Through Dark Water Read online

  In the gravel and seaweed, it was so unlike the majestic animals she’d come to see that it could have been a fake covered in white and black neoprene rubber. But it wasn’t. A blond-haired man in a blue jacket almost the same color as Alice’s knelt at the front of the body, examining the bottle-nosed head. Where its eyes should be were just red sockets, as if something had eaten out its eyes. Something was wrong with its mouth, though she couldn’t figure out what. A woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing the same colored blue jacket stood beside the man. She was the source of the sobbing.

  At the other end of the body stood a youngish man—eighteen or nineteen, maybe—still feeling the weight of new-come adulthood. His hands were stuffed in his pockets and he glared resentment at her so hard that she almost left right there and then. Didn’t he like the fact that people were staring at the whale or was something else the problem?

  The boy was tall, clearly Aboriginal, black hair worn long over the collar, with high cheekbones and narrow face that suggested a heritage that might harken back to great plains tribes rather than the coastal nations. When he looked away, his black gaze locked on the body of the whale as if he could not believe it was here.

  “Jeezus,” the red-clad newcomer said, stopping beside the man at the carcass’s head. “Do something, Wilbur. That damn thing is going to stink up the entire village. You think people are going to want a meal with this blowing in their faces?”

  The blond-haired man stood up from examining the whale’s mouth, his face pale. He was tall—taller than the newcomer—and had none of the manicured look of the latter. He had a weathered face, and she pegged him at about forty years old, like the man next to her, but something about the thoughtfulness of his face suggested he was no fisherman.

  “So just what would you like me to do, Sam? Blow her up like the fools did with that humpback down south?” said the man named Wilbur. “We could spread rotting whale meat all over this village if you like.”

  “Who are they?” she murmured to Bert, the fisherman.

  “That’s John Wilbur of the Whale Interpretive Center,” Bert, volunteered. “He’s a marine biologist who keeps track of the whale population or some such. The woman’s his assistant, Ayisha Meredith. She’s doing her PhD or something. Both of them whale crazy, you might say. The guy in the red jacket is Sam Rayburn, the resort owner. He basically owns everything in Pirate Cove, including the Whale Interpretive Center building. This is my son, Donnie. I’m Bert. Bert Clarke.”

  “Phoebe Clay.” She nodded and waved Alice forward. “My niece, Alice. It’s a dead orca, Ali. You sure you want to see?”

  Of course she did. Kids were fascinated by death. Using her smaller size, she weaseled her way forward to the front of the crowd. Phoebe trailed after her until they stood at the inner circle of bystanders.

  “Well, you can’t leave it here. It has to be moved straightaway. Couldn’t we just tie a rope to it and drag it out to sea?” said the manicured Sam.

  John Wilbur’s hands flexed as if he was restraining himself. “’Fraid not, Sam. This is A39, one of the resident females. She’s clearly been dead for a few days judging by the damage done by other sea animals.” He shook his head. “Damn shame. By the shape of her, we’d thought she was carrying a calf. Looks like she still is. It’s a blow to the restoration of the population. We need to determine what killed her. Fisheries and Oceans will want to examine her.”

  “Well, the body can’t stay here. It has to be moved out of the harbor. Now.” Sam looked around as if for backing and his gaze seemed to lock on the fisherman she’d been standing beside. “Bert. Get the Zodiac. Back in here and tie a rope to this thing and haul it out to wherever John wants it. It just can’t stay here.”

  “Not going to happen, Sam,” John Wilbur said. “Can I have a word in private? Meredith, would you pull yourself together? I need you to call Fisheries and also the police.” He dragged Sam aside and they spoke in low, angry voices.

  It didn’t look like a happy conversation. Sam’s voice rose and he looked like he was going to lunge at Wilbur. “What the hell are you playing at, Wilbur?”

  John Wilbur shook his head. “I’m not playing at anything. But something’s not right with this carcass. The tide brought her into town last night, right? And young Alex here was first to spot her.” He motioned to the young Aboriginal lad. “Then how come somebody’s been able to remove every tooth from her mouth? That’s a crime, Sam. Removing and selling the body parts of threatened and endangered species is a crime.”

  Chapter 2

  A crime. John Wilbur’s jaw clenched as he faced the other man. The morning seemed to pulse around Phoebe, or maybe it was just the smell getting to her. The wind had ripped up the marine cloud so the sun through the boardwalk was draping bars of light and shadow across the orca body and those around it. The wind whipped the water to small white caps beyond the protection of the harbor and sent long, rolling swells sliding up the stones they stood on. The tide that had left the body there was coming in again.

  The little tableau around the whale filled the morning with tension. Sam Rayburn’s hands clenched as the woman, Meredith, finally got her emotions under control and fished a phone from her pocket. She dialed and then spoke quietly on the phone, disconnected and dialed again, to speak longer this time.

  “Police and Fisheries are on their way,” she said. She had a low, whiskey voice that somehow didn’t suit her rosy-cheeked face.

  “Fine. Have it your way,” said Rayburn. “But I don’t give a damn who this whale is. When the tide’s come in and there’s water under that whale, I’m having Bert, here, rope that thing’s tail and haul it out of here.” Sam turned on his heel, shoved through the crowd, and was gone, back down the gradually flooding beach.

  “That’s it. Show’s over, folks, and there’s a hell of a lineup forming at the boat launch,” John Wilbur motioned back along the shore. “You heard Sam. He’s pissed enough as it is. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t piss him off further by holding up the launch line.”

  The crowd began to disperse, people slip-sliding their way back down the gradually flooding gravel until only the Whale Interpretive Center staff, the Aboriginal boy Alex, and Alice and Phoebe stood there.

  “Why would someone take the whale’s teeth? That doesn’t make sense, does it? May I take a look?” Phoebe asked.

  John Wilbur looked down at the whale, the anger he’d shown a moment ago fading into sadness. “Just don’t touch her. I don’t hold with all the poking and prodding by lookiloos that most of these carcasses have to go through.”

  Phoebe stiffened. “I’m not a lookiloo. My degree’s in biology. I’m just interested in why anyone would want to remove the whale’s teeth.”

  Meredith seemed on the verge of tears again. “She was one of the pod that we see around here all the time. A39. We called her Light Fin, because of the light gray patches on her dorsal fin. I knew it was her as soon as I saw her.”

  Wilbur shook his head, clearly feeling the loss, too. “As a calf, she befriended a fisherman when she got separated from her pod. Then we helped her find them again, and there was a whole media frenzy about ten years back when we used underwater microphones to lead her back to her family. There is going to be another frenzy when the news gets out.” He scrubbed his hands back through his hair.

  Phoebe knelt by the animal, studying the whale’s head. The eye damage had the uneven shredding of what was probably scavengers—crabs, birds, other fish—the mouth, though…

  On the bottom jaw, deep gouges had been made in the flesh by something sharp. Someone had smashed the animal’s jaw to loosen the teeth and pulled them out. Alice had shifted over by the Aboriginal lad as Phoebe leaned down for a better look, because the animal’s upper gums didn’t seem to have the same kind of damage. Odd. The removal method had changed. Instead of hauling the animal’s sharp teeth out from the bone, someone had taken a hacksaw to them and had sawed them off at the jaw line.
r />   She glanced up at John Wilbur. Meredith was walking down the beach in the direction of the old cannery. Alice was talking to the Aboriginal boy, Alex.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” she said. “So why would anyone do this?”

  Wilbur shook his head. “How the hell should I know? Why do fishermen shoot them? People are crazy.” His voice was bitter.

  “It sounds like you’ve had this sort of thing happen before.”

  He shook his head. “In Johnstone Strait, the whales are pretty much considered gold. Even the sports fishing charters recognize that they bring in people and money. But we’ve had our whales disappear when they cycle out of the strait. The cruise ships have been known to kill a few by hitting them. It’s one of the reasons people are worried about oil tankers on the coast. Ships that size aren’t going to stop for a pod of whales. They can’t.” He ran his hand back over his head, leaving his hair a little crazed.

  “But why take the teeth? Are they valuable?”

  “To the whale, sure. To people—well, you can find whale teeth for fifteen dollars at some skeleton dealers. I suppose there are scrimshaw artists who might want them. You can also see them go for a hundred dollars or so on eBay, but those are usually older teeth with some history attached to them. Why go to all this trouble? It makes no sense. Whoever did it probably has no idea it wasn’t worth the effort—especially for the cut teeth.” He turned to Alex. “Was anyone around when you found her?”

  The kid shook his head and looked out to the water.

  Perhaps it was John Wilbur’s determination to call the carcass “her” instead of “it” and his obvious pain about the whale’s loss, but Phoebe found herself liking the man. She stood up and held out her hand. “Phoebe Clay, retired teacher. I used to teach science in Langley Meadows High School.”

  “John Wilbur. I manage the Whale Interpretive Center.” He shook her hand. “Let me guess. You’re up here for a whale watching trip.”

  “Close. A kayaking trip. My niece Alice and I came up early so we could get our sea legs back before we leave for the trip tomorrow. I haven’t been kayaking for about five years. I used to do it a lot, though. I always said I’d come to Johnstone Strait to see the whales.”And she’d waited to retire to do it.

  “Bad luck that the first whale you see is a dead one.” Wilbur shook his head.

  Worse luck for the whale.

  A hail from the boardwalk told them that the police had arrived. A rugged-looking blue-and-white Royal Canadian Mounted Police suburban had parked down the boat launch and a female officer in jeans and a police-issue service jacket started across the gravel to them.

  The lad, Alex, looked from the approaching officer to the boardwalk where Meredith had disappeared. Shoulders already hunched in his dark grey hoodie and plaid lumberman’s shirt, he shrugged and shifted from foot to foot as if he wanted very badly to leave.

  Alice stood beside him, shrugged into her fleece and Gore-Tex.

  “John,” the officer said as she arrived after her slippery path over the beach.

  “Sarah.” Wilbur nodded. “This is Phoebe Clay, a biologist. Phoebe, this is Constable Sarah Burns.”

  Constable Burns was typical of the female constables Phoebe had seen come through the door of her last school. Her thick dark hair was restrained in a tight bun at the back of her head. Her pretty features were laid bare by no makeup as if she was trying hard for a no-nonsense presence. The personal protective vest over the khaki-colored uniform shirt, and the black leather utility belt with weapon, radio, handcuffs, and mysterious leather pouches hid any feminine shape she might have, as if being a woman was a deficit in her line of work. She might be in her early thirties, but already lines of unhappiness had formed around her eyes and drew her mouth downward.

  The constable nodded in Phoebe’s direction, but the way her attention was on John Wilbur, there was clearly something more than a passing acquaintance between them. The good constable’s raised chin and tilt of head, and the attention she paid was similar to that Phoebe had seen in coworkers trying to hide a relationship from colleagues. They stood just a little closer together than an acquaintance normally would, so that the officer had to tilt her head to look up at Wilbur.

  “What’ve we got?” she asked.

  “Aside from a dead whale?” Wilbur asked with a tilt of his brow. He stepped to one side. “This isn’t just any whale. This is Light Fin. You might remember her from about ten years back.”

  The constable’s eyes widened slightly. “Shit. The young whale who got separated from her pod. This is her?”

  Wilbur nodded.

  “Well, damn. She just wasn’t meant to have a normal life, was she? So why call the police?”

  John Wilbur stepped aside so the whale was fully in view. “A couple of things. Because it’s her and it’s going to be a madhouse here once the news gets out.” They both glanced in Phoebe’s direction as if she’d be the source of that leak. “And because someone’s taken the time to remove all the whale’s teeth. In case you weren’t aware, it’s an offense to tamper with a threatened or endangered species and these whales fit that category.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me or Alice letting that news out,” Phoebe said.

  Wilbur shrugged. “If I know Sam, he’s already on the phone to the media. He’s always been one to work the angles—especially if there’s the possibility of money coming in. Sarah, Alex was the one who found A39 here early this morning. Sarah, Alex Parker.”

  All eyes turned on him, and Alex looked like he wanted to bolt. His tall, narrow frame seemed to hunch in on itself as the kid studied his feet. His dark hair hung around his hawk-nosed features.

  “What time did you find the whale, Alex?” Constable Burns asked, fishing her notebook out of her breast pocket.

  “Uh, I don’t know. I don’t have a watch. I smelled her and went looking. When I saw what it was, I got the Prof. He told me it was four thirty.” He lifted his chin at Wilbur. “Listen, I gotta get home, okay? My parents’ll be lookin’ for me and my mom worries.” He turned to go.

  “Hold on there, partner,” Constable Burns stopped him. “What did you do when you spotted the carcass?”

  “I told you. I called the Prof.”

  “But you must have come down by the water, right? To make sure of what you were seeing? I mean, you couldn’t be sure what you were seeing from up by the buildings. You’d have to come down here to check before waking someone up, right? That’s what any normal person would do.”

  Alex shuffled the stones so they squeaked under him. His hands were rammed into his pockets so his arms were stiff—just like so many of the kids she’d taught, when being grilled about something they didn’t want to talk about.

  “I came down here, but I didn’t do nothin’. She was just like that when I found her.” He looked away, out to the dawn-silvered water and the charter fishing boats cruising out of the harbor as if he wanted to escape.

  “Did you see anyone around?”

  “Here? No I didn’t see no one.”

  The kid looked like he was positively vibrating with the need to run. It could just be that he didn’t like the scrutiny—after all, what teenager did—but there was something about him and his answers that said there was more here he just wasn’t telling.

  “Did you know which whale this was?”

  Alex’s head shot up and he met the constable’s gaze with almost jet-black eyes that held…what? Sorrow? Rage? Fear? Enough that Phoebe wanted to grab Alice away from his side. Then he looked away and he was just a kid, standing in a worn, faded mackinaw shirt and jeans, too early in the morning, who wanted to get home to breakfast or his bed. An odd thought—what teenager got up that early? Or stayed up that late?

  “I knew. I seen Light Fin a lot over the years. And the Prof was teaching me about recognizing the whales.”

  The constable looked back at Wilbur.

  “He was helping me with the latest census. Alex is out on the water a lot so
he helps identify which whales are around. He’s been talking about going to university to study cetaceans. He’s already on a scholarship to Prince William Academy.”

  That was a surprise. It wasn’t often you found an Aboriginal youth interested enough in academics to get into that particular school, though that situation was gradually changing. But Alex didn’t really fit the academic mold. He acted more like the kids who needed the special education stream with which she was so familiar. That was where the kids with trouble at home, with the law, and in school usually landed. Certainly not at Prince William Academy, one of the most prestigious private schools in the province.

  “So you got anymore questions for me?’Cause I really do gotta get going.” Alex asked.

  Constable Burns lowered her notebook and seemed to consider. “Give me your address and phone number in case I’ve got anymore questions.”

  He did, then turned and shuffled off toward the other end of the boardwalk pilings without saying goodbye. There, he slipped into a red kayak and was out and skimming across the water so fast it was like he was a part of it.

  “Gotta get home, my ass. That one bears watching,” Constable Burns said and looked back at her notebook. She turned to Alice. “And you are?”

  Alice’s usual youthful exuberance disappeared like a kid being asked to answer a question in class. “Aunt Bee…”

  “This is my niece, Alice Standish. We’re bystanders. We were heading for our kayaks when we saw the crowd and came down to see what was going on. Whales fascinate me, so we stayed.” Phoebe crossed to Alice and put her arm around her niece’s shoulders.

  “So where were you at around,” Constable Burns checked her notes. “At around four thirty this morning?”

  “In the campground. Trying to sleep on too-hard ground in a too-thin sleeping bag on a too-cold night with a too-squirmy, almost-teenager at my side.”