Flashback (6 page)

I ceased to wonder the sounds seemed inhuman. The mouth that made them was not a human mouth.

Tilly started toward the wavering light. I grabbed her. "Stay back," I hissed. I was not quick enough.

3

Anna laid the curling pages on her knees. The paper was as thin as dried leaves, and she'd been holding them too tightly. Her thumb and forefinger had pinched a faint crease in the upper righthand corner. For a moment she sat without moving, without thinking, just taking in the space: Piedmont asleep at her side, throat up, eyes covered with his paws, the sharp contrast of blinds and sunlight striping the window over the sink, the smooth glow of terra-cotta floor tile unifying the living spaces. A sense of having awakened from a strange dream and not knowing where she was pervaded her. Quietly she waited till reality-or the reality the National Park Service paid her to inhabit-reformed around her.

When the room had solidified, she rose, careful not to disturb the sleeping cat, and crossed to the window that looked down on the parade ground. For a fleeting instant she was surprised that the enlisted men's barracks were gone, the officers' mess, the formal walk with its edging of cannonballs. The moment passed and she was relieved to see the tree-spotted expanse of sunburned grass, the casemates, arches open to the parade ground, gun ports opening on the sea, filled with nothing but light and shadow.

The park had a permanent, live-in staff of seven people. There'd been days Anna couldn't stand the crowd and fled to the sea. In 1865 there'd been eight to twelve hundred people in residence. The thought, filling her mind as it did with unwashed bodies and gabbling voices, made an involuntary shudder run through her. Perhaps some race memory of the place had come down through her maternal bloodline.

She ate apples and peanut butter for supper and went to bed at eight-thirty. Outside it was still daylight.

Her great-great-aunt Raffia's letter followed her into sleep and manifested itself in confused scenes of Jefferson by torchlight, actors in blackface, her teeth falling out to scurvy and, once, the pounding whump of cannon fire that brought her close to consciousness till the ill-lit and flickering past dragged her down into sleep again.

Anna woke because somebody was in her room. Out from the darkness a voice whispered, "Anna, Anna, Anna." Furtive fingers jabbed at her arm and shoulder. Perhaps Anna was slow to wake from reverie, but from sleep, never. Fast as a fish flipping on a line, she was off her stomach and half sitting. The poking hand had been caught at the wrist and bent back. The whisper shifted to: "You're hurting me. It's Teddy, Teddy Shaw."

Anna let go of her gentle marauder and switched on the lamp by the bedside. Opposite, on the top bunk, she could just see Piedmont's orange eyes from behind a bulwark of pillows. Some watchcat.

"What're you doing? Why didn't you knock?" Anna grumbled as she pulled a tee shirt from the floor and dragged it on for decency's sake.

"I didn't want to startle you," Teddy said, rubbing her wrist.

On the island, Anna'd never thought to lock her doors to protect herself. Maybe she would start locking them to protect others.

"What is it?"

"Bob's not back."

Anna plucked up the black plastic travel alarm that lived on the bed stand. Four forty. "He was off duty-"

"At midnight. He was off at midnight. He's not back. Four hours and forty minutes. He's not back. I just woke up and was still by myself."

"Did he call in?" Anna picked her radio up out of the charger behind the clock, and clicked down the mike button.

As Teddy was saying, "He last radioed around eight," Anna was calling "Five-eight-one, five-eight-zero." Three times she repeated first Bob's call number and then her own.

"No answer," she said unnecessarily. "Did you try calling him after eight?"

Teddy had seated herself, not on the bunk opposite but on the foot of the narrow bed Anna slept in, apparently needing to be close. Her wide bottom pinned down the covers, trapping Anna's legs, and she had to make a conscious effort not to kick free.

Teddy shook her head. "No. Bob doesn't like me calling him unless it's an emergency because he could be in the middle of something and me calling might compromise it. And when he's watching something he'll turn his radio clear off. You know how it is. A call at the wrong time could blow your cover."

In her years-and years-with the park service Anna'd only had a "cover" a couple of times. Bob evidently found, created or imagined such situations often enough he and his wife had developed a system for handling them.

"Better let me up," Anna said, nudging to be free of the mummy bag Teddy had inadvertently made of her covers. Teddy stood obediently. Anna got up and began dragging on the pieces of her uniform that were scattered on bunks, floor and bedposts.

"What did he call in at eight for?" Anna asked. She must have heard the call but she had no recollection of it. Chances were, absorbed in her great-great-aunt's letter, part of her mind had registered that the call was not for her and filtered it out as background noise.

"He said he had something going and wouldn't be home for supper." Teddy's voice was muddled. Anna stopped fussing with the Velcro on Velcro adjustment of her duty belt and looked up. The woman's face was muddled as well. Fear and pride and quirks of what could be defiance or dishonesty banged into each other till Teddy wore the face of an angry child who sees a treat and cannot choose between wailing or snatching.

Anna stepped into her deck shoes. "Did he say what he had going, boat names or where he was located?"

"He wouldn't have wanted that transmission intercepted," Teddy said, pride momentarily winning out over whatever else boiled beneath her skin.

"Well nobody did, at least not us," Anna said bitterly and pushed down a number of derogatory comments about Buffalo Bob that came to mind. No sense in beating up the man's wife. "I guess we start our search at the dock.

"I'm going to get Danny and Mack up," she told Teddy. Mack was the island's other maintenance man and the one in charge of keeping the six big generators running so the fort had lights, air conditioning, water pressure and phone service. Both he and Daniel were good boatmen and held manner's licenses.

"You get on the radio and call the coast guard. Tell them we've a boat and ranger five hours overdue and to please stand by. Tell them we are starting a rudimentary search now."

"Rudimentary?" Teddy's back went up as she prepared to do battle for Bob's right to a full-scale operation, and Anna realized she'd gotten caught up in logistics and forgotten that the object of this exercise was Teddy's husband.

"Sorry to be barking orders," she said, masking her need to be moving with gentleness. "Rudimentary is because of the darkness. We won't be able to see much-just maybe a boat if it's disabled or something like that. But I don't want to wait till first light to move on this."

"I'll get on to the coast guard." Teddy left two steps ahead of Anna. Before rejecting the mainstream for the Dry Tortugas and Bob Shaw, Teddy had been head nurse in an emergency room in Miami. Anna had never seen her under pressure before. Admiring her control and competence, she could see why she'd risen to the top of her profession at a relatively early age. Because of her background and training, Lanny Wilcox had gotten permission to let her set up the fort's "hospital," a room with a clean bed, a sink and what emergency medical supplies they had. It crossed Anna's mind as they clattered down the wooden staircase into the parade ground to tell Teddy to make sure the hospital was ready to receive Bob, should he need medical attention, but she thought better of it. It would only alarm Teddy unnecessarily and, if she hadn't kept the hospital stocked and functioning before now, it would be too late.

"You wake up Cliff and Linda," Anna named the captain and first mate of the Activa, the NPS supply boat that had come in that afternoon. "Tell them we need eyes. Tell them to get their dive gear off their boat. We may need it when it gets light."

"Then call the coast guard," Teddy said without slowing or turning around.

"Right."

Off the last step, Teddy broke into a jog as she cut across the parade ground. The moon was just coming on full, and the dry grass shone light as beach sand. The fort walls were silvered, and the empty arches so black the shadows looked to be made of solid matter.

Anna turned right, following the brick path along the ground-level casemates. The southern side of the fort was closed to visitors. The open casemates contained machinery and supplies needed to keep the fort up and running. Three were dedicated to Mack's generators, and two had been enclosed to make employee quarters. Danny lived in the first of these. The two he inhabited had the arches walled up with lumber weathered and in need of paint. A hopelessly modern door with a screen finished off the defacement of history. Anna banged on it soundly.

A moment or two and a dim light appeared in the kitchen window, probably from Danny's bedroom. Not more than thirty seconds passed, but Anna was about to knock again when he opened the door. In place of a standard bathrobe, the maintenance man wore a Japanese kimono, black koi on a field of white that gave his stalwart form the look of a particularly deadly samurai.

"Yeah. What is it? What time is it?"

"The middle of the night," Anna said. "Bob never came home from his shift. I need you to take out one of the boats. We'll be looking for big stuff, the Bay Ranger or chunks of it. At first light we'll get a better idea. You dive?"

"Not on purpose."

"Okay. I'm getting Mack. Meet us at the dock."

"Got it."

William Macintyre's quarters were next, nearer the office by the generator rooms. His lights were on. Anna hoped he wasn't up because he was drinking. She didn't know Mack well-he'd been on vacation the first eight days of her stay at Jefferson-but she'd served in enough isolated posts to know that alcohol was a fairly standard form of entertainment in National Parks.

He answered at her first knock. But for shoes and socks he was dressed in a pair of Levi's torn out at the knee and a tee shirt. Mack looked the part of a mechanic. His hands and forearms were scarred from years of working with engines. Black grease was ingrained in the flesh around his nails and the cracks across the pads of his fingers. His clothes smelled faintly of burnt oil and stale gasoline. Like Daniel, he wore a full beard but kept his close-cropped over a box-and-bone jaw. Hair grew in white in places as if it covered old injuries. Though not yet forty, he was nearly bald. The fringe of hair remaining was scraped back into a stringy ponytail.

"You're up late," Anna said.

"What of it?" His voice cracked as if his mouth and throat had gone dry.

Anna looked past the hostility in his light brown eyes. He was cranky but apparently sober. She explained the situation.

"I'm taking the Atlantic Ranger. Nobody screws with it but me."

"Okay," Anna said neutrally.

He started to make more demands but instead let his square jaw break in a smile, and his fingers ran over his scalp, remembering the hair that had once flourished there. "Hey. Sorry. Don't think I'm always such an asshole. Bad night's all."

He wanted Anna to ask him why "bad" but she had neither the time nor the inclination. Warm and fuzzy wasn't a management style she had much truck with.

"They happen. Meet us at the dock. Five minutes."

"No problem."

Before his door closed, his sudden rudeness and equally unexpected capitulation were forgotten. Anna's brain was churning out lists of equipment needed. Her eyes saw only the black water and the grid search she drew over it, dividing it into sectors, one for each of the boats.

The office door was ajar, light pouring out. Anna stepped inside. Teddy was just returning from the gloomy recesses where the main radio was housed. The handhelds hadn't the power to reach the mainland. Those calls had to be made from the office, where the radio was hooked to the repeater atop the fort's walls.

"The coast guard has a cutter two hours north of here. It's heading this way," Teddy said.

"I said stand by," Anna replied sharply.

Teddy was not intimidated.

"They were scheduled to hit Key West tomorrow. They started early is all."

"You'll ride with me. You need anything not in the first-aid kit on the Reef Ranger, get it now and meet me at the dock."

Teddy swung an orange medical kit out of the shadows at her side. She'd anticipated and done her packing.

The men were already at the boats. Mack had the Atlantic Ranger's engine running and was perched on the bench in front of the wheel, putting on his shoes. He must have sprinted barefoot to reach the water before Anna.

She was unimpressed. "Not a fucking footrace," she muttered.

"What?" Teddy was at her heels.

"Nothing." Anna made a mental note to calm down, breathe. The situation was crawling up her spine. She didn't want it fogging her thinking. Intentionally slowing her pace, she arrived on the dock, breathed in and out slowly, and took stock of her resources.

Danny was there, bulky and reassuring. Cliff, the tall, lean, gray-haired, gentleman-captain of the Activa, sat on a piling looking alert and interested, his long-fingered hands folded serenely in his lap. Cliff had the most boating experience of the group. Anna'd never asked his age, but it was probably closer to seventy than sixty. For all his years on the sea, he looked more like an English professor than an old salt. Everything about him suggested the hush of libraries and leather-bound books. Linda, the Activa's first mate, stood next to him, her short blond hair in spikes. She was no taller than Anna but probably a good deal stronger. Linda was the best diver the park had, and it showed in the sculpt of her shoulders and calves. Too many years under a tropical sun had tanned her skin like fine saddle leather.