DEAD WATER CREEK
DEAD WATER CREEK
A Morgan O’Brien Mystery
Alex Brett
A Castle Street Mystery
Copyright © Alexandra M. Brett, 2003
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Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Brett, Alex
Dead Water Creek / Alex Brett.
(Castle Street mysteries)
ISBN 1-55002-ffl2-3 I.
Title. II. Series: Castle Street mystery.
PS8553.R3869D42 2003 C813’.6C2003-902207-2PR9199.4.B72D42 2003
123450605040302
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DEAD WATER CREEK
In the summer of 1992, about 482,000 sockeye salmon seemed to disappear on their way to the spawning grounds in the Fraser River system... sockeye yield high returns to commercial fishermen — some $250 million annually, half the total value of British Columbia’s commercial salmon fishery.
Peter H. Pearse, Managing Salmon on the Fraser: Report to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on the Fraser River Salmon Investigation, November 1992
chapter one
Monday, October 21 Weaver Creek, British Columbia, Canada
Cindy parked in the clearing, shut off the engine, and waited. Around her, the forest was alive with sound, but all of it soft, subdued: the wind caressing Douglas fir, the murmur of water spilling across a rocky bed. Then a shriek cut the air – an omen — and she smiled. If eagles were circling, death was nearby.
She grabbed her field notes and slid from the van.
At the water’s edge she did a quick visual survey, counting the number of sockeye females defending their redds. Then she stepped back and scanned the shore. Just as she’d hoped. Rotting corpses of spawned-out fish crowded the banks of the creek. She willed her shoulders to relax, flipped open her yellow Rite-in-the-Rain notebook, and wrote the date on the first empty page. She noted the percentage of cloud cover just below the date and, notebook still in hand, began to walk slowly along the bank, counting redds, surveying numbers, and checking her downstream sites.
When she saw her enclosures she smiled again. For once they were intact. Most mornings she arrived to find the posts upended and the wire mesh flattened against the stream bed, evidence of the scavenging bears that prowled the stream at night.
She continued down the creek to the gate, the barrier that controlled fish entry into the spawning channel. She edged her way out to the middle. From there she could see that the holding tanks below were full, salmon thrashing and squeezing their way through the narrow slit that gave them access to the spawning stream. There was an audible click every time one shot through, as the Fisheries counters kept track of this year’s return.
Thank God the numbers were up. At least today she could work.
Back at the van she pulled on chest waders, made several more notations in her field book, then picked up her dip net and transect chain and headed for the stream. She was fully absorbed until half an hour later, when she heard a vehicle turn onto the spawning channel road. Annoyed, she stood up and watched the entrance. Cindy preferred to work alone or, if necessary, with her technician, Dinah, but to have to stop work and make small talk with some Fish and Wildlife officer, or worse, one of the locals, was a waste of precious time. And with the bizarre returns on the stream this year, she had already lost so much time that her research was in jeopardy.
She listened, thinking she would ignore whoever it was, and she heard pebbles spray as the truck suddenly reversed and accelerated back down the road. Poachers who had seen her van? Could be. She’d have to ask Eddie. She shrugged and got back to measuring the size of gravel along her second transect.
She didn’t think of the vehicle again until after four o’clock. With hands and feet numb from the frigid water, she dragged herself out of the stream for a hot cup of tea. Sitting high above on the bank, her hands wrapped around the thermos cup, she looked across the stream and felt her stomach contract. There were distinctly fewer salmon churning the waters. She was sure of it.
She hurried back to the van and peeled off her waders, replacing them with sturdy hiking boots. The sun was just disappearing behind Sumas mountain, and in the next few minutes the fragile autumn warmth would vanish as the damp and cold of the water rose up to permeate the air.
Down at the gate the counters were silent, the holding tanks empty, and the pool beneath them deserted. There were no sockeye coming up Weaver Creek. In an odd sort of way it was a blessing: whatever was causing the periodic disappearance of the fish was occurring at this very minute, somewhere on the river. She debated the sense in following the stream down through dense forest so late in the day, just when the bears were beginning their evening rounds, but her research was at stake. The spawning season on this stream was nearly over, and it might be her only chance to discover what was causing the problem.
Then she remembered the truck, and that clinched her decision.
She left the road and descended into the forest.
Monday, October 21
National Council for Science and Technology,
Ottawa, Canada
It was an accident, the salmon investigation landing in my hands: unexpected fallout from a particularly explosive weekly meeting. Or should I say weekly roundup. That’s what Bob — my boss and Chief of Investigations — calls the Monday morning staff meetings that he was forced to establish by management’s latest business guru. Of course, according to Bob, he developed the idea on his own.