Of course the fire guys are better equipped to hose everything off after the fact with those big bad deck cannons of theirs. Point is? Doesn’t matter in the least to us, but someone’s gotta help get it to shore, and we’ll handle it from there.” He looks at his watch. “In about forty-five? A little after nine? That would really be fabulous.”
“What is it?” I ask Bryce, as he ends the call.
He puts his hands on his hips, scrutinizing me. “Well, we certainly didn’t wear the right thing for going out in a boat this morning, did we?” He surveys the gray pinstriped skirt suit and pumps I wore today for court. “I’ll just be a minute, gonna grab a few things because you’re not going out with the Coast Guard in what you’ve got on. Fishing out some floater? Thank God it’s not July, not that the water’s ever warm around here, and I sure as hell hope it’s not been in there long, my least favorite thing. I’m sorry, let’s be honest. Who can stand it? I realize nobody means to get in such a disgusting condition, can you imagine? If I die and get like that please don’t find me.”
He’s in my closet, retrieving field clothes.
“That’s the part the boys with the Guard aren’t happy about, because why would they be?” He keeps talking. “Having something like that on their boat, but no worries, they’ll do it because I asked them pretty please and reminded them that if you—and I specifically mean you, the chief—don’t know how to take care of it, who does?”
He slides a pair of cargo pants off a hanger.
“You’ll double-pouch or whatever it takes so their boat doesn’t stink to high heaven, just a reminder? I promised. Do you want short sleeves or long?”
He peers at me from my closet.
“I’m voting for long, because it’s going to be nippy out there with the wind blowing,” he says, before I can even think of answering. “So let’s see, your down jacket’s a good idea, your rescue-orange one, so you show up a mile away. Always a good idea on the water. I see Marino doesn’t have a jacket, but I’m not in charge of his wardrobe.”
Bryce carries clothing over to me as Marino continues talking to someone who obviously is out in a boat.
“We don’t want anybody cutting through knots or nothing, and any ropes would have to be cleated down,” he is saying, as Bryce drapes my CFC uniform across my desk and then returns to the closet for boots. “I’m going to hang up and call you on a landline and maybe have a better connection and you can talk to the Doc yourself,” Marino adds.
He comes over to my side of the desk as I hear the elevator in the corridor and more voices. Lucy is on her way to her helicopter, and other staff members are arriving. It’s a few minutes past eight.
“Some huge prehistoric turtle entangled in the south channel,” Marino tells me, as he reaches for my desk phone.
“A leatherback. They’re almost extinct, have been around since Jurassic Park.” Marino ignores him.
“I don’t believe there was a park back then,” Bryce chimes in louder.
“Could weigh as much as a ton.” Marino keeps talking to me as he enters a number on my phone, a pair of over-the-counter reading glasses perched on his strong nose. “A waterman checking his lobster pots discovered it at sunrise and called the aquarium’s rescue team, which has an arrangement with the fire department marine unit. When the fireboat got there and they started to pull the turtle in, turns out there’s an unfortunate attachment on the vertical line . . . Pamela?” he says to whoever answers. “I’m handing you over to Dr. Scarpetta.”
He gives me the receiver, folding the glasses with his thick fingers and tucking them into the breast pocket of his shirt as he explains, “Pamela Quick. She’s out in the fireboat, so the connection might not be real good.”
The woman on the phone introduces herself as a marine biologist with the New England Aquarium, and she sounds urgent and slightly hostile. She just this minute e-mailed a photograph, she says.
“You can see for yourself we’re out of time,” she insists. “We need to get him on board now.”
“‘Him’?” I ask.
“A critically endangered species of sea turtle that’s been dragging tackle and other gear and what’s obviously a dead person for who knows