Death in Deep Water

by Paul Kemprecos

  I glanced out at the sixteen-thousand-pound projectile throwing itself halfway to Mars and didn’t have to fake a look of horror. “This is the first job I’ve had in an aquarium, Hank. Maybe I should start off with something smaller. A goldfish would be about right.”

  A bemused smile played across Livingston’s lips. “Oh, yes, I suppose you’ve heard about that business with Eddy Byron.”

  “Yeah, I read some stories in the newspaper.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, the newspaper stories are so much hot air. Killer whales are the gentlest creatures alive when it comes to human beings.”

  “This is all very confusing,” I said. “The papers said people had been hurt by Rocky.”

  “Oh sure, people have been injured, but that’s a big difference from being killed.” He handed me his clipboard. “Here, hold this, if you would while I retrieve the microphone.” He reeled in the black rod, coiled the cord, and put the electronic equipment next to an L. L. Bean travel bag on the lowest tier of bleachers. He dug a pipe out of the bag and lit up.

  “Killer whales have been getting bad press for centuries, but most of the stories are apocryphal,” he said. “There’s the one about the Canadian loggers working on a hillside overlooking the water. A pod of killer whales passed below and one of the loggers deliberately rolled a log down on top of a whale and injured it. The loggers were rowing back to camp that night when whales attacked the boat and tipped it over. The man who rolled the log disappeared, but the whales never bothered the other logger. I would love to talk to the survivor, but he vanished, too, after telling the tale.”

  We walked slowly around the perimeter of the pool. Rocky paced us, swimming lazily along the edge of the tank as if he were listening to us talk. Even at minimum speed, his huge body created a low tidal wave that splashed over the top of the transparent wall.

  Livingston stopped and contemplated Rocky. The killer whale did a somersault and came back to the surface to hang there with his head partially out of water.

  “That’s typical orca behavior around human beings, by the way,” Livingston said. “These whales are intensely curious creatures. They seem as fascinated by us as we are by them.” He puffed on his pipe. “The most often heard scare story came from Herbert Ponting, a photographer with the Scott expedition in Antarctica. He was on drift ice and orcas started crashing all around him. It scared the pants off him and his story has been told and retold for decades as proof positive the whales are dangerous. But the animals left Ponting alone as soon as they realized he was a human. I think they saw his shadow on the ice from below, thought it was a seal, and just followed their natural predator behavior.”

  “Was that the last reported attack?”

  “Oh no, there have been dozens. Back in the seventies a schooner was rammed and sank off the Galapagos. A couple of the survivors said three orcas had punched the holes in the boat. In 1976, something damaged a yacht off the Cape Verde Islands. Again there were killer whales in the area and again, of course, they were named as the attackers.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It is possible the culprits were killer whales in both cases, but I’d say proof was sadly lacking. There was one notable case. A surfer off California was lying on his board when something grabbed him. He made it to the beach and needed a hundred stitches to close up the three gashes in his thigh. Witnesses sighted a dorsal fin and a black-and-white body. The distance between the gashes was the same as that between a killer whale’s teeth, and they were clean incisions, not like the tearing wounds that would have been made by a shark.”

  Eddy Byron had three holes in his wet suit.

  “That sounds like a pretty strong case for an orca attack.”

  “I don’t deny that. The orca doesn’t have great eyesight, but its echolocation can pick out the stripes on a bass, so its natural sonar should have been able to distinguish between a seal, which is fair game, and a man on a surfboard.”

  “Why didn’t it, then?”

  “I think the whale simply made an error. For all its sophisticated electronics, I’ll bet there are times a nuclear submarine mistakes a whale for another sub. Why shouldn’t a whale get confused? God knows what it thought the surfboard was. But again, the attack was not fatal, the man made it to shore without being bitten again, and the whale went away.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Pretty much. Even as recently as the 1960s, navy diving manuals were warning divers that orcas will attack humans. But every diver who has been in the water with an orca is evidence just to the contrary.”

  “But there have been fatal attacks in marine theme parks.”

  He frowned. “That’s true. It’s been pretty well established that marine mammals can become neurotic in captivity.”

  “Then a captive whale can be dangerous?”

  “I said neurotic, not psychotic. Incidents of orca attacks are not unusual in captivity. Even dolphins can become touchy. It must be much harder for an orca, because of its size and its freewheeling predatory instincts, to put up with captivity. It could get frustrated, and that frustration would show up in anger. I think a pack mentality can set in. The whales’ natural instincts might override their learned behavior. The same thing could happen with trained circus bears.”

  “The other day I ran into some pickets who called this place a ‘whale jail.’ Does what you just said about captivity back them up?”

  Livingston looked at me with more than casual interest, his dark eyes probing. Then he shrugged. “Those folks have their right to express their opinion. But I think the situation is much more complex than they would have people believe.”

  “In what way?”

  “There’s an international debate raging over creatures like Rocky. On one side are some conservationists who think no marine mammals should be held captive. They would prefer that the public be exposed to marine mammals in the wild, and suggest places be set up where dolphins, for instance, can interact voluntarily with humans. On the other hand, you have people like Dan Austin and the owners of parks like this who say the problems whales and dolphins have in captivity are no different from the ones zoos have with big animals. Just look at the dolphins living much longer in captivity than they would in the wild, they say, or at the number of dolphins being born in these parks.” He grinned. “Their position isn’t surprising, given the kind of money a place like this generates.”

  “Who’s right?”

  “Whoever has the most political power. When the pros and cons clashed in Australia, the government banned the capture of cetaceans for export. Nothing like that ever happened before, and it stirred up people on both sides of the issue around the world.”

  “Do you think anything like that would happen in this country?”

  “One never knows. There are some groups working toward that end. Most of the time they run into a combination of big-money lobbying by the marine-park industry and the tendency of government toward inertia. But when something like Eddy Byron’s death happens, all bets are off. What you see out at the front gate is only a small manifestation of the global debate.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Dr. Livingston, where do you stand on this?”

  “Before I answer that question, I should mention a third group. They say there isn’t enough evidence to prove captivity is harmful, but even so, it is a small price to pay for greater public appreciation of the world around them, more support for conservation, and adds to the sum of our human understanding of the world around us.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I think cetaceans, more than any other wild creatures, are the closest to feeling emotions the way humans do. As a human being I can’t help but empathize with Rocky and other marine mammals who show such fascinating anthropomorphic characteristics. I know they are not here of their own free will and that bothers me. Personally, I would l
ike to see every whale and dolphin released in those cases where they wouldn’t suffer from the shock of being returned to the wild. At the same time, as a scientist, I realize that I can best study these remarkable animals in a controlled situation like this. And I know that if people come in here, especially children, and see marvelous creatures like Rocky, yes, even doing their silly tricks, they will develop an appreciation for these animals. That means greater public support when government wants to pass conservation and protection laws and appropriate more money for research. We would never know as much about them as we do if they were all still in the wild.” He shook his head and laughed. “So where does that leave me? I suppose it leaves me sitting on the fence.”

  It was my turn to shrug.

  He gathered up his electronic equipment and said, “Well, sorry I have to go. Nice meeting you.”

  “Thanks for answering my dumb questions.”

  “Not dumb. No, not dumb at all,” he mused. He took a business card out of his wallet and gave it to me. “Come by my office sometime, we’ll talk some more. I’m sure I’ll see you around the park. I’m here several times a month.” He gathered his electronic equipment into the canvas bag and climbed to the top of the stadium, giving me a wave before he disappeared around a corner.

  I turned back to Rocky. He was swimming back and forth behind the glass. I wondered again with unimaginable stories lay behind that big round eye.

  “You’d make my job a hell of a lot easier if you could talk,” I said. I chuckled inwardly at my human chauvinism. Rocky could talk, to other killer whales. It wasn’t his fault if I couldn’t understand him. “Sorry, buddy,” I apologized. “You know what I mean. You can talk fine, it’s just that we dumb humans aren’t very good at understanding stuff that doesn’t come easy to us.”

  I collected my mop and pail and walked back to the plaza. It was good, or bad timing, depending how you looked at it. Mike Arnold was coming toward me. He had a grin on his face that made Rocky’s look positively benign.

  I laid the mop handle on my shoulder like a rifle and stood at attention. “Well, what is it today, skipper? Do I chase penguins, clean up after the sea lions, or slip the seals?”

  Arnold’s grin widened, but it still didn’t make him look any friendlier.

  “Naw, that stuff can wait,” he said. “I got something better for you to do. I’m going to introduce you to Whitey.”

  Chapter 12

  Whitey glided past the window, his tapered head weaving rhythmically from side to side, syncopated with the fluid movement of his tail. He passed so close his pectoral fin grazed the window glass. I remembered looking at pictures of the sixty-foot-long monsters who roamed the ancient seas when herds of mastodons grazed on land. The shark’s streamlined form is so near perfection it hasn’t evolved in a hundred million years. The same pointed snout, dorsal fin, and knife-cut tail mark the hungry little dogfish Sam and I see stealing the bait off our hooks.

  Whitey wasn’t big as white sharks go—maybe six feet in a species that can go over twenty, but the heavy body and wide mouth had an air of menace you couldn’t hide behind a cute nickname. The other fish swimming around in the tank ranged in size from a poodle-sized sandshark to a harmless nurse shark about eight feet long.

  I turned to Mike Arnold. “Let me get this straight. You want me to get in the tank with him?”

  “You got it right, except for one thing. Whitey’s a her.”

  “Gee, that makes me feel one hell of a lot better. Now tell me why anybody would want to get in there with that?”

  “To begin with, it’s part of your job if you want to work as a diver at Oceanus.”

  “Austin never said being shark bait went with the salary.”

  “He musta forgot, so I’ll lay it out for you. It costs big bucks to run this park, that’s why the tickets are on the high side. The customers like the whale and dolphin shows, but we want them to get their money’s worth. So two times a day a diver goes in the shark tank and swims around. No big deal. It gives the customer a thrill, they take pictures and buy film in the gift shop. We sell posters, too. Maybe we can get you in one.”

  “Thanks. I’ve always wanted to get into show biz, but Whitey isn’t my idea of a leading lady and I forgot my scuba gear.”

  “No problem. We’ve got a suit and tank you can use.” He shrugged his bodybuilder’s shoulders. “Look pal, it’s no skin off my ass if you’re too scared to do this. Austin wants to open the park soon and the staff has to be ready. We won’t have time for training then. If you don’t want this job, we’ll just hire somebody else.”

  The ghostly forms scudded past the window. I watched them for a few seconds and recalled that sharks have been called the ultimate eating machines. I was in a quandary. Nothing in my job description said I had to go into the tank, but I couldn’t back out unless I made a fuss, and that would call unwanted attention to me and hinder my ability to snoop.

  I looked at the window again, “Okay,” I said, “but you go in first and show me how it’s done.”

  Arnold sneered. “C’mon, tough guy.”

  He led the way across the dimly lit fish room and opened a door that was part of the wall. We climbed a stairway to a space about eight feet high between the false ceiling over the fish room and the roof. Electrical conduits and pipes snaked across the floor to the open tops of the fish tanks, which were serviced by metal walkways.

  The shark tank was built of thick concrete, elevated several feet above the rest of the ceiling. We climbed a short set of stairs to the rim, which was encircled by a narrow walkway. On the walkway next to the pool were two sets of scuba gear and two wet suits. But the big metal bird cage hanging over the pool was what really caught my eye.

  The cylindrical cage hung by a cable from a boom and power winch in the ceiling. It was about six feet high and had a trapdoor at the bottom. Metal semicircles arched across the top. I put my hand on an aluminum bar.

  “You’re going to tell me this thing is for a two-hundred-pound canary, right?”

  Arnold chuckled. “Naw, it’s an antishark cage.”

  I pushed the cage gently and it swung back and forth over the pool.

  “I’m just full of dumb questions today, Arnold. If the boys and girls below are as harmless as you say, why do you need an antishark cage?”

  “It’s for dramatic effect. You lower the diver into the pool. The crowd oohs and aahs. They think, hey, this is dangerous. They really get excited when the diver gets out. They think he’s going to be eaten alive and they’ll get it on film. Cage makes a good elevator besides, but we won’t use it today.”

  Arnold started stripping down to his underwear and I did the same, reluctantly. In a few minutes we were in our neoprene wet suits safety checking the dive gear. The equipment was fairly new and appeared in good working condition. Arnold reached into his gear bag and pulled out a wooden stick around three feet long and a couple of inches thick. He slid the ski-pole loop at one end over his wrist and slapped the stick into the palm of his hand like a beat cop getting ready to bust a few heads.

  “This is a shark billy,” Arnold said. “Jacques Cousteau and his crew came up with the idea. It’s got these little nails at one end so it won’t slip against the shark’s skin. If a shark gets too close, you push him away real gentle. He’ll keep coming back, but the stick tells him to keep his distance. Oh yeah, there’s one small thing; important, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Be gentle with it, especially around Whitey. You whack the shark or hurt it, she’ll get pissed off and go for you.” Arnold pulled the face mask over his nose. “Watch me,” he said. “I’ll go in real slow so I don’t scare the fish.”

  He bit down on his regulator and put one leg over the lip of the tank, followed with the other, and sat on the edge next to a set of rungs on the inside wall. He gave his body a half turn and slipped into the t
ank. Holding on with one hand, he adjusted his mask and tested his regulator underwater, then released air from his buoyancy compensator. Descending hand over hand, he sank slowly toward the gray shadows below.

  I went down the stairway into the fish room and peered into the shark tank. Arnold’s fins were coming into view, followed by the rest of him. He sank toward the sandy bottom and moved into the open circle of boulders arranged like the megaliths at Stonehenge in England.

  Startled by his appearance, the fish darted out of his way. Whitey shot toward the top of the tank, then cautiously made her way down again, doing her best to avoid the bubbles streaming upward from Arnold’s regulator. Resting on his knees, Arnold kept his movements as languid as a jellyfish. After a minute the sharks adjusted to him and resumed their mindless circling. He saw me looking through the window and gave a kid’s wave, all fingers. The movement attracted a small shark who got the courage to move in on Arnold, but he pushed it away with his billy. After a few minutes, Arnold began climbing the side of the tank. I went upstairs. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I imagined.

  Arnold’s head broke the surface. I helped him climb out and he gave me a hand pulling on my scuba gear. I hooked a leg over the rim of the tank.

  Arnold handed me the shark billy. “Remember,” he said. “Don’t poke too hard with this or you’ll trigger their defensive instincts and you could get bitten.”

  I nodded, took the billy, then eased into the water, not the least bit confident I would come out again in one piece. I started down the ladder, moving rung by rung as I had seen Arnold do it. As I descended I tried to remember what I had read about sharks.

  The first rule for divers in shark-infested waters is never attach a speared kill to your belt. Blood from the fish will attract sharks who have a better sense of smell than a kid in a cookie kitchen. They’ll go for the fish and take part of you with it. The sight of a wet suit makes a shark wary, but a hungry fish will attack a diver. I looked down, hoping these guys had eaten their breakfast. Another rule: don’t thrash around; sharks are attracted to water vibrations. Above all, don’t get scared. A shark might attack if it senses your fear. Most important, once you’ve committed all this stuff to memory, discard it, because no one can ever predict what a shark will do.