This twenty-minute experience mixed with his nearly white coat and willingness to lick every human’s face on the planet—especially those covered in ice cream or gelato—taught me something. Tabby attracted attention like a puppy at a park. Everybody wanted to pet him, and he was only too happy to oblige. We set up camp at the crosswalk of two busy sidewalks—the walking intersection of St. George Street with Hypolita, catty-corner between Café del Hidalgo and Columbia Restaurant. If I was to advertise something in St. Augustine, that street corner was better than FOX or CNN. Over the next several hours, it seemed like every child in St. Augustine had their picture taken with Tabby, and I turned down several offers to sell him. With every picture taken, I asked folks to post it on their social media under the hashtag #findmyowner and #whitelabrador.
All to no avail.
The crowds thinned after dinner, so Tabby and I prepared for our trek back to the marina, both of us tired and hungry. I was in the process of standing up when I heard a voice behind me. While I’d heard voices behind me for the better part of eight hours, this one sounded different. It was distressed. And in pain. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound, trying to hear what the tone gave away. She was saying a lot but not with words.
Her appearance matched the frantic and defeated sound of her voice. Maybe early forties, head down, brownish hair, gray at the roots, quick steps, slight limp, a mission before her. She wore one flip-flop—which had blown out—and the other foot was bare. Both were muddy. Her legs, while beautiful, were scratched along the calves as if she’d run through briars or wiregrass. She was wearing what remained of a uniform. Something a server would wear at an all-night diner. Black skirt, provocative in an institutional sort of way. White oxford, no longer white. And an apron of which she did not seem cognizant. Like either she’d worn it long enough to forget it was there or she just didn’t care what it said about her. A pad of guest checks had been stuck into the right front pocket. Pencils and straws rose up out of the other.
Both her hands and voice were trembling as she held the phone. “But, baby . . . you can’t.” She was unconsciously walking in circles around Tabby and me now. “They just want one thing and they’ll promise you anything to get it.” Another circle. A deep breath while she tried to get a word in edgewise. “I know I did, but . . .”
She passed me a third time, straightened, and began walking toward the marina. Her voice grew louder. More exasperated. “Wait. Don’t—Baby?” Then I heard her say one word. One word I couldn’t deny or overlook. One simple, five-letter word. She was crying as she spoke it. “Angel?”
I shook my head and cussed myself.
Tabby watched her go. Then looked at me. I scratched his head. “Come on, boy.”
A block behind her, we returned to the marina where the woman began jogging along the docks, knocking on all the doors of every boat that seemed inhabited. Her voice echoed off the water. “I just need . . .” “Next marina . . .” “Daytona . . .” “No, I don’t have any—”
Frustrated at another door slammed in her face, she spotted the marina boats. The first-come-first-serve, fourteen- to sixteen-foot runabouts used to ferry people and goods to and from larger boats. She hopped into one tied in the shadows, studied the outboard, flipped a switch, pulled the cord, and the forty-horsepower Yamaha outboard cranked on the first attempt. Something they are known for. She twisted the throttle on the hand tiller, revved the engine, cussed, found the gearshift, and slammed it into reverse, grinding the gears. The boat jerked in the water, tugging against its mooring line, sending waves and froth against the dock.
Realizing her mistake, the woman relaxed her death grip on the tiller, idled the engine, untied the line, and without bothering to check the gas level, backed up, banging into two yachts, one piling, and the bulkhead. Finally, she managed a circle like a one-legged duck and ran smack into the hull of a sixty-foot sport fisherman, which sent her rolling head over backside to the bow. Recovering, she returned to the stern, steadied the tiller, and began an erratic and serpentine path out of the marina. Free of the no-wake zone, she twisted the throttle and put the small boat up on plane, where she immediately stuck it in the soft mud. Cussing again, she stepped out of the boat, pushed it off the mudflat—finally losing the other flip-flop—found reverse, and backed out into the deeper channel. Once free, she again floored the throttle and motored southward down the ditch.
Her pinball path proved she’d never steered an outboard, but she was in the process of training her mind—push the opposite way you want to go. I admired her gumption but wondered how long it’d be before the marina sent the authorities to drag her back. Or she sank that boat.
Tabby and I loaded into Gone Fiction and slipped out of the marina. By then, the woman was gone. As was her wake. This time of night, the larger yachts had moved inside to escape the winds off the coast and were traveling north and south in the ditch—some as fast as twenty-five or thirty knots, thinking themselves safe from smaller vessels. Few people travel the ditch at night. Those yachts would be splitting the channel down the middle with their wakes—some as high as five or six feet tall, rolling and breaking toward the shoreline.
I thought about the woman. She and that boat didn’t stand a chance.
Tabby and I left St. Augustine with thoughts of making Daytona by midnight. The problem was that it was dark, and while my electronics are accurate, hurricanes and storms have a way of moving boundaries and causing changes in depths. Nighttime navigation can be tricky, and while I knew these waters, I didn’t trust my electronics. Never have. I only use them to confirm what the markers are telling me. That’s not to say they’re not accurate. They are. Generally. I’ve just learned to trust my eyes more than the screen.
Chapter 6
The moon was once again high and clear, casting our shadow on the water. This stretch of the IC was primarily residential, which made it poorly lit compared to a city like St. Augustine or Daytona or Jacksonville. Also, while the Florida Keys get much of the attention when it comes to the waters of Florida—and deservedly so, because they are lovely—some of the most beautiful water in North Florida can be found on the Matanzas River between St. Augustine and the Tomoka Marsh Aquatic Preserve. Or the waters leading into Ormond and Daytona Beaches. Right in the middle sits Marineland—the world’s first oceanarium. Made famous by Hollywood moviemakers for eighty years with such 1950s classics as Creature from the Black Lagoon and Revenge of the Creature.
Half an hour outside St. Augustine, I throttled down through Crescent Beach, passed just west of Fort Matanzas, and then cruised along the stretch where A1A literally forms the border of the IC. I ran with my bow and stern running lights on, along with lights atop my T-top, but I turned off the light from my electronics as it interfered with my ability to find the center of the channel and the next buoy. With Marineland on my port side separating me from the Atlantic Ocean, I made the bend heading south-southwest when I spotted residue of a small craft’s wake. It wasn’t tough to spot. Foamy white powder on a sea of black glass.
The woman. Had to be.
And she wasn’t alone on the water. Something else up ahead, traveling from south to north. Something big.