The River Killers (19 page)

Christine offered to tag and bag our specimens, so Louise and I climbed into the skiff. As we cruised toward the innermost of the islands, I asked what we were looking for.

“Clues.”

“Oh.”

We slowly circumnavigated all of the islands in Morehouse Bay. Every one was heavily vegitized, so we looked for openings in the underbrush, anything that resembled a trail. We saw nothing that would indicate the hand of man had ever set foot on any of the islands.

I did take the opportunity, when we were out of sight of the
Coastal Provider
, to snuggle with the local law enforcement. Much more than the quick grope of my previous amours, it was a searching embrace that left us flushed and yearning. It was with some reluctance that we headed back.

When we got alongside the big boat, I spread my hands wide and shrugged. I threw Fergie the skiff line, and he threw it over the drum to Christine, who put it on the winch and pulled the skiff up tight to the stern of the
Coastal Provider.
Louise and I climbed aboard and looked enquiringly at Mark. He checked his watch. “It's ten-thirty. We can be in Lagoon Bay by four. It'll still be light enough to look around.”

Mark went up to the wheelhouse and the
Coastal Provider
began moving out of the bay. He headed northeast up Return Channel, so he could turn south down Johnson Channel on the way to Lagoon Bay. Sometimes you had to head in one direction so you could make progress in the opposite direction.

Our mood lightened when we were joined by a small group of harbor porpoises. They shot toward us like torpedoes, then turned and ran with the boat, surfing in the bow wave. I took Louise out to the bow so she could lean over and look at them. We could almost touch them. They were such amazing creatures, zooming through the water with no discernible movement of their bodies. They could have been jet-propelled, and they were having such fun! If ignorance is bliss then oblivion must be golden rapture. And the porpi were completely oblivious, to our concerns at least. I felt jealous but Louise was entranced. Soon they grew bored with us and shot off on some other adventure. Louise took my hand and we went back into the warmth of the wheelhouse.

Mark and Fergie and Christine all looked at me as we entered. “A few questions have arisen,” Christine said. “Perhaps you'd like to try to answer them?” I shrugged.

“Those little pill things we found in the fish? They were radio transmitters?”

“Yeah, they obviously wanted to track the fish, because they were worried they wouldn't follow a normal pattern. Or, they were programmed not to follow the normal pattern.”

“Okay. Second question: why are all the mutants female?”

“We can only guess, right? It could be an unforeseen consequence of the genetic manipulation. Or maybe it was deliberate because they didn't want these fish to breed with normal fish.”

“But even ugly humans reproduce.” Fergie was on thin ice here and I ignored him.

Mark put his two cents in: “I'm betting the deformities were unintended. They wanted this whole experiment to go unnoticed, not have their fish picked out and scrutinized and brought back to the lab for identification.”

There seemed to be general agreement on that. I advanced the question that was really bothering me: “Crowley came up here to monitor the experiment. That means he knew the fish would be here, which meant they'd been genetically programmed to stay inshore, on the central coast. Don't ask me why.”

The
Coastal Provider
continued to part the waters, down Johnson Channel and then into Fisher Channel. The beauty of the day reproached us for our imperfections. Louise disappeared down to the galley, and twenty minutes later came back with a tray of sandwiches. We didn't actually snarl and snap over them, but there were a few hand slaps and exhortations to take just one at a time. They disappeared very quickly.

Soon we could see Burke Channel opening to the east, and we knew Lagoon Bay was just ahead. Anticipation crackled between us like an electric charge. Mark cut close by Nob Point and did a transect from north to south across the bay. We saw nothing unusual, so he headed for the narrow gap that led into Codville Lagoon. Throttling back to half speed, he watched the sounder closely as the bottom came up to two fathoms and then dropped back down to forty-five. We were in the lagoon.

If you turned the chart sideways, the lagoon was shaped like a toadstool. It was deeper than most lagoons, with a large island at the eastern side. Mark turned to port, intending to cruise the shoreline. As we neared the island, I could see wisps of smoke drifting up from somewhere near the center and my heart skipped a little. Mark saw the smoke too. “Don't tell me someone lives here.”

I touched Louise's shoulder and pointed at the smoke. I could feel her tense, and I read her thoughts:
What if the bad guy was here?
Mark continued to cruise the beach, and in doing so circumnavigated the island. We saw no sign of a boat, which lessened the chances that there was someone on the island. When we had followed the shore all the way around to our starting point, Mark put the boat in neutral and waited for instructions.

I was adamant: “We need to land on the island and find the source of that smoke.”

Louise was more hesitant: “The book says in situations like this, you call for backup. Mind you, backup a long way away.”

“If we'd seen a boat, I'd say call for reinforcements,” I said, pressing my case. “But I don't think there's anyone there. Besides, there's five of us.”

“Okay, here's the deal,” she said. I could see her thinking carefully. “I'll get my pistol and two people will come with me to the island, and two will stay here. When we get to the island, one person stays with the skiff, and the other comes with me. Any sound or sign of trouble and the skiff person comes back here. If there's no radio contact between the land party and the boat after thirty minutes, you guys take off and establish radio contact with Bella Bella
ASAP
. Ask for help.”

“I'll run the skiff, and after I drop you on the island, I'll stand off a net length or so,” Christine said. “I won't move back in until I see you, and you give me the okay.”

“That's pretty close to a foolproof plan,” I nodded agreement. “I'll go with Louise.”

“Foolproof?” Fergie laughed. “Considering the personnel, it better be.”

“I'll be right back,” Louise said, heading for the fo'c's'le. When she returned, she was in uniform, wearing a protective vest with her sidearm on her belt. “Let's go, guys.”

We went out to launch the skiff, and five minutes later Christine was steering us toward the island. Louise raised her voice over the sound of the engine.

“Let's cruise all the way around it, before we decide where to land.” Christine nodded and stood on her toes to get a better view as she steered.

When we got to the other side of the island, we spotted a break in the wall of salal. It might have been a trail. Christine kept going around the island, but we saw nothing else that resembled a trail. When we got back to the break in the salal, Christine headed straight in toward the beach. Twenty feet offshore, she cut the engine. We glided in silently, until there was a crunch as we grounded on gravel. Louise was the first out of the boat. I followed, and then turned and pushed the skiff back out. Christine started the engine and reversed out until she was well off the beach. Louise waved her even farther back. “I want her out of easy gunshot range.” Gunshots? In this Pacific Eden? But I knew the serpent was looming around us and the old rules no longer applied.

The break in the salal was indeed the start of a trail. We could see that, after about fifty feet, the salal gave way to scrub pine. After that was the unknown.

“I'll go first,” Louise said. “You keep about twenty yards back.”

“I've got a better idea.” I realized we were whispering. “I'll go first. That way, if someone jumps me, you'll be able to rescue me with guns blazing.”

“Okay. Go slow. I'll stay behind enough to be out of sight.”

I nodded, and crouching, started to bushwhack my way along the ill-defined trail. It was by no means a Parks Canada-approved hiking trail, and I was soon scratched and sweating and swatting away bugs. I clambered over a couple of deadfalls and once took a wrong turn into a salmonberry thicket. But after about two hundred yards of painstaking progress, I could see a lighter area ahead. I emerged into a clearing and whistled in amazement. There had been a building here, more than a building, an installation of some kind, but whatever it was had been reduced to smouldering ashes. Louise was soon beside me and she repeated my whistle.

“We missed him by twenty-four hours. I'm guessing that's how long ago this fire was set.” She stepped out into the clearing. “The surrounding trees were just too green to burn; not that it makes much difference. The killer is covering his tracks. I wonder what was here.”

I examined some familiar metallic shapes. They were blackened but recognizable. “We've got two generators here, and that metal latticework; if it was standing up, could have been a radio tower. I think this was the monitoring station.” We began to walk the perimeter of the clearing. On the eastward side, we almost stepped on an electrical cable that snaked into the trees in one direction and back into the center of the burned area in the opposite direction. I tried to follow it into the bush, but soon gave up. “We should be able to pick this up where it reaches the beach.”

We tried to examine what would have been the interior of the building, but it was still too hot. So we stood there and looked around. “Any chance we'll find useful evidence here?”

“No fingerprints or
DNA
evidence,” Louise said, shaking her head. “Nothing biological. I guess that was the intent. But when we sift through the ashes we might come up with something. Not everything is flammable. Where do you think that cable goes?”

“Let's go look.”

When we had retraced our steps back along the trail, and arrived at the beach, we looked to see if we could find the electrical cable. We did. About a hundred yards north of where we'd landed, the cable came out of the bush, ran across the intertidal area, and disappeared into the water. We waved to Christine and she idled in to pick us up. “Well?”

“There was some kind of monitoring station in there but it looks like the bad guy torched it. He's cutting his losses and covering his tracks. There's an electrical cable running into the water. I want to see if it comes out on the mainland beach, over there.”

Christine aimed the skiff at the spot I'd pointed out: a bay within the lagoon within the main bay. It was about half tide, and a lot of the gravelly beach was exposed. It was there that we discovered the last and the most unexpected of the implausibilities we'd come across that day. The beach was littered with familiar red carcasses: spawned-out sockeye salmon.

Louise didn't realize the implications of what we were seeing, but Christine did. Sockeye, like all salmon, are supposed to spawn in fresh-water streams and rivers. In the fall, not the spring.

“Christ Almighty!” Christine gestured at the carcasses. “Goddamn scientists are breaking the laws of nature.”

“I'll let you guys worry about that.” Louise was grim. “I'm more concerned with them breaking the laws of the Criminal Code of Canada.”

We headed back to the
Coastal Provider
in silence. Parts of the puzzle were becoming clear to me, but certain areas were still obscured. It was like running a boat in the fog. Sometimes you could sense things, shapes in the fog that you couldn't quite see. Sometimes you saw things that weren't there. And the more you concentrated, the more the lines blurred.

It was five-thirty and almost dusk by the time we got back to the boat. Mark had dropped the hook. We described what we'd seen while Mark and Fergie listened calmly. The troops were getting impervious to shock.

“No sense rushing off anywhere,” Mark said finally. “We might as well have a relaxing supper.”

Fergie had something in the oven. It smelled roastlike. There was a bottle of red wine on the table, so I sat down and poured myself a glass. Louise retired to the fo'c's'le to slip into something a little more comfortable, which meant divesting herself of her .38 Special, but she soon returned, and we all sat around the table and sipped wine reflectively.

“The lagoon must have really low salt content,” Mark said, “more fresh water than salt. That must be what enabled the fish to spawn there. It's obviously all part of the plan, but what the hell is the plan?”

Fergie delved into the wine cellar under the forward bench and produced another bottle of red and one of white. It was completely dark outside, and the galley windows showed only our reflections. The oil stove produced a comfortable warmth and the smell of the roast intensified. The five of us sat close together around the table, insulated from the vastness outside. Self-sufficient. It was boat life.

We batted around theories about the case, but soon ran into the wall of the unknown. Conversation shifted to more mundane matters; movies we'd seen, the last good book we'd read. Before hunger had progressed to the point of drooling on the table, Fergie took the roast out of the oven, along with sourdough biscuits and roast potatoes. He'd boiled some peas, so as not to discriminate completely against chlorophyll-based life forms, and while he made the gravy, I carved the roast.

The two of us sitting on the outside of the table served the three trapped on the inside along the wall, and then served ourselves. There ensued a scene of serious nutritioning. The roast never stood a chance. When the only clues to the roast's erstwhile existence were some bits of fat and stained string, we celebrated our victory over meat by finishing the wine. We then launched the desert campaign, plotting the destruction of a gallon of chocolate ice cream topped with frozen strawberries. Having achieved total food domination, we celebrated our success with coffee and Baileys and brandy.