Page 14 of Forgotten Path
He nodded, sipped his drink, and took a seat at the sun-faded wooden picnic table that was perched on the edge of Joel’s meager lawn. He passed the time finishing his mangrove tea and watching a large green iguana scamper up a tree and out onto a limb before launching itself onto the ladder on the back of Joe’s camper and disappearing underneath the vehicle.
The car’s engine cut off. A moment later, a door banged shut. He turned as Felicia walked toward him with a bulging brown paper grocery bag in her arms.
“I didn’t see much in the way of food at Joel’s,” she said in greeting. “So I stopped at the Cuban market and picked up some provisions. Rice, beans, plantains, more spices than you could shake a stick at. If we’re lucky, Joel has cooking oil.”
“It’s nice to see you,” he told her. “Despite the circumstances.”
It was nice to see her. She hadn’t changed in the intervening six years. Same long dark hair, serious eyes, and severely cut business attire—trousers and a white button-down blouse.
She laughed in response, and that hadn’t changed, either. He remembered his surprise when he’d heard the straight-laced, no-nonsense detective’s musical laugh for the first time. He imagined that her well-guarded, joyful side explained her friendship with the easygoing, devil-may-care medical examiner with a daiquiri named in his honor.
She nodded toward the door, and he yanked it open, then followed her inside. While she dumped her bag on the counter, he deposited his knapsack on the chair inside the door, found the switch for the overhead light, and flicked it on.
With her hands now free, she swooped in for a quick hug.
After their greeting, she said, “Sorry for making you cool your heels while I finished that call. The head of the addiction program in Key Largo finally got back to me. She’s been swamped.”
He blinked. “With something unusual?” Maybe his algae bloom theory was off-base.
“No. Same old crap, according to her. She said one of the local dealers has been cutting his heroin with laundry detergent. It’s pretty ugly. And she’s frustrated because she’s been spreading the word, warning people—but folks are still buying it.” She gave a rueful shake of her head, which sent her low ponytail banging off her shoulder blades.
“Renal failure?”
“Yeah. You’ve seen it before?”
“I’ve seen street drugs cut with just about every substance you can imagine and probably more than a few that would never cross your mind. Even when the word’s on the street, desperate people … well, they need their fixes, no matter the risk.”
A heavy silence filled the small space.
Then Felicia shook her head. “I did ask if she’d ever heard of Solo or anything like it, but she said the closest thing would be the bath salts episode about a decade ago, and that zombie was more violent than numbed.”
Felicia’s contact was right. He remembered the case of the man who ate another man’s face during a drug-induced psychotic episode. Solo had a very different effect than bath salts. More euphoria, less cannibalism.
“So I think it’s safe to say Joel wasn’t looking into a street drug.”
“Right. And you think it could be an algae bloom?” She frowned, and a furrow formed between her eyebrows.
“I do. As I mentioned, two of the three neurotoxins on Joel’s list are found in marine animals—shellfish and pufferfish. And he wrote ‘other HABs,’ which suggests he was looking at algae blooms.”
She sighed. “I just don’t get it. I called his office back again—and before you ask, no, he hasn’t called in. I asked Raven to check on the algae bloom thing. Nobody has died as the result of an algae bloom in the Keys, like ever.”
“That’s not surprising.” Most of the neurotoxins found in seafood usually caused a bout of serious food poisoning but, thankfully, rarely resulted in death—at least in humans. There was a reason ‘I must have had some bad fish’ was a saying.
“So where did he run across these harmful algae things if they didn’t turn up in the morgue?”
He tilted his head and considered the question before answering it with one of his own. “Maybe wherever he goes the first weekend of every month?”
She blinked rapidly, three times, then pushed off from the counter on which her hip had been resting. “What?”
He shook his now-empty cup. “The kid with the beverage cart across the road said Joel’s a regular.”
“Yeah, he told me Mike finally named a drink after him because he visits every day.” She threw back her head and laughed her tinkling laugh.
“Every day except for the first weekend of every month, when he goes away on Thursday night, and Mike doesn’t see him again until Monday. Although last week, Mike’s sister covered the cart for him on Thursday. So Mike hasn’t seen Joel since last Wednesday.”
Her smile vanished as her eyes went wide. “Where does Joel go? Did Mike say?”
He shrugged. “He didn’t know. He thought Joel might have a long-distance relationship.”
