Dangerous Depths (21 page)

“Anyone else?”

“Jergens. The attempt on Elyse fits his
affinity to explode and burn things up.”

“We’ve never tied the fires on the charter
boat or at the dive shop to Jergens.”

“Yeah, but I know you tried and if it’s
Jergens, he’s bound to make a mistake. Did anything turn up in
Elyse’s hospital room?”

“No prints. The guy must have been wearing
gloves, and he evidently took the needle with him. He was hoping to
slip in, kill Elyse, and get out with no one the wiser. Hall
himself admitted that no one would have suspected foul play.”

“Where does someone get ahold of potassium
chloride?” I asked.

“Looks like it came from the chemistry
department over at the college. Someone broke into a lab and
grabbed several vials. We got a call about the break-in this
morning. Did you get a look at the guy at all?”

“Just a shape in the dark.” I leaned an elbow
on my desk and pressed my fingers into my skull, trying to ward off
a headache and recall the image of the guy standing over Elyse.
“Surely someone at the hospital saw him on the unit?” I asked.

“That time of night the place was deserted
except for the young lady at the desk.” I could hear the
frustration in Dunn’s voice. “She’d gone to check on a call light
down at the far end of the hall. She said she thought it was odd at
the time—because when she got into the room, the patient was sound
asleep. That’s when she heard the commotion. By the time she got
back to the front desk, all she saw was the door to the stairs
closing.”

“What about the chase scene?” I asked.

“Nothing except the damage to the Rambler.
One side is completely smashed in and embedded with red paint.”

“Daisy’s red car,” I mumbled, mostly to
myself.

“The Rambler’s in the shop. It will be ready
this afternoon.”

“Fast work,” I said.

“Yeah, well, Stark insisted. Not too many
folks are willing to refuse him. Look, Hannah, if you need more
time, take it. You don’t need to jump right back into the middle of
this,” Dunn said.

“The last thing I need is time off,
Chief.”

“Okay, but try to keep some perspective. I
know how close you were to Elyse. I don’t want you hurt too,” Dunn
said before he went out.

Dunn knew he was wasting his breath. I
planned to find Elyse’s killer. I wanted the guy dead.

I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was
missing. I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the shopping bag
with the stuff I’d collected from Elyse’s office that first day:
the report on the sediment runoff from the gravel pit, the stuff
about black urchins and coral bleaching, the rat eradication
project. What could any of this have to do with her death?

The appointment book was buried at the
bottom. I thumbed through the days surrounding the explosion till I
found Elyse’s notation to meet LaPlante, the scientist who was
conducting the eradication project. It was a loose end.

When I called LaPlante, she said she’d be
working over at Hermit Cay all day. I told her I’d meet her out
there in an hour. I walked down to the dock, hoping to find a boat
so I could head out to Hermit Cay. I knew that Snyder had taken the
Wahoo
to Cooper Island in response to a call about another
theft.

I found Liam and Tom at the next dock, hosing
down their boat and organizing their equipment.

“Hannah, we are so sorry about Elyse,” Tom
said giving me a hug. Liam came up behind enveloping both of us. If
I hadn’t found myself fighting against despair, I would have
laughed at the idea of the three of us in a group embrace on a damn
boat dock.

“How can such a thing happen?” Liam asked as
we disengaged.

“That’s what I intend to find out,” I
said.

Fifteen minutes later, we were heading over
to see LaPlante. Liam and Tom had been happy to ferry me, anxious
to do anything they could to help me find out why Elyse had been
murdered.

We anchored in about thirty feet of water
over a sandy bottom and took the dinghy to shore. Several other
boats were there, folks on shore and swimming in the turquoise
water. A pod of dolphins was out in deeper water, leaping out of
the waves, twisting and somersaulting in midair.

“This little piece of land is remarkably
diverse for its size,” Liam said. “Rocky shorelines, mangroves, dry
forests.”

The island was all of about ten acres and
designated as a preserve. We started down the only trail that led
inland. LaPlante had said we’d find her back in the trees. Lizards
scurried into hiding places as we approached and the ground
literally moved, dried leaves taking on life as dozens of hermit
crabs crawled around underneath them. I could hear waves crashing
onto the rocks along the exposed shoreline on the other side of the
island.

We found LaPlante and one of her assistants,
sitting on rocks with clipboards perched on their knees. They stood
as we approached.

LaPlante was a stocky woman with a dishwater
blond braid hanging down her back, her head covered with a canvas
bush hat. She wore old shorts, a long-sleeved work shirt, and
running shoes.

“Hello, you’d be Hannah Sampson?”

“I am, and this is Tom Shields and Liam
Richards.”

“Yes, I’ve heard you’re doing the turtle
survey. Great to meet you.” She removed a heavy pair of work
gloves, held out a surprisingly tiny hand, and smiled warmly. Then
she introduced us to her assistant, one of the people from the
Parks Service who would be maintaining the project when LaPlante
left.

“We’re in the process of removing the baiting
stations. Why don’t you come along and we can talk as we work,”
LaPlante suggested.

“Tell us about the project,” Liam said as we
headed down the trail. He was like a kid about to hear the story of
Peter Pan for the first time.

“We’ve been eradicating the rats. We’ve
conducted similar programs elsewhere in the Caribbean. Rats are not
indigenous to this region so the native species have never
developed defenses against them.” LaPlante stopped, picked up a
fallen coconut, and handed it to me.”

“Rats teeth,” she said pointing to the scars
on the fruit. “One year, only a couple of rats were seen on this
island. A year later, ten were captured in a single night. They’re
omnivorous and exploit a wide range of food sources. They were
eating lizards, birds’ eggs and young, the edible parts of plants,
seeds, and flowers. You name it. They’ll chew on crabs, even trees
if there are beetle larvae in the bark.”

“How do you get rid of them?” Tom asked.

“We use a rodenticide bait, which contains
brodifacoum. It is an anticoagulant that causes hemorrhaging.”

“What’s to prevent other animals from eating
it?” Liam said, obviously concerned.

“There aren’t any native mammals on the
island, so that’s not a problem. Birds and lizards are susceptible
to the poison so it has been formulated into wax blocks and pebbles
that they aren’t likely to consume.

“Most of the rats die underground in their
burrows. To minimize the small risk of scavengers, especially
laughing gulls, feeding on a rat that may die above ground, we comb
the island every day, remove the carcasses we find and burn them.
Invertebrates like the hermit crabs are unaffected by the poison,
though we do take measures to keep it out of their reach.”

I’d been listening intently, looking for a
connection. But at some point I tuned out, my thoughts drifting to
Elyse. She would have walked this very trail. What had gone through
her mind? I wondered. Was anything LaPlante said relevant to
Elyse’s murder, or was this just a huge waste of time?

“What about other vertebrates like turtles?”
Tom was asking. “The poison would certainly affect them. Have you
seen signs of any nesting here?”

“No, but as you know, the nesting turtle
doesn’t feed out of the water.”

“What about this stuff getting into the water
and threatening sea life?”

“No freshwater streams or ponds exist on the
island. The poison could get into seawater through crabs but the
amount would be minimal.”

“Elyse was out here working with you for a
while, wasn’t she?” I interjected. I knew she had been and I was
getting impatient. I wanted to get to the reason I had come.

“Yes, like Liam and Tom here, she was very
concerned about the impact of the poison on nontargeted species. I
went through the entire protocol with her. We had a team camping
out during the three weeks of the project to monitor the site.
Elyse spent a week with them. She ended up working side by side
with the others, setting bait, taking data.”

I remembered when Elyse had been gone last
month. I’d kept an eye on the
Caribbe
and watered her
plants. She’d come home feeling that the project was accomplishing
what it needed to for the protection of the habitat.

“Elyse was really a big help on the project.
But that guy she was dating was kind of a pain. He came out to
spend the night with Elyse. He actually brought a gourmet meal for
two and a couple bottles of wine from his restaurant. Elyse was
embarrassed and insisted on incorporating it with our meal—ours
being stew heated over a gas stove. One of the guys started kidding
about it being rat stew. Reidman laughed along with us but I never
saw him take a bite. I have to admit that the team really enjoyed
the wine. It was unbelievably good and no doubt expensive.”

“Was Elyse drinking?” I asked.

“No, I got the impression that Elyse never
drank. The only thing I ever saw her with was her tea. Reidman had
quite a bit of wine though. I’m sure it helped him make it through
the night, sleeping in the tent with Elyse. He’s definitely not the
outdoors type. He came out a couple of other times that week and
actually helped a bit. Guess his heart’s in the right place.

“Why did Elyse make an appointment to meet
with you on Monday?” I insisted.

“All she said was that she had something she
wanted me to look at. She seemed anxious about it.”

“When did she call you?” A disturbing twist
in my gut said
this is what you missed, Sampson
.

“It was late Sunday afternoon.”

“You remember what time?”

“Yes. I’d just walked in the door. It must
have been around five. She said she’d been up at Virgin Gorda all
day and had found something.”

“But she didn’t say what?”

“No. She said it was better for me to see it.
We were supposed to meet at the Seaman’s Café on Jost Van Dyke
first thing Monday morning. I waited for an hour. I didn’t hear
about the accident until that afternoon.”

What the hell had Elyse found? I wondered.
And had it was been destroyed with the
Caribbe
?

“Thanks for your help, Dr. LaPlante,” I
said.

“It’s Deb,” she said, shaking my hand. “I
know that you and Elyse were close. She talked about you. I can’t
tell you how sorry I am. She was so full of life and enthusiasm.
Please let me know if I can help in any other way.”

“Thanks,” I said, my voice catching.

“Do you think Elyse would have been satisfied
about the safety of the project?” I asked as we walked down the
beach and back to the boat.

“Yes,” Tom said. “LaPlante is a specialist on
invasive species and she seems to have taken every precaution. I’m
convinced the risks are minimal compared to the destruction the
rats were doing. If turtles did nest here, the rats would be
consuming the eggs and hatchlings before they ever made it to the
sea.”

Tom and Liam insisted on taking me to lunch
at the Soggy Dollar Bar, a ramshackle restaurant on the beach in
White Harbor on Jost Van Dyke. I knew they were looking for a way
to help me escape for a while.

The entrance to the shallow harbor was well
marked. We kept the red buoy to our right, the green to our left,
motoring into the channel, reef on either side and anchored in
seven feet over a sandy bottom. The water was smooth jade and
sparkled with sunlight. A few dinghies were pulled up on the sand,
a white strip pressed against the sea.

We motored to shore and walked down the beach
to the Soggy Dollar. It had gotten its name from the sailors who
swam to shore, wet money in their pockets, for a cold beer or an
infamous “Painkiller” composed mainly of high test rum. Tom and
Liam had heard about the bar’s excellent flying fish
sandwiches.

The structure was just a roof held up by
posts, with a bar and a few tables and chairs scattered underneath.
Few of the patrons wore shoes, and most were in swimsuits. A
hammock was slung in the shade between coconut palms, a couple
stretched out in it sipping something pink.

I was surprised to see Alex Reidman and
Neville Freeman sitting at a table in the corner in this isolated
harbor bar. I never expected to see Freeman eating anywhere that he
couldn’t shake hands with at least a couple dozen voters between
bites. The two men were in an animated and what looked like an
angry discussion. Reidman saw us first. He waved us over, but Tom
and Liam headed to the bar to order.

“Hannah, what are you doing way over
here?”

“We were on Hermit Cay visiting Deborah
LaPlante, the specialist in charge of rat eradication.”

“That’s a good thing they did over there.
Just the kind of activity I’m in favor of. Protecting our native
species.” Freeman was on his bandwagon.

“What are you two doing here?” I asked. I
wondered why Reidman was socializing when he’d just lost Elyse. But
then I guess he could be asking me the same question. I hadn’t seen
him at all since that hot afternoon at the hospital when Hall had
told us Elyse would pull through. Hours later, she was dead. Had it
just been two days ago?

“Neville and I needed a quiet place to work
and I needed to get out of Road Town for the day. This thing with
Elyse, well, I’m having a hard time with it.” Reidman didn’t look
like he was suffering. In fact, he looked relaxed, and his appetite
clearly hadn’t waned. The waitress had just put a huge plate of
hamburger and fries in front of him.