The River Killers (33 page)

“I guess you can't write the paper now.”

“Unfortunately not in the form I'd envisioned. But when I get my
DNA
samples, I'll be able to set up somewhere else and carry on the work. I have some ideas that will stun the scientific community.”

I decided not to comment on this. “Where did you disappear to after the shooting?”

“I took the
Kelp
to Bella Bella. The next morning I hired on as a deckhand on a gillnetter and we left for Stryker Bay. The other deckhand was Mathew Wilson. When the herring fishery was over, we went back to Bella Bella, and I talked him into procuring a boat for me. I went down to Lagoon Bay and burned the place. Then Mathew drove me to Klemtu and I flew back to Vancouver.”

“Mathew didn't know who you were?”

“Not a clue. Most of the time he didn't know who
he
was. I paid him enough to buy whatever sort of oblivion he fancied and he'd forgotten me before he pocketed the money.”

I gazed out the window at the encroaching dusk. The cars on Marine Drive all had their headlights on and pedestrians were hunching against a wind-driven drizzle.

I looked back at the interior of the restaurant and then at Alistair Crowley, eminent scientist,
DFO
stalwart, admired mentor, and killer. “It's time to go.”

We both stood, I left ten dollars on the table and we walked out, heading straight into the main current of whatever was to be. Crowley was driving a battered old Jeep. When we were settled inside, I turned to him and said I was going to pat him down for a gun. “You don't have to. I've got Jerry's.”

“Give it to me.”

He looked at me coldly.

“I know I'm not going to kill you,” I explained, “but I'm not entirely sure that you're not going to kill me. If you want those
DNA
samples, this is how the deal works.”

“I presume you've got the keys on you. I could shoot you and take the keys.”

“You already know I'm not stupid. I don't have the keys on me.”

He sighed, leaned over, and pulled a .38 Special out from under his seat. I took it and tucked it into my jeans at the small of my back. “Be right back.”

I went back into the White Spot and approached the waitress who'd served us. “I think I must have dropped my keys in here.”

She smiled and held up Bette's key ring. “They were right on the cushion where you were sitting.”

“Thanks a lot.” I attempted a smile, failed, and went out to rejoin Crowley.

In the Jeep, Crowley drove without speaking, our tires swishing on the asphalt the only sound. After a time, he said musingly, “It's a good thing no one did eat those fish. The rabbits didn't die pleasantly. Three to five minutes of convulsions, a final spasm, and death by asphyxiation.”

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the West Vancouver lab. There were no other cars in the lot. We got out and stood in the darkness and drizzle.

“We'll go in the back. It's the quickest way to the basement and security doesn't have access to the lower labs. Worst comes to worst, just flash your
DFO
ID
.”

The drizzle was falling through fog and the streetlights gave off a diffused glow. Raindrops on the foliage sounded like static. We stepped cautiously toward the back of the building. At the door, I fumbled with too many keys while Crowley wiped his glasses with a handkerchief. A hypothesis occurred: main door equals big key. This was experimentally verified and we entered the building.

A hallway led straight ahead and steps went down to our right. Crowley went down the steps and I followed. He led the way through an open area encompassed by closed doors to a room labeled “Wet Lab.” This time, a medium-sized key proved successful and we entered a large room, lit just well enough so we could see large fish tanks. I realized it was the room we had seen in the video.

Off to the left was a single door and Crowley gestured to it. This time a small key proved to be the correct choice and we entered the freezer room. The doors of a walk-in freezer took up most of the back wall, but Crowley walked over to a row of standard three-by-six freezers against the room's right side. The third one he opened was apparently the right one. He took a Styrofoam carrying container off a shelf, put two frozen gel-packs in the bottom, and started transferring test tubes from the freezer to the container, talking as he worked. “Thank God, those stupid farmers haven't already taken these. Thinking ahead was never their strong point.”

I watched him for a moment and then a thought popped into my head. “I forgot to ask, who was farmer number two?”

I flinched when a voice answered from behind us. “I guess that would be me.” I turned and saw Reginald Sanderson pointing a gun at us.

“I didn't know you referred
to us with such disrespect, Alistair.”

Crowley looked at Sanderson with contempt. “It's an accurate description. All you were good for was tending the fish, feeding them, and milking sperm. Fish farmers by training and fish farmers by nature.”

“Put those samples back.”

“No. Leaving them with you would be like leaving a baboon in charge of a cyclotron.”

“What did you do with Jerry?”

“I persuaded him to adopt a higher calling. He's maggot food, the finest thing he's ever done.”

Crowley gave me a do-something look, but as I inched my right hand toward the gun pressed against the small of my back, Sanderson shot him twice in the chest and then, leaning forward over the inert body, once in the head. The shots crashed and echoed off the concrete walls, and I instinctively pulled my arms in to protect my unhealed chest.

Sanderson straightened up, breathing heavily. “We put the night watchman on leave two weeks ago. Fleming knew someone would show up here trying to cause trouble.”

My heart was pounding but somehow the blood had drained from my brain. I felt sick to my stomach and weak in the knees. Switch to automatic pilot. “Good thinking. You guys seem to have covered all the bases.”

“We always like to be prepared for eventualities. And now you can help me dispose of that arrogant bastard. But first, put those samples back in the freezer.”

As I followed his orders, some primitive, shockproof part of my brain proved capable of basic analysis. He obviously didn't suspect that I had a gun, but he was watching me too closely for me to reach for it. I'd just have to wait for an opportunity. I hoped that opportunity would come soon. It seemed unlikely that Sanderson would wave a cheery good-bye and leave me to write up a report at the end of this.

He tossed a large, heavy-duty nylon hockey bag at me. “Put Mr. Crowley in that.”

“You really did come prepared.” I held nausea at bay by pretending I was dealing with a life-sized doll. Somehow I managed to arrange Crowley in the bag. With his knees up and his arms across his chest, he barely fit. Studiously avoiding his eyes, I did the zipper up.

“Now drag him outside.”

Crowley weighed around one-seventy and it shouldn't have been too difficult to drag the bag along the floor, but I was still missing bits of pectoral muscle on my left side. By the time I dragged him up the stairs and outside, I was bent over and gasping for air. Sanderson realized he had to let me rest a minute. While I recovered my strength, Sanderson placed a call and spoke tersely but triumphantly to, I was sure, Fleming Griffith. “You were right. I've got them both. We'll be in the clear soon.” He closed the phone. “Down to the wharf.”

I felt a glimmer of something like hope. We were obviously going to take a boat to dispose of Crowley's body. I was at home on boats and I didn't think Sanderson was. Advantage Swanson. The bag slid fairly easily across the wet grass and down the ramp to the float. Sanderson was never more than four feet behind me. There were several boats tied up at the float: Zodiacs, a couple of aluminum skiffs, the huge steel bulk of the
W.E. Ricker
, and the
W 10
, an old wooden pilchard boat that had been converted to a patrol vessel.

“We're taking that one,” he said, pointing at the
W 10
. I pulled the bag alongside the gunwale and then straightened up to look at the four-foot height from float to cap rail. Sanderson grabbed one end of the bag with one hand, and carefully pointed the gun at me with the other. Between the two of us, we lifted the bag onto the deck of the boat.

“Climb aboard,” he said.

When we were both standing on deck, he motioned to the hatch. “There are some anchors down there. I need you to pass them up.”

I didn't like to think what he wanted the anchors for. I grasped one side of the hatch cover, Sanderson took the other side, and we slid the cover back. “A big strong guy like you should be able to manage them.” He handed me a flashlight and I climbed down the ladder into the blackness of the hatch.

I switched on the flashlight and looked around. In one corner, there was a pile of halibut anchors. I noted with extreme interest that the lazaret door was open. Not good seamanship, but extremely handy for Danny Swanson in his current circumstances. I stepped through the door, pulled it shut behind me, dogged it, and held the dog handle firmly. Less than a minute later, I could feel Sanderson on the other side trying to unlatch the door. But I only had to hold the handle down whereas he had to lift it up. After a couple of minutes, he gave up and fired four shots at the door. I flinched but I knew I was safe behind three inches of first-growth fir. Five minutes later, the engines started up and I relaxed a bit.

I shone the flashlight around. I could see the steering mechanism and the usual coils of assorted rope. A couple of wooden crates held spare filters, there were three five-gallon buckets of hydraulic oil and one of lube oil, three boxes of large absorbent pads for mopping up nasty spills, plus an assortment of typical boat junk. I took a length of steel pipe, wedged it under the dog handle, sat down on one of the oil buckets, turned off the flashlight, and considered my next move.

The situation obviously called for monitoring so I proceeded without delay to implement an appropriate program. I heard the engine rev and felt the boat pull away from the dock. I flashed the light at my watch. Ten-fifteen. Sitting in the dark, I could hear the foghorn at Point Atkinson, three blasts every sixty seconds. We were leaving Burrard Inlet and heading out into the Strait of Georgia. The foghorn was still a ways ahead of us, but we would soon be in at least one hundred fathoms of water. Then the foghorn was abeam to starboard and I could hear the bell on the can buoy abeam to port. It was ten-thirty. We had to be making about ten knots, which tallied with the scream of the engine at full
RPM
.

Another fifteen minutes, and we'd be in body-dumping depth, although I hoped there would be too much traffic and he'd have to go farther out. I wondered if he would dare to come down the hatch to get an anchor. I wondered if I had the nerve to open the door to check. No, we could be on autopilot, with him sitting in the hatch waiting to blast me. Besides, he could find something in the engine room to weigh down the body, a deck plate or something.

By eleven o'clock, I figured we had to be roughly off Cape Roger Curtis. There was always lots of traffic in the area: tugs and barges, deep-sea vessels, fish boats, and ferries. I prayed Sanderson would have to steam for at least another half hour to find enough privacy to dispose of Crowley. After some time, the engine revved down to idle. Eleven thirty-five. Perfect. Depending on the heading Sanderson had steered, we had to be within a couple of miles of McCall Bank or Halibut Bank.

I opened my net knife and cut the two rubber hydraulic lines that ran to the steering rams. Because we were now almost dead in the water, it wasn't too hard to manually turn the rudder shaft to hard over and then lash it into position. I figured by then Sanderson had to have dumped Crowley because the engine sped up momentarily. When Sanderson realized he couldn't control the steering, and he was doomed to go around in circles, he cut the engine again.
Your move, pal
, I thought. I wondered what it would be.

I sat for an hour, straining for sounds of Sanderson's movements but hearing little. It was another half hour before I realized the rocking motion of the boat was becoming sluggish. The angle of the deck had changed. We were down at the stern. Sanderson was sinking the boat!

Panic robbed me of thought. For a second there was no me, just a sort of soundless screaming. This was every fisherman's worst nightmare: to be trapped helplessly in a sinking ship. Drowning was a horrible death. Oxygen demand would override every other brain function. Every synapse would be firing with orders to breathe. Just breathe! But there would be no relief, only wide-eyed panic building and building. And then the first trickle of water past the larynx, and then choking, and then more water, and then . . . 

I forced myself to think calmly. I removed the brace from the latch but didn't open the door. Sanderson could be waiting out there. This would have to be a last-minute Houdini-like escape.

When I felt water over my shoes, I panicked a bit but realized it was actually a good thing. Water was seeping under the lazaret door, which meant the pressure would be equalized between the lazaret and the hatch and the door wouldn't be forced shut.

I made a couple of rudimentary preparations. Because there was no survival suit handy, I took off my shirt and trousers, wrapped myself with several of the absorbent pads, and put my shirt and trousers back on to hold the pads in place. Insulation. Now for flotation. I emptied two of the oil containers and tied them together with a short piece of rope to form a crude set of water wings. I was as ready as I was ever going to be to abandon ship.

We now had a pronounced list to port and were farther down at the stern. When the water reached my knees, the engine stopped, which meant the engine room was at least half flooded. I'd have to make a move soon. The boat was almost on its side now, and I pushed open the door and looked into the cabin. Dark emptiness. I switched on the flashlight. I was alone, thankfully, and the hatch cover was closed.