The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (38 page)

Pinctada maxima
—the oysters that produce South Sea pearls—are found only in Australian and Tahitian waters. Because
P. maxima
have a short lifespan, just six years, pearl manufacturers have to maintain a steady supply harvested from the ocean. As a diver, my job is to scour the sea floor and snatch as many of the giants as I can during my shift. Oyster season is from January to March. Unfortunately, it’s also the high season for the deadliest creature in the world, the box jellyfish. One sting can kill a person in thirty seconds.

My diver’s watch buzzed at 5
A.M.
I pulled on a one-piece bather, a well-worn kimono, and boat shoes, then padded down to the galley for a cup of green tea. Sounds of the morning routine drifted through the open portholes: shots of compressed air hissing as the ship’s air tanks were tested, the flapping and submerging of the sail anchor, and the creaking of the two metal harvesting arms, each dangling six air hoses and tethers, as they swung into place over the water. The ocean lapped lazily against the ship, and I had just closed my eyes to enjoy the familiar sounds when the blaring of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” shattered my peace. Damn that Yank,
and
Tom Lafroy. Besides annoying me with his favorite music too early in the morning, he hadn’t come through with what he promised.

“Da says he can’t get the
Indian Princess
records from BSSP,” he’d told me a few weeks earlier when we met at the Honeyeater Café for an update. He’d sat picking the grilled fennel root and bean sprouts from his soy burger, then smothered the patty with Keen’s mustard. “The company’s worried the pearl was stolen. Sounds like it might have been a stray, like you suggested. Da says he’s tried contacting a couple of his captain buddies, but everyone’s clamming up. So I went back to Jack’s.”

“Find out anything?” I asked as I scraped his discards onto my soy burger.

He shifted his eyes away from me. “The boys said the diver was a new bloke from Sydney. His body was found at Coulomb Point last October.”

I noticed for the first time how his fingers tapped a nervous staccato on the table. I wasn’t sure he was telling me everything.

But now, as I sat in the galley on the
Adelaide
, Johnny Cash was singing “I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher” through the porthole, and I wondered if I’d been a fool to believe him. I gulped the tea and returned to my cabin to get ready for my shift.

Exposure of just one square inch of skin is deadly during box jellyfish season. An ounce of venom can kill sixty men. Cody, my dive buddy, a mate I’d partnered with numerous times, checked the hood that covered my head and neck, the tightness of my mask, the juncture where my gloves overlapped the nine-millimeter neoprene suit at my wrists. I did the same for him. Once we completed our check, we gave a thumbs-up to the dive master and climbed onto the dive platform. Each of the ship’s two metal arms, one port and one starboard, serviced six divers. Fitted with air hoses and tethers, the device allowed us to be pulled along for extended periods with an ample supply of air. All I had to do was scan the uneven seabed and pluck oysters. Easy. Like riding a finely tuned bike.

I was assigned the far tether on the starboard side, my buddy the second from the end. Once underwater and then again on the sea floor, we exchanged a thumbs-up to indicate that our ears had equalized, our air was flowing, and we were good to go. Every five minutes throughout the dive, we were to signal our status. Adjusting the air in our buoyancy compensators, we hovered an arm’s reach from the ocean floor.

At a depth of thirty feet, weightlessness as well as the current teased the strain from my muscles. Pulled along by the tether, I spotted speckled cowries and spiral-shaped wentletrap shells tumbling along the seabed. Under a brain coral, a sea slug rippled its purple-trimmed mantle. It was good to be back.

I refocused on my work, straining my eyes to distinguish the oyster shells from the drab underwater terrain. We were paid per oyster, and shifts could amount to big bikkies in your pocket. At the fifteen-minute mark I returned my buddy’s signal. My netted bag was half full of oysters, despite the poor visibility. I was certain to return to the surface with a full haul.

Captain Lafroy gradually turned the boat north. The currents were stronger in this section and had churned up the water, making it difficult to see the oysters even though they were as big as supper platters.

I spied a huge oyster shell peeking out from a clump of dead man’s fingers when my lungs felt the tug of decreased air flowing through the hose. I calmed myself, slowed my breathing, and looked up, following the heavy black hose that was keeping me alive. The slack in the hose didn’t concern me at first, but when I inhaled a small mouthful of saltwater, panic prickled my sense of calm. And when I saw the black tubing descending in lazy loops before me, I knew my lifeline was severed.

I searched for my buddy. We could share his air. The water darkened as an overhead cloud hid the sun. Visibility was now only a few feet. Where was he? My body screamed for air. Instinct to inhale invaded my brain. But if I did, I’d fill my lungs with water. Training kicked in. I flipped onto my back, released my weight belt, and fumbled for the CO
₂
cartridge attached to my buoyancy compensator. I yanked hard on the cord. The BC expanded like a balloon. Exhaling what little air I had left in a constant flow of little bubbles, I shot toward the surface. With all my strength, I forced myself not to suck in the blackness around me. It seemed thirty feet had turned into a thousand. My lungs ached, but to survive I had to exhale every bit of breath in my lungs. A free ascent would protect me from getting the bends. In theory, anyway.

I popped to the surface like a harbor buoy. Riding the four-foot waves was rough, but I quickly realized a new danger approached. The huge underwater sail anchor—dragged behind the ship to decrease the ship’s speed so divers could work—was almost on me. If I got tangled in its cables, I’d be strangled before I could drown.

I heard a shout from the boat. Captain Lafroy threw out an orange ring as the crew fought with my sixty-foot tether line. His aim was off, and the sea roiled, throwing me down into the trough of the wave and the ring onto the crest. Johnny Cash’s lyrics rang in my head.
Down, down, down
, he sang.
Down, down, down.
I swallowed a blast of wind-tossed wave and saltwater scathed my windpipe. I watched as a gust lifted the ring into the air, spinning it on its edge like a coin. Finally it fell within five feet of me. Hope ignited the lactic acid in my muscles, boiling it away. I swam hard against the current. When I reached the ring, I shot my arms through and clamped down with everything I had. I floated on my back and was hauled away from the sail anchor cables and toward the boat. Like a giant tuna.

Once on the dive platform, I was stripped of my gear and rolled in a wool blanket. My heart skittered inside my chest like a pinball. I shook like hell. A couple of deckhands lifted me onto a stretcher and carried me below.

“Thanks, mates,” I said, once lying in my bunk. The adrenaline rush had drained me. I just wanted to be left alone. They each gave my hand a squeeze and disappeared. I inhaled the salty air mixed with diesel, thankful to the sea gods I was alive. Someone rapped on the door. Tom’s head appeared.

He sat next to me on the narrow bunk and tucked the blanket around my legs. “Da called off the harvesting for the day.”

I pulled an arm from under the blanket and angled it across my eyes. “The guys won’t be happy about that.”

“Sea’s getting rough anyway. Storm’s coming. I checked your air hose. Looks like sun damage. Cracks weakened the rubber. The hose snapped off just below the surface—that’s why no one noticed. Your buddy didn’t see a thing. Feels like an ass. Da wants all twelve hoses checked. Replaced if necessary. He’s just sick about it.”

He took my cold hand in his. At once my exhaustion disappeared and my mind was on alert. His hip pressed against mine, and even though I felt an uncomfortable stabbing pain due to the pressure, I didn’t want him to move.

“One time I had to do a free ascent like you did today,” he said. “Spent twelve hours in a hyperbaric chamber.” He frowned. “Diving’s risky business. You should take a break from it for the rest of the trip.”

I lifted my head, bristling at his words. “Is that a threat?”

“Just a penny’s worth of free advice.”

“Piss off, Lafroy. And take your pennies with you.”

He got up from the bed and pulled up a stool. “Da said to keep an eye on you for the next couple of hours. If you start having symptoms, we’ll have to get you a chamber in Broome. Now lie flat. We’re headed to one of the islands to ride out the storm.”

I lay back down. It was stupid to raise my head and risk nitrogen rising to my brain. I had to admit that Captain Lafroy was right about that. He was also right about the storm. We’d all be safer on one of the nature reserve islands in the Timor Sea where BSSP maintains a pearling operation site.

Tom looked at me through lowered lids. “So what should we talk about?”

I thought back to my time being tossed around in the sea like a Styrofoam cup. Tom had not been part of the first shift of divers, but I didn’t remember seeing him on deck during my rescue. Where had he been?

“I dunno,” I said finally. “How about the night in Sydney when you tried to strangle my sister?”

He clicked his tongue. “About time someone wanted to hear my side.”

The air in the cabin was getting cooler with the storm and I slipped my arms back under the blanket. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear his explanation. I liked keeping my resentment toward him alive and healthy. But I owed it to Shinju to find out more.

“Shinju wasn’t only addicted to cocaine,” he began. “She was addicted to the party scene. But I was sick of that life.”

I folded my arms under the covers. Tom offered Shinju and me our first joint in Grade 10, our first snort of cocaine a couple of years later. Shinju got pulled in. I bolted in the other direction.

“That night a movie director was giving a party, but I wanted her to stay home. Shinju just laughed, told me I was bonkers. Why should she be with a bloke from Broome when she could party with Sydney’s beautiful people? I got angry, told her I wouldn’t let her go.”

Imprisoned in my bunk, I couldn’t see Tom’s face too well. But I did hear his heavy exhale.

“I loved her, but I was losing her. A few weeks before, she told me she’d slept with a fashion designer, some famous guy who’d given her some of his stuff to wear. She was cheating on me. It made me crazy.”

His voice cracked a bit with the last sentence, but I didn’t care. A cantilevered lamp swayed with the rock of the ship, sending Tom’s distorted profile skittling across the wall. The storm was on us now.

“So what did you do?”

“I left. Went to a pub around the corner. Got wasted, then came back to the apartment to wait for her. When she got home at four in the morning, we argued again. She threw her shoes at me. Broke off our engagement. The whole thing was ugly as hell.”

“She told me you’d strangle her if she left.”

He punched the wall with his fist. “I can’t remember everything I said that night. All I know is she stormed off to the bedroom and locked the door. I crashed on the sofa. Don’t know how long I was out. The door chime woke me. Three Blue Healers from Central Metro stood there, badges all shiny, saying Shinju reported me for assault—that I’d threatened her.”

I heard the crinkling of cellophane, a familiar
tap-tap
, then smelled a whiff of fresh tobacco. I was about to protest, but before the words were out of my mouth he said “Sorry” and put his Dunhills away.

“It was nothing but lies,” he continued. “I’d never hurt her.”

I didn’t know what to believe. Shinju had a knack for twisting the knife in your soft underside. But Tom wasn’t trustworthy either.

I heard him rise and then felt him sitting on the edge of my bunk again. He flicked back my hair and found where my scar began at my temple. He traced it across my cheek to the corner of my mouth.

“How did this happen?” He spoke slowly, as if he had to think about each word. The walls of the small cabin collapsed and I felt my throat constricting. I was under the sea again, fighting for air.

“Shinju was trying to protect me from Pop.”

He gave his head a little shake, then shifted his gaze to the porthole. His breath, warm and moist, fell softly on my face. It smelled of coffee and cigarettes, but for some reason it didn’t bother me. Then, as if something other than the steady storm raged outside, he cocked his head. With a raised eyebrow, he turned to look at me again, hand still on my face. “You sticking with that story?”

I didn’t answer. Instead I pulled my head away from his touch. “I always check my air hose before diving,” I said. “It looked fine to me this morning.”

“Huh?” he said.

“What were you doing while I was diving, Tom?”

He stood and walked to the door. “Maybe you should sleep with one eye open. You don’t know who you can trust.”

To tend the company’s offshore oyster farms, BSSP maintains small camps on several island nature reserves. Australia’s restrictions for using the sites are simple: take out what you take in. Every crew I’d ever been part of kept the campsites as pristine as possible.

We arrived at the island around 7
P.M.
Box jellyfish season was still going strong, so the sixteen-foot Zodiac made several trips until the crew was landed. I made the trip by Zodiac and stretcher. I was getting tired of the constraints, but Captain Lafroy insisted I lie flat for the full twenty-four hours.

There weren’t enough cabins for the entire crew, so Tom put me in a cramped storage room next to The Implantation/Extraction Room, TIER for short. In TIER, experts inserted perfectly round plastic balls into each new batch of oysters. The balls served as cores for cultured South Sea pearls. The oysters were then taken to the undersea farms, placed in netted baskets attached to lines, and dropped into the aquamarine waters. The oyster excretes a flow of pearly nacre to cover the plastic seed irritating its body. And the result? The largest and most exquisite pearls cocreated by man and nature. BSSP’s claim, anyway.