Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,71

women.

I stripped my line home and told myself, Forget it—she’s an adult—then waded closer to the schooling fish, sliding my feet to spook stingrays, and made another cast. On the second strip, the hook jolted as if it had snagged a limb, so I locked my index finger over the line and lifted. At the same instant, the angle formed by rod and fly line transected a gelatinous swirl forty feet away—a redfish had eaten my lure.

I smiled—a man whose world had been simplified—as the fish turned with intent, generating enough torque with its tail that my seven-weight fly rod bowed as if to snap. I held tight and watched a dozen other reds spook away in comet streaks of silver. The fish I’d hooked boiled again and attempted to join them by peeling off line at a speed more suitable to a motorcycle. The run would have blistered my index finger, so the finger became an attentive guide. It would have bloodied my knuckles, so I cleared the reel by yanking my left hand high not unlike a bronc rider who has been overpowered and seeks balance.

On its first run, a redfish often mimics an arrow’s trajectory, straight for the mangroves. Some atavistic memory, perhaps, associates shadows and tree roots with safety, unaware that barnacles colonize there, sharp enough to cut the stoutest fishing line. Oysters, too. This fish bulled its way under the roots where, by all rights, it should have broken free, but I speared my rod tip into the water, almost to the bottom, and kept the line horizontal. For several seconds, I was linked to a whirlpool of detritus by a thread that vibrated like a violin string, but the thread held. Then, walking backward, I tractored the fish away from the bushes, a blue-hued fin showing on the surface when it was finally in open water again.

A minute later, I held a six-pound redfish by the lip, a sculpture of mahogany and bronze so perfectly utilitarian that its belly-toothed croaking struck me as anomalous. Because the school had regrouped, I was tempted to land another just for fun but decided against it. I had a lot to do today, it was true. There was work in the lab. Plus, I’d received two e-mail replies to my lost-and-found ads about the retriever. Both parties had to be answered in a way that tested without offending.

More time-consuming would be getting ready for our trip the next morning. Tomlinson and I were returning to the Bone Field and the wreckage of the Avenger. It was possible we’d camp a night or two, depending on how our search went and if Dan Futch would be able to join us on Saturday as he hoped. Before leaving, though, there was an important detail to clear up. I wanted to find out if Luke Smith was actually the troubled brother-in-law, Dean Arturo.

Confirm it too late, we might have unwanted company.

19

TOMLINSON CAME TO THE HOUSE JUST BEFORE SUNSET and said through the screen door, “Something smells good! Mind if I use your computer?”

Kidney beans had been simmering all day in a Crock-Pot. Plus, I had six sweet potatoes in the oven. Two were for dinner along with the redfish filets and plantains now in stages of preparation. The other potatoes would be packed along with a half gallon of beans, salt, grapefruits, fresh chili peppers, coffee, and a slab of bacon for the trip. On the fifty-mile boat ride, I hoped to supplement the larder with more fish: tripletail, hopefully, but king mackerel steaks or cobia would be fine, too.

“What did she say?” I asked my pal. I’d sent him to Cressa’s house to gather information and was surprised he was back so soon. Two hours wasn’t a lot of time in the world of the married mistress.

Tomlinson sounded harried when he answered, “I’ll tell you about it in a sec. She’s supposed to e-mail me photos of the brother-in-law, so I want to check Yahoo first. But I think you’re right. I think he’s the guy who came here calling himself Luke-something. He actually is in the documentary business—or tried, at least—and there’s another connection, something neither of us knew.”

“She admits they had an affair?”

“Uhhh . . . can’t talk, gotta hit the head ASAP,” he replied, which explained his antsyness. “It’s something I ate, I think, or I would’ve used the bushes. Give me a couple of minutes, okay?”

I put Danny Morgan’s Captiva Moon in the CD player and