Bone Deep (8 page)

Sunday morning, at Leland’s home in Sarasota, the shake-up I anticipated arrived with the mildest of tremors. I was wandering toward the backyard where, behind a courtesy fence, an unhappy wife swam nude, when my phone chirped with the link to a newspaper story.

The interruption spared me the charms of Mrs. Ava Albright—momentarily.

VENICE POLICE INVESTIGATE

Police investigated a possible break-in at 50 Sand Lane, Caspersen Beach, yesterday. Officers reported a padlock had been cut, and interior water damage caused by recent rain. The investigation was in response to a complaint by the estate attorney representing the late Finnlund J. Tovar, a longtime Venice resident and well-known paleontologist.

•   •   •

PALEONTOLOGIST?
I had researched the man. Finn Tovar was to paleontology what Murf the Surf was to gemology—a driven amateur who, unlike the diamond thief, had been shrewd enough to avoid jail.

I continued reading:

According to police, robbery was a possible motive, although the residence appeared to be intact. Pending an inventory of Tovar’s possessions, the investigation will remain open. A representative of Viz-Watch Inc., which installed a security system in the home, was unavailable for comment.

Mr. Tovar, during his career as a paleontologist, is credited with discovering the carapace of the largest prehistoric turtle on record, and the skull of a unicorn-like animal that went extinct a million years ago and was thought to be unique to the Florida peninsula.

The subject of criticism by Native American organizations, Mr. Tovar withdrew his collection of indigenous artifacts, but his reconstruction of a mastodon skull and a saber-toothed tiger remained on display locally until he was diagnosed with a brain tumor a year ago. Scientists worldwide considered Tovar an authority on Florida mastodons and mammoths. Both prehistoric animals are related to elephants . . .

•   •   •

I REREAD THE PIECE,
wondering if AIM, the American Indian Movement, had been involved with the protest. Fallsdown and
Tomlinson had, as expected, gone to Lakeland, but would be back by sunset for the marina’s Sunday shrimp roast. I would ask them about it when we compared notes.

The theft had not been discovered—a relief. That gave us some time. If the news story had been different, my next move would be to call a cop friend in Tallahassee. That would happen, but not yet.

On my phone, I typed a quick reply to Ransom, who’d sent me the link, and walked toward the backyard. To my right were oak trees and a sweep of asphalt where my old truck sat ticking in the morning heat. The Albright residence—a secluded acreage off Bee Ridge Road—was not as grand as their island mansion and much newer. A Deco ranch-style structure that rambled. No one had answered the front door. Odd—but I was ten minutes early. The back patio was the logical alternative, so I continued along fence and shrubbery, my thoughts on Finn Tovar.

Violent temper aside, Tovar had been an interesting man. It takes more than a Ph.D. to excel in the field sciences. He had possessed talent, there was no denying—a rare blend of instinct and expertise. He had eclipsed the achievements of many academics, but along the way he had made enemies. Among them was a maid he had slapped. It was the maid who had given Deon Killip the security code to Tovar’s home. But had she also sent a gunman to rob the petty thief? A maid willing to take risks to secure a bigger chunk of the prize had cunning. She would know more about Finn Tovar than she had told the petty thief and drug addict. Was it worth a return visit to Venice?

I was considering logistics when I heard a woman’s voice call through the foliage, “Is someone there?”

Mrs. Albright
—that’s the way I thought of her after exchanging only a few words at the drum ceremony. I’d been right. Breakfast on
the patio had emptied the house. I stopped and replied through the shrubbery, “It’s Marion Ford. Your husband is expecting me.”

“Who?”

I said my name again.

“Oh . . . I remember you.
Doc.
Sure! Hey—I could use your help with something, Doc. The gate’s at the back, come on around.”

I found the gate, entered, turned . . . and there was Ava Albright, naked, floating, small-breasted and buoyant, in a gel of turquoise, her blond hair pinned primly, her body a paleness of refracted angles, white, brown, and pink.

“I can’t reach my mimosa,” she said, an intentional parody of a pouting vamp. Then stood to show off her body and laughed, “
I’m joking.
My glass is on the table—don’t be shy. We’re practically nudists around here.”

I said, “You should post a warning sign.”

I turned, exited, closed the gate, and walked to my truck. Gave it some time before trying the front door again. Leland Albright, red-faced, loomed over me. “What the hell do you mean surprising my wife like that?”

“Is that what she told you?”

“I came out on the balcony as you were leaving.”

“Then you know I didn’t surprise her,” I said. “And you know your wife liked it, too.”

Albright slammed the door in my face.

I leaned against my truck and waited. Two minutes, I allotted, then two minutes more because I wanted the list of old-time relic hunters he had promised. When I heard the ascending verbal punch and counterpunch of an argument, though, I drove away. An angry man can be won over. A man who has been humiliated cannot.
Space and time are required before he can reappear in his old familiar role.

Leland Albright had more backbone than most. I was on Bee Ridge Road, driving east, when he phoned. I saw the name and answered, “Leland, sorry about that last crack. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Ava knows exactly the buttons to push,” he said, sounding hoarse, a man who’d been yelling. “You’re right, Ford. She enjoys it. Where are you?”

I told him, “Not far. Want me to come back?”

“No . . . I’ve still got a few rounds to go with Ava. If she’d just admit what she does! Christ, she claims I’m imagining things. From the pool, she invited you in—I could swear I heard her say your name.
We’re practically nudists, Doc.
That’s what she said, isn’t it? Or . . . maybe I am crazy.”

The man had called to make amends but was now drafting me as a witness. “We’ll make it another day,” I said.

“Wait. You can still drive to the phosphate mine. You don’t need me. Owen will meet you there.”

Owen, last name Hall, was the stepson. That had been our plan: take Leland’s SUV inland to a section of land north of the Peace River the family owned and where Mammoth Ridge Mines had started.

“Your stepson won’t mind?”

Leland answered, “He does what I tell him,” but heard his own phony overconfidence. He exhaled, frustrated. “Sorry. She’s got me off my game.”

“They do it to us, we do it to them. The human comedy, it’s called.”

“The way Ava does it isn’t human,” was the reply. A coldness
there he tried to cover by adding, “Owen’s a good kid. If anyone can get you into Mosaic on a Sunday, it’s him.”

Mosaic was the largest mining company in the state and an adjunct to our plan. If we could get through security, that was a bonus. If not, nothing lost. Albright still owned a square mile of Florida—more than six hundred acres. It was challenge enough for one afternoon.

Yesterday, when I had returned Leland’s call, he’d been more specific about his job offer. “I want an analysis of water quality in our quarries—we have three lakes. And please don’t say you’re not qualified.”

On the Internet, he’d found papers I had written on the effects of water turbidity on sea grasses and filtering species, another on tunicates containing high levels of a toxic algae known as “red tide.” Nutrient pollution, I had concluded, was sometimes a contributing factor.

Albright had shared my study on manatee deaths as they related to red tide with his daughters. “Believe me, your opinion will carry some weight with those two. You understand the importance of phosphate. Tomorrow, at the property, I’ll explain
why
I’m considering the mining idea.”

I had used Albright’s list of relic collectors as a bargaining chip. Which was why I was in Sarasota, a phone to my ear, listening to the man vent about his wife’s behavior. I felt badly for the guy, but I also wanted that list, so I dropped a hint, asking, “Did I give you my e-mail address?”

Leland, weary of it all, said, “I shouldn’t be dumping all this on you. Don’t worry. Owen will give you an envelope. A partial list is in there, plus some information on mining . . . Ford?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry about what happened. I don’t care anymore what Ava thinks. But my daughters—well . . . If you’re willing to keep an open mind, there’s a check in the envelope, too. I don’t expect you to work without a retainer.”

I said, “Let’s see how it goes,” and signed off.

At a Burger King, I turned around and took I-75 north to the Fruitville exit, which was all the Sunday interstate traffic I could handle.

•   •   •

IF THE THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD STEPSON,
Owen Hall, couldn’t dissuade two drunks shooting turtles with a rifle, what were the chances of him charming security at a billion-dollar phosphate operation?

Not good.

That’s what I was thinking, sitting passenger side in a Jeep, while Owen tried to reason with two men of similar age who weren’t totally shit-faced but close enough. Weekend drunks can be stubborn. It wasn’t going well—and even worse for the three or four turtles that lay bloody on the shore.

Owen and I had entered the property via a dirt road, between Bradenton and Sebring, into acreage laid waste by draglines. The land was growing a new skin of pines, palmettos, hat-rack cypress, too, on scars left by a hundred years of abuse. A washboard of furrows and high ridges aren’t native to the Florida geoscopy. Nor are rectangular lakes and a sand dune the size of an Egyptian pyramid. The dune—that’s where we’d spotted a red Dodge Ram. Then we’d heard rifle fire—two overage fraternity types, a case of beer between them, at the water’s edge killing turtles.

“Stay here,” Owen said, unbuckling his seat belt. “I know those guys.”

I replied, “Take your time,” and opened the oversize envelope he had presented me. Inside was a check for ten thousand dollars made out to
Sanibel
Biological Supply LLC
. There were also mining statistics and a stack of vintage photos that tracked the history of Mammoth Ridge Mines. But no list of artifact collectors gleaned from records of the now-defunct company. An innocent oversight—I hoped.

Down an incline, fifty yards away, Owen was making progress with the drunks. The drunks were laughing, but still in possession of a loaded rifle. I returned my attention to the envelope.

Fifty pages of stats—I set them aside because the old photos were more fun. I shuffled through several: Leland’s grandfather, circa 1900, shovel in hand, smiling up from a crater—his Albright genetics towering over a team of workers. A one-room store, Hooker’s, in nearby Fort Meade, where a shed of white clapboard was the first Albright home. Photo by photo, shovels gave way to steam engines on rails, then a larger dragline afloat on a canal of its own making.

The grandfather, Henry Leland Albright, was assembling his dynasty.

The status of Owen and the drunks de-escalated into a private conversation while I browsed. It was impolite to intrude, so I skipped ahead through the decades, but refocused when, instead of men and mining equipment, I came to a black-and-white photo of an . . . elephant?

Yes, an elephant. I turned it over. On the back, in elegant script, was written
Barnabus, 1938 HLJ
.

HLJ
was Henry L. Albright.
Barnabus
, I decided, was the elephant’s name. But why a photo? Puzzling until I remembered the obvious: Ringling Brothers and other circuses have wintered in Florida for more than a century. The founder of Mammoth Mines had bought Barnabus, a mammoth Indian elephant, as a mascot.

Correction:
Elephants
. Henry Albright had owned two . . . no, three elephants. Photos from the 1950s told me the family had accumulated at least five of the animals, including a young male.

Had the tradition continued? I kept looking. It would explain why Leland had found my question about elephants an amusing understatement the night we’d met.

Instead of more elephants, a photo of an Egyptian-sized sand dune caught my eye. I was sitting near a dune of similar size. It took a few seconds to factor in erosion and wind-seeded foliage. The Jeep, I realized, was parked where a photographer had stood in 1945. A few photos later, I saw . . . snow skis in Florida . . . ?

Yes . . . a party of bobby-soxers and GIs on leave had once skied down the sand mountain in front of me.
Slalom Beach
,
written in pencil. After their descent, skiers had cooled themselves in the lake. The lake appeared silver in several photos but was a milky turquoise when I reconfirmed landmarks.

The Albright family and friends had enjoyed a century of fun on this property, judging from what I saw. An idea popped into my head: Instead of mining for phosphate, why not stock the lake with bass and turn the acreage into a green retreat for tourists? Keep the wooded lanes, restore the creeks, but lose the erosion and exotic plants. Albright was a businessman, though. Because I am not, I got out, found a tree, and contemplated the merits of the idea while I urinated.

Midstream, I heard Owen holler, “Hey,
don’t
!” For an absurd moment, I thought he meant me. I was grabbing for my zipper when a bee buzzed overhead in synch with a rifle shot.

Not a bee . . . a bullet. I’d damn near been shot.

An awkward moment later, I saw Owen trying to wrestle the rifle away from the drunks. I sprinted downhill, yelling, “Which one of you idiots did that?”

Surprise.
The men didn’t realize the Jeep contained a sizable passenger. No . . . a misread on my part—they’d thought Owen was alone. It was in their cloaked exchange as much as their eager denials. As I drew nearer, apologies replaced the denials, but then beer courage took over.