The River Killers (18 page)

“Explain.” I did. She groaned. “A minute ago, I was working on an unsolved homicide. Now you tell me we've got a mass murder on our hands.”

“Yeah, but just one murderer. And together, we can nail him.”

“And you want me to go where? Morehouse Bay?”

“It's where the trail leads. Besides, you'll get to see the old crew in action. It'll be like reuniting the '94 Oilers.”

“Give me a little time to arrange some stuff. Pick me up at the dock.”

By the time I got to the bar, the rest of the crew was seated at a table, untouched beers going flat in front of them. Mark raised an index finger in greeting. “I've brought these guys up to speed but they're having a hard time digesting it.”

Christine spoke through hands covering her face. “I'm having a hard time, not so much digesting it, but believing it. It seems completely unreal. Three people killed over a science experiment gone wrong?”

“Just one, really: Billy. Then Crowley was killed because he found out that Billy had been killed and Les Jameson was killed because he could have fingered Crowley's killer. The big mystery, the thing that's driving me crazy, is why was Billy killed. It just doesn't make sense.”

Fergie straightened up and slapped the table. “I don't care if it doesn't make sense. Maybe we're dealing with a deranged lab rat. I just want to get the bastard and kick his balls up to his tonsils.” We all sat silent again.

A question occurred to me. “Christine, how do you know there was a second person on Les Jameson's boat?”

“I started going through his gear. There were two carryalls full of clothes and personal stuff. One definitely belonged to Les because it had his wallet. The other bag was full of clothes that were too big to fit Les, and it had a toilet kit that included a hairbrush.”

Les Jameson hadn't had hair for even longer than he hadn't had morals. “Have you got the bag now?”

“Yeah.”

“Give it to Louise. We'll pick her up in Bella Bella. You guys ready?” We left the beer on the table and walked out.

Twenty minutes later, I helped Louise over the cap rail of the
Coastal Provider
and led her up to the wheelhouse. She smiled at everyone. “Hi, everyone. Thanks for volunteering your time on this.”

“We were a pretty tight group,” Christine said with a smile, “the crew of the
Maple Leaf C
. I guess this seems to us just a case of helping out an old shipmate.”

I didn't know if she was referring to Billy or me. Didn't really matter. Mark put the boat in gear and we headed north into the gathering dark.

With five people in the wheelhouse, it was a little crowded, but not uncomfortably so. We bantered companionably for ten or fifteen minutes, and then I suggested that Christine and I do a wheel shift. Mark yawned and headed for his cabin and Fergie went to claim a bunk in the fo'c's'le. Louise stayed with Christine and me. Soon we were heading westward in Seaforth Channel.

The wheelhouse was dark, lit only by the dim, comfortable light of the instruments. I was at the wheel with Louise standing beside me, staring with interest at the radar and sounder and
GPS
display, and Christine lounged on the bench along the port bulkhead. I spoke quietly. “Mark must have been a little tired. They were pumping fish all last night.”

“Seine boat guys are such sissies,” Christine snorted, “which I realized when I started gillnetting. Gillnetters stay up for days at a time.”

Louise turned to her. “You're joking. That's not safe.”

“You're right, but working on a boat alone is not safe. Setting a net is not safe. Drumming in is not safe. Being on a slippery deck at night is not safe. But that's gillnetting. So staying up for a few hours past what most people would consider a normal shift is just part of the game.”

“What's the longest you ever stayed up?”

“I used to do forty-eight hours regularly, but after that, I'd start seeing the phantom deckhands. About fifty-six hours was my absolute limit. But I knew guys who swore they could do three days.”

Louise shook her head. “Good God. I had no idea that fishermen did stuff like that. After doing fifty-six hours, did you take a couple of days off?”

“No, I'd set the alarm and have a fifteen-minute catnap, do another few hours, another catnap, and so on. The only problem was that during those catnaps The Bad Things would appear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, the thousand and one things that can screw things up: a slight shift in the wind blows your boat onto the net, a riptide sinks your net, a huge log drifts into the middle of your net, a boat comes around the corner and runs over your net. Shit like that.”

“I can't imagine why anyone would want to fish for a living.”

“Masochists, I guess. But when things are going well, fish hitting your net, you're making the right moves, and you out-drum some guy to get the next set, there's absolutely nothing that compares to it.”

I silently agreed. After about half an hour, I altered course to head into Return Channel. At the wheel of a boat, in the company of friends, I felt better than I had in a while. I told Louise about our
SPLAG
scam. She chuckled softly. We ran northeast for an hour before I turned into Morehouse Bay. Christine was dozing on the bench, but when she heard the engine slow, she woke up and helped me drop the hook. Then we all found a bunk in the fo'c's'le, I kissed Louise goodnight, and we snuggled into our respective bunks and waited for what the morning would bring.

I was the second one
up in the morning. It was almost daylight. We had slept in but that was okay because this wasn't real fishing. We only needed to make one or two sets, catch a few of the refugee sockeye for specimens, and call it a day.

Mark and I sipped coffee and watched the eastern sky lighten and the scattered cirrus clouds start to turn pink. The boat sat quietly at anchor. There wasn't a sound, but you could almost hear something whisper the meaning of life.

The pink dawn gave way to soft golden daylight and the sounds of human animals awakening drifted up to the wheelhouse. Soon everyone was there. Louise broke the silence. “I won't be much help today so the least I can do is cook breakfast. Do you have eggs and stuff, Mark?”

“On this boat, we've always considered food as safety equipment. We never leave the dock without it.”

“Is a Western omelet okay with everyone?”

There was not a single objection so Louise went down the ladder, and soon we could hear pots banging in the galley. Fergie was staring intently out the window. “I don't see any sockeye, Danny.”

“They're around here somewhere. We'll find 'em after breakfast.” I went down to the galley to get another coffee and stayed to watch Louise bustling competently around the stove.

“I thought you said you weren't much of a cook.”

“If I was rich, I would have lied about that too. I want you to be interested in me, not my incidental attributes.”

“I happen to be very attracted to your incidental attributes.” I got up and kissed her. She kissed me back.

“Some attributes are more incidental than others. Does the uniform attract you?”

“Take it off and I'll see how I feel.”

“You feel aroused.” She turned back to the stove. “I don't want to burn the omelet. Why don't you make the toast?”

By the time I had made ten pieces of toast, the omelet was ready, so I called the others to the table. We ate quickly, even though there was no need, and when we were finished, I told Fergie it was his turn to do the dishes.

“What do you mean, it's my turn?”

“I did them last. It's your turn after me.”

“We haven't been together on a boat for eight years. Are you telling me you remember who did the dishes last?”

“I wrote it in my diary.”

“Even so, this is a different boat. Different rotation. Law of the sea.”

“Rotation is invoked by the last doer of the dishes. Chapter twenty-three.”

“All right, but I get the last piece of toast.”

Christine grinned. “Some things never change. It's nice to know you can count on a certain amount of consistency, even if it's only childishness.”

Mark went back to the wheelhouse and the engine roared into life. Christine and I went to pull the hook, and then we had a quick conference in the wheelhouse. “Let's take a look in behind those islands. That's where I'd be if I was a sockeye.”

“If you spend too much time in the West Van lab, you might be.”

The boat moved slowly forward as Mark kept his eye on the sounder. There was a string of three or four islands in the outer bay, and two more on the inner southeast shore. In between the two sets of islands, we found the fish. Mark stared at the sounder. “It looks deep enough for a set. Let me sound it out for a couple of minutes.”

We went out on deck to get everything ready. I told Louise to stand on the upper deck behind the wheelhouse so she'd get a good view. Professionals in action, I told her.

We checked the myriad of things that needed to be checked so that the complex activity of launching and recovering a quarter mile of net could be achieved without disaster, and then assumed our positions. I would run the drum in Billy's absence, Fergie would run the skiff, and Christine was at her old post on the deck winch. Mark poked his head out the back door and yelled some last-minute instructions. “There's a lot of fish and we only need a few. I'm going to do a quick circle set so Fergie won't have to tow much.”

He gunned the engine and the boat sped up. I felt the familiar butterflies signaling my rising excitement. I gave a thumbs-up to Fergie standing in the skiff and Christine by the winch and then Louise behind the wheelhouse. The horn sounded and Christine let the skiff line go. The net started to peel off the stern and I watched the line of corks as Mark started to draw a big white circle in the water. When the net was almost completely off, Mark poked his head out again. “Don't even use the tow hook. Just start drumming slowly when the last cork hits the water.”

As the last cork dribbled over the stern, I placed the second roller in the spooling gear and draped the towline between the two rollers. Fergie had towed his end of the net back to the boat. He passed the end of the tow-off line to Christine who wrapped it onto the deck winch. Fergie had jumped back onboard, and he released the blondie before dragging the purse line sternward where he fed it into the pursing block. Christine started pursing and I started drumming. I certainly wasn't an artiste of the caliber that Billy had been, but I knew the basic moves. While Christine and I were performing our parts in the dance, Fergie swung the boom to port and hooked up the hairpin.

Mark joined us on deck and stood beside Fergie and me next to the drum. “This is completely ass backwards. I'm trying to catch as few fish as possible.” Then he looked at me. “Hey, do we need a permit for this?”

“I can issue a scientific permit,” I said, wondering if I could.

“Rings coming up!”

I ran the spoolers over to my side and stopped the drum. The purse line pulled tight. “Whoa!” Fergie rammed the hairpin into the neatly bunched brass rings. “Goin' up!” Christine raised the hairpin to a convenient height, pulled the deck winch out of gear, and I started drumming again. Soon there were only six rings left and I slowed the drum. When there were only two rings left, Mark grabbed them and Christine lowered the hairpin while Fergie ran to untie the end line. Mark stooped and carefully passed his two rings around the horn, even though we weren't really concerned with losing fish, and Fergie did the same with the end line. I stopped the drum and Mark pulled out one of the spoolers so the fish wouldn't be squished passing between them.

Mark peered over the stern. “There's a couple hundred,” he said.

I lowered the stern ramp until the roller was almost in the water and then went ahead on the drum. A neat little bag of flopping fish came over the stern, and I raised the ramp and stopped the drum. Fergie and Mark pulled slack through the end rings. I went ahead on the drum again, and the neat little bag of fish spilled onto the stern.

“Come and look at this,” I shouted to Louise. Almost immediately, we spotted two Frankenfish, then three more, and then too many. Some of the fish were normal, at least in outward appearance. But the deformed specimens, writhing on deck, made my stomach heave. I looked at my shipmates and they all displayed expressions of distaste, like they were watching unusually offensive porn.

I was in a quandary. I wanted to save the Igors and maybe a dozen of the normal-looking fish. But what to do with the rest? Throw them overboard? Alive or dead? When I voiced these questions, Mark was unequivocal. “We can freeze a few of these but I don't want the rest on my boat. And if they're mutants, they shouldn't go back into the ocean alive.”

“Okay, let's save the obvious mutants and a dozen normal-looking ones to autopsy.” The “autopsy” consisted of slitting open the bellies to check the gonads. Christine and Fergie and I grimaced as we handled the misshapen mutants. Their flesh was soft and repellent, but we willed ourselves into a clinical detachment.

We quickly discovered two things. All the “normal” fish were males and they all carried radio tags, little cylinders the size of a vitamin pill. It now seemed prudent to open up the deformed fish. They weren't Igors, they were Igoresses, and they were radio-tagged as well.

Fergie shook his head. “Wow, all females are mutants. Who knew?”

Christine kicked bloody water at him. “You may want to re-phrase that slightly.”

“We need to take a good look at the islands,” Louise said to Mark. “Can you cruise around them real close to the shore.”

“It's too shallow. But we can use the skiff.”