and letters in proper sequence. “Let’s duck down and take a look.”
Above Atsena Otie Key the sky threatened rain, and the morning’s breeze had become keener. “The paper says the storm’s going to hit Key West,” John said, turning left at the next block. “At the rate it’s moving, it won’t get near here ‘til the middle of the week.”
Brandy reached back to open a window for Meg, letting in a pungent whiff of rotting seaweed. “We’ll be long gone then.”
By now the wrecker had backed across a band of flattened sandbags and a few feet of beach, littered with Gulf sea grasses. A cable was slowly reeling in a car. She could see the shiny black suit of a diver in the water. A small crowd in jackets and jeans had collected along the concrete abutment left of the narrow strip of sand. A pick-up truck stood to one side, a Marine Service Divers sign on the cab.
Near a clump of cabbage palms at the corner stood the tall officer Brandy had seen with Rossi at the police department, and with him Angus MacGill in a knitted cap and sweater. When the policeman waved their car away, John turned at the bottom of the slight hill and parked down the block on First Street. As Brandy climbed out of the car, she could see shrimpers watching from a trawler that lay off shore, and a sports fishing boat with a covered command console drifting toward them.
“Tide’s about out,” MacGill said as they joined him. “It was high about four this morning. No one copped onto the car until ten.” He gestured toward a frame house on the other side of an adjoining vacant lot. “Then someone over there rang these lads.”
John looked across the street at a white frame house with concrete steps leading up a hill to a screen porch. “Didn’t anyone hear a car go into the water?”
The officer was now sketching a diagram of the scene on a small pad. He glanced up at the nearest house, his eyes, shielded by the black cap, even more melancholy than the day before. “Family there’s on vacation. So far no one heard anything definite. Would’ve been about seven feet of water here early this morning.”
“Officer Doggett, Brandy O’Bannon...” MacGill began, noticed John and added, “.Able. A reporter from Gainesville.”
“Don’t know as folks there’d be interested in this accident, Ma’am.” Doggett turned and looked up the rise of E Street, past the Fish and Oyster panel truck. “Looks like the poor devil came down the street much too fast, couldn’t make the sharp right hand turn at the corner of
First, and plowed off into the water, right? Would’ve sunk out of sight pretty fast at high tide.”
Beside the wrecker Brandy recognized the powerful figure of Truck Thompson in his fisherman’s cap and black jacket. He had taken his big hands out of his pockets and was helping the wrecker crew re-secure the cable. “Thompson could save them some trouble,” Brandy said. “Looks like he has the muscle to lift the car straight out of the water.”
MacGill nodded. “Truck’s a strong lad, right enough. Before this shellfish farming came in, a man had to stand six, seven hours a day with a pair of heavy tongs, raking up oysters and lifting them into the boat. Learned the trade from his dad, and nobody better at it.
“Had quite a reputation for fighting in high school. They say even the girls he dated were afraid of him. It still takes a cheeky lad to cross him.” MacGill’s lower lip protruded. “Someone did once, mind, about two years ago when Truck got his Project Ocean Oyster lease. Truck caught the lad helping himself to Truck’s bed. The poor bugger was lucky to get away with a few bones still intact.”
Brandy took a second look at the oysterman’s solid physique. “Was he charged with assault?”
MacGill grinned. “Truck’s family’s been in the oyster business here for five generations. For a few days it was sticky wicket. But in the end, no charges were filed. He’s not so nervy since he