by J. D. Crayne
"What! It isn't!"
She eyed him shrewdly. "But how do you feel about it?"
"I'm against it, of course!"
"I see," she said. "So, I can tell my readers that you're opposed to having any testing done on the lake water?"
"No!" Steve took a deep breath. "Look, there is nothing wrong with the water of Lake Mendocino. There is no pollution. In fact..." he lowered his voice to a confidential whisper, "... in fact, this town is the victim of a conspiracy!"
"Really?" Her heavily made up little eyes narrowed. "A conspiracy?"
Steve nodded, and looked around as if expecting to see a conspirator behind every bush. In fact, the only people visible were Mickey Pitt and one of his friends, riding their bicycles.
"If I tell you something in confidence, will you promise to keep your source anonymous?"
"Naturally," she said, pursing her scarlet lips. "My sources are confidential whenever possible.
"Certain government interests are very anxious to conceal the fact that Solitaire is at conjunction of ley lines. Incidentally, those lines form a nearly perfect triangle between Solitaire, Mt. Lassen, and Confusion Hill."
"That seems a little..."
"Oh, there are a few discrepancies," Steve said, waving a casual hand, "but those are due to tectonic plate movement along the San Andreas Fault over the past thousand years. By the way, intense research has shown that the last remnants of the people of Lemuria once lived around Mt. Lassen."
"I thought that was Mt. Shasta," Snetzle said doubtfully.
"Ah! Well, differences of opinion and an unfortunate schism in the power base!" Steve said. "In any case, disruption of these ley lines caused by the vibration of modern super trucks traveling along the coastal road is rapidly building up electromagnetic charges which will result in California being hit by The Big One within the next five years. Naturally the government doesn't want this information to get out, because it's hand-in-glove with the corporations that intend to turn Highway 20 into a superhighway and put their routing and transfer station right here in Solitaire!"
"Partisan politics!" Snetzle said, her eyes lighting up. "Those creeps will stop at nothing! I knew there was something fishy about that guy in the checked pants that I saw at the restaurant yesterday. He must have been a Corporate spy."
"They're clever that way," Steve agreed, having gotten his second wind. "Once those gigantic trucks hit the highways with their gargantuan vibrations, can the total disruption of the San Andreas fault be far behind? Is it any wonder that California is about to be ripped apart by a 12.2 quake? Can you wonder that the government is trying to keep the lid on this conspiracy?"
"Wait a moment," the reporter said, displaying an idle moment of sanity. "What about those people who died in the lake?"
"Submarines tests gone wrong," Steve whispered in her ear. "Secret test dives of a top secret Stealth submarine made out of a newly discovered metal that is totally invisible to all known means of detection. It would be as much as my life is worth to tell you what powers it." He nodded knowingly.
"But... the people here in town?"
"Being forced out to make room for the secret trucking station that's being built to convey the submarines to the coast." Steve put a chummy arm around her shoulders. "Ruth... I can call you Ruth, can't I? ... just think of the poor innocent people of this lovely little town, the victims of corporate greed and government conspiracy. When you write about this town, Ruth, remember Mrs. Herkimer, a lonely widow scraping a bare existence out of her tiny antique shop. Remember war veteran Marlow White, running boat rentals in an effort to forget the horrors of war that he left behind him. Remember Reverend Finsch, who gave up all he had to aid the downtrodden. Tell your readers about the citizens of Solitaire, Ruth. Don't let them forget!"
He disengaged himself, gave her a gentle push, and watched her totter off along Main Street with a dazed look in her eyes.
"Whew!" he said to himself, and headed for home.
His mother was mercifully herself, leaning across the bookstore counter and talking with Uncle Hank.
"What are you doing here?" Steve asked, suspiciously. "Not more bills, I hope?"
"I was hoping for a small donation for the obsequies of the late Zedediah Cross," the shaman said with dignity.
"Oh lord," Steve said, sinking down onto the bench in the window seat. "I'd forgotten all about him. I'm sorry. Did he have a wife or any family? I mean, aside from Ernie. He was Ernie's cousin, right?"
"Third cousin once removed, on his mother's side," Uncle Hank said promptly. "His only other relatives are a grieving mother in Honolulu, who is already booked for a luau in Lahina the day of the funeral, and a sister in Ukiah who wasn't speaking to him. The remains having already been cremated, we will be celebrating the passage of his spirit on Wednesday, with traditional Huchnom rites."
"Oh. Well, what would be an appropriate donation?"
"How about enough to cover the pig?"
"The pig? You're going to sacrifice a pig?"
"No, we're going to cook it. If you'd rather just donate a couple of cases of Dos Equis, that would be okay too."
"I see," Steve said, digging out his wallet. "A memorial beer bust and barbecue to speed the dear departed on his way." He shrugged and handed some bills to Uncle Hank. "I can think of worse ways to remember someone."
"Steve, dear," his mother said, "I almost forgot. Carlson Hope telephoned and left a message for you to call him. He sounded very excited."
Steve went to the parlor and called Carlton.
"What's up?"
"I may have found a way out of some of our problems, at least. Can you come up to the winery?"
"Now?"
"Yeah, as fast as you can get here."
It was too far to walk to the Grand Mogul Vineyard, so Steve drove his old sedan, and parked by the tasting room. When he went inside, he found Carlson Hope talking with his son, Pete, and Mickey Pitt.
Mickey looked up as the door opened and grinned. "Hiya, Steve!"
Steve nodded to him. "Hi, Mickey. What's this all about?"
"It's what the boys have been telling me about Dr. Orloff," Carlson said. "Pete's been hanging around over there after school with Mickey, and he told me that the doctor has been dumping stuff in the lake. So, I got them both up here to tell you about it."
"Dumping stuff in the water?" Steve groaned. "Dammit, how's that going to help us? All that does is give Pigott proof that it's polluted!"
"But we wouldn't have anything to do with it," Carlson insisted. "Solitaire city limits end at Bilgewater Creek, and Orloff's place is past that. If he dumped anything in the lake, it's the County's problem, not ours."
"I see. If we can pin it on Orloff, then those lawsuits..."
"Can't touch us!"
Steve sank down in a chair. "I think I feel better already. Okay Mickey, tell me."
Mickey scuffed his feet on the floor, glanced at his chum, and said, "There's not much to tell, really. It's just that the doc has a bunch of tanks in his laboratory down in the basement and lots of bottles of stuff sitting in a big incubator sort of thing. Every so often he takes some of the tanks and bottles out onto that old dock that's in back of the house and dumps what's in them into the lake. That's all."
"It doesn't sound like much," Steve said to Carlson.
"What's in the bottles?" Carlson asked Mickey.
"Chemicals, I guess. Some of it really stinks."
"How about the tanks?"
Mickey shrugged. "Some kind of fish."
"Not pretty ones, though," Pete said. "Not like goldfish or neon tetras or anything. Just fish."
"What do you know about it?" Carlson said, scowling at his son, who looked like a carbon copy of his dad, except with more hair.
"Gee, Dad! I just went down in the basement with Mickey a couple of times, that's all," Pete said defensively. "I didn't mess around or anything."
"Orloff could be introducing a non-native species," said Carlson, soundi
ng like a lawyer for the first time. "That's a misdemeanor."
"Yeah, like a parking ticket," Steve said with a sigh. "Has he got anything else in the basement, Mickey?"
"Just Tina."
"Tina?"
"Yeah, you know. Tina." Mickey put on his mad scientist act, complete with twitches, tics, and bad German accent. "Someday my beloved Tina will live again!"
The boys both sprawled in their chairs, laughing helplessly.
"Migod," said Steve, "you mean he keeps her in the basement?"
"Yeah, I think she's freeze-dried or something."
"That's why Pete doesn't want to go into the basement alone," Pete said. "Big bad Mickey's afraid of Tina!" He punched his friend playfully on the shoulder.
"Am not!" Mickey said, rubbing his shoulder. "I just think it's kind of creepy the way she's laid out on that velvet cushion with candles at her head and feet and flowers and all."
"Isn't that against the law?" Steve asked Carlson. "Keeping a body in your home?"
Carlson scratched his head, disarranging his thinning blond hair. "I think it depends on the County."
"He must be crazy!" Steve said. "I wonder how long he's been keeping her like that. I got the impression that she died years ago, from the way Orloff was going on about her when Sancy and I got the anteater from him."
"Yeah, fifteen years last Thursday," Mickey said. "The doc had a memorial celebration and Mrs. Kimberley baked a chocolate cake."
"Migod. How does Tina look, Mickey?"
"I dunno. Like any other dead dog, I guess."
"Tina is a DOG?"
"Well, sure," Mickey said, sounding perplexed. "A brown and white one with long hair."
"I think she's a springer spaniel," Pete said. "Like the one that Uncle Randy had," he added, turning to his father. "You remember, Dad?"
The two men stared at each other.
"I think we ought to get the Sheriff's department in on this," Carlson said finally.
"And the EPA," Steve added.
* * *
Bureaucracy being what it is, three days went by before Carlson and Steve were driving along the lake shore road toward Orloff's house, in company with an eager-beaver investigator from Cal/EPA named Whikerman. Sargent Skulper, the middle-aged officer who had questioned Steve about the lake disaster, was rolling along behind them in a separate car. It had taken some talking and wheedling to get Skulper, but the books still weren't closed on the deaths of four people, there were four other people missing, and he was a man who liked to see tidy endings to his cases.
They parked the two cars by the rickety porch of the old Victorian house, mounted the steps, and rang the bell. When Mrs. Kimberley opened the door, Sergent Skulper inquired after the doctor.
Mrs. Kimberley raised her eyebrows. "I will see if Dr. Orloff ..."
"No ma'am!" Skulper said, pulling a sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket and holding it out for her. "Here's a search warrant. I'm not taking the chance of him beating it out the back door while we're waiting at the front!"
Mrs. Kimberley gave a sniff, but allowed them to follow her through the maze of rooms and down some back stairs to the basement.
Dr. Orloff was dressed in a white lab coat, bending over a large aquarium with a small net.
Steve looked around curiously. The large basement, which seemed to extend under the entire house, was lined on three walls with tables, enormous aquariums, and assorted pieces of equipment. A line of tables down the center supported a couple of small computers, their monitors, and a printer. Two windows on one wall flanked a door which presumably led outside to the backyard and boat dock. The back wall was lined with heavy black drapes, and lying in a glass case on a raised dais in front of the curtains, on a sumptuous red velvet cushion with gold tassels, was, unmistakably, the body of a springer spaniel. Candles at each side and large baskets of artificial flowers lent a morbid melancholy to the scene.
Dr. Orloff turned around and twitched at them, holding the dripping net. "What are you doing here? Mrs. Kimberley, I distinctly told you that I would have no visitors!"
"We're from the government, and we have information that you're involved in activities leading to the pollution of Lake Mendocino," the EPA man said.
"And that you may be responsible for the deaths of four people and the disappearances of several more," said Sargent Skulper, who wasn't about to be upstaged.
"No, no!" I know nothing about that. Nothing about anything," the doctor said, his net dripping on the concrete floor.
"What's in these tanks?" the EPA man demanded.
"Fish! Just fish. A man can have a hobby, yes?"
"What kind of fish?"
"Ah... guppies. Black guppies, veil tail guppies... just guppies," Dr. Orloff said nervously.
Steve sidled over toward the back wall, lifted the glass case off of the canine cadaver, and set it soundlessly on the floor.
Behind him, Dr. Orloff's voice had changed to an ingratiating wheedle. "I assure you, gentlemen. There is nothing wrong. I breed my little fishes, and the computers I use to talk with other enthusiasts around the world. That is all." He set the net down neatly beside one of the tanks.
At the other end of the room, Steve reached down and grabbed moth-eaten dog fur with both hands. "Hey, Doc! If you don't tell us everything, I'll have Tina ground up for fertilizer and pour her on my rosebushes!"
"ACH!! No!!" The doctor gave a heart-rending shriek and lunged forward.
He was caught by Skulper, who said with a grin, "You heard him, Doc. Either you tell us everything you've been doing around here, or that mutt's carcase will be pushing up posies."
"No, no, nicht mine Tina! Everything I did, it was all for her!" Dr. Orloff sobbed, wringing his hands.
"So, what have you been doing?" the EPA man asked, scratching his head.
"I have been building better fish, for Mister Smith," the stricken doctor said, mopping his eyes and staring at Steve, who had released his hands and was dusting dog fur off of his fingers.
"Mister Smith?" Skulper asked.
"Yah. He wants fish for sportsmen. Bigger, he says, and stronger. More fight, more fierceness. I add genes to make what he wants. In exchange he pays me so that I can continue my research; the research that will bring my Tina back to me."
Sergent Skulper cleared his throat. "I hope Mr. Smith is not planning to sell those things here," he said, his eyes narrowing. "This County has a very strict law against gene splicing."
"Maybe he thinks to bypass the law somehow," Orloff said shrugging. "I do not know. It is not my problem." He pushed away Skulper's restraining hand and limped over to the deceased dog, anxiously scanning it for for signs of damage.
"It will be your problem if you've contributed to the pollution of this lake!" the EPA man said sternly.
"No, no!" the doctor said, smoothing Tina's fur with trembling fingers. "There is no pollution. It is that sometimes the little fishes do not work out right, or they get too big for my tanks, so I set them free. Sometimes I toss them bread crumbs from the dock, that is all."
"Just what kind of fish are they?" Steve asked.
"Lake trout, rainbow trout, speckled trout..."
"No problem there," Skulper said.
"... also with added one-eighth part garpike, one-eighth part sturgeon, and some genes of walking catfish to make him strong and smart."
"I think I'd better get in touch with the Fish and Wildlife Service," said the EPA man.
"Then Mr. Smith says they are not big enough," Dr. Orloff continued, "so from a friend in Alaska I get genes of the humpback whale..."
"That's what did it!" Steve said to Carlson. "That recording we used must have called the thing out to the raft."
"...and from my cousin in Hawaii a piece of great white shark, and I add also growth hormones because Mr. Smith says they are too slow growing to full size. But then, he says they will be too big, and I must start over. So, I give the little fishes their freedom." He settled Tina's rhinestone-studd
ed collar a little more neatly around her neck and gave her a final pat.
"Just how many of these little fishes have you dumped into the lake?" Steve asked.
Orloff scratched his nose and thought. "Maybe fifty, one hundred. Some are eaten by other fish. Some stay to eat breadcumbs and scraps from my dinner. Some go over the spillway of the dam and down the river and I see them never again."
"Where's the phone," the EPA man said, looking very, very, pale.
"Hey, Orloff!" a man's voice bellowed from the stairs. "You down there? The front door was unlocked and I just walked in. Where's that damned housekeeper of yours?"
"Mister Smith," Dr. Orloff said in explanation.
They all looked toward the stairs as a man in yellow and beige tweed pants, a corn colored jacket, and a pale green shirt strode down into the basement.
"Hubert Pigott!" Carlson yelled. "I knew it had to be you!"
"What do you mean?" Pigott said, pausing on the bottom step. "And what the hell are you all doing here?"
"We're here to investigate some serious allegations of water pollution and illegal gene splicing," Skulper said, "and possibly a couple of counts of manslaughter as well."
"Huh!" Pigott snorted. "That's nothing to do with me!"
"But you have paid me," Orloff objected. "You have given me money to build you a better fish."
"Aw, he's nuts," Pigott said. "You can tell he's got a screw loose, the way he keeps mooning over freeze-dried fido there."
"You deny you've been paying this man to do illegal gene splicing?" Skulper asked.
"Hell, yes, I deny it. Ask him to show you a check."
"But always in cash you pay me!" Orloff said, quivering; his twitch worse than ever.
"Prove it!" Pigott said, with a grin. He shoved his hands carelessly into his trouser pockets and sauntered across the basement floor, glancing at the tanks and computers.
"If there's anything illegal going on here, it was his idea. All I asked him to do was a little cross-breeding between a couple of different varieties of trout. I got him the fry from the hatchery. If he did anything else, that's his problem."
