Робин Кук - Mortal Fear

“My God,” Jason exclaimed. He’d remembered reading that salmon were capable of running through rapids against the current, but he had no idea that they could navigate such high falls. Jason and Carol stayed mesmerized as several other salmon leaped. He could only marvel at the physical stamina the fish were displaying. The genetically determined urge to procreate was a powerful force.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said as a particularly large fish began to swim the watery gauntlet.

“Alvin was fascinated too,” Carol said.

Jason could well imagine, especially with Hayes’s interest in developmental and growth hormones.

“Come on,” Carol said, taking Jason’s hand. “There’s more.”

They continued up the trail, which left the river’s edge for a quarter of a mile, taking them deep into a forest. When the trail returned to the river, the Cedar had widened into another small lake like the one in front of the Salmon Inn. It was about a quarter of a mile across and a mile long, and its surface was dotted with fishermen.

A cabin much like a miniature Salmon Inn lay nestled in a stand of large pines. In front of it at the water’s edge was a short dock with half a dozen rowboats. Carol took Jason up the flagstone walk and through the front door.

The cabin was a fishing concession run by the Salmon Inn. There was a long, glass-fronted counter to the right, presided over by a bearded man in a red-checkered wool shirt, red suspenders, faded trousers, and caulked boots. Jason guessed he was in his late sixties, and that he would have made a perfect department store Santa Claus. Arranged along the wall behind him was an enormous selection of fishing poles. Carol introduced Jason to the older man, whose name was Stooky Griffiths, saying that Alvin had enjoyed visiting with Stooky while she fished.

“Hey,” Carol said suddenly. “How about trying your hand at some salmon fishing?”

“Not for me,” Jason said Hunting and fishing had never interested him.

“I think I’ll try. Come on — be a sport.”

“You go ahead,” Jason urged. “I can entertain myself.”.

“Okay.” She turned to Stooky and made arrangements for a pole and some bait, then tried once more to talk Jason into joining her, but he shook his head.

“Is this where you and Alvin fished?” he asked, looking out the window at the river.

“Nope,” Carol said, collecting her gear. “Alvin was like you. He wouldn’t join me. But I caught a big one. Right off the dock.”

“Alvin didn’t fish at all?” Jason asked, surprised.

“No,” said Carol. “He just watched the fish.”

“I thought Alvin told Sebastion Frahn he wanted to go fishing.”

“What can I say? Once we got here, Alvin was content to wander around and observe. You know, the scientist.”

Jason shook his head in confusion.

“I’ll be on the dock,” Carol said brightly. “If you change your mind, come on down. It’s fun!”

Jason watched her run down the flagstone walk, wondering why Alvin would have made such elaborate inquiries about fishing and then never cast a line. It was weird.

Two men came into the cabin and made arrangements with Stooky for gear, bait, and a boat. Jason stepped outside onto the porch. There were several rocking chairs. Stooky had hung a bird feeder from the eaves and dozens of birds circled it. Jason watched for a while, then wandered down to join Carol. The water was crystal clear and he could see rocks and leaves on the bottom. Suddenly, a huge salmon flashed out of the dark emerald green of the deeper water and shot under the dock, heading for a shallow, shady area fifty feet away.

Looking after it, Jason noticed a disturbance on the surface of the water. Curious, he walked over along the shore. When he got close, he saw another large salmon lying on its side in a few feet of water, its tail flapping weakly. Jason tried pushing it with a stick into deeper water, but it didn’t help. The fish was obviously ill. A few feet away he spotted another salmon lying immobile in just a few inches of water, and, still closer to shore, a dead fish being eaten by a large bird.

Jason walked back up the flagstone path. Stooky had come out of the cabin and was sitting in one of the rockers with a pipe stuck between his teeth. Leaning on the rail, Jason asked him about the sick fish, wondering if there was some problem with pollution upriver,

“Nope,” Stooky said. He took several puffs on his well-chewed pipe. “No pollution here. Them fish just spawned and now it’s time for ’em to die.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jason said, suddenly remembering what he’d read about the salmon’s life cycle. The fish pushed themselves to their limits to return to their spawning grounds, but once they laid their eggs and fertilized them, they died. No one knew exactly why. There had been theories about the physiological problems of going from saltwater to freshwater, but no one knew for certain. It was one of nature’s mysteries.

Jason looked down at Carol. She was busy trying to cast her line out from the dock. Turning back to Stooky, he asked, “Do you by any chance remember talking with a doctor by the name of Alvin Hayes?”

“Nope.”

“He was about my height,” Jason continued. “Had long hair. Pale skin.”

“I see a lot of people.”

“I bet you do,” Jason said. “But the man I’m talking about was with that girl.” He pointed toward Carol. Jason guessed Stooky didn’t see too many girls who looked like Carol Donner.

“The one on the dock?”

“That’s right. She’s a looker.”

Smoke came out of Stooky’s mouth in short puffs. His eyes narrowed. “Could the fella you’re talking about come from Boston?”

Jason nodded.

“I remember him,” Stooky said. “But he didn’t look like no doctor.”

“He did research.”

“Maybe that explains it. He was real strange. Paid me a hundred bucks to get him twenty-five salmon heads.”

“Just the heads?”

“Yup. Gave me his telephone number back in Boston. Told me to call collect when I had ’em.”

“Then he came back here to get them?” Jason asked, remembering Hayes and Carol had made two trips.

“Yup. Told me to clean ‘em good and pack ’em in ice.”

“Why did it take so long?” Jason asked. With all the fish available, it seemed twenty,five heads could have been collected in a single afternoon.

“He only wanted certain salmon,” Stooky said.

“They had to have just spawned — and spawning salmon don’t take bait. You have to net ’em. Them people fishing out there are catching trout.”

“A particular species of salmon?”

“Nope. They’d just had to have spawned.”

“Did.he say why he wanted those heads?”

“He didn’t and I didn’t ask,” Stooky said. “He was payin’ and I figured it was his business.”

“And just fishheads — nothing else.”

“Just fishheads.”

Jason left the porch frustrated and mystified. The idea that Hayes had come three thousand miles for fishheads and marijuana seemed preposterous.

Carol spotted him at the edge of the dock and waved at him to join her.

“You have to try this, Jason,” she said. “I almost caught a salmon.”

“The salmon don’t bite here,” Jason said. “It must have been a trout.”

Carol looked disappointed.

Jason studied her lovely, high-cheekboned face. If his original premise was correct, the salmon heads had to have been associated with Hayes’s attempts to create a monoclonal antibody. But how could that help Carol’s beauty as Hayes had told her? It didn’t make any sense.

“I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s trout or salmon,” Carol said, turning her attention back to her fishing. “I’m having fun.”