"And the reef wouldn't have ripped the keel out... "And the reef wouldn't have ripped the keel out of
a boat that got blown in here back in the 1700s?
Or 1600s?"
Wireman shrugged"Chris Shannington says no one
knows what the geography of Kitt Reef might have
been a hundred and fifty years ago
I looked at the spread-out lootThe smiling
middle daughtersThe smiling Daddy, who was soon
going to have to buy himself a new bathing costume
And I suddenly decided he hadn't been sleeping
with the nannyEven a mistress would have
told him he couldn't have a newspaper photo of
himself taken in that old thingShe would have
found a tactful reason, but the real one was right
in front of me, after all these years; even with
less-than-perfect vision in my right eye, I could
665
see itOnly he didn't see it, and
his daughters didn't see it, eitherLoving
gucci new bag eyes
did not seeSomething there, wasn't there? Some A
that practically demanded a B
"I'm surprised he talked about what he found at
all," I said"If you happened on stuff like this
today and then blabbed to Channel 6, half of
Florida would show up in their little putt-putts,
hunting for doubloons and pieces of eight with
metal detectors
"Ah, but this was another Florida," Wireman said,
and I remembered Mary Ire using the same phrase
"John Eastlake was a rich man, and Duma Key was
his private preserveBesides, there were no
doubloons, no pieces of eight - just moderately
interesting junk uncovered by a freak stormFor
weeks he went down and dived where that debris was
scattered on the floor of the Gulf - and it was
close in, according to Shannington; at low tide,
you could practically wade to
replica fendi spy itAnd sure, he was
probably keeping an eye out for valuablesHe was
a rich man, but I don't think that vaccinates a
man against the treasure-bug"I'm sure it doesn't
"The nanny would have gone with him on his
treasure-hunting expeditionsThe three still-athome
girls, too: the twins and ElizabethMaria
and Hannah were back at their boarding school in
Bradenton, and big sis had run off to Atlanta
Eastlake and his little ones probably had picnics
down there
"How often?" I began to see where this was goingMaybe every day while the debris field was
at its richestThey wore a path from the house to
what was called Shade BeachIt was half a mile,
if that
"A path two adventurous little girls could follow
on their ownTo everyone's sorrow He swept
the pictures back into the folder"There's a
story here,
see by chloe bags muchacho, and I suppose it's
marginally more interesting than a little girl
swallowing a marble, but a tragedy is a tragedy,
and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupidGive
me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's
Dream over Hamlet every timeAny fool with steady
hands and a working set of lungs can build up a
667
house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes
a genius to make people laugh
He brooded a moment
"What probably happened is that one day in April
of 1927, when Tessie and Laura were supposed to be
napping, they decided to get up, sneak down the
path, and go hunting for treasure at Shade Beach
Probably they meant to do no more than wade in as
far as their knees, which is all they were
permitted to do - one of the stories quotes John
Eastlake as saying that, and Adriana backed
gucci pantheon him
up
"The married daughter who came backShe and her new husband returned a day or
two before the search for the bodies was
officially called offThat's according to
ShanningtonAnyway, one of the little girls maybe
saw something gleaming a little further out and
started to flounderThen-"
"Then her sister tried to save her Yes, I could
see itOnly I saw Lin and Ilse as they'd been
when they were smallNot twins, but for three or
four golden years nearly inseparable"And then the rip took em both
Had to've been that way, amigo; that's why the
bodies weren't foundOff they went, heigh-ho for
the caldo largo
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by the
rip, then remembered a painting by Winslow Homer,
romantic but of undeniable power: Undertow
The intercom on the wall beeped, startling us
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