Crooked River(76)

“Like what?” Gladstone asked.

“Forgive the naiveté of the question, but could a storm on land affect ocean currents?”

“I don’t see how.”

“If it caused a flood, for example?”

Okay, now the guy was really reaching. “A flood from a river would inject a very small amount of extra water into the gulf, yes, but the effect would be minuscule. These Florida rivers are slow-moving and shallow. The effects would remain close to shore. Nothing that would push debris far enough out into the gulf to reach the Loop Current.”

Pendergast nodded slowly. “And the garbage analysis? Are you sure there’s nothing there?”

She sighed. “As I mentioned over the phone, what we could identify came from all over the gulf. There was no pattern to the samples we analyzed.”

“Hold on,” said Lam. “I just thought of something.”

“What?” Gladstone said.

“You remember a few years back, when that developer up north was fined for illegally dredging the mouth of some river?”

Gladstone nodded.

“He dredged a long, straight channel that unexpectedly acted like a funnel when a big storm caused a surge of upstream water, shooting all the agricultural pollution out into the gulf, killing a bunch of fish and creating a dead zone. They fined him and made him redo the dredging into a wiggly pattern.”

“Your point?”

“Well, maybe somebody else did the same thing more recently.”

“Did what same thing?”

“Christ on a donkey.” Lam sighed with impatience. “Dredged a channel that, in a flood of water from a storm upstream, would create dangerous currents in what should be a protected harbor. And push debris out into the Loop Current in the process.”

Gladstone paused. It was such a far-fetched idea—especially that the force of such a flood could reach the Loop Current. But it wasn’t like they had anything else to go on. And it might satisfy Pendergast. “The Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of coastal dredging. Wallace, pull up their enforcement website. Let’s see if anyone’s been fined recently.”

Lam tapped away on the computer and they waited while the website loaded.

“Here’s something.”

Gladstone leaned over his shoulder. It seemed that not too long ago, a developer in Carrabelle had been fined for illegally dredging the Crooked River to his new marina. Ripped out a lot of mangroves in the process, too—a big no-no.

She felt Pendergast’s presence behind her. “This looks like the straight-dredging situation you spoke of,” he said.

“Yes, but that’s way the hell up in the Panhandle. I mean, this is really unlikely.”

Pendergast stepped back. “If you please, bring up the analysis you prepared on the garbage.”

Gladstone pulled it up on the computer, and sent a copy to the printer as well.

“There,” said Pendergast, pulling sheets from the printer and pointing at the second one. “Two crab pot license tags from Carrabelle washed up with the feet.”

Gladstone stared. She had dismissed those earlier, Carrabelle being so far away from any conceivable drift pattern. Besides, there were a dozen other license tags from all over the gulf, including from as far away as Texas and Louisiana. “Um, I’m not sure that’s relevant.”

“Perhaps, but recall the missing factor. Let us look at extreme weather events—on land. Specifically, did the Crooked River flood at the time period when the feet would have entered the water and that illegal dredging was still in effect?”

Lam grunted. “That’s easily looked up.” More gunfire rapping of keys. Meteorological data and weather maps scrolled across the screen. “Whoa,” he said. “Check that out. Massive thunderstorm over the Apalachicola National Forest on March 19—that’s in the Crooked River watershed.”

More tapping.

“And—yup—the river flooded. Took out a few piers, dragged some boats from their moorings. After that, they made the developer restore the river to its previous condition.”

Gladstone felt her heart accelerate. This was amazing. Unlikely, unexpected, but amazing. “Wallace, plug into the model a bunch of simulated shoes being injected out of the mouth of Crooked River in a flood of that magnitude. Then let the simulation run freely and let’s see where they go.”

“Will do.”

Lam began typing at a furious rate, and soon he had set it up. “Shall I run it? Gonna cost us more dough.”

“I will cover it, naturally,” said Pendergast.

Lam hit the execute button and they waited. These drift simulations ate up CPU time like it was peanut butter, but this one seemed particularly slow. Gladstone heard Lam curse under his breath.

The screen finally came to life, showing the Florida Gulf Coast. A nest of black lines—hundreds of simulated feet—arrowed out of the mouth of Crooked River into Saint George Sound, curled around Dog Island, got caught up in what looked like an eddy, circled way out into the gulf, got snagged by the Loop Current, swept down the coast…and converged on Captiva Island.

“Holy jeez,” breathed Lam.

Gladstone could hardly believe it. All of a sudden, her model had worked beautifully: all the squiggly lines coming out of Crooked River and twenty-five days later converging on Captiva Island.