The River Killers

by Bruce Burrows

  “Oh yeah. There are pictures. But here’s where things get really interesting. Griffith came back to his team with a second mandate, and Crowley is vague on exactly where this came from. But Griffith told the team that step two, which had been authorized by ‘the highest sources’ was . . .” Bette hesitated and looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression, but it was like she wanted something from me. Absolution?

  My thoughts swirled formlessly and the shape of something hideous coalesced out of the darkness. They had produced sockeye that stayed in one area, that spawned in the ocean, that weren’t anadromous. Why? And then I saw it.

  “They wanted salmon out of the Fraser River!”

  “You’ve got it, Danny. The fifty-pound sockeye would end up being raised in pens by fish farmers. But the Fraser River would still be full of those pesky wild salmon, which the general public are very fond of. How could you dam the Fraser and sell the water to Americans if once a year millions of wild salmon swim up it?”

  I was stunned. In my wildest nightmares I’d never foreseen a plan to kill the Fraser River. But that’s what it was. I forced my attention back to what Bette was saying.

  “I figure this would have been even more exciting for Crowley and his crew. Behavioral changes are more cutting edge than changing phenotypes. Griffith knew they were playing for huge stakes, so he raised the security level and told them to be very, very careful. Problem was, Griffith couldn’t really micromanage the project because he was spending a lot of time brownnosing in Ottawa. To whom I don’t know, and I don’t know if I want to know.”

  I felt sick. The deliberate destruction of the biggest salmon run in Canada, food for millions, and then one of the great rivers of the world—to choke it to death it with dams . . . This was beyond criminality—it was evil incarnate. Premeditated ecocide. For money. I pulled myself back to the moment. Louise was looking at me anxiously.

  I tried to ignore the nausea and encroaching fatigue. Pieces were falling into place like bodies from a burning skyscraper. “We know they partially succeeded; they produced a prototype with a few flaws. How the hell did these things end up in the ocean?”

  Bette looked at me dispiritedly. “They started growing the man-made mutants in tanks in the basement lab and everything seemed to be going well. They spawned in saltwater and exhibited spatial preferences, became non-migratory. And then, whomever Griffith was taking orders from decided they needed to demonstrate ‘viability in competitive conditions.’”

  I couldn’t believe it, even though I’d seen the results. “The stupid bastards released a bunch of bioengineered mutants into the wild! How the hell did they manage that?”

  “Well, they saw an opportunity. The lab had a contract with the provincial government to produce half a million coho to be released in time for Expo ’86. Enhance the image, Supernatural BC, and all that. All the fish were tagged, which is very labor-intensive. So our three basement boys figured they’d just throw some of their experimental sockeye juveniles in with the coho juveniles and the hatchery crew would do the tagging and release work for them. They didn’t utilize the radio tags until later.”

  “My God, they were idiots.”

  “They were geniuses, which is sort of similar, I guess.” She shrugged.

  “Later on, they set up the ocean-monitoring system at Codville Lagoon.” I was able to supply this part. “Alistair resigned from DFO to live up there and monitor the experiment, right after he saw Billy at the West Van lab.”

  “At least one of them stayed at the lab and Alistair would send him updates. The other? Who knows?”

  I continued putting the pieces together. “So Crowley found out from Mark that Billy had been killed. Presumably because when Billy visited the lab with Igor he saw something that tipped him off to the scheme. Plus, Crowley might have been having a morality attack about introducing mutant fish into the wild. He contacts the guy at the lab, threatens to end the experiment, and our bad guy goes up there and kills him.”

  “That’s an almost credible hypothesis,” Bette said, “but I can’t see people getting killed because other people were worried they’d get mentioned in memos for breaking in-house regulations.”

  “Well, don’t forget, careers were at stake.”

  “Were they? You know our bureaucracy is specifically designed to avoid accountability. No one would have been too worried about being outed for doing experiments without the necessary permits.”

  Bette was right. The accountability thing should be number six on the list of “Reasons Our Bureaucracy Keeps Screwing Things Up.” The currency of accountability is praise and blame. No one gets a credit card.

  “Did Griffith authorize Crowley’s killing,” Louise asked, “or was the killer playing Lone Ranger?”

  “Don’t know,” I replied. “Could’ve been either way. The important thing is we know most of what happened, and Griffith doesn’t know we know. So how do we play this? What I’d like to do is feed him some misinformation. If we could plant something in his brain, something that would make him panic, he might do something stupid and expose himself.”

  “Danny, we haven’t done well in setting traps for these guys. They are smart and cautious.” Louise’s expression was serious to the point of being grim. “We can’t afford any more collateral damage, to you or to Tommy’s career.”

  “Louise, I’m a ten-year detective who’s never gonna make Superintendent. Let’s not worry about my career. You at least have a shot at the big time.”

  “You mean escorting the PM at the Calgary Stampede?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Okay, we’re not going to be distracted by career planning, but I don’t think Mr. Swanson is ready to take another bullet. We need to be very careful.”

  Their concern flattered me, but I was still thinking about ways to crack open the case. “I still think we can run a little misdirection play on these guys without leaving ourselves open. I need to think about it. I’m going to have another crack at the code in Crowley’s log. Is there somewhere I can work?”

  Louise looked at me solicitously. “You’re not tired? You need to take it easy.”

  “I’ll be okay until I’m not. Then I’ll take a rest.” I must have sounded irritated because there was a bit of a pause before Tommy responded.

  “You can use interview room number four,” Tommy said and winked. “I’ll tell them to clean the blood off the floor.” The meeting adjourned and I followed Tommy down the hall to my new workplace.

  Twenty-one

  Interview room number four was not the least bit claustrophobic, unless you happened to be a human being. I sat at a battered table on which I had placed Bette’s printout of Crowley’s computer files plus Crowley’s journals and my copy of his ship’s log. I felt like I was stuck with an overdue homework assignment.

  I started by quickly leafing through the three hundred and forty-seven pages of Bette’s printout. She had summarized the material pretty accurately. The first section was simply the experimental data from the attempt to grow large sockeye. There were even photographs.

  The team consisted of Crowley and the two others he called The Farmers. Fleming Griffith would drop in occasionally to monitor progress and “play with the fish.” Crowley was pretty caustic in his comments about the abilities of Griffith and The Farmers.

  “The Farmers are adept at following Fleming’s orders and not much else. Their academic qualifications must have been obtained by filling out the back of a matchbox and their reasoning abilities are just superior to their subject’s. Fleming is smarter than the farmers and he seems to revel in it. It is not evident why, as it’s the same as being smarter than fish.”

  Go Alistair!

  The second, larger section recorded the experiment from the “second mandate.” This was a much more complex endeavour because it entailed manipulating multiple behavioral characteristics rather than a single physical characteristic. There were a number of false starts and discarded hypotheses b
efore the first breakthrough. In 1982, they succeeded in designing a fish that exhibited preference for a slightly lower than normal salinity. They were on their way.

  I didn’t want to think about who had authorized the second mandate. Griffith wouldn’t take orders from anyone below ministerial level and no Fisheries Minister would expose himself to this sort of potential scandal. I pictured a shadowy power broker murmuring in Griffith’s ear. Who? Representing what interests? And how would we ever find out?

  I turned my attention to the log of the Jessie Isle that contained what we had surmised were false entries for May 6 and 7. I was sure that the minutes given in the time entries were actually coded for letters of the alphabet. But the code didn’t work if you used the standard alphabet sequence, so there must be a key somewhere. I looked carefully through the rest of the logbook but couldn’t find anything that might be a key.

  That left only Crowley’s journals to examine and it was there that I found it. There were twenty-seven journals, as I’ve previously recounted, and twenty-six of them consisted of daily observations of his life in Yeo Cove. The twenty-seventh was different. It was undated, and consisted of pasted-in printouts from various databases rather than a linear narrative.

  Many of the printouts were in standard spreadsheet layout: rows numbered down the left-hand side and columns headed by letters across the top of the page. On one of the pages, the letters heading the columns were not in alphabetical order. This was unusual and, I thought, worthy of investigation. From left to right, the letters were:

  C, E, R, F, D, J, B, G, W, K, I, O, L, H, Y, P, S, M, N, R, A, U, T, X

  The numbers given from the time sequences were:

  07, 12, 18, 02, 14, 21, 17, 23, 11, 19, 08, 17, 03, 11, 09, 05, 11, 24.

  Taking the seventh letter from the sequence, then the twelfth, eighteenth, and so on, I derived a message. BOMEHASTINGSRWDIX. I didn’t have to be an MI6 codebreaker to figure that out. I leapt up to get Louise just as she opened the door. Fortunately, the door opened outwards so I escaped injury.

  “Look at this. We need to get a court order or something.”

  I showed her my hasty jottings and basked in what must have been her unbounded admiration. “Who needs CSIS? We’ll show this to Tommy. He’ll know which judge to grovel to.”

  Tommy did indeed know which judge to seek permission from and undertook to do so. “The Bank of Montreal at East Hastings. Account in the name of R.W. Dix. I can get a court order to look at it, but it won’t be before tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”

  I retain a mental image of the three of us at that moment. Tommy hunched forward in his chair, forearms on his thighs, staring intently at Louise. Louise, very still in her chair, arms folded, eyes straight ahead. I was the third point of the triangle, joined to the others by almost palpable lines of force. The net was closing on the killer, but we couldn’t afford any mistakes. Three minds in unison were calculating probabilities and running various scenarios. Nervous energy finally overcame my static state. “I need some fresh air,” I said.” I’ll call you guys later.”

  I collected my Jerome and he accompanied me on a walk across the parking lot. Deciding that was enough exercise for one day, I got in the car and Jerome drove us back to our hideout on Main Street. Jerome navigated us through the alarm system and I was soon resting on my bed while TV noises came from the living room.

  I was drifting comfortably toward sleep when my phone canceled the voyage. Fumbling frantically through my pockets, I was thinking only of silencing the damn thing, but when I located it on the bedside table, I thought I might as well find out who to blame for interrupting my nap.

  “Hello,” I said, likely sounding less awake than I intended.

  “Is that Danny Swanson?”

  “Yes, who’s this?” The phone number was blocked.

  “A friend.”

  “Always nice to have friends. What can I do for you?”

  “Maybe I can do something for you. I understand you’re having difficulty with Mr. Griffith. I have information that could be useful to you.”

  “And the price?” I’d read enough detective novels to know that information is never free.

  “There’s something I need. You could help me get it.”

  High-Top Jerome appeared in the doorway, No-Neck Jerome lurking behind him. “Shift change. I’m outta here. Don’t let this guy cook for you.”

  My innate instinct for concealment kicked in and I mumbled a good-bye into the phone. Trying not to look guilty, I waved at the new Jerome and slid the phone into my pocket. They wandered away and I was left to wonder what the hell had just happened. Who was the caller and why had I hung up on him? Was it our bad guy that I had talked to? Was he preparing to dump Griffith? Would he phone back? I had better tell Tommy and Louise. On the other hand, I didn’t want to admit that I’d tried to hide the call and had maybe bungled a potential contact. I’d wait until he called back, get more information, and then tell the others.

  Having dealt with that contretemps, I was now free to resume my rest period.

  However, sleep is not always restful. I had become a surgeon. The patient, whose face was hidden, was someone important to me, someone I cared about, someone I was desperate to save. The nurse, whose face was also hidden, or perhaps who didn’t have a face, kept clamping off blood vessels. I told her to stop, this procedure was irregular. But as fast as I removed the clamps, the nurse added more. The patient was slipping away. I yelled at the nurse to stop and her answer came out of a cold black fax machine. Policy. It’s the new policy. Approved at the last meeting.

  I wasn’t there, I screamed. I didn’t approve this. I never approved it.

  But the patient’s blood stopped and stagnated. Then they auctioned her off to an unseen audience, a limb here and a limb there. I knew I’d never see her again. I wept and everyone laughed at me. Memo to follow, the fax machine spat out. New directive, highest authority, prime mandate, consensus report, departmental approval. Memo to follow. But the memo never came. And wakefulness, mercifully, did.

  By noon the next day, the mysterious caller hadn’t phoned back. I was torn between feelings of guilt and stupidity. My Jerome du jour looked at me curiously as I paced around ignoring the Jays game on TV. Jerome’s phone rang. He listened awhile, snapped an affirmation and hung up. “Tommy got the court order,” he said. “He and Louise will meet us at the bank.”

  The Bank of Montreal on East Hastings was much closer to our hideout than to Police HQ. It seemed as though Low-Top Jerome and I waited in the car for a very, very long time. We got out when Tommy and Louise pulled in, and the four of us walked toward the bank’s entrance.

  The sidewalk was fairly crowded and an assortment of people passed by us, no one making eye contact or acknowledging our existence: except for one person. An older guy, white hair and beard, glasses, dressed casually but well, looked straight at me as we passed. He said nothing and gave no sign of recognition, but I was sure that if I had been alone he would have said something to me. Casually, so as not to alert Jerome, I turned my head to keep the guy in view. He turned down a side street without looking back.

  Was I imagining things? Had that been a meaningful look he gave me, or did I just have something on my face? The incident slipped from my mind as we entered the bank. Louise went to the service counter and asked for the manager. When he appeared, Louise discreetly showed him the court order. He scanned it with a managerial eye and disdain gave way to anxiety. Indicating that we should follow him, he led the way to his office.

  Out of the public eye, he relaxed visibly and apologized for the lack of chairs. Evidently loan supplicants didn’t travel in packs. “If I understand this document correctly, you are seeking all information relating to any accounts or deposits of a Mr. R.W. Dix and access to said accounts or deposits.”

  Louise smiled her agreement. “It could be a Mrs. R.W. Dix.”

  “Yes. If you give me a few minutes, I’ll examine our files.”

&nb
sp; He left us alone to admire the pictures on the walls, Governors of the Bank of Canada, if I wasn’t mistaken. One of them was inscribed, “Fiscally yours, James Coyne.” A collector’s item. We fidgeted en masse until the manager returned and reclaimed his position behind the desk.

  “Mr. Dix opened a deposit account in 1985. The initial—in fact, the only deposit—was eight thousand dollars. The only withdrawals from the account have been monthly rental fees for a safety deposit box, which he rented at the same time. The current balance is two hundred and fifty-seven dollars and six cents.”

  Louise held out her hand. “The key?” The manager handed her an ordinary-looking brass key.

  “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the vault.” We all trooped after him as he led us to the rear of the bank. The massive door of the vault stood open and I imagined it closing on my finger. Disguising a serious wince, I peered into the vault. It was a surprisingly large room. Separate aisles held locked drawers of assorted sizes. The manager stood aside and waved us in. “Number 481 is right at the back, on the left, third row from the top.”

  Louise went straight to number 481 and opened it. All of us behind her, including the bank manager, jostled for a view. There were no injuries, although I believe the manager’s dignity was bruised. Louise donned a rubber glove on her right hand and removed the only item in the safety deposit box—a videocassette.

  “If we could go back to your office, I’ll ask you to sign a discovery form and a release form.”

  I rode with Louise on the way back to the cop shop. She drove and I speculated. I hadn’t been this excited since the treasure hunt at my tenth birthday party. I must have been visibly vibrating. “Calm down, Danny. We can’t watch it until the techs check it over. It might have prints. It might be defective, or it might not even be a videotape.”