The Loch (38 page)

—Your loving father.

Now what was Angus up to?

"Set it by the desk, please."

He pushed the cart of food inside, then noticed the laptop screen. "Hey, is this some sort o' sonar array? We're studyin' these things in university. My professor, he writes for the
Fish an' Fisheries
journal, the one put out by Edinburgh, St. Andrews, an' Leeds."

"I've read it. They do nice work."

"Yeah, they're pretty intense. I helped compile information used in one o' their special issues, it wis about how fish are smarter than scientists once thought. Ye know, steeped in social intelligence, cooperatin' wi' each other when it comes tae spottin' predators an' catchin' food. Stuff like that."

"So you're a marine biologist posing as a waiter?"

"Jist an undergrad tryin' tae pay my way through university." He extended his hand. "Ed Homa. It's a real pleasure tae meet ye, Dr. Wallace."

I shook his hand. "I was just about to take a peek in on Loch Ness. Want to watch?"

"Aye, that'd be amazin'."

I sat down at the desk and clicked on the northern third of the Loch, focusing my search from Lochend south to Urquhart Bay.

"So, Doc, where do ye think Nessie might be hidin'?"

"I'm not searching for Nessie. It's schools of fish I'm after, beginning with the salmon population. As I'm sure you know, they prefer the surface waters."

"Aye, sure."

Finding nothing, I clicked to another section of grid, then continued, one after the next, unable to find any fish.

"Uh, so where are they?"

I ignored him and moved on, focusing my search south toward Invermoristion.

Still nothing.

I shut the laptop fifteen minutes later, having failed to locate a single school of salmon. "Bizarre."

"Whit's bizarre?"

"They're not out there… or maybe they never arrived."

"Whit never arrived? Ye mean the salmon?"

"Yes. It's as if they're avoiding Loch Ness."

"Whit about the other species?"

"I can't be sure about the deepwater species. The array still has blind spots along the bottom. Still I—"

The phone's ring cut me off "Wallace. Oh, sorry, David, guess I forgot about you. Uh, yeah, hold on."

I turned to the waiter. "Sorry, do you mind?"

"Oh, sure. Hey, Doc, thanks."

"Good luck in school." I waited until he left before speaking. "Okay, David, you wanted to know why the array's not working, let's see how well informed you are."

"Zack, I don't have time for your games."

"Pay attention. A few years back, a federal court ruled the Navy could no longer use its high-intensity LFA sonar system. Do you remember the reason the system was shut down?"

"Who cares?"

"LFA is low frequency active sonar, David, the optimal word being
active.
The Navy's signal would have blasted hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean with enough sound to deafen, maim, and even kill whales."

"And this has what to do with Loch Ness?"

"Jesus, David, wake up! Loch Ness is essentially a long, giant trough. Everything reflects off her walls, every wake, every sound, every ping. And every monster hunter before you has made the same mistake in hunting the beast with sonar."

"Which is?"

I shook my head in disbelief. "Active sonar, David! The creature's sensitive to sound. The pinging from your buoys is scaring it off. It's hiding along the bottom somewhere, or in its lair, wherever that might be. And it won't come out again until you—"

"Switch the array from active to passive! Gotta go!"

I lay back, listening to the dial tone, wondering what wheels of fate I had just set in motion.

Dr. Wyckoff and I returned to Loch Ness in 1975, this time armed with both sonar and a time-lapse strobe system, the latter capable of taking underwater photographs every 35-40 seconds. Even with our new technology, I was still worried about getting good shots. Because of the high saturation of peat in the water, the range of an underwater camera is very short, due to reflection and scatter of light.

Our breakthrough came on a late overcast afternoon on June 20th. Without warning, our boat's sonar detected a large object crossing our starboard beam—one minute it was there, the next… gone. It was just enough contact to set off the camera. Most of the photographs were too obscured in silt to see, but in one shot, you can clearly make out a long-necked creature that resembles an extinct plesiosaur or elasmosaur! We sold the pictures to
Nature Magazine
, then, with the help of Sir Peter Scott, applied to both Houses of Parliament to get this elusive creature protected under the conservation act. Unfortunately, I had to return to Boston (to defend and protect the American patent system) but with the photos, I felt certain other scientists would join the battle, continuing our work. To my dismay, the scientific body remained skeptical, and for the most part, stayed away.

—
D
R.
R
OBERT
R
INES,
A
CADEMY OF
A
PPLIED
S
CIENCES
M
EMBER:
N
ATIONAL
I
NVENTOR'S
H
ALL OF
F
AME

Inverness Castle, Scottish Highlands

T
he high court of justiciary, case number C93-04, is now back in session, Lord Neil Hannam presiding. All rise."

I stood as the judge took his place at the bench and addressed the jury. "Ladies and gentlemen, as you are well aware, there are extraordinary circumstances surrounding this case, and you are to be commended for your patience and understanding. Mr. Rael, is the defense prepared to continue its case?"

"We are, my lord."

"Lord Advocate?"

Mitchell Obrecht nodded. "Her Majesty's Advocate is ready, my lord."

"Very well. Mr. Rael, when last in session, you were questioning your witness, Dr. Zachary Wallace. Do you have any further questions of the witness at this time?"

"No, my lord."

"Lord Advocate, would you like to cross-examine the witness?"

"Indeed we would, my lord."

I was recalled to the witness box and sworn in. Angus seemed almost amused as he watched from his seat behind the prosecutor's table.

"Welcome back, Dr. Wallace. What happened to your foot?"

"Camping accident."

"Camping. Yes, I understand you've spent the better part of the last two weeks camping and exploring Loch Ness."

"Yes."

"When court was last in session, Mr. Rael asked you, and I quote, 'hypothetically speaking, if a large water creature did prey in Loch Ness, is it possible it could have developed a taste for human flesh?' To which you responded, 'Hypothetically, yes, but only if this creature was a predator and not a vegetarian, and only if the creature's diet had been substantially altered by some unusual break in the food chain,' end quote. My question then, Dr. Wallace, is if, in the last two weeks, your investigation has proven either of these conditions to be true?"

He knows something…

"Doctor?"

"Justin Wagner's injuries indicated he'd been attacked by a predatory animal. None of the other deaths could positively be linked to a water creature."

"Thank you, but that wasn't my question. What I asked was whether there was anything in
your
investigation that's shown either of your two previously mentioned conditions to be true."

I hesitated. "It seems certain populations of fish that normally frequent Loch Ness at this time of year may not be present." Murmurs filled the chamber, quieting quickly.

"In other words, a break in the food chain?"

"Yes."

"And which species of fish are missing from Loch Ness?"

"Numbers are significantly down among the larger breeds, specifically among the salmon."

"And how do you know that, Dr. Wallace?"

The waiter!
"I've uh, I've been provided with access to the monster hunter's sonar array."

"Ah. So let me be clear here, you found no salmon in Loch Ness?"

"None. At least within the limits of the array."

"Maybe you could quickly walk us through the salmon's spawning routine."

"Salmon are born in the rivers feeding Loch Ness. As they get older, they migrate into the Atlantic, where they grow quite large.

When it's time to spawn, a salmon may travel thousands of miles, using the Earth's magnetic field to direct it back to the freshwater pool where it hatched."

"And when do the salmon usually start arriving in Loch Ness?"

"At the end of each winter when they're large and well fed. The fish must wait until the rivers are swollen, since they often have to leap up waterfalls and beyond strenuous currents. Once a salmon returns to its birth pool it spawns, and it usually won't eat again until it returns to the ocean in the fall."

"According to your testimony, when you fell into Loch Ness seventeen years ago, you were surrounded by a school of salmon. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"What month was that?"

"August."

"Then summer is the season a school of salmon would be found in Loch Ness?"

"Spring and summer, yes."

"But not this summer?"

"So far… no."

"And what might cause the salmon population to avoid Loch Ness this season?"

I hesitated, not wanting to bring up the subject of pollution until I had proof. "When a salmon approaches Loch Ness, a chemical memory enables the fish to literally smell its own river. It's possible something's interfering with that process, but that's just conjecture. For all we know, they may have diverted to another Highland loch or river—"

"But not Loch Ness? At least not this season?"

"No, not this season."

"And if not this season, then certainly not this past winter?"

"No. The water's too cold to spawn."

"I see. Then February is certainly out?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Dr. Wallace. No further questions."

The judge looked at Max. "Mr. Rael?"

"My lord, the defense has no further witnesses."

"Lord Advocate?"

"Yes, my lord, we'd like to recall Mr. Angus Wallace to the stand."

My father shot Max a worried look, then strutted to the witness box. The clerk of the court verified that Angus knew he was still under oath, while the prosecutor circled like a shark.

"Mr. Wallace, I'm going to read back to you your testimony regarding the death of John Cialino… a death that occurred on the fifteenth of February. And I quote, "so I hit him, square in the nose. It was a good shot, and he stumbled back a few steps, then twisted his ankle on a rock and tumbled over the edge, right into Loch Ness. I dropped to my knees and looked over the slope. John was treading water, in fair shape, though blood was pouring from both nostrils. Suddenly the water came alive with salmon, must have been hundreds of them. Some were leaping straight out of the water, a few smacking John right in the head. Then I saw a huge animal, long and serpent- like, at least fifteen meters, and it was circling John and those salmon like a hungry wolf.' End quote."

Angus looked pale.

"Salmon, Mr. Wallace. In your testimony, you saw hundreds of salmon, yet according to the expert testimony of your own son, there are no salmon in Loch Ness this season, and certainly not in a winter month. So how do you explain seeing so many salmon on February the fifteenth?"

"I'm no' a marine biologist, I jist saw whit I saw."

"Let's return to what you said. In your testimony, you claimed Mr. Cialino owed you a final payment on land you had sold him. How much was the final payment for?"

"Fifteen thousand pounds."

"And he never paid you?"

"Naw."

The prosecutor walked over to his assistant, who handed him two manilla envelopes.

From the first, Obrecht removed a Xeroxed copy of a bank check. "Do you recognize this, Mr. Wallace?"

Angus stared at the note. "Aye. It's a cancelled cheque for my last payment."

"And what's the date on the cheque?"

"February 23."

"Paid a week after Mr. Cialino's death. And upon whose account was the money drawn?"

"Theresa Cialino."

The courtroom buzzed with opinion.

"So Mrs. Cialino paid you a week after you were arrested for her husband's murder? Do you find that a bit suspicious, Mr. Wallace?"

"Since when is honesty suspicious? Theresa kent whit happened tae her husband wis an accident, an' I needed the money for my heart medicine. They've got my land. A deal's a deal."

"Yes. The question, of course, is what deal you're referring to. The real estate transaction… or something else." The prosecutor opened the second folder, removing a set of color photographs. "Mr. Wallace, do you recognize these?"

Angus leafed through the set. "It's a bed "n' breakfast in Dores. One photie's o' me, another's o' Theresa Cialino. Whit' yer point?"

"How often did the two of you rendezvous at this particular bed and breakfast?"

"Rendezvous? Ye make it sound as if we were sneakin' around."

"Just answer the question," Judge Hannam said.

"Dinnae really ken. Maybe half a dozen times. The chef's an auld pal o' mine. Makes the best oatcake an' haggis, neeps an' tattie this side o' Fort William. Been there wi' Johnny an' a'."

"And how long have you known Mrs. Cialino?"

"We met seven or eight years ago."

"Did her husband know the two of you had been meeting at a bed and breakfast in Dores?"

Another murmur rose, but quickly died.

"I widnae ken. Ye'd need tae ask him."

Obrecht returned to his desk, his assistant Jennifer, exchanging the photos for a thick file. "Mr. Wallace, would it surprise you to learn that John Cialino had hired a private investigator to follow his wife?"

"No' at a'. Theresa's awfy bonnie, as ye can see, an' Johnny wis awfy paranoid."