Medusa (NUMA Files 8)

As she left the lab building area, Gamay felt as if she had been given the bum’s rush. Since setting foot on the island, she had been wined, dined, zipped through a packaged tour, and prepped to be sent on her way in the morning.

Mayhew had been correct to fear the attention of a trained observer. She might have passed off his close attention to her every move as a clumsy attempt at hospitality, but there was no doubt that he had tried a verbal bait and switch concerning the jellyfish tank’s occupants.

Gamay had easily seen through Mayhew’s smoke screen. The collegial little research group was a facade. No amount of bar-room cheer could hide the fact that the island was a secretive, hermetically sealed, pressurized environment. People laughed too hard, or, in the case of Mayhew, switched on his phony jaw-breaker smile.

GAMAY MADE HER WAY to the dock to get some fresh air. Dooley Greene was painting a skiff. He saw her approaching and removed the cigar stub from his mouth.

“ ’ Afternoon, Dr. Gamay. Dr. Mayhew give you a good tour of the labs?”

“It was short but interesting,” she said, keeping a poker face.

Dooley picked up on the unenthusiastic response.

“Thought so,” he said with his jack-o’-lantern grin.

“I saw Dr. Song Lee in one of the labs,” she said. “Doesn’t she go kayaking every afternoon about this time?”

Dooley nodded. “Like clockwork. She’ll go out later on.”

Gamay pointed to the kayak rack.

“Could I borrow one of those, Dooley? I’ve got a few hours, and thought it might be nice to explore the mangroves.”

Dooley plunked his paintbrush into a can of turpentine.

“I’d be glad to show you around in my boat, Dr. Gamay. You’ll see a lot more and save yourself some paddling.”

Having nothing else to occupy her time, Gamay got into Dooley’s boat. He headed away from the dock, and, once clear of the island, goosed the throttle. The double hulls cut through the flat water like scissors through silk. Within minutes, they entered a small bay enclosed by mangroves.

Dooley stood at the steering console, dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Squinting because of the sun’s reflection off the calm waters, he kept the boat pointed toward an old wooden cabin cruiser that lay off the tip of a mangrove island. The cruiser sat at an angle, with its stern in the water. The glass in the windows was missing, and there was a hole in the rotting wooden hull at the waterline that was big enough for a man to swim through.

“Hurricane pushed that wreck up onto an oyster bar,” Dooley said, slowing the boat to a fast walk. “Makes a good navigation point when you’re cruising around the mangroves. It can get confusing out here at times, even with a GPS and compass.”

The boat had gone past the tip of Bonefish Key, a long, tapering point shaped like a shirttail. The marine center dock was no longer visible, and palmettos obscured the water tower. The low, monotonous islands offered no outstanding features that could be used as reference points, and perspective constantly changed.

“You must know these waters like the back of your hand,” Gamay said.

Dooley squinted at the sun-dappled water.

“It all looks the same, but you get so you can pick out little details that most people wouldn’t see.” He opened a storage box and pointed to a pair of goggles. “I cheat when I go out fishing at night,” he said with a smirk. “Got these night vision gogs over the Internet. Got some spare ones back at the boathouse.”

“Where does Dr. Lee go kayaking?”

“She paddles down the back side of the barrier beach. Lots of birds there. I’ll show you.”

Dooley headed between two mangroves. The passage narrowed, funneling them to a dead end. Dooley brought the boat to a halt and handed Gamay a pair of binoculars. She raised them to her eyes and saw dozens of snowy egrets and great blue herons wading in the shallows, looking for food.

Dooley pointed to a wooden stake that stuck out of the water a few feet from the shore.

“That marks a path that leads across the island. Only a few hundred yards, and there’s good surf fishing on the other side.”

Dooley powered up the outboard motor, and they sped out of the V-shaped cove and toward the wrecked boat. He made a sharp turn and headed back toward Bonefish Key. The water tower popped into view, and minutes later Dooley cut speed and expertly brought them alongside the dock. Gamay tied the boat off with a few turns of the bow and stern lines. She thanked Dooley and borrowed a chart of local waters, saying she wanted to see where they had been.

She passed Dr. Lee, who was on her way for her daily kayak paddle. Gamay said hello, and got the same polite reception as the first time they met.

She then stood at the top of the hill overlooking the marina and watched Lee until she paddled around a bend.

When Gamay looked past the superficial beauty of the island, she saw that it had a beaten aspect to it. The mangroves were half dead, and even the high ground had never dried out after the hurricane, producing rank decay that overpowered the flowers and hung over the island in an invisible miasma.