Alligator Park (22 page)

A few minutes
later, he steers the airboat to the side of the lake. He slows down and cruises
along the side of the lake apparently looking for something. Suddenly he makes
a sharp right and pulls up onto a small sandy beach. We hop out of the airboat
and he guides me to an overgrown trail that looks like it hasn’t been used in
decades. He uses his machete to chop off any vegetation that gets in our way.
After a short walk, we arrive at a clearing and in the middle is a
turquoise-blue pool about fifty feet across with water so clear I can see rocks
and boulders all down the side until they eventually disappear into blackness.

“How deep is it?”
I ask.

“No one knows,”
he says.

“Where does the
water come from?”

“Aquifers.”

“Yes, I should
have known,” I say.

I stroll to the
water’s edge and fill a specimen jar. I hold it up and peer through it. It’s as
clear as bottled water.

“Doesn’t look bad
to me,” I say.

“Taste it,” he
says.

I dip my finger
into the water and touch it to my tongue. It’s as bitter as an old copper penny
with a distinctly metallic aftertaste.

“Yuk,” I say, and
promptly spit it out. “When did it get like this?”

“About thirty years ago.
Before that it was the sweetest water you ever tasted. Then they built this
factory to produce pesticides, about twenty miles from here. After that
everything changed,” he says.

“What was the name of the company?”
I ask.

“Global World Industries.”

“Amazing, my old friend GWI.”

“You know them?”

“They’re a billion dollar
company. Who doesn’t know them.”

“At one time, that company
was well respected around here. But that was before they built the plant. The
local folks now believe they contaminated the water.”

“Did you call the EPA?” I
ask.

“We even got our senator
involved. There was a brief investigation, but in the end he said the plant had
nothing to do with it.”

“What did the EPA say?”

“The EPA also did an
investigation and released a one-hundred and twenty page report. We had to hire
experts to decipher it. Basically it said that the plant was not violating any laws
and that was the end of it. There was nothing more we could do.”

“Did anyone take water
samples and compare it to the runoff?” I ask.

“You know, it’s
hard to get anything out of these organizations. They talk in legal gibberish
and give you practically nothing to go on,” he says.

“Yes, I’m not surprised.”

I seal the specimen jar, then
return it to the lunch bag.

“I’m done here. We can go
now.”

Fargo takes the lead and I
follow close behind as we head down the trail towards the airboat. I use the
opportunity to recount the events of the last couple of days. I’ve managed to
collect some good samples and I’m anxious to get them to Dr. Parker for
analysis. I have this overwhelming faith that once the analysis is complete,
the water samples will give up their secrets and the truth will finally come
out.

But what is the truth?
Suppose I do all this and in the end the data shows that Dr. Haas was right, I
was chasing after ghosts and all those reports were an illusion. Perhaps I was
joining the dots and creating a conclusion that was just based on coincidence.
Perhaps my own enthusiasm was blinding me, causing me to see relationships in
the data that didn’t exist.

Doubt creeps into my psyche
and the thought of failure sends chills up my spine. I begin to wonder if I’m
just wasting my time. Maybe I should forget the whole thing and go get a job in
a restaurant. Maybe I should have listened to Logan and stayed up north. This
whole exercise is supposed to vindicate me, but if it doesn’t, I would be
finished, a relic with no credibility.

I see the airboat up ahead so
I pull myself together and try to set aside these disheartening thoughts.
Tomorrow is Christmas, and damn it, I plan to enjoy every minute of it!

Fargo and I climb into the airboat, and as
I’m stowing my items away, he starts the engine. The sun is low on the horizon
and I’m glad to be out of the swamp. The dense canopy of vegetation which
protected us from the relentless Florida sun would turn against us now and
block whatever little light was available transforming the swamp into an
environment of complete blackness. The nocturnal world of spiders, snakes,
bats, panthers, wild boar, and alligators, will then come alive taking every
opportunity to torment us.

But all that drifts into the
distance as the airboat picks up speed and skims across the wave tops toward
home. It’s been a wonderful harvest by any measure and in just four hours we
were able to collect enough fruits, vegetables, and meats for an outstanding
feast. It’s a shame we have no way to share it with Will’s homeless friends in
Philadelphia.

Back at the pier, Fargo ties
up the airboat in several places. I gather my personal things, step onto the
dock, and then trudge up the path to the house. He follows close behind carrying
the food bag. Inside, we discover Will in the kitchen preparing a concoction of
scrambled eggs, ham, and grits. As I approach him, I see his eyes drawn to my
face as he notices the blue and white stripes on my cheek and the eagle feather
weaved into my hair.

“I see Fargo got to you,” he
says.

“Actually, it was my idea.”

“I like it, gives you kind of
a savage look.”

“Savage or not, I’m
famished,” I say.

“Well dig in. Plenty for
everyone.”

I go to my room, change out
of my swimsuit, and slip into a pair of jeans. I clean off the face paint and
then redo my makeup. When I return, Fargo is already seated at the table and he
has also changed into jeans and a deerskin shirt and removed the paint from his
face. I take a seat at the table and help myself to the meal. It looks more
like a breakfast than a dinner, but who’s complaining? I’m totally exhausted from
the day’s events so I’m happy for whatever I can get.

After dinner, I help Will
take the dishes back to the kitchen and begin filling the sink with soapy water.

“I’ll take care of it,” he
says, and nudges me away.

I slip outside and scour the
adjacent forest for any low-lying pine branches I can use for decoration. After
collecting a few, I come across a young pine that would make a perfect
Christmas tree. It hadn’t been part of my plan, but I couldn’t pass up this
opportunity. I rush back into the house to get Fargo’s permission to cut it
down and he seems to have no issue with it. He hands me a small saw and I go outside
to retrieve the tree.

When I return, he’s hunched
over an ancient set of colored Christmas lights laid out across the wood floor.
It appears that several of the bulbs are out and he’s attempting to replace
them with spares he keeps in an old shoe box. He gets all the bulbs working and
then strings the light set along the top of the couch and any nearby chair he
can reach to prevent anyone from accidently stepping on it.

“Do you have a stand?” I ask,
holding up the pine tree.

“No,” he says, and then I see
a glint in his eye. He rushes out the door and returns a few minutes later with
an old metal bucket filled with sand. He trims off a few of the bottom branches
and then we bury the trunk in the sand. He strings some stiff wire from the
bucket to the trunk to give it some extra strength and then stands back in
admiration.

“Have any wrapping paper?” I
ask. “We need to cover the bucket.”

Fargo leaves the
room and then returns with a stack of colored ad pages from the local
newspaper.

“This is all I have.”

It’s not exactly what I had
in mind, but I take the ad pages anyway and tape them around the bucket. It
comes out better than I imagined. From a distance, the colors and images blend
together to produce a festive look.

“Not bad,” I say. “It’s
amazing what you can do for free with a little imagination.”

Fargo brings over the light
set and proceeds to string it around the tree. He’s completely absorbed in the
task so I retreat to the kitchen to keep out of his way. Will approaches me,
and in a low voice, comments: “It’s amazing. The last time we had a Christmas
tree was when my mother was still alive, and even then, he paid it no mind. I
don’t know what did it, but this is the first time I’ve seen him like this.”

“Maybe he likes the company,”
I say.

“Never cared about company
before.”

I shrug and return to help
Fargo set up the tree. We finish stringing the lights, and then, he carries the
tree over to a spot he cleared near the wall. He straightens it, then plugs it
in.

“Looks great,” I say. “But it
needs one more thing.”

I slip out the door, collect
a dozen pine-cones from the surrounding forest, and then place them on the
table.

“Do you have some string?” I
ask.

“I have an idea,” he says.

Fargo picks up all the
pine-cones and strolls out the door. I look over at Will wondering if he has
any idea what is going on, but he just shrugs. Fargo returns a few moments
later without the pine-cones.

“What happened to the cones?”
I ask.

“I sprayed them
gold, with some paint I had left over. They’ll be ready in an hour. In the
meantime, let’s have a drink.”

Fargo retrieves a wine bottle
from the refrigerator, and then shows it to me.

“Made it myself, from Sea
Grapes,” he says.

He places the bottle on the
table and searches through the kitchen drawers for a cork opener.

His phone rings. He answers
it, and after a few minutes, his relaxed demeanor turns serious. He hangs up
and turns to us.

“That was Detective Bolt.
It’s another alligator attack. I have to meet him at the site.”

“Can I come?” I ask.

“I’m leaving right now,” he
says.

“I’ll be ready in thirty
seconds,” I say, as I dash to my bedroom, grab my backpack and the bag with the
specimen jars, and then join him at the front door. I follow him to his jeep
and we both get in. He races down the dirt road and then looks over at me.

“You know, you’re not
supposed to take pictures at a crime scene without permission.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know that.”

“Personally, I have no
problem with it. Just keep a low profile.”

“Sure, I’ll be careful.”

We drive for about a half
hour and then I see the blinding blue lights of police cruisers up ahead. Fargo
pulls into the parking lot of a small Mexican restaurant. It appears to be
closed since there’s no one around except for the police. He parks the jeep, gets
his flashlight, and then, we go inside.

Detective Bolt sees us enter
the front door and rushes over to greet us.

“Glad you could make it.”

He peers at me. “You’re... no
don’t tell me... Indigo, right?”

“Yes, you remembered.”

He smiles.

“I’ll never forget that blue
hair.”

He gazes at me for a moment, and
then turns to Fargo.

“The 911 operator gets this
call that there are dozens of alligators outside and one of the restaurant
workers is missing. When the police arrive, they see this gator clamped on the
foot of a man who is trying to beat it off with a large metal spoon. The cop
shoots it and frees the man’s foot.”

“Dozens of alligators?” Fargo
asks.

“About thirty. They claim they
didn’t see them at first; it was dark. But when they went outside and started
walking along the side of the building, they were attacked. The owner manages
to get back into the restaurant, but his worker gets bit on the foot. Thirty
gators! Is that possible?”

“This place backs up to a
canal, right?”

“Yeah, you can see it through
the window.”

“Are there gators out there
now?” Fargo asks.

“Only the dead one,” Bolt says.

“Mind if I take a look?”

“Go right ahead.”

Fargo and Detective Bolt step
outside and I follow close behind. They peer up and down the canal, but it’s
dark and there’s not much to see. Police are everywhere, searching the water’s
edge with flashlights, looking for clues.

“Did they find the missing
victim?” Fargo asks.

“I’m afraid he’s history.
We’ll look again tomorrow.”

I attempt to walk to the
water’s edge to fill my sample bottles, but Fargo grabs my arm.

“Stay behind me. There might
be gators out there.”

“I need samples,” I say.

“Then follow me.”

He approaches the canal,
studies the sandy bank for a moment, and then tells me it’s safe. I stoop down,
fill up my bottles, and return them to the lunch bag.

“What’s that for?” Detective
Bolt bellows.

“School project,” Fargo says.
“She needs water samples.”

“Oh, I see,” he says, losing interest.
“Look, Fargo, I know it’s Christmas Eve and all. But two fatal attacks in one
day? That’s more than a coincidence. Could someone or something be behind it?”

“Don’t know. Let me look
around.”

“Yeah, do that, please. I
need answers. I’m getting heat from the D.A. and I don’t know what to tell
her.”

Fargo instructs me to get
back into the building and I do what he says. I watch through a window as he
strolls up and down the bank searching for clues. He stoops down several times
shining his flashlight onto the ground and then at places where the canal
washes up onto the bank. He does this for about ten minutes and then signals me
to come outside. I meet up with him and we stroll over to Detective Bolt.

“John, take it from the top.
Why was the guy at the water’s edge in the first place? Was he feeding the
gators?”

“No, the owner is well aware
of the laws against it and claims his worker wasn’t anywhere near the water. He
says the guy was emptying garbage like he does every day at this time. He was just
walking to the dumpster, the one in the parking lot, at the end of the
building, like he’s done a thousand times before.

Then the owner and another
worker hear a frantic call for help and rush out the back door. It’s really
dark, and at first, they don’t perceive anything unusual. So the worker walks
towards the dumpster alone, looking for the first guy. Then he yells out in
pain. When the owner catches up to him, there’s a gator clamped to his foot. The
worker is whacking the gator’s snout with a ladle, but the gator is undeterred.
The owner tries to free the man, but it’s hopeless. He rushes back inside and tells
his wife to call 911.

He returns with a spotlight
and a butcher knife and sees gators everywhere. Fortunately, the police arrive
in less than five minutes and start shooting at them. I guess the gunshots and
the spotlights drove them away because when I got here the only gator I saw was
the dead one.”

“So out of thirty gators, the
cops were only able to kill one?” Fargo asks.

“Well it was dark, and the
gators slipped into the water pretty quickly.”

“Excuse me for budding in,
but you should probably be aware of something I heard,” I say.

“What is it?” Bolt asks.

“These attacks might not be
entirely random.”

“What do you mean ‘not
entirely random’?”

“I read a paper where researchers
observed alligators stealthily observing their prey for up to a week before
attacking. They now believe they have cognitive abilities far more complex than
we ever imagined.”

“So you want me to tell the
D.A. that alligators are smarter than we thought and now they’ve learned how to
do coordinated attacks,” he says.

Fargo cuts in: “John, you
can’t tell her that. If word gets out, people will over-react, start shooting
at anything that moves in the water. You know what I’m talking about; we’ve
both seen it before.”

“Okay then, how about I say
it’s on account of an early mating season? Yeah... that’ll work. I’ll say the
gators are edgy because of abnormal water temperatures. Climate change and all.
Agreed?”

“I’m fine with that,” says
Fargo.

“Me too,” I say.

“Alright then. I’ll put out a
public service message warning the public to stay away from places where
alligators are present and blame it all on the weather. The TV News loves
stories about climate change.”

“John, mind if I take off?
There’s really nothing more I can do here tonight,” Fargo says.

“No problem. Check with me
tomorrow and I’ll bring you up to date.”

“Can I have the
dead gator?” I ask.

“What do you want
with a dead gator?” Fargo asks.

“Research.”

“John, okay if we
take it?”