It didn't look like anything exciting. Four metal poles, one at each corner, stuck up out of the water. A wooden platform had been built between the poles, and on top of the platform sat something about the size and shape of a window air-conditioning unit. Beneath the platform was an 18-inch galvanized pipe, the kind used for storm drains to carry rainwater under highways. It extended down into the water.

“If he dropped off drugs here, I don't know where he'd have put them,” Frankie said, perplexed. “Like I told you, this thing just measures the water level in the Everglades.”

“Let me check it out.” Bridger climbed over the side of the
Pescadillo
, stepping onto a wooden support board nailed between two of the posts. Today he'd worn the sandals he borrowed from Steven, but he wore socks, too, and his usual jeans and long-sleeved plaid Western shirt. It was as if he kept all of himself hidden except his face and hands. Jack guessed it was practical, though, since it saved Bridger from sunburn and mosquito bites.

He was so tall he could easily see the top of the platform, but he moved his hands all over it anyway. “Nothing stashed here,” he said. “And you can't get down into the galvanized pipe—it's sealed at the top by this box, whatever it is.”

“Just the monitor casing,” Steven told him.

“Stay there, Bridger,” Jack said, “while I take a look at the picture again. Gordon was reaching down….” Jack studied the print carefully. “Look, on your left side, there are two boards nailed together in a V. Feel down at the bottom of the V. Anything there?”

Bridger bent low to touch the place Jack pointed to. “There's a rope,” he said. “It goes down in the water.”

“Can you pull it up?” Steven asked.

“Yeah. Here it comes.”

At the end of the rope hung a tube about four inches wide and two feet long.

“We found it! That must be where the drugs are!” Ashley exclaimed.

Olivia said, “I don't think so. That's just another kind of water monitor. Hand it over into the boat, Bridger.”

Bridger climbed back into the
Pescadillo
and gave the tube to Olivia. “These things open up,” she said. “Frankie, do you have a toolbox on board?”

“I do. What do you want, a screwdriver?”

“We'll try that for starters,” Steven answered.

It took a bit of doing, but they finally opened the tube at the bottom. Another tube slid out of it. It had a faint fishy odor.

“That's it!” Ashley shouted. “I saw one exactly like that lying in the bottom of Gordon's boat when he stopped at the Watson Place.”

“You did?” Jack asked. “I didn't notice it.” That wasn't too surprising, since Ashley so often picked up on details Jack missed.

Olivia frowned. “This is just the instrumentation for this kind of water monitor. It shows the results of what's being measured—see the numbers here?” She held it up, briefly, then ran the tip of her finger down the column of numbers. “I can read the settings here for temperature, oxygen level, chemicals in the water….”

For a moment, she froze, not breathing, not moving. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to stare at Steven.

“What?” Jack cried.

At the same second, both his parents said, “Chemicals!”

Steven took the tube from her hand. “But all these readings are really low.”

“Sure,” Ashley said. “'Cause Gordon switched the tubes. Why else would he have one in the boat with him?”

Olivia jumped to her feet. “My manatees! That's why they're sick. He must be dumping some kind of toxic chemical into the water—”

“But no one knows about it because Gordon keeps removing all the readings from the monitors—” Steven broke in.

“—and who knows how long this has been going on?” Olivia finished.

“We gotta find him,” Jack declared. “If we prove what he's doing, I'll get my camera back.”

“Forget your camera,” Frankie scolded. “If what we're thinking here is true, then we need to catch Gordon because he's hurting the Everglades.” When her chin jutted out, Frankie's face looked rock-hard and stubborn. “Now, these water-measuring devices are placed every ten miles or so—I know where most of them are. If each one has a monitor hanging from it, like the one here, Gordon must go from one to the other changing the tubes. He might be doing that right now. I say we go and try to catch him in the act.”