Soundkeeper (13 page)

Arnold backed away from the door to emphasize his good intentions. Gale wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve and stood up, being careful not to let her guard down. Arnold hoped when he left she’d want to go with him but he knew it wasn’t the right time to ask. He needed to lay more groundwork.

“I brought back some more things for you,” Arnold said.

He gave her a jacket and another blanket he had bought for her in Beaufort.

“I thought you got cold the other night,” Arnold said.

“Thanks,” Gale whispered.

Arnold hoped her gratitude was just the beginning.

“Why are you guys dumping all that crap in the water? You know you’re killing all the fish and crabs and everything else it touches.”

Arnold’s response was exactly what Gale expected, the same thing people told her when she yelled at them at a stoplight for throwing their cigarette butt on the ground or a developer when she complained about the muddy runoff from their construction sites.

“The little bit of stuff that we’re doing doesn’t make that big a difference.”

“Everybody makes a difference, Arnold, either for good or for bad. Do you really want to leave this earth in worse shape than it was when you got here?”

Arnold just shrugged his shoulders. He walked over to the television and turned it on.

“Your friend killed my cat,” she said. Arnold did not seem surprised.

“He’s not my friend. We just do some things together. As soon as we’re done with this stuff I’m outta here. I’d leave now, but he won’t give me any of the money he owes me.”

Arnold came back to her and apologized when he put the handcuff back on her ankle.

“Do you really think he’s going to pay you later? What’s going to stop him from leaving with the money and telling the cops where to find you?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hall drove his work truck to the funeral service but wore civilian clothes, a pair of khaki pants and a shirt Gale had said she liked when they went out to dinner just two weeks ago. She had worn a blue tank top and her hair smelled like jasmine, he remembered. Hall had to park quite a way from the church because of all the other cars, and the service had already started when he arrived. When he walked through the old wrought iron gate a young woman handed him a memorial folder that had Gale’s picture on the front of it, and she was as pretty as the picture in his mind. On the back of the folder was a quote from Rachel Carson.

“For all at last returns to the sea -- to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the everflowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.”

Below the quote was information on how to make a donation to the Soundkeeper Project in memoriam, and a note indicating the paper was recycled. Hall thought Gale would have liked that very much.

Sheldon Church was not quite what Hall had expected. Round columns made from tabby bricks rose twenty feet into the air, and live oak trees adorned with Spanish moss towered three times higher. The huge windows of the church had rounded tops of the Greek revival style that would have reached to the roof if there had been a roof on the church. Hall didn’t know that a local Tory burned the church in 1779, and after it was rebuilt in 1826 it lasted a scant thirty-nine years before Sherman burned it on his infamous march to the sea. Graves were scattered here and there which added to the solemn feeling in the air.

There looked to be two-hundred mourners gathered on the church grounds. A small podium had been erected underneath one of the spreading oaks, and a man Hall didn’t recognize was talking about Gale’s love of the sea, her love of life. In a nice way he boasted about hiring her to be the first Port Royal Soundkeeper, knowing she was born to the job. Hall realized that he had been more than Gale’s employer, he had been her friend.

Several others spoke, and Hall saw Silas sitting with Gale’s father and a woman he assumed was Gale’s mother. The older couple held each others’ hands and nodded while Gale was remembered. Among the mourners Hall thought that he recognized a state senator and an anchorwoman from the local news. He knew that he was lucky to have known her, even for such a short time, and he couldn’t help but wonder what might have been.

A choir comprised of schoolchildren sang a hymn at the end of the service, and Hall drifted over to the ruins of the church to get a better look and because he wasn’t ready to leave. Even though he had seen only one person he knew, he felt that he was surrounded by friends. Someone touched him on his shoulder and he turned and saw Jimmy Barnwell and his wife. Hall bent down and gave Rebecca a hug.

“I always thought you two might hit it off,” she said. Hall only smiled and nodded.

“Are you two ready to set sail?” Hall asked.

“We are,” Jimmy replied. “The radar is fixed and tomorrow we’ll finish our provisioning. We should be on Chesapeake Bay by the end of the month.”

Jimmy took Hall by the elbow and led him a few steps away from his wife.

“If they find…..anything, please let me know. Gale was so careful on the water. I just don’t understand how this happened.” Jimmy said.

Hall promised to stay in touch and then made his way over to Gale’s family. Silas shook his hand and introduced Hall to his mother. He told her how sorry he was for her loss and wished that he had something more to say. He’d only been to one or two funerals in his life and didn’t have much experience in situations like this. Gale’s father said that he didn’t recognize Hall without his uniform on, which Hall was glad to hear but didn’t understand.

On the way home from the memorial service Hall stopped by the cell phone store and bought a new phone. Even though he had to dip into his savings account to pay for it he was too embarrassed to submit a request for reimbursement to his supervisor. He didn’t want to tell her that he had dropped it while he was in the shower and he didn’t want to lie to her. He also went to the hardware store and bought a pair of white rubber boots like the shrimpers wore, planning ahead for the next time he hitchhiked on a shrimp boat.

Before he went home he drove down a familiar road he had not driven in more than a year. He parked his truck and took a small cooler inside of the laboratory building of the Waddell Mariculture Center. The familiar smells of chemicals, salt water, and fish greeted him when he walked past the reception area and into the hallway that led to where the different labs were located. Once upon a time he had worked here in this building and lived nearby in an old plantation house on Victoria Bluff overlooking the Colleton River that had been converted to student housing. All of the lab work for his thesis had been completed here, but even though his studies were specific to the reproductive cycle of the spottail bass, he had helped other students and researchers with their projects which ranged from artificially seeding oyster beds to studies on the endangered Atlantic sturgeon.

The Waddell Mariculture Center was one of the preeminent marine aquaculture centers in the world. In addition to the laboratory building, there were dozens of saltwater ponds and tanks that ranged from fifty gallons to over an acre in size. Experiments were conducted to determine if artificial light could be used to induce sexual maturity in shrimp at an earlier life stage and thereby increase their commercial feasibility. Cobia were raised in large tanks to be released into the wild to augment natural stocks. One pond was set aside to study the sexual maturity rate in pacific white shrimp. These surroundings were so much more familiar to him than a courtroom, and he enjoyed recording research data a whole lot more than writing citations.

Cliff Anderson was in a small room that was crammed with specimen bottles, test tubes, and microscopes. He was speaking with another biologist, and Hall waited until his friend noticed him.

“Look what the cat dragged in.” Cliff took one of his latex gloves off and shook Hall’s hand.

“It’s good to see you too,” Hall said.

Cliff had been awarded his masters degree a semester before Hall and was the last staff biologist hired before personnel restrictions were implemented. Under his lab apron he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and Birkenstock sandals. Hall thought he looked a lot more comfortable in his work attire than Hall felt in his uniform.

“Did you bring me a few cold ones?” he asked Hall when he noticed the cooler.

“No, but that would have been a good idea. I need some help, if you’ve got the time.”

Hall showed his friend the specimens he had collected when he was on the Miss Agnes.

“I’d like to see what toxins are present. We’ve had a few small fish kills recently, and if I can isolate the specific chemicals present I might be able to figure out who or what is poisoning them.”

“You guys don’t have your own lab?” Cliff asked.

“We do, but it’s in Oregon and it might take more than a month to get the results back to me. I’m going to send some of the specimens to them so I can have a certified analysis that can be entered into court. I just want to know where to start looking.”

“Do you want to do it? I have some undergrad students here that can take care of it, but if you want to do it yourself, make yourself at home.”

The temptation was strong, but it would have been like going out on a date with someone who told you a month ago they just wanted to be friends.

“Can I take a rain check on that?” Hall asked.

“Of course.”

Hall handed the frozen fish to his friend but kept one of the mullet in his cooler.

The two friends caught up with each other for a while and gossiped about mutual friends and where everyone went after grad school. It seemed like everyone landed a job as a biologist except for him.

“Nelson sold out,” Cliff told him. “He tried to get a job back in Mississippi but the state wasn’t hiring. He got a job with National Paper in Georgia, conducting water quality surveys and supervising their wetland remediation projects in the southeast. He told me he’d already paid off his student loans and bought a condo on a golf course.”

Nelson. The one that dressed like a model from GQ and surprised everyone when he received his degree. Gainfully employed as a biologist.

Cliff told him he’d send him the test results as soon as he could and walked Hall out to his truck.

“There’s a chance we might be able to fill some of our vacancies in the new fiscal year,” Cliff said. Hall asked his friend to keep him informed and left the campus.

When he got home he took off his court uniform and changed into his brown uniform pants and a short sleeved polo short with a badge embroidered on the front. Then he strapped on his gunbelt, checked to make sure that a round was chambered in his pistol, and walked to the dock. Belker whined from the back yard when he heard his master walk by, but Hall only called for him to hush as he passed. He took his boat out far enough into Skull Creek that he could see the causeway that led to Pinckney Island. After setting the brand new anchor against the current, he turned on his laptop to work on his monthly report. The weather was far too beautiful to be stuck inside, and when he was with Jimmy they had always done their paperwork outside unless it was too cold or wet. He picked this spot to do his work for two reasons: His presence would make boaters think twice about disregarding the posted ‘no-wake’ zone, and he would be able to watch the sun set over the water.

The laughing gulls mocked him as he added up the gallons of gas he had burned and the hours he had spent on the water. He noted that he had erected one osprey nesting platform and made a mental note to check and see if the new platform had attracted any nesting birds. He detailed his involvement in the search for a missing boater (Gale) and the number of commercial boardings he had made (4). He had written eight citations and made one arrest for carrying a concealed weapon and possession of alcohol by a minor. He did not mention the disposition of those charges.

The low droning sound of an outboard motor buzzed in his subconscious as he typed, but it wasn’t until the sound of the motor changed pitch that he glanced up to look for the boat. It was farther away than it sounded, probably more than a quarter of a mile from him. Hall hadn’t quite gotten used to the fact that sound carried so easily across water. When he spotted the boat his heartbeat increased and he grabbed his binoculars.

It was a camouflaged jon boat and it was speeding away from him. The wake from the boat showed that it had been headed toward him but had turned sharply away. The lone occupant all but confirmed his identity when he looked behind him to see if he had been noticed.

Hall quickly started the motor on his boat and pulled the anchor free from the muddy bottom. By the time he was under way the suspect was more than a half a mile away, but on the open water Hall was able to take full advantage of his more powerful boat engine. He trimmed the motor as high as it would go and kept the throttle wide open until tears formed in the corners of his eyes. The fleeing suspect knew the lawman had a faster boat and cut sharply across a shallow point. Hall had to take a longer route through deeper water but continued to close in on his quarry. There were no shallow creeks nearby, nowhere for the boat to disappear. Just after the smaller boat crossed underneath the highway bridge it swerved violently toward the shore where the tide had retreated and exposed a maze of oyster rakes jutting out of the mud.