Coastal Disturbance Read online

  That did it. I went for his come-on hook, line, and sinker.

  “Okay, okay. Give me an hour and a half.”

  “What, are you getting old and slow, Porter?” he teased.

  “Damn you. I’ll be there in sixty minutes.”

  It was only as I sped along the coast, with my windows rolled down and a hot wind slapping my face, that my mind started to wander. That’s when my thoughts once again turned to the conversation with Jim Lowell and my curiosity became newly aroused. Just how had Clark Williams managed to learn so quickly that I hadn’t been authorized to work yesterday? And if not Lowell, then exactly who within Fish and Wildlife had taken a stand against me, deciding that charges should be dropped?

  Five

  I drove along the coastal road that wound in and about the marsh, though there was no question this was the longer route. Still, where else could you find places with names such as Two Way Fish Camp and Mudcat Charlie’s? I flew past old Texaco stations, feed stores, and antique shops with signs announcing DEAD PEOPLE’S THINGS FOR SALE. A neighborhood BBQ joint, that better resembled a shack, declared itself to have THE BEST RIBS IN THE SOUTH. A poster next to it revealed the place also doubled as a beauty parlor and tanning salon.

  Rising Son Missionary Church stood on Rising Son Road next to a group of condos sprouting up. The structures were as abundant as daffodils in the spring, gobbling every square inch of space along the marsh. Locals blamed the building frenzy on “damn” Yankee money that was said to be pouring in. They groused that Northerners were snapping up cheap land in their unending quest for pretty spots to build along the coast.

  I pulled into a 7-11, locally referred to as Stop and Robs, and walked inside to grab some quick lunch. Hurrying past bags of potato chips and pretzels, I snubbed day-old sandwiches filled with mystery meat, determined to press on. I had the best of intentions as I headed toward the rear section with its fresh fruit, yogurt, and cottage cheese. That is, until I ran smack into a display rack of Moon Pies.

  Oh, my! It now appeared they came in three tempting flavors—vanilla, banana, and chocolate. The only way to solve this dilemma was to taste test each one.

  The Moon Pies took care of my starch requirement. Now I needed some protein in my diet. That proved easy enough. Striding over to a metal pot, I removed the lid and lowered a slotted spoon into the vat of hot water, ladling a batch of salty boiled peanuts into a Styrofoam cup. Add to that a large plastic bottle of Coca Cola and, voilà! I had lunch. After paying, I got back in my Ford and drove with one hand, while cracking shells open and popping peanuts into my mouth with the other.

  It was a short distance from the 7-11 to I-95. A billboard for a strip club that exclaimed WE BARE IT ALL marked the exit for Brunswick. Formerly a commercial fishing fleet center, the town had sold its soul to industry long ago, and now made the industrial strip around Savannah look pristine. Smokestacks towered above live oaks, belching prodigious amounts of fumes to conjure up visions of Dante’s Inferno. The acrid odor wafted past my nose, carried on a gentle marsh breeze.

  The Fish and Wildlife contaminants office lay just beyond a Sunbeam Bread Outlet and a Michelin tire store. I parked in front of the squat building and continued my taste test by polishing off a banana Moon Pie. Then I walked inside to find that the door to Gary’s office stood closed. A cautionary sign pasted on its surface bore the admonishment, WARNING! HAZARDOUS WASTE SITE. CLEAN UP IN PROGRESS. ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY!

  I didn’t bother to knock, but gave the warning all the respect it was due by kicking open the door. It immediately became apparent that the sign was no joke. Files, charts, and books covered every bit of three long tables, as well as most of the floor. The place was a virtual storehouse of information with folders strewn everywhere, in sky-high tottering piles. My eyes followed the trail to its natural paperclad end. That’s where I found Gary Fletcher intently hunched in front of his computer.

  One arm rested on top of a mound of paperwork marked Crisis de Jour, while his other hand roamed through a scant head of hair. Two large mugs sat next to his mousepad, one of which contained day-old coffee, while an array of Weight Watchers desserts in open boxes lay scattered about his desk. I just hoped Gary didn’t have any delusions about becoming their next spokesperson. He was far from a walking advertisement for their diet, weighing in at close to two hundred pounds.

  Crumpled Big Mac wrappers roosted where they’d missed the edge of the garbage can, while petrified French fries had become part of the room’s decor. It was clear that Gary had broken the building’s no smoking rule. The place smelled like the den of a donut-eating, coffee-drinking, something-might-be-dead-in-this-place Marlboro Man.

  I cleared my throat and raised a skeptical eyebrow as Gary popped a Weight Watchers brownie into his mouth.

  “Hey! Glad you could make it.” He smiled, revealing lightly chocolate-tinged teeth.

  Holy cow, the man was also a junk food junkie!

  “How many of those have you had today?” I asked, knowing full well I wasn’t one to reprimand with a vanilla Moon Pie hidden in my glove compartment.

  “I’m trying to cut back on calories and still maintain my energy. This is as lowfat as I can get. Want one?”

  Then again, who was I to refuse such a generous offer?

  “Besides, it’s my lunch,” he explained, handing me part of his stash.

  “Very unhealthy,” I tsk tsked, and proceeded to devour it.

  We headed outside, taking an extra few cookies with us. Since Gary’s vehicle was misbehaving, we settled on traveling in my Ford. He climbed into the passenger seat, accompanied by the sound of peanut shells crunching beneath his shoes.

  “I gotta hand it to you, Porter. You run a real class act,” he dryly noted.

  “Okay, so where are we headed, Scotty?” I asked, riffing on the fact that he was a closet Trekkie.

  Besides being a big believer in UFOs, Gary maintained there were aliens walking among us. I still shivered at the remembrance of something he’d once said. You know you’ve been abducted when you look at your footprints and your feet aren’t in them anymore.

  “Point your starship toward St. Simons Island, Pepper.”

  I followed his instructions, beginning to think that perhaps being compared to Angie Dickinson wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

  St. Simons is just one of the barrier islands hugging the Georgia coast like an expensive strand of pearls—green buffers protecting the Lowcountry from the ever-changing whim of the Atlantic Ocean. They’d become part of my dreams with such evocative names as Sea Island, Blackbeard, Cumberland, and Jekyll. The chain had originally been dubbed the Golden Isles by Spanish conquistadors—a name that remained perfectly valid today. Having once been vacation hot spots for the likes of the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Goulds, and Morgans, they continued to be places where the wealthy came to play.

  That’s what made it all the more surreal as I drove down a generic strip in Brunswick, passing a McDonalds, a Wal-Mart, and a shop called Guns ’R Us. Brunswick’s poverty lay in direct contrast to the wealth of St. Simons and Sea Island, which were separated from the mainland by a mere four miles of marsh. Yet they couldn’t have seemed farther away.

  I turned onto the F. J. Torras Causeway and headed for St. Simons now, crossing over five tidal rivers. My arrival was marked by a marina off to my left, while the Gisco shrimp docks lay to my right. Two cormorants sat perched on a group of wooden piles, where they stretched their shiny black wings and basked in the sun like a couple of lazy tourists.

  Once an island of cotton plantations and slavery, St. Simons was still a land of privilege. Only now it had evolved into an upscale suburb by the sea, complete with shopping centers, golf courses, and houses vying for space with armadillo, deer, turtles, and marshes.

  “Turn here,” Gary instructed, and I swung a left onto Frederica Road.

  We passed small, exclusive stores with wares as tempting as Godiva chocolates, and probably just as expensive. Th
e landscape slowly changed as the shops grew fewer and the houses stood farther apart. Soon we entered a section of maritime forest where laurel oak, red maple, and sweet gum trees perfumed the air, each mingling its distinctive scent.

  Vines sinuously wrapped themselves around tree trunks like the limbs of sensuous women, while ancient live oaks wept tears of Spanish moss. My mother had long ago told me that the gray wavy strands were remnants of an old man’s beard that had caught on trees as he’d chased young girls through the forest. Only later did I learn it was a bromeliad used by Henry Ford to pad the seats of his first Model Ts. The fibers had also come in handy for stuffing bed mattresses—an interesting tidbit, since chiggers love to nest in the stuff as soon as it hits the ground. I giggled upon hearing that it was the origin of the saying don’t let the bedbugs bite!

  It wasn’t long before we reached the island’s northern-most end, an area with little development. Having run out of Weight Watchers goodies, Gary now passed the time smoking a cigarette.

  “Are you going to clue me in to exactly where it is that we’re going?” I asked.

  “I just recently learned about this place, myself. It seems they’ve been requesting a permit to expand their facility. What’s interesting is that their application was put on the fast track by the Corps of Engineers and the state of Georgia.”

  That in itself was enough to raise suspicion. I pretended to patiently wait as Gary blew a smoke ring. It was the restless tapping of my fingers on the steering wheel that gave me away.

  His eyes slid toward me, and a sly smile crossed his face. “The only problem is that nobody bothered to bring it to Fish and Wildlife’s attention. But then again, it’s pretty easy to understand why after my initial visit here this morning.”

  I was about to press him for more details, when I spotted some sort of entranceway up ahead. Huh, that was strange. I hadn’t known there were any commercial ventures on this end of the island. Yet, it didn’t look like it could be anything else.

  Two large statues now came into view, framing either side of an archway. It wasn’t until we drew closer that I realized they were giant replicas of manatees. Constructed of plastic, they stood on their tails and wore sequined bras and gauzy harem pants. Proof positive that no matter how much money someone has, it’s still no guarantee of good taste.

  Slap happy smiles were drawn on each creature’s pudgy face, and their flippers pointed toward the archway. The concrete portal itself was garishly festooned with cartoon versions of sea life. But it was the sign hanging from it that caught my attention.

  MANATEE MANIA WET ’N WILD WATER PARK THE WAY MOTHER NATURE INTENDED IT TO BE!

  We parked in the lot and walked toward what I imagined to be an extremely tacky tourist trap. Tacky maybe—but one with a hefty price tag. The entrance fee was fifty bucks. I flashed my badge and we proceeded inside for free.

  Visitors were first herded through the gift shop. Very clever. It would also be the last place people would stop before they’d leave. Our entrance into the store was hailed by a trio of mechanical manatees singing Beach Boys tunes, which they strummed on fake guitars. But manatee mania didn’t stop there. Every single gift item had a picture of the creature on it, from coffee mugs to tee shirts to scarves. I was growing ever more curious as to what this place was about, as we exited the store and entered the park.

  A giant Ferris wheel on our right jerked into motion, eliciting a barrage of screams. So did an attraction called Wet ’n Wild Insanity, which encouraged hyperactive kids to barrel down a steep water slide. We continued past yet another ride with people in bumper boats, before reaching a large man-made lagoon surrounded by a fence. A sign announced that a separate fee was required for entry. Instead, we dodged the busy gatekeeper and snuck inside.

  Techno music boomed from two enormous speakers as a crowd deliriously jumped in and out of the water. What seemed unusual was that everyone wore flippers and scuba masks.

  I drew closer, wondering what all the fuss was about, only to spot what appeared to be enormous boulders lying below the surface. That is, until these ghostly gray shapes suddenly came to life and started to glide through the water.

  I pushed my way forward as the objects now began to take form. For a moment I could have sworn they were giant Pillsbury Dough Boys floating face down in the pool. No, wait! They were more a cross between mutant Idaho potatoes and Goodyear blimps. Only these tater tots had the thick hides of elephants, must have been ten feet in length, and weighed close to two thousand pounds.

  Swiftly dropping to my knees, I leaned over until my face nearly touched the surface. My heart pounded and my breath caught in my throat, my mind insisting that I must be imagining things; it simply couldn’t be. Then two founts of water sprayed high in the air from out of a bewhiskered snout, and a pair of tiny black eyes emerged like twin periscopes to look back at me.

  My brain screamed, no way! as someone shouted, watch out! But I couldn’t move, much less speak. I stayed firmly rooted in place, staring in amazement at the creature’s face, which was part walrus, part hippo, and squared off in shape.

  I stretched out my hand, wanting to feel its snout, needing to make certain that my vision was real. But the mammal promptly slid back beneath the water. Jumping up, I raised my camera and began clicking away, knowing I had to document what I’d just seen.

  My actions were met by a tooting sound blasting in my ears like a high-pitched scream, determined to get my attention. No problem there. I spun around, ready to pounce on some ill-mannered kid. Instead, I came face-to-face with a bikini-clad bitch of a Baywatch babe wearing little more than a whistle around her neck.

  “Hey! You didn’t give me your ticket to get in here,” she brayed, her hands firmly grasping two bony hips. “This section isn’t included in your entrance fee. The sign on the fence says it’s an extra seventy-five bucks to swim with the manatees. Or, can’t you read?”

  I was tempted to give her something, all right—a punch that would rocket her off to Timbuktu.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I began to sputter, only to have Gary intervene.

  He steered me out of the lagoon and back toward the bumper boat ride, where a couple of morons sat behind two of the crafts, each cursing a blue streak while acting out road rage.

  “Incredible, huh?” Gary remarked, as the two boats collided, shooting a spray of water my way.

  Great. Now I looked like a contestant in a wet tee-shirt contest.

  “Didn’t I tell you it would be worth the trip? Just wait till you meet Wendell, the guy who runs the park.”

  “What are you talking about?” I exploded, wondering if I were the only sane person in this place. “You do realize those were manatees in that pool? Remember, endangered species? For chrissakes, what’s going on here is totally illegal!”

  “No shit,” Gary agreed. “Why do you think I called you? But try telling that to Wendell. I walked out of his office this morning feeling as though I’d been on an acid trip.”

  “Let’s go see this idiot,” I darkly decreed.

  Wendell would be lucky if he wasn’t extinct by the time I finished with him. I stormed past the water slide and Ferris wheel, following Gary.

  What a lousy way for a dying breed to spend their last remaining days. This was a creature whose relatives dated back fifty million years. Even their name was ancient, spawned from the pre-Columbian Carib Indian word for woman’s breast. These were the original mermaids, for chrissake! It wasn’t their fault if a bunch of sex-starved sailors had mistaken them for women with fishtails, all because they nurse their young in an upright position.

  Large and slow moving, manatees are the least-ferocious mammal on the planet, having no natural enemies. Except for man, of course. Once hunted to near extinction, laws were finally passed so that people could no longer slaughter them. Civilization has come a long way. Now it’s motorboats that knock manatees off at a record rate.

  Each year hundreds die, crushed by speeding pleasu
re boats and lethally slashed by sharp propellers. If they survive that obstacle course, there’s always the chance they’ll become entangled in fishermen’s nets and drown. That is, if eating polluted sea grass and swimming in toxins doesn’t kill them first. Extinction from natural forces at work is one thing. But the toll taken on manatees by humans and their actions is nothing less than marine mammal genocide.

  Three thousand, two hundred, and seventy-six manatees are left, with more dying each year than are born. If I had my say, Wendell Holmes and his Wet ’n Wild Water Park would soon be the ones going the way of the dodo.

  We bounded up a set of rickety wooden steps to a double-wide mobile home built on concrete pilings. I could already tell that Wendell was a classy kind of guy. His mobile home was one of those fancy models covered in wood siding.

  A cardboard manatee cutout met us at the top of the stairs with a sign in its fins that read, ALL MERMAIDS PLEASE ENTER. Gary must have thought that applied to him, as well. He didn’t bother to knock, but simply opened the door and walked in.

  I already had a preconceived notion of how I imagined Wendell would look. Of course, he was nothing like I’d expected. The image I’d conjured was that of a human shark, sleek and lean with a keen sense of cunning to match. Instead, my eyes fell upon a bloated version of an old Robert Mitchum—with one minor addition. His face appeared to have had a run-in with a Mack truck.

  Wendell was easily in his mid-sixties, with a ruddy face, eyes that were bleary, and a nose that could have passed for a piece of bruised fruit. The baby-blue polo shirt covering his chest was adorned with coffee stains that dribbled down the front. The fabric itself was worn and frayed where it stretched across his expansive belly. Perched jauntily on his head was a sailor’s cap embroidered with a Manatee Mania logo. Upon second glance, I realized that Wendell dressed a lot like the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.

  “You back again so soon?” he groused, catching sight of Gary.