Flush - Carl Hiaasen [31]
“Who was he?” I asked.
“The man who died? I believe he was one of the Russells or maybe an Albury, I’m not sure. But he was standing right about here on the beach, cleaning his cast net, when it happened. He’d caught about three dozen mullet, and they all got fried to a crisp by that lightning bolt,” my father said. “Your Grandpa Bobby told me that story a long time ago. Why they call it Thunder Beach.”
I couldn’t help but notice how unusually sunny and clear it was. Dad must have seen me squirming because he said, “Don’t worry, son, it was a freak deal—what they call an atmospheric anomaly. Probably never happen here again in a million years.”
“Dad, come on home.”
“But what if it’s a trap? The sheriff, setting me up.”
“It’s not a trap. The sheriff never wants to lay eyes on you again,” I said.
The water boiled and a barracuda broke the surface, slashing through a school of needlefish.
“I’m right about Dusty dumping crap in the water,” Dad said.
“I know you are.” I told him that the sewage tank at the dock was broken, and how the crew of the Coral Queen had faked hooking up the hose to it.
“I figured it was something like that,” he said bitterly. “Lice Peeking knows all about that scam, I bet.”
“Dad, I’ve got more bad news. Lice Peeking is gone.”
“No!”
I told him about the bald guy with the crooked nose coming to Lice’s trailer, and about the bloodstains Shelly found later in her Jeep.
“She thinks Dusty Muleman killed Lice, or had him killed, to shut him up,” I said.
My father looked horrified. “I can’t believe that,” he said, but his voice was shaky.
“Abbey thinks we should pack up and run to Canada,” I said.
“What do you think, Noah?”
“I think it’s awful cold up there.”
“No doubt,” he said quietly.
“And those snowmobiles, Dad, they’re even noisier than Jet Skis.”
“That’s a fact.”
“So we’ll figure something out. We always do,” I said. “Come on home.”
Dad was lost in thought, staring gloomily up the shoreline toward the mouth of the basin where the Coral Queen was moored.
He said, “Dusty offered to drop the charges against me because he doesn’t want the bad publicity from a trial. And he got rid of Lice as a warning to anyone else who knows the real story about the casino boat, anyone who could back me up.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“But if Lice is really dead, it’s all my fault.”
“No, Dad. If Lice is dead it’s because he was greedy,” I said. “He didn’t want to tell the truth unless he got money for it. If he’d gone to the Coast Guard way back when, like he should have, Dusty would’ve been shut down a long time ago. So let’s go home. Please?”
“The water looks clean today, doesn’t it? Though you can’t always tell just by looking.” He got up and slowly waded in, trailing his fingers along the surface.
“Your Grandpa Bobby used to bring me down to the Keys three, four times a year,” he said. “When I was about your age, I stood right here and watched him catch a fourteen-pound muttonfish off the wings of a stingray.”
“On what?” I asked.
“A chunk of frozen shrimp,” Dad recalled. “I bet there hasn’t been a mutton snapper on these flats in ages. Lots of reasons—fish trappers, pollution, too many boats. That’s what people do when they find a special place that’s wild and full of life, they trample it to death.”
He spun around to face me. “Noah, you understand why I sunk the Coral Queen, right? Every time Dusty empties her holding tank, it’s like flushing a hundred filthy toilets into God’s ocean!”
It made me sick to think about it. Still, I couldn’t afford to let my father get himself all wound up again. There was something else I needed to tell him; something even more important.
“Mom wants you to come home right now,” I said. “She said it’s not open for debate. No more speeches, she said, no more excuses. Just come home.”
“Aw, she’ll settle down.”
It was like talking to a brick wall … so I took out the sledgehammer.
“Dad, listen to me,” I said. “Mom’s thinking about filing for divorce.”
“What?