Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,48

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