Silurid

by Gerry Griffiths

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jess Murdock exited Interstate 5 onto the Madison turnoff and looped her black Bronco XLT onto the frontage road. Groves of olive trees stood to the right in perfect alignment. On the left was Madison levee running as far as the eye could see.

  Up ahead, the angry clouds bullied the darkening sky.

  Last night, the rain had come down so hard that Jess had not slept well.

  Normally, the sound of the rain drumming on the roof and the windowpanes of her cottage would have lulled her off to sleep, but instead, she had tossed and turned worrying how the rain was affecting the hatchery.

  She turned her attention to the news broadcast on the radio.

  “More debris flows and mudslides threaten the town of Madison. Four homes suffered major damage last night when the hillside behind the properties suddenly gave way. Luckily, no one was hurt. Well, Bob, any relief from El Nino?”

  “I’m afraid not, Beverly. The Weather Service is predicting new records this year, surpassing those established over a century ago. So far, we have had one hundred and two days of consecutive rainfall. Expect patchy clouds today with more rain in the forecast for this afternoon. Back to you, Beverly.”

  The female newscaster did a short plug for the upcoming President’s Day sale at Madison Hardware before turning the airways over to Chris Rea singing The Road to Hell.

  Jess checked her speed and the time, not wanting to be late for the tour. The stop at the chemical store had taken longer than she had anticipated. The rain had saturated the ponds, causing an algae bloom, so she had picked up ten sacks of copper sulfate to control the plankton growth. The new warehouseman had taken forever writing up the order, searching in the back, and loading the sacks into the back of the Bronco.

  She edged the speedometer needle five miles over the speed limit.

  A black sedan meandered in front of her. She drummed her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel and was forced to slow down.

  “Come on, slowpoke. I don’t have all day.” Jess was considering passing but quickly changed her mind when she spotted a logging truck barreling toward her in the opposing lane. She bided her time, watching the driver of the sedan through the car’s rear window. The man had a cellular phone pressed against his ear. She hated drivers who dawdled on the road, talking to who-knows-who, oblivious to the other cars around them.

  The logging truck shook the Bronco as it thundered by. Two cars followed behind the big rig’s draft. A bend in the road cut off her view of any opposing traffic.

  Tired of waiting, Jess stomped on the accelerator. The 351 horsepower engine responded with a muffled roar. She steered around the sedan, gave the driver a scowl, and was about to return her attention to the road when she heard the jarring blare of an air horn.

  Jess looked out the windshield and saw the fast approaching grill of another logging truck.

  “Shit!”

  She gunned the Bronco and swerved back into her lane, cutting in front of the sedan by mere feet, just missing the truck speeding by, the force of the big rig almost buffeting her off the road.

  She glanced back in her review mirror. The driver of the sedan seemed unfazed, talking on his phone.

  “Asshole!”

  A flagman stood in the middle of the road and thrust out his STOP sign.

  Jess felt her blood pressure creep up a notch.

  She braked, bringing the Bronco to a halt behind a maroon Mustang. Higher than the car in front of her, Jess had a clear view of the Caltrans workers in their orange vests and hard hats, busily off-loading sandbags from a flatbed truck. Two yellow bulldozers ran the metal teeth of their scoops up against the embankment of the levee.

  A narrow channel of water seeped from the base of the levee, forming a stream that crossed over the frontage road. The stream poured down into a wide ditch carved through an abandoned field that ran behind the Murdock Fish Hatchery. The gully had once been Adobe Creek.

  Jess watched a burly man climb out of a parked truck. Toting a small case, he began climbing the steep bank of the levee. She recognized the emblem on his truck door and figured he was a hydrologist technician from the U.S. Geological Survey going up to take measurements.

  On the other side of the levee was the Sacramento River. Almost 400 miles long, the Sacramento River flowed down California’s backbone, originating near Mount Shasta and emptying into the San Francisco Bay. Part of the river’s journey grazed the banks of the Madison Levee. The Sacramento River had swollen from the constant rains already flooding other communities nestled too close or with elevations below the river.

  Madison was on flood alert.

  The flagman turned his sign around to SLOW and signaled for the traffic to pass.

  The Mustang edged through the water. The rear tires squealed then regained traction on the dry pavement.

  Jess waved to the flagman and proceeded on. She turned right at the sign, Welcome to the Murdock Fish Hatchery, and drove along the gravel road.

  She could see much of the hatchery out the passenger window through the chain-link fencing. A tall, sixty-foot long windowless Quonset hut and a one-acre pond occupied a corner of the property. A separate security fence—made of twelve-foot-high cinderblock and topped with impenetrable razor wire coils—protected the rear of the hut and pond from intruders.

  Beyond were sixty concrete raceways, each one teeming with trout and bass.

  Behind the raceways were the aeration building, the aeration ponds, the equipment shed, and four one-acre ponds stocked with catfish.

  Jess turned into the hatchery’s gravel lot and parked in front of the office next to the visitor center.

  She was glad to see a few cars in the lot and checked her watch, relieved that she still had five minutes before the tour was due to begin. She pulled into her stall and turned off the ignition. She jumped out of the Bronco and raced around to the rear of the vehicle. Pressing down on the release bar, she swung the spare tire carrier out. She inserted the key into the lock, unrolled the window, reached inside and pulled down the tailgate.

  “Billy, can you get these for me?” Jess shouted to the man driving up in a battery operated flatbed utility cart. Billy Garner, her foreman, headed up a crew of five maintenance men. He had a stubbly gray beard and was lean and grisly.

  Jess adored Billy more than her real father.

  “Sure thing, Jess,” Billy replied. He stopped the cart then stiffly climbed out of the cab. “I tell you, if this rain doesn’t let up soon, my joints are going to lock up like a rusty piston.”

  “Remember what the doctor said. It’s all about exercising. That’s the only way you’re going to fight it.” Jess knew Billy’s arthritis was acting up.

  “Easy for him. He’s still a kid. Doesn’t take him all morning to get the kinks outs. Hey, you better hurry up. You’ve got some tourists. You’d think they’d have something better to do than come out here on a day like this.”

  “What and miss my performance?”

  “Yeah, you never know, there might be a talent scout from Marine World in that bunch,” Billy laughed.

  “Very funny. Get Kyle to help you.”

  “And make the kid do some honest work?”

  Jess had brought Kyle Shepard onboard so that he might complete his internship from U.C. Davis. He was eager, willing, and never complained. Kyle was good to have around, and he was fond of Billy.

  “Jess, I have to tell you. I’m worried about ponds three and four. This rain hasn’t been good. Those back slopes are slipping down faster than a greased cat on a tin roof. I’m going to have to get the guys to fill some more sandbags.”

  “Let me know how it goes. And Billy…don’t overdo it,” Jess said.

  “Can’t hurt any more than I already do,” Billy replied, massaging his shoulder.

  Jess sprang up the step to the office.

  The office was small with two desks butted together with a few file cabinets, and a long table with a copy machine, a fax machine, and a c
offee maker.

  Neatly framed posters hung on the walls: a blown-up photograph of a Scottish moor with an ancient castle in the background; a dramatic snapshot of a trout leaping from a brook; a serene jungle setting with fine points of light filtering down through the high branches.

  Behind Jess’s desk was a black-and-white poster of an emaciated child holding a small tin, staring blankly out into the room. The caption, World Hunger Affects Us All, was printed in bold letters beneath the child’s dirty bare feet. The hatchery had joined a program that provided aide to hunger-stricken countries. Each month, the hatchery sent fish to a cannery that strictly shipped produce abroad to India and Africa.

  Jess checked herself in the mirror beside the door. She made sure her ball cap with the hatchery logo was straight and her braided ponytail protruding out the back of her hat looked presentable. She was wearing a freshly pressed short-sleeved shirt also with a hatchery logo under her bomber jacket, jeans, and her favorite cowboy boots. Working outdoors, she always had a tan.

  She left the office and hurried outside.

  The same black sedan that had made her almost late pulled up into the parking lot.

  A short, squatty man, wearing a dark suit and tie, stepped out of the car. He reached in and retrieved an attaché case. He looked around to get his bearings. Jess had no time to see what he wanted. She was already going to be late. Billy would have to attend to the jerk.

  Walking around back, Jess entered a brick courtyard. A trestle overhang with interweaving ivy shaded the area.

  Jess counted twelve people, mostly couples and a family grouped under the patio. One man looked over at his wife, tapping the crystal on his watch. A small boy, bundled up in his parka, was reaching into the lava rock pond, attempting to grab one of the tadpoles that quickly hid under a floating lily pad. Seeing Jess, his mother yanked him abruptly away from the pond.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Jess said, giving everyone her tour guide smile.

  “Welcome to the Murdock Fish Hatchery. My name is Jess Murdock, and I will be your guide for today.”

  Jess followed her script. She told them how she and her brother, Vernon, had come to work at the hatchery five years ago. After a lot of hard work, Jess had become the hatchery manager. She neglected to mention that they had inherited the business from their grandfather. The part about the hard work was true. She had busted her hump, no thanks to Vernon and his self-absorbing project that distracted him from the hatchery duties.

  After a brief history of the hatchery, she touched on Vernon’s work, elaborating on how she and Vernon had received their doctoral degrees from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. As the project was confidential, she could only say that he was working on developing a new food source that would mean the end of world famine. She played it up, spurring their interest. It always tickled her to see them staring over at the Quonset hut as if the diabolical Dr. Moreau might be in there, tampering with evolution.

  No one, except Vernon, was allowed inside the Quonset hut. In fact, Jess had not seen Vernon in over a month. Whatever it was that he was working on, it held him captive like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

  Before going inside the hatchery, Jess emphasized the importance of aquaculture, pointing out that over 14 million tons of fish were produced a year by freshwater aquaculture, contributing to fifteen percent of the world’s food source. That always dazzled them.

  Jess led the group into the visitor center. In one corner was a counter with a display case of T-shirts, ball caps, and pennants with the hatchery’s logo for sale.

  Anatomy charts and pictures of fish classifications were displayed for everyone’s perusal.

  One wall had an array of brown-tinted pictures of the Madison community in the early years, most of them relating one way or another to the hatchery.

  Across the room on the opposite wall was the massive fish tank that always drew a gasp. Today’s tour was no exception.

  “That looks so natural,” one woman said. “Doesn’t it, Charles?”

  “I’ll say,” Charles replied.

  Jess was proud of the 500-gallon Plexiglas show tank. The backdrop resembled a riverbed, and the bottom of the tank was filled with brown gravel. Thickets of waving underwater plants undulated in the surging water driven by a jet at one end of the tank replicating the action of a flowing stream. Thirty-or-so arm-length brook trout and salmon swam against the current in suspended motion.

  Jess explained the principles of fish propulsion—the caudal fin for thrust, the pectoral fin that acted as the rudder and hydroplane, the pelvic fin for controlling pitch, and the dorsal fin used for controlling roll.

  Then it was off to the hatch house to see the nursery tanks. Everyone marveled at the precision of the thousands of tiny fingerlings, massing together in schools, racing in one direction, then another, keeping close ranks in clusters as if guided by a single intelligence.

  Jess took the group outside to the raceways. Each raceway was ten feet wide, two hundred feet long, and eight feet deep. A narrow cement strip divided most of the raceways, but there were strips wide enough to accommodate a small crowd of people interested in peering down at the fish.

  She explained how the fish were transported and stocked in nearby streams, lakes, and reservoirs around the region. Some of the trout were even sent to distributors that processed and packed the fish for supermarkets and restaurants.

  They strolled past the three tanker trucks that were used to deliver the live game fish. Jess told everyone how the fish were sedated for each trip so that they did not suffer from shock and die before reaching their destination.

  Nearing the end of the tour, they approached the aeration pond. Jess explained how the intake pipe from the river fed into a penstock area in the aerator pond. This provided the raceways with 700,000 gallons of fresh, oxygenated water every hour. A large fountain sprayed a huge plume above the pond.

  “And these are our ponds. The ponds are used for stocking channel catfish. You might not think so, but catfish are extraordinary creatures. They have tiny bones called Weberian ossicles that connect their inner ear to their swim bladder that acts as a resonator, much like our eardrum. That’s why catfish can hear four times farther than most other fish. Besides having extremely good eyesight, catfish also possess another unusual quality.

  “They can taste their prey before they even see it. That’s because their entire body is a taste bud, even their tail. Imagine if we could do that. Just smear a tasty treat or guilty pleasure on your skin, enjoy, wipe it off, and never gain a pound,” Jess said, evoking a few chuckles from the group.

  Jess spotted Kyle on a plywood platform built to cover a corner of one of the ponds. He was tossing fish food from a five-gallon bucket onto the water. Jess pointed Kyle out to everyone so that they could observe what he was doing.

  “I’m sure everyone’s probably heard of Pavlov, the scientist who conditioned a dog to drool each time a bell was rung signaling that it was feeding time. We’ve done something similar by erecting this plywood platform. The catfish have such a keen ear that they know when someone is walking above them and know it is time to be fed. By feeding them in one area, we are able to prevent overfeeding that causes bacteria in the water. And by keeping their food to one area, we are able to ensure that the fish stay healthy.

  Jess felt a few drops hit the brim of her cap as it began to sprinkle.

  “Looks like we just made it. I hope you all enjoyed the tour,” Jess said, and waved Kyle over.

  “Damn rain, when is it ever going to stop,” one of the men muttered.

  Kyle put the bucket down and jogged over to Jess.

  “Kyle, please show these nice people out. Thanks again, folks,” Jess said.

  The group walked briskly back to the visitor center to get out of the rain.

  Billy pulled up in the electric utility cart.

  “Care for a lift?” he asked Jess.

  “Not quite the stretch limo I ordered, but I guess it
will do,” Jess said, climbing into the cab. “Who was that guy in the black car?”

  “Don’t know. He wanted to see Vernon,” Billy said.

  “About what?”

  “Didn’t say exactly.”

  “Billy, drive up to the equipment shed and park.”

  “Oh, spying are we?”

  “Just go.”

  Billy drove the cart past the ponds and parked the vehicle alongside the equipment shed. From their vantage point, they had a clear view of the only door that led into the Quonset hut.

  “There they are, detective,” Billy said, crouching down in his seat.

  “Cut it out. They can’t see us,” Jess said, elbowing Billy in the ribs.

  Vernon stood at the doorway. He was wearing a reddish plaid shirt, blue shorts, and knee-high black rubber boots. A brown blanket was draped over his shoulders. His hair looked as if it had never seen a comb.

  “Boy, your brother needs to get out more. Who taught him how to dress? Not you, I hope.”

  “Oh, Billy. He looks terrible,” Jess said, noting Vernon’s pale complexion, wondering if her brother was suffering from anemia.

  “I’m sure he’s okay.” Billy placed his hand on Jess’s arm.

  The man was talking with Vernon. Cradling his briefcase in the crook of his arm, the man opened it, and held a letter out to Vernon.

  “What do you think that is?” asked Billy.

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be good,” Jess replied.

  Vernon snatched the letter from the man and shoved it in the pocket of his shorts. The man began to approach Vernon, but Vernon put his hand up to ward him off.

  “How has your brother been able to hold up in there for all this time? I never see him.”

  “He sneaks out at night. I know because I’ve been monitoring the ATM withdrawals on our bank statements. I’m sure you’ve noticed too, the missing inventory, especially chemicals. And that’s not all. He even tried to secure a loan against the hatchery. The bank called me last week. Luckily, the hatchery is in both of our names. Without my signature, the bank won’t process a loan.”