White Death (NUMA Files 4)

The big fish landed on the deck with a squishy thud. Freed from the net, it became even more ferocious in its exertions, skittering across the deck as it arched and snapped its long body, round eyes staring with an unfishlike malevolence, mouth wide and snapping at air. The creature slammed into the fish hold, a raised box built into the deck. Far from slowing it down, the impact seemed to make it angrier. The convulsions became more violent, and it scudded back across the slippery deck.

"Wha-hoo!" Neal yelled, quickly stepping out of the way of the biting jaws. He lowered a gaff handle near the fish's head. In a snap- ping blur, the fish bit the handle in two.

Paul watched, spellbound, from the raised safety of a pile of net- ting. Gamay had taken out a video camera and was busy filming.

"That's the biggest salmon I've ever seen!" Paul said. The fish was about five feet long.

"This is crazy," Gamay said, holding the camera steady. "Salmon don't act like this when they're caught. They've got weak teeth that would break if they tried to do anything like that."

"Tell that to the damned fish/7 Neal said, holding up the jagged end of the gaff handle. He tossed it aside and grabbed a pitchfork, speared the fish behind the gills and pinned it to the deck. The fish continued to struggle. Neal produced an old Louisville Slugger and whacked the fish on the head. It was stunned for a second, then started snapping again, although less violently.

"Sometimes you have to slam them a few more times before they quiet down," Neal explained.

Moving with great caution, he managed to loop a line around the tail. Then he fed the line into an overhanging pulley, pulled the pitch- fork out, lifted the fish and swung it over the open fish hold, still care- ful to stay clear of the jaws. When the fish was positioned over the hold, he took a filleting knife and cut the line. The fish fell into the hold where it could be heard banging against the sides.

"That was the meanest fish I've ever seen," Paul said, with a won- dering shake of his head. "It behaved more like a barracuda than a salmon."

"It looked like an Atlantic salmon, but I'm not sure what it was.

Those strange white scales. It was almost albino." Gamay shut off the camera and peered into the dimness of the fish hold. "Listen! It's far too big and aggressive to be a normal fish. It's almost as if it were some sort of mutant." She turned to Neal. "When did you first start catching these things?"

Neal took the cigar stub from between his teeth and spit over the

side. "First boats started bringing them up in the nets around six months ago. The guys called them 'devilfish.' They tore the hell out of the nets, but they were big so we cut them up and sent them off to market. Guess the meat was okay, because nobody died," he said with a smirk. "Pretty soon that's all we were catching. The smaller fish just disappeared." He gestured to the fish hold with his cigar.

"That's the reason why."

"Did you contact any fishery scientists and tell them what you were catching?"

"Oh yeah. We got in touch with the fisheries people. They didn't send anyone down."

"Why not?" "Short-staffed, they said. Guess you got to look at it their way.

You're a marine biologist. Would you move out of your lab if some- one called and said big ol' devilfish was eating your stock?"

"Yes, I would have been here in a minute." "You're different from the others. They wanted us to ship one of these babies up for them to look at."

"Why didn't you do it?" "We were going to, but after what happened to Charlie Marstons, the fishermen got scared and said to hell with it and moved on."

"Who was Charlie Marstons?" Paul said.

"Charlie was an old-timer. Fished these waters for years even after it got hard for him to get around because of a bad leg. He was a stub- born old coot, though, and liked to go out alone. They found him- or what was left of him-coupla miles east of here. From the looks of it, he caught a bunch of these lunkers, got too close and maybe his bum leg gave out. Hardly enough left to bury."

"You're saying the fish killed him?"

"No other explanation. That's when the boys started leaving. I would have gone with them if I had my boat. Funny," he said with a grin, "one of those babies is my ticket out of here."

Gamay was already thinking ahead. "I want to bring it back to the lab for analysis."

"Suits me fine," Neal said. "We'll box it up as soon as it's safe." He pointed the Tiffany back to land. By the time they pulled up to the dock, the fish was practically dead, but it managed a few spas- modic snaps, enough to warrant keeping it on board awhile longer. Neal recommended a boarding house where they could stay the night. Gamay gave him a hundred-dollar bonus, and they agreed to meet the next morning.

A pleasant middle-aged couple warmly welcomed them at the board- ing house, a Victorian structure at the edge of town. From the en- thusiasm with which they were greeted, Paul and Gamay figured that the B and B didn't get much business. The room was cheap and clean, and the couple cooked them a hearty dinner

. They had a good night's sleep, and the next morning, after a huge breakfast, they set out to find Neal and reclaim their fish.

The pier was deserted. More worrisome, there was no sign of Neal or the Tiffany. They asked at the boatyard, but nobody had seen him since the day before when he'd paid for his engine work. A few men were idling around the waterfront because they had nothing better to do. No one had seen Neal that morning. The bartender they'd met the day before strolled by on his way to open up the restaurant. They asked if he had any idea where Neal might be.

"Probably nursing a hangover about now," the bartender said. "He came in last night with a hundred bucks. Used most of it up buy- ing drinks for himself and the regulars. He was pretty tanked when he left. He's done it before, so I didn't worry about him. Neal navi- gates better drunk than some men sober. He took off around eleven, and that was the last I saw of him. He's been living on his boat, even when the boatyard had it."