Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

stem, directing Keil to the bow and us females amidships, if that’s what you call the area between front and back. I’d been sailing as often as anyone from Marin County (which is bordered by the San Francisco Bay), but only with experienced sailors who’d done all the work. “Three sheets to the wind” was about all the nautical jargon I knew.
    “Okay, Keil,” said Julio, “release the jib.”
    Keil did something or other and Julio gave more orders—I could have sworn he said something like “Helmsalee,” and then “Watch your heads,” which even I understood. It meant if we didn’t, we’d soon experience the sound effect that goes with the part of a boat called the boom.
    We were under way. Blubbery, contented animals were sunning themselves on the breakwater. “Look, kids,” I hollered. “Seals.”
    “Sea lions,” said Keil. “They have ears.”
    Undaunted, excited, I said, “Look.
Baby
seals.”
    “Rebecca!” said Libby. “Sea lion pups.”
    Now I was daunted. But impressed. These kids really lived on the bay, really knew what was in their environment. To them, an animal was more than a cat or a rat or an urban raccoon.
    Julio must have thought my silence—brought on by city-dweller’s envy—meant I felt humiliated by my juniors. Gallantly he came to the rescue. “You kids don’t know everything. I bet you don’t know what they eat that’s really weird.”
    “At least it’s not abalone,” said Keil.
    Libby hollered, “Keil Whitehead, you shut up! You don’t even like abalone.”
    All that, of course, was a reference to the charge that sea otters ate shellfish that rightfully belonged to humans, an idea that struck me as similar to the notion our ancestors must have held while wresting the Great Plains from the Indians.
    Libby, I took it, was a friend of the sea otter.
    “You guys know or not?” asked Julio.
    “Sea urchins!”
    “That’s not so weird. Otters eat them.”
    Keil said, “Otters eat everything.”
    “Shut up!” Libby smacked him.
    I pretended nothing had happened, sure Keil wouldn’t do so imperfect a thing as to hit back—but I thought something interesting had been revealed. He wasn’t really perfect—he baited his sister. He must be jealous of her.
    I sighed at my brilliant deduction. Of course he was jealous of her. They were siblings.
    “Their teeth turn purple,” said Libby, now recovered. “And so do their bones. From eating urchins.”
    I looked to Julio for confirmation. “Well, lavender, anyway,” he said. “Doesn’t anyone want to know about sea lions?”
    Libby said, “I do! I do!”
    “They eat rocks. I mean, they swallow them. You can’t digest a rock, can you?” He nudged Esperanza gently, and obediently she shook her head. But she remained expressionless, not participating.
    “Sometimes their stomachs contain as many as a hundred rocks.”
    “Ew. Gross!” said Libby.
    I was curious. “What are the rocks for?”
    “No one knows.”
    Keil said, “Maybe they’re for ballast.”
    I laughed at his witticism, but Julio said, “That’s one of the theories.”
    We caught the wind and were soon far out on the bay. I was getting spray in my face and loving it. Esperanza, showing faint signs of revival, dangled first fingers, then toes. She had to turn around to dangle her toes, which made Julio murmur once again about a life jacket, but his protest was half-hearted. I could tell the last thing he wanted to do at the moment was interfere with anything she might actually be enjoying.
    Most kids, I thought, would give anything to be in that position for an afternoon. He’d probably let her eat candy bars and fries if she asked for them.
    Libby wasn’t letting her off so easy. “A shark’ll bite you.”
    “There aren’t any sharks in the bay—are there, Daddy?”
    “Sure. Leopard sharks.”
    “But they don’t bite.”
    “Blue sharks now and then. They won’t bite your toes, though. Or if they do, they’ll probably only eat one. They don’t think humans taste very good.”
    “Daddy!” Esperanza looked mad. She probably hated being teased.
    “No kidding. They usually only take one bite and then they go, ‘Ptui!’ and swim away. And when they bite, they usually go for divers wearing wet suits, because they look like seals. Sharks can’t see too well.”
    “Yeah, but they can really smell,” said Keil. “They can smell one part of blood in a hundred million parts of water. I thought that was so rad, I memorized