Message from a Conch

I was still staring after the beat-up blue truck when Bess and George pulled up at the entrance booth in our convertible.

“Hop in!” George called from behind the wheel.

“Um, are you all right, Nancy?” Bess added.

“Yeah... fine.” I shook myself and climbed into the backseat. “There was something weird about the guy in that truck, that’s all.”

“The one that was blocking the entrance? What happened?” asked Bess.

Now that Chick Russell was gone, I wasn’t sure what to make of what he had said. “He gave me a message for Delia. Maybe it was nothing. I’ll tell you about it when we get to her office.”

The main drive led past dense trees to a big parking lot near the water. Beyond the lot was a small beach with a store and concession stand, and a strip of land that led to a marina where some tour boats were docked. There was a salty tang in the air, and the perfumed smell of some kind of tropical flower. Mangrove trees grew so thickly around the marina that a channel had been cleared so boats could get to the open water beyond the trees.

“It’s paradise!” Bess exclaimed, after we found a spot and got out of the car. She breathed in deeply, gazing at the palm trees, mangroves, and sparkling blue water.

I could tell George liked what she saw too. She’s not the bubbly, gushing type, but there was a definite spark of interest in her eye when she spotted a couple carrying scuba equipment toward the marina.

“Delia works at the Visitor Center, right?” I said. Shading my eyes from the sun, I scanned the low wooden buildings that dotted the ground between the beach and the marina. “It’s got to be around here somewhere...”

“Nancy! Bess! George! Over here!”

We whirled around to see Delia waving to us from the doorway of a boxlike building near the marina. It had been about two years since we’d seen her, but she hadn’t changed. She still had the same wide smile, the same black hair just long enough to tuck behind her ears, and the same warm energy that seemed to radiate from her as she ran over to give us hugs.

“I’m glad you made it. I was starting to worry that maybe you got lost,” she told us.

“We did, thanks to Nancy ‘Space Cadet’ Drew here,” George said, nodding at me.

“And then we were further delayed by some guy at the entrance,” Bess added.

“Actually, I think you might know him, Delia. He said to give you a message,” I said.

As we walked back toward the Visitor Center, I told her what Chick Russell had said. The second she heard his name Delia’s smile faded. “I know Chick, all right. We’ve had a couple of run-ins here at the park,” she said. “We’ve got strict laws protecting the wildlife at Pennekamp, but I’m afraid Chick doesn’t care much for rules and regulations. About a month ago I caught him leaving the park with a bucketful of coral in the back of his truck. He tried to tell me the law doesn’t apply to Conchs like him, but—”

“Conchs? Aren’t they a kind of shell?” Bess asked.

“Around here, a Conch is more than just a shell,” Delia said. “It’s also a nickname for families who’ve lived on the Keys since the old wrecking days, back in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.”

She opened the door to the Visitor Center, and we stepped into a big room with an information desk, some displays, and a huge circular tank full of coral and tropical fish. Delia headed for a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY on the other side of the tank.

“Most of the people who lived here then made a living salvaging cargo from ships that went aground on the reef,” she explained. “They got their nickname because they used conch shells like trumpets, blowing into them to announce a wreck.”

“So were they pirates?” George asked.

“Sounds kind of like it,” Bess reasoned. “They took things that didn’t belong to them, right?”

Delia paused next to the tank and thought for a moment. “Not exactly. There were pirates who hid out in the mangrove swamps and attacked passing ships. But wreckers were different. They took cargo from sinking ships—stuff that would have been lost at sea if they didn’t get it. Then they sold it.”

“Maybe Chick thinks of himself as a kind of modern-day wrecker,” Bess said. “Except he takes coral from the reef instead of cargo from ships.”

“Great, just don’t tell that to him. All I need is for Chick to romanticize what he does,” Delia said, rolling her eyes. “Every time I think of him taking that coral I get mad all over again.”

She glanced at the corals that stuck up from the sand inside the glass tank. Some looked like rocks, while others looked like feathery fans waving in the gentle current. “It’s taken over five thousand years for the coral reef to build up. Not to mention that tons of animals depend on the reef for food and protection. Fish, sponges, crabs, turtles, lobsters... you name it. That’s why it’s not legal even to touch the coral, much less take any. Too bad people like Chick don’t get how important it is to protect corals and the other special wildlife we have here.”

Listening to Delia, I had a pretty good idea of what the trouble was that she had mentioned. “Is that what you need our help with?” I asked. “Stopping Chick from taking coral?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “Actually, the problem is even bigger than that. Key Largo’s got hundreds of rare plants and animals. Even though they’re protected, tourists can’t resist taking home a couple of rare orchids or butterflies when they find them. Pennekamp is big, nearly two hundred square miles. So we can’t catch every poacher—we just don’t have the manpower. But I’d do anything to get people like Chick, the ones who take lots of anything they can get their hands on, and then sell them to collectors.”

“Sounds serious,” George said. “Especially if Chick is taking more than just coral.”

Delia led the way through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. We entered an area divided into work cubicles, and Delia headed for a desk near the door. Leaning against it, she crossed her arms over the front of her parks uniform. “I can’t know for sure what he’s taking without catching him in the act,” she told us. “But I keep seeing him around the park, and I doubt it’s because he wants to hike our nature trails or take a snorkeling tour. Last week his truck was parked off the highway next to Pennekamp. When my boss and I hiked into the trees later, we found one that had been stripped clean of butterfly orchids.”

“Ouch,” Bess said, grimacing. “Let me guess. They’re endangered?”

Delia nodded. “There must have been thirty or forty orchids there before, and now they’re gone.”

“Geez.” George shook her head in disgust. “Couldn’t you arrest Chick? I mean, you caught him with coral in his truck!”

“It’s not that easy,” Delia told us. “Chick gave me some story about how the coral came from someplace in Asia and not from here. I’m sure he was lying, but I couldn’t prove it—not without catching him in the act. And that can be really hard in a place as big as Pennekamp. That’s why I didn’t make a big deal of it when I called. I want you to have fun while you’re here.”

“Hey, what could be more fun than stopping a bad guy from hurting the reef? We’ll definitely do whatever we can,” I said, turning to Bess and George. “Right?”

“Definitely,” Bess agreed.

“Especially if checking out the reef is part of our investigation,” George added with a grin.

“That can be arranged,” Delia promised. Her eyes sparkled with fun as she continued, “In fact, why don’t we start right now?” She grabbed a bag from her desk drawer and headed back toward the door. “We might not have enough time to see the reef, but I can give you a tour of the mangrove swamps and beaches. You can see some amazing birds. A couple of the boats at the marina are reserved for parks personnel. We can take one of those.”

“Look at that heron!” Bess exclaimed. “Over there, on that channel marker. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

We had just set out from the marina and were heading down a wide channel lined by mangroves on both sides. Sure enough, perched on one of its long legs atop the channel marker was a regal-looking snow-white heron.

“Mmm,” I agreed. The afternoon sun felt great on my face, the breeze was soft and refreshing, and the water looked unbelievably tempting. I was definitely starting to feel like we were on vacation. Delia kept our boat going slowly, so I reached over the side and let my fingers trail in the warm, salty water. Up ahead, I saw wide-open blue where the channel opened out to the sea. I couldn’t help wishing that my boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, could have taken time off college to be here. On the other hand, being away from Ned meant we had more time to get reacquainted with Delia.

“You must love living here,” I said, glancing over my sunglasses at her.

“I’ve gotten used to the tropical life, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “Here, it’s all about the sun and sea. Some of my friends have never seen snow except on TV or in the movies. Everyone’s into fishing, swimming, boating, tennis, gardening... My boyfriend lives for scuba diving and snorkeling.”

“Boyfriend?” Bess asked, arching an eyebrow.

This was the first I’d heard too about Delia having a boyfriend. It made me realize how much news we had to catch up on.

“His name’s Steve,” Delia said, blushing a little. “Steve Manning. We’ve been dating for a few months. He’s having dinner with us, so you’ll meet him tonight after the Island Scout comes in. That’s the boat he works on.”

George had been looking at the smaller channels that branched off from the main channel and wound among the mangroves. She turned toward Delia and said, “So he’s a fisherman?”

“Not exactly. At least, not the kind of fisherman you mean,” Delia answered. “Steve fishes for sunken treasure, not fish.”

“Treasure? For real?” Bess asked, her eyes lighting up.

“I think I read about that in that magazine Wild Explorations,” George said. “You know, about how the coral reefs used to be big trouble for Spanish ships bringing gold from South America. Lots of them sank off the Florida Keys during storms and stuff. Didn’t some guy find a treasure that had been sitting at the bottom of the sea since the sixteen hundreds?”

Delia nodded. “That was the treasure from the Atocha, a Spanish galleon that sank in 1622. But plenty of other ships went aground on the reef too. A lot of the gold from them has never been recovered,” she said.

“Think of it,” Bess said dreamily. “Gold coins and goblets and jewels just lying at the bottom of the sea for all these years.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather think about finding it,” George said.

I could practically see dollar signs in her eyes. Not that George is money hungry or anything, but she’s always trying to scrape together enough cash for her next PalmPilot or wireless modem. Not that I could blame her for being tempted. Who wouldn’t want to discover a sunken treasure?

“You and Steve think exactly alike, George,” Delia said, laughing. “He’s signed on to a crew that’s been searching for the Catarina. That’s another Spanish galleon that sank off Key Largo during the big hurricane of 1622. It was carrying a fortune in gold, and Steve figures it’s just a matter of time before they find it.”

Delia steered our boat around a kayaker who was paddling out of one of the smaller channels. A moment later we cleared the mangrove trees, and Bess looked out at the wide expanse of deep-blue water ahead of us. “What makes them think they can find it after all this time?” she asked.

“For one thing, treasure-hunting equipment gets more sophisticated all the time,” Delia told us. “You should see all the stuff they’ve got on the Island Scout. Sonar, radar, metal detectors, digital imaging equipment, computer-generated scatter patterns... I can’t begin to keep it all straight when Steve tries to—”

She stopped in midsentence and frowned. “That’s weird,” she murmured, staring at something to our left.

Turning, I saw a sleek-looking red motorboat coming out of the mangroves. At least I thought it was coming out. But instead of continuing in our direction, the boat slowed to a stop.

“Is something wrong?” Bess asked, glancing at the boat.

“I’m not sure,” Delia said, her eyes still fixed on the other boat. “It’s just odd that he stopped when he saw us.”

The driver of the red boat was too far away to see clearly. The brim of his baseball cap hid most of his face. All I saw was a blue T-shirt and dark cap. Then, all at once, I heard the buzz-saw sound of the engine revving. The boat spun around in a U-turn and flew back down the tiny channel.

Talk about alarm bells. About a zillion of them went off inside my head. “What’s he running from?” I wondered.

“Us. At least I think so. He must have spotted my uniform,” Delia said. “And trust me, the only people who run from parks employees are the ones who are up to no good.”