Crowley Stories: Swamp's Edge - Blue Afternoon

"Sweet Jesus, Sheriff!  Trolling the swamplands just before Christmas is not my idea of a jolly thing to do!"

The corpulent deputy wiped the sweat from his forehead.  It was actually fairly mild, not much more than 65 degrees, but that didn't stop the sweat from pouring off Deputy Davis Gorland.  It had been strenuous work supervising the exploration of the back swamp, and he felt like it was going to be a big fat waste of time.  He couldn't believe Sheriff Alan Steel was wasting everybody's time based on the word of that worthless scoundrel, Billy Heart.

"Relax your sphincter, Davis.  This'll be over soon enough, and we can get back to celebrating this season of Christ's birth.  Right now, I can't in good conscience ignore that this man has been AWOL for over a month.  Kayak's a good man, and he was a great teacher here.  He helped a lot of kids."  His niece, Tabby, was part of one of the last group of students "Kayak Kelly" Mavis taught at Dixon High School.

Calls to relatives in Michigan turned up nothing.  They had not heard from him in several months.  Billy Heart was not the only one who had been asking about him.  Cokie Goodkind, the young Ghost Sqauder, and Tabby had also asked about him.  He could hardly turn down Tabby anything.  He hated to play favorites, but he had to admit to a soft spot for Tabby.  Without children of his own, Tabitha Steel was the closest thing he had to a daughter.

"Where are Horatio and Ashlynn?  Are they still out looking?"  Deputy Horatio Hernandez, the only Hispanic member of his department, and Ashlynn Dixon, his youngest deputy, were out in a small skiff exploring the back swamp for any signs of Kayak Kelly.

"Yeah.  We couldn't find anything right around here.  He keeps the area around his cabin pretty clean.  So I sent them out on the skiff.  He's got a kayak, right?  Ain't that why they call him Kayak Kelly?  Anyways, we couldn't find one so we figured he must have gone out in it," said Davis.

"I hope not, Davis.  Hate to think that.  If he's been out in the swamp all this time, I don't care what kind of an outdoor survivalist you are, that can't be good." There were so many things that could get you out there, no matter who you were.  Everything from gators to poisonous insect bites, from snakes to drunken moron hunters.  Kayak Kelly had been in the swamp as much as anybody in the last few years, but that didn't make him invulnerable.

He continued to sweep the apartment, deploying the aid of Deputy Gorland, looking for any clues.  In contrast to the outdoors, the cabin itself was disshelved and messy.  He had thought that Kayak Kelly would be a better housekeeper, but maybe those concerns had drifted off after Kelly lost his wife some ten years ago.  And as far as Billy and others knew, there had been no serious relationship since.

None of the papers and other stuff scattered about seemed to relate to where he might be.  There were a number of nature and botany magazines, and a book about swamp flora and fauna.  He may have been researching something, but he didn't have the expertise to know for sure. 

He saw an old phone connected to an answering machine.  He knew Kelly had a cell, from what Billy said, but no one had been able to get through on it.  Nor could he call and leave a message on his machine, at least when he tried yesterday, because it said it was full.  Sheriff Steel saw that the message light was blinking.

Well, he wasn't the NSA, and he hated to intrude on Kayak's privacy, but the situation was getting a bit dicey.  He decided to go ahead and listen to the messages.

Most of them turned out to be from Billy Heart, with one or two from others, all asking where he was, and just to check in.  Before he could finish the messages, Deputies Hernandez and Dixon rushed in pushing open the back sliding glass door.  They were out of breath, and they were both quite excited, like they might have found the Holy Grail.  "Sir!" exclaimed Deputy Hernandez.  "We think we found the Kayak!"

"Really?" questioned the Sheriff.  "Any sign of Kelly Mavis?"

Horatio was short, with a wiry build, and the only Hispanic at the Sheriff's office.  He was very bright, and a great help to Alan.  Some had questioned his legal status, but Alan had checked and was satisfied.  As far as he was concerned, Horatio belonged there more than a lot of the others who were questioning it.  "No, Sir.  We didn't see anything that would indicate his presence."

"There weren't no bodies, Chief.  It was just the Kayak," gushed Deputy Ashlynn Dixon.  She was a chunky blonde (dyed, of course), more muscular than obese, Ashlynn was a recent hire who had not quite mastered the basics yet.  She was admittedly kind of a legacy hire, a daughter-in-law of a former Sheriff, Billy Myles.  But she had some promise, and he hoped in time to bring her around.  Right now, that time had not come yet.

"Well, that's great news, Deputy Dixon.  I am so happy you didn't stumble onto a corpse.  Did either of you notice any footprints on the shore or other disturbances?"

Deputy Hernandez hesitated.  "Well, no.  Not really."

Sheriff Steel sighed.  "Don't tell me you too got out and tromped around a potential crime scene?"

Deputy Hernandez hung his head.  "Sorry, Sheriff.  I'm afraid we did."

"It's my fault, Chief!" piped up Ashlynn.  "He tried to stop me, but I was just too anxious to get out."

Well, give her some brownie points for honesty.  "Davis, get on the horn to the GBI and see if they can send a CSI team down here."  GBI was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.  They might be reluctant to get involved, but he had no science crime investigation unit of his own, and he had scratched their back in the past, and now it was time to scratch his.  Bureaucracies often moved by mutual favors as much as protocol.  "Hernandez and Dixon, get that area properly cordoned off, and then wait for the other investigators,"

They all left for their other assignments, and Sheriff Steel played what proved to be the last message on the answering machine.  It was from a "Dave".  "Hey, buddy!  Dave here!  Got to break it to you, dude!  Those blue drupes you sent me that came off a dahoon holly?  Afraid there's nothing special about them.  That royal blue color is a bit odd for this area, but they're actually pretty common in Brazil.  Wish I could give you better news, but if you're going to stop the project, it's not going to be because of these."

Well, that was curious.  But it sounded more like a closing than an opening.  Might explain all the nature and botany stuff strewn about, if he were trying to identify something unknown.  Maybe he went to wherever this Dave was, and tried to work with him on further analysis.  Looking at the area code, he saw that it was a North Florida number.  He would have to follow up on it.

Sheriff Steel went out the back sliding glass door and looked out at the swamp.  A Christmas time mystery.  Not his first choice of seasonal gifts, but sometimes you just had to accept what your job and the good Lord brings you.

---------------------------------------------------

Dr. David Rowell was preparing to close up the lab when his assistant, Casey Watkins, came in.  The young grad student was the brightest of the group he had worked with in recent years, and she was by far his most thorough and cautious researcher.  She was heavy-set, and wore a pierced jewel on her nose, and had curly black hair, reaching to her rounded shoulders.  "Doctor Rowell!  You won't believe what I just found!" 

"What's that, Casey?"  He tried to be enthused, but he was tired from a long day.  He was heavy himself, with thinning hair, curious bright eyes behind thick glasses.  He should exercise more, but it was hard when his first love was biology and his second love was deep dish pizza. 

"That sample you brought in..."

"What sample?"

"From the Okefenokee Swamp.  You know, that dahoon holly drupe with the funky blue color."

His normally curious eyes glazed over with irritation.  "We were done with that sample.  I gave it to you to dispose of, not test."  He hated doing that to his buddy, Kayak Kelly, but those two had come down here and promised him an endowment for a new lab.  And that sexy girl was really responding to him, and had promised to come down here later without that guy with her.  All he had to do was flush the sample Kayak had sent him.  No big deal. Superficial analysis had showed nothing special about except for the freakish color.

"I know, but I though there was no harm.  I just wanted to know how it got that color."

"There was no need to do that.  Whatever you found, just forget about it."

She shook her head.  "Dr. Rowell, you don't understand.  It has a plant enzyme, in quantities I've never seen before.  I'm not even sure how to identify it.  But it attacks the PD-1 protein that causes malignant tumors.  Doctor, I injected the enzyme into a rat with a stage four lung tumor, and the tumor was gone by the end of the week.  Gone!"

He was stunned.  "You...you can't be sure one has anything to do with the other."

"Oh, I know!  It's just a preliminary test.  Much more needs to be done.  But, Doctor!  Think of the possibilities!"

His head swum, so dizzy, he could hardly stand.

He didn't know what to do next.

He had to talk to Kayak Kelly again.  But Kelly hadn't returned his calls in weeks.

Where was Kayak Kelly?