Darcy broke into my thoughts and led me back down the long corridor, every door open to the labs beyond. When I commented about it to Darcy he said, “Nobody locks anything around here. That’s why the missing vial of vaccine is such a concern. We work on an honour system and have never had any problems until now. And Wyatt isn’t helping much — he’s being pretty vague about what vial and when. It can’t possibly affect his work any, he has extra vaccine, so I guess Stacey’s doing damage control for the theft itself, if it is a theft.” He paused. “I wish she’d let me do the investigating — she’s so weak after the flu — but she’d have none of it when I suggested it.”
As we passed one of the labs a voice called out, “Darce?”
Darcy stopped and walked through the open door. I followed behind. Sam was standing amid a bunch of esoteric looking machinery, test tubes, and vials of all descriptions. He handed Darcy a sealed envelope and said, “Would you mind taking that to Stacey, please? It’s the diagram she wanted. And she wants it yesterday.”
Darcy took the envelope and turned to look at me. “Sam here is our resident forensics man when he isn’t batman.” I think I was supposed to laugh at that last reference, but Sam rolled up his eyes and I figured he’d heard the joke a million times. Darcy slapped the envelope in his hand and said, “Anything interesting?”
Sam shook his head, but there was a glint in his eye as he said, “Only to Stacey.” He smiled then and turned to me and said, “I’ll be mist netting some bats tonight. If you see Martha would you ask her if she’d like to come? You are welcome too, of course, seeing as how you were unlucky this morning.”
“Does Stacey often ask you to do forensics?” I asked, ignoring his invitation in the haste to get my question out. He was momentarily disconcerted and said no, drawing it out like pull taffy. It was an invitation to elaborate on why I had asked in the first place. Since I wasn’t really sure why, I changed the subject back to mist netting and begged off Sam’s invitation, citing Stacey’s invitation.
As Sam turned back to his work I said, “Is there a map of everyone’s study sites so I don’t traipse through them?”
Sam smiled. “Ah, you’ve been talking to Stacey, I see.”
I didn’t say anything. He and Darcy took me down the hall and into what had to be the biologists’ den, their hangout — big fluffy sofas, recliners, and a large TV set, all surrounded by windows looking out over the forest of live oak. The map was pinned on the wall and showed the island in great detail. What struck me most was just how small the island was and how big the neighbouring island, to which it was almost adjoined, was. Everybody’s study site was on the map. It was meticulously done and easy to see at a glance where everybody was.
Darcy said, “You’ll be mostly up at the north end of the island, the interior parts. The south end is mostly impenetrable.” He whisked a sheet of acetate off a nearby desk and laid it over the map at the north end. He used green putty to secure it and then took a black marker and outlined my study site, just like that, even going so far as to pinpoint where he had seen some actual male Indigo Buntings singing. I was itching to get started right away, but it was still way too hot for the birds to be singing their courting songs with any kind of gusto.
I left Darcy and Sam and went back to the cabin to double check the equipment and get all my gear ready. It was such a heady feeling! When I was satisfied that everything was working I took a tour around the clearing. Basically it was a network of paths through the palmetto and live oak, meandering from the various cabins and widening into a sandy area the size of a four-car garage, mostly covered in live oak leaves, at the base of the stairs to the mess. Five or six ATVs were parked near the stairs and someone was tinkering with one of them. There was a lot of cursing going on and I sauntered over to see what was happening. The man with the shaggy beard, Trevor, who had piloted our boat, was sitting knee-deep in tools and bits of vehicle. He looked up and caught my eye, his scowl slowly softening. “These damn machines are so temperamental. They are always and perpetually sick, which makes me sick.” He looked sick too — his moth-eaten beard partially hid a sallow complexion and sunken eyes that screamed out at me, but I wasn’t sure what they were trying to say.
I looked at the array of vehicles and asked him if I would be able to use one of them to get to my study site — which was quite far up the island.
“Stacey didn’t tell you which one you could use?” He spat out Stacey’s name as if he was getting rid of something unpalatable.
I shook my head.
“That one over there — the red three wheeler. It’s all yours. Key’s in the ignition, gas tank is full. Just hold the throttle and she’ll be fine. But be kind to her. She’s really old.” I hadn’t heard of a three wheeler in years and wasn’t even sure if they were still legal. I decided not to ask.
“Are you a mechanic?” I asked instead, looking at all his tools.
“Hah! Me, a mechanic? Only by happenstance.” He scowled. “No one else around here can fix these hunks of junk.”
“Don’t let him fool you.” The voice came from behind me, and we both turned. She stood there like a model, totally at ease with every part of her body, her beauty more related to how she held herself and the confidence she exuded than anything else. What do they say when a woman has “it,” that something you cannot learn. Well, this woman had it in spades.
“He’s really a very good mechanic,” she said, but there was a hard edge to her tone as she offered her hand to me. Her luxuriant, jet-black, curly hair shone in the sun as it cascaded down around her shoulders and her mahogany eyes had such depth of colour that they were mesmerizing. “I’m Jayne. Who might you be?”
I took her hand and introduced myself. Jayne turned back to the bearded man and said, “Trevor’s our Jack of all trades. When he’s not a mechanic he captains our ferries, when he’s not captaining our ferries he’s captaining a shrimp boat, and when he’s not doing that he’s the local taxi on the island. Isn’t that right, Trevor?” Did I detect a note of sarcasm in her voice?
Trevor scowled again and returned to his work as Jayne bent down and picked up some luggage from a pile dumped behind one of the ATVs. She was more than happy to accept when I offered to help and she led me down one of the palmetto-invested trails to a cabin that looked just like mine. Except it appeared that Jayne had it all to herself.
“Trevor scowls rather a lot,” I said by way of conversation, realizing too late that it sounded like a rather leading question.
“Only around me,” she said, and then added, “and Stacey, of course.” I didn’t see any “of course” about it and he’d scowled at me and I said so.
She smiled. “It’ll take you awhile to get the hang of the place,” was all she said. I changed topics as I helped her carry her luggage into the cabin.
“You’re the turtle lady.”
She laughed. “My pictures give me away?” she asked and flung her arm to take in dozens of pictures of sea turtles gracing every inch of her walls.
I