though maybe something of a toady for the island’s rich residents who no doubt kept him in office, politics being politics.
Maybe the chief was right, and Henry was in the gray area between reality and the tricks advanced age played on body and mind. The place where past and present mixed with never.
The beer can was empty, and Carver was still considering Henry’s questionable instincts, when he heard bike tires crunching in the driveway and Effie pedaled into view on her weatherworn Schwinn.
8
O NE OF THE names on Effie’s list was Katia Marsh, an employee of the Oceanography Research Center. After lunch, Carver found the handful of tourist brochures he’d picked up before crossing the narrow bridge to the island. The research center had its own brochure, a slick foldout that showed a low, buff-colored building perched on the edge of the sea. There were several fenced-in areas near it that reminded Carver of enclosed tennis courts, but he saw that inside the cages of chain-link fencing were rectangular pools that must contain sea life. There was a shot of a room where various tidal-pool creatures could be observed and handled by visitors. The back wall of the room was a glass window looking in on a tank wherein a large shark swam. A dark-haired man in a white smock and a stoop-shouldered woman with a pinched nose and pointed chin were smiling and observing the observers. Carver wondered if the woman was Katia Marsh.
It took only about ten minutes to drive the Olds down Shoreline and then follow the signs to the research center. It looked exactly like its photo in the brochure, but there was also a businesslike, functional feel to the place that gave the impression it existed primarily for research, and the tourist angle was merely a side endeavor to provide financing.
Carver noticed immediately that the research center provided an almost clear view of the Rainer estate, certainly a better view than from Henry’s cottage. It was no mystery to Carver why Henry had spent time at the center and gotten to know one of its employees.
He left the Olds parked in the shade of a grouping of gigantic palm trees with their lower trunks painted white. Beyond the palms was a low buffer of what looked like old telephone poles laid out horizontally and fixed in place with heavy stakes, then a stretch of rocky soil and a wooden pier jutting out to deep green water. A dock was built perpendicular to the pier, but no boat was there. Old truck tires were lashed to the weathered wood of both pier and dock to prevent damage when hulls bumped against them.
Carver turned his back on the sea and limped through the sun’s glare to the research center. He pushed open a door that led to a cool, gray-carpeted room whose walls were lined with information charts and underwater photographs. A thirtyish couple dressed like tourists was staring at some of the photos, moving in the trancelike shuffle of people combining vacation and edification. The man was holding an infant who gazed at Carver with incredibly round, curious eyes. In the back wall was a door lettered t ide pool room, please touch.
A small stuffed hammerhead shark was mounted in a glass case in the center of the room, swimming perpetually toward the door. The guy carrying the infant glanced at it, then left the woman and ambled over to stand and stare. Other than that, not much seemed to be happening here among the posters and enlarged photos of sea horses and sharks. Carver limped over and opened the door to the Tide Pool Room.
He was on a square steel landing from which half a dozen black-enameled metal steps descended to a concrete floor. The Tide Pool Room was blue-painted cinder block, the bottom half of which was below ground level. Not the usual sort of construction in southern Florida, but Carver figured it was to lend strength to the sides of the tank where the big shark swam in endless circles, eyeing the outside world with the unconcerned expression of an expert
Maybe the chief was right, and Henry was in the gray area between reality and the tricks advanced age played on body and mind. The place where past and present mixed with never.
The beer can was empty, and Carver was still considering Henry’s questionable instincts, when he heard bike tires crunching in the driveway and Effie pedaled into view on her weatherworn Schwinn.
8
O NE OF THE names on Effie’s list was Katia Marsh, an employee of the Oceanography Research Center. After lunch, Carver found the handful of tourist brochures he’d picked up before crossing the narrow bridge to the island. The research center had its own brochure, a slick foldout that showed a low, buff-colored building perched on the edge of the sea. There were several fenced-in areas near it that reminded Carver of enclosed tennis courts, but he saw that inside the cages of chain-link fencing were rectangular pools that must contain sea life. There was a shot of a room where various tidal-pool creatures could be observed and handled by visitors. The back wall of the room was a glass window looking in on a tank wherein a large shark swam. A dark-haired man in a white smock and a stoop-shouldered woman with a pinched nose and pointed chin were smiling and observing the observers. Carver wondered if the woman was Katia Marsh.
It took only about ten minutes to drive the Olds down Shoreline and then follow the signs to the research center. It looked exactly like its photo in the brochure, but there was also a businesslike, functional feel to the place that gave the impression it existed primarily for research, and the tourist angle was merely a side endeavor to provide financing.
Carver noticed immediately that the research center provided an almost clear view of the Rainer estate, certainly a better view than from Henry’s cottage. It was no mystery to Carver why Henry had spent time at the center and gotten to know one of its employees.
He left the Olds parked in the shade of a grouping of gigantic palm trees with their lower trunks painted white. Beyond the palms was a low buffer of what looked like old telephone poles laid out horizontally and fixed in place with heavy stakes, then a stretch of rocky soil and a wooden pier jutting out to deep green water. A dock was built perpendicular to the pier, but no boat was there. Old truck tires were lashed to the weathered wood of both pier and dock to prevent damage when hulls bumped against them.
Carver turned his back on the sea and limped through the sun’s glare to the research center. He pushed open a door that led to a cool, gray-carpeted room whose walls were lined with information charts and underwater photographs. A thirtyish couple dressed like tourists was staring at some of the photos, moving in the trancelike shuffle of people combining vacation and edification. The man was holding an infant who gazed at Carver with incredibly round, curious eyes. In the back wall was a door lettered t ide pool room, please touch.
A small stuffed hammerhead shark was mounted in a glass case in the center of the room, swimming perpetually toward the door. The guy carrying the infant glanced at it, then left the woman and ambled over to stand and stare. Other than that, not much seemed to be happening here among the posters and enlarged photos of sea horses and sharks. Carver limped over and opened the door to the Tide Pool Room.
He was on a square steel landing from which half a dozen black-enameled metal steps descended to a concrete floor. The Tide Pool Room was blue-painted cinder block, the bottom half of which was below ground level. Not the usual sort of construction in southern Florida, but Carver figured it was to lend strength to the sides of the tank where the big shark swam in endless circles, eyeing the outside world with the unconcerned expression of an expert
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