She went to Mel’s office. “Mel, I’ve read it all. I think I might as well continue to work at the DA office unless and until you start wanting me here all the time. I don’t want to draw a paycheck for sitting around.”
“I think, yes. You gave us the fax number that goes to a computer, so no paper wasted. We send stuff there, or we bring it by, or we ask you to come over here. Pete Summers will probably want to meet mid morning. He has a lot of guys out tonight to look for something, so maybe we know a little bit by tomorrow.”
* * *
She went back to the DA office and got there at nearly 5pm. Will was pretty cool about her training with the SWAT team. They sat next to his tanks, drinking coffee, and watched the fishes.
“I guess if you want to go in on this, it’s not for me to say.”
“Well, I do work here.”
“That isn’t the point. I wanted to make judgments for you that nobody would make for me. You cuff that guy, if you want. I’m out of that whole thing. It’s not my business. I just hope you don’t get hurt.”
“Let’s not worry about that. We take everyone to the Asia Palace tonight.”
“We can do that.”
She got on the phone and found Marie and Alan, who would come, and then Hank and Carol, and of course Chrissie. They were all about to head down, and got a call from Quint, who wanted to bring the Arowana. Poquita called around and got everyone to give her an extra half hour. Chrissie called Asia Palace and got Mama to hold a table.
Quint came in a few minutes with an animated bucket. They went to the large community tank. Will took the lid off it.
“He’s pretty frisky, Will. As soon as we get him in, we want that lid on.”
“The water will overflow if you just dump him in.”
Quint put on some gloves and wetted them in the tank. “I intend to let him slip in himself. If he hits the deck, let me get him with the gloves. Less likely he gets a spot and fungus.”
“Poquita, can you get in back there, and prevent him from going over the rail there if possible?”
“Sure.”
“Everyone ready?”
“Yeah, Quint.”
He held the bucket so that it almost poured into the aquarium, and the Arowana slipped out and went to the bottom. Will put on the lid and clipped it down.
Quint relaxed. “Now, pretty lady, I understand you are the one who takes care of the fishes, so here is what you open to feed this tank. Turn it like this, and it opens, and then just push it down and listen for it to snap, and he can’t jump. When I clean the gravel, we will worry, but that’s once every three months or so. I will probably want you to hold the lid over while I work. You block him if he tries to jump. You try to just leave space for my hand. I get nipped by piranha, spined by catfish and lionfish, so you can shove the lid down hard on my arm to keep the fish in.”
“Quint, do you want us to feed these fishes with guppies?”
“Yes, but you might save money using some anchovies. Get the frozen, or live if you can, put them in only as they are eaten. You can leave the guppies, or if you can find feeder goldfish, in the tank until your big fishes get ready for them. The salt water fishes must be eaten or removed, or they will foul the water.”
Poquita frowned. “What about my cichlids?”
“Brine shrimp, make sure you do not feed more than they eat in a few minutes, and the tubifex, which I always have.”
“Can we get the guppies or something like that smaller?”
“I sometimes get the red manure worms, and I can let them cast and supply them to you for your cichlids, but not all the time. I have a 10,000 gallon above ground swimming pool in my basement. That’s where the guppies come from. I have pools for the tubifex, but I just buy and sell them. Well, they multiply, too, but. To sell small guppies, I would have to net up a bunch, then put them in a coarser net and let the little ones get out into a bucket or something. I usually use the coarser net and take the big ones to sell.”
“Selling the little ones would work against your business.”
“Yes, hon, it would, because I usually sell by the pound. And if I sold off little ones, then there would be no big ones next couple of months, and I wholesale them. All I could do is float around in my pool.”
“You float around in your pool?”
“Yeah. I take a shower and then float in the pool and the guppies nibble on dead skin and whatever.”
“Sounds fun. Can I do it?”
“Uh, well, the thing is, you can’t wear a swimsuit or they would get caught in it. So it might not work out. Well, anyway, I’m done, so you guys can get to dinner. I thank you for the business, and I am still looking for a few more large community fishes.”
Poquita stopped him. “Quint, why don’t you come and eat dinner with us at Asia Palace?”
“I, uh…”
Will spoke up. “Please do.”
“Well, it sounds like fun.”
They went there, and the gang already had the big table in the back room. They sat down at it. They got a bottle of Jack, and some Tsingtaos.
Poquita talked about tropical fishes with Quint. She seemed to know a lot, because she had read a couple of books from the library in anticipation of getting the fishes. She threw around a few Latin names, and sounded like she knew a lot, although she said she did not. Quint talked about feeding breeder fish and fattening them up, breeding temperatures, lighting and water quality. Yes, there were a few more aquaria in the basement aside from the pool. A few 29 gallon tanks with angelfish pairs in them, some fives for the fry, and, well, now that you mention it, several dozen concrete vaults made for putting over coffins, turned the other side up, and full of water and life. There was a little side room that was Quint’s refuge from the world, the walls papered with 55 gallon tanks. These were full of an inventory Quint never seemed to get sold.
Will started a conversation about legal stuff, which Hank and Carol were interested in. Chrissie threw in a few interesting comments. At the end of the table, the legal stuff didn’t seem so interesting. Conversation turned to fish tanks, tropical fishes, and filter equipment.
The dinners went down pretty well. There were no reluctant appetites this night. When everyone was done, and the scraps saved for Poly, it turned out that Will might take his roommates to the house, but Poquita needed to see the fishes, so she would see him at the office in the morning.
They all left. Quint took Poquita to his house and down into the basement. She ran her hand in the guppy pond. “I’d like to lay around in this for a while.”
“Well, if you had a swimsuit, they might get caught in it, so I, uh, I don’t see that you can do that.”
“What if you look the other way, and I will take a shower with that hose, and then I will get in and look the other way while you do, and you get in?”
“I guess that would be all right.”
They carried out the procedure, and ended up floating in the guppy tank.
“I never have had anyone float in the guppy tank before.”
“The guppies don’t seem to mind.”
She floated over near him. “They breed in this tank, don’t they?”
“Oh, yeah, thousands of them a day I suppose.” “That might be making me want to breed.” “If you were a guppy, it would be one thing.” “But it’s another.”
She swam over, and got over him. Sure enough, as the reader may already have known, you do not need to be a fish to breed in water. They got out and dried off with the poor collection of towels an aquarist is likely to have. They got dressed and went in the side room. Since the whole basement was heated to 78 F, it was not too chilly, really. They looked at the fishes in the smaller aquaria. There was a row of 29s end on, with pairs of angelfish in them. These tanks had slates leaning against their sides for the fishes to spawn on. Higher up were some 5s for the eggs to hatch in, and some had. There were 55s full of guppies, mollies, and swordtails. One had thousands of tiny cardinal tetras. Another was full
of little glass catfish. The next looked like there were worms on the bottom, and she suddenly realized what they were. Baby spiny eels. There were tanks of dime sized Oscars and others with angelfish in various sizes. A tank of green severums still dime sized.
“It’s getting late. We’d better get some sleep.”
They went to bed. In the morning, Poquita got to look at the water system. Quint showed her how new water came into a 3,000 gallon tank, through an aerator. That tank had daphnia in it. “Water fleas” which eat microorganisms and provide food for fishes, especially small ones. From there, the water went into a system of distribution pipes that allowed tanks to be filled easily. The gravel cleaners drained into the waste line, along with a continuous small stream that ran from the guppy tank unless the level fell too low. The guppy tank was automatically filled from the new water tank. The ejector pump took all the waste water out to the pond in back. They went out to look at it. Poquita had to hold on to him to keep her balance, because her heels sank in some times. “If you come back, you should bring some athletic shoes, overalls, sweatshirt, stuff like that. This is a nice outfit, but this place is pretty messy and dirty.” “I’m coming back.” “Good. This is the pond.”
Poquita saw that it was about 30x50 feet, and 4 feet or so deep. The ejector pump was spewing out water with a lot of air in it. Bluegill were teeming around it.
“Do you swim in this pond?”
“You could, but it’s like swimming in a creek. You might get an ear infection, and there are lots of dead branches and stuff on the bottom.”
“What are the lanterns for?”
“Bug lights. If the light cell says it’s dark, and the thermostat says it’s not cold, they come on and kill thousands of bugs a night. Mostly moths, which are not all that pesky, but. They work much better over water, because half the bugs will get back up and fly away from one over land. Over water, they hit the surface and the bluegill eat them.”
“That sounds neat.”
“Come over on a warm evening, we can sit out here and watch. You can’t hardly see the fishes, but you know they’re there.”
“I’d like to stay, but I need to get to work.”
They went back, Poquita holding on to Quint all the way. She drove off to the office.
Quint shoveled a bunch of gravel into a stationary cement mixer, and turned it on. He added water until it overflowed a bit into his pond. He left it running, and went to the wholesaler in his truck, and got twelve 55 gallon tanks, under gravel filters, power heads, heaters, thermometers, fish food, power strips, and a lot of little things like nets and scrapers, and so. He stopped at the fabrication shop and picked up two racks, 2 wide, 3 high, for 55 gallon tanks. He took it all to the job, an architect’s office. He turned in a copy of each invoice to the receptionist, who was very exited about the tanks. He hand trucked everything up, and bolted the two racks together. He wiped the insides of the tanks clean. He put in all the under gravel filters heaters and power heads. He hooked up the water hose from the bathroom and filled the tanks about 2/3 full. “Sally, I am going to get the conditioning fishes, some koi. They will get the environment stable for the fishes we are going to have here next week. Remind the janitors if you see them, that we only want to use damp cloths on the tanks. No spray on cleaners. They might kill fishes.”
He went downstairs with as much cardboard junk as he could take in one trip. He went to the house, and ran more water into the cement mixer. When it came out clear, he stopped the water and filled a bunch of buckets which he put in the truck. He went out by the pond, and got several buckets of bait grade koi. Back at the architect office, He ran the whole setup, and saw all the heaters and power heads come on. He poured gravel into each tank and smoothed it out. He put a few koi in each tank, and then distributed the rest so he had none left. He put the covers with their lights over the tanks. He filled them all to their normal levels. He fitted the black anodized aluminum doors.
“Sally, if some of these fishes die, the net is down here. Just net them and flush them. These are bait fish. They are not worth much at all.”
“They’re pretty.”
“You will have to see some of the ones they were breeding for when these got rejected. If you want to get into for real koi, though, you need a lot of money.”
“Like a fish might be worth $100?”
“Try $25,000.”
“Oh my gosh!”
“These are worth like 50¢”
“What’s the difference?”
“The colors, the way they are marked. Stuff like that.”
The architects, Greg and Harold, came in.
“We’re looking good, Quint. These are the conditioning fish?”
“Right. They get one spoon per tank of the food in there. They don’t need to be fed on the weekend. If you want to feed them an extra time on Monday, you can. But they should eat it in a few minutes.”
Greg turned to Harold. “We buy fishes for a dollar each, they wholesale for 50¢. Then they grow, and become $3 fishes, we get a dollar and a half. So we can actually make money on that. Of course we will spend it all on tank cleaning and all. But we get these fishes for not very much.”
“I would like to see what we can get.”
“I can show you what I have. ‘We will need more than that.’”
“I know you don’t have large Cardinal Tetras, and I do want a school of them. But we should see what you do have, and start planning the tanks.”
They went to look at fishes.
Chapter 14 A Lead in the Case Musical Theme; This Old Flame by Juice Newton In the morning, evidence techs had run a fingerprint they could not eliminate. It belonged to an Edward Mack. Mack had a lightweight record mostly involving small amounts of cocaine. After consultation with the task force, Will called Mack’s lawyer, Rodney Bale. “Rod. Will Ames.” “Will, what’s up?” “You have Edward Mack in your list of unfortunates?” “I do.” “I want to talk to him about a fingerprint we found in a crime scene.” “Well, we might not want to admit anything.” “I don’t care about recreational quantities of drugs. This is the case you think it is.” “Can he help without getting in trouble?” “I could forget all about a half ounce of coke, say.” “That will do it for us. We’ll see you in 20 minutes or so.” “Great.” A little bird flew in the door in brown linen pants, a green satin blouse, and a linen vest with black Phillipa boots. She fluttered over and landed in the chair next to Will. “Nice they found you so fast Poquita.” “A lead, maybe. We’re going to talk to Edward Mack, who left a fingerprint at the scene, and maybe knows something. I said I could write off a half ounce of coke, and his lawyer is bringing him to talk to us.” “Then he isn’t the perp or an accessory.” “Right you are.” Rodney Bale and Edward Mack came in. They were seated. “Rod, I have agreed to blow off a half ounce of cocaine if it comes in this story. That is your understanding?” “That’s right, Will.” “How does your fingerprint get on that switch cover, Edward?” “I sold the guy 4 grams of coke.” “Did he owe someone, some big dope deal?” “Saturday night party kind of thing. Nothing like that. What they did.” “I can’t imagine you doing this crime over something like that. I would wonder if the Cali Cartel would do that.” The detectives spent about 40 minutes on him, and his lawyer took him home. Will looked at them. “He was in his lawyer’s office when I called, I think.
Probably wanting to know how he could help without getting charged with his little coke thing.” Detective Sergeant Pete Summers spoke. “That’s right. He would not have done this. It’s not a drug thing, even.” One of the detectives left to take a phone call. A guy had seen a white car with a smear of yellow paint on the fender. Not known in the neighborhood. He came back in and told the group. A lot of phone calls got made, and one of them came up with a body shop that had repaired and repainted a car that sounded right. The witness had noticed the license plate had the letters BIZ on it, and that checked. The owner of the car was a guy who had been charged once with a homicide
with a knife. The case had been lost on a failure of proof. Will got a warrant for the guy’s arrest and the house and car. Poquita and the Swat team were called out. They hit the guy’s house.
Derrick opened the door in his inimitable way. Carlos and Robert went one way, Tommy and Mike the other. Poquita followed Bridget. Tommy had a guy down on the floor, and Poquita cuffed him. He was served with the warrants for arrest and search, and the house got looked into very carefully.
A knife that looked just right went into evidence. The guy got put in the jail. The evidence techs did the house. There was visible blood on the steering wheel of the car. The next day, Will met with Jessie Holt. “What do you want to do with him, Jessie?” “Drag him behind my car for 50 miles.” “Since we are officers of the court?” “Incapacitate him. I’d like to see him dead, but like you always say, it’s more or less pointless. The People’s interest in it is that he is stopped.
Rationally, life without. But I do want to try this case and kill him.” When counsel was appointed, it was one of Will’s favorite friends, Mary Lane. She interviewed her client at the jail, and then came to the DA office. “Mary, I want to resolve this fast. He did it. We have DNA. We have all kinds of evidence.” A secretary put a bunch of discovery in front of Mary. She looked it over, and it did not look good. “We can do life without. Jessie wants to try it. She will win it, and your guy will be executed.” “What about the other cases?” “Idaho or Colorado may prosecute anyway. Or they may be satisfied that he is going to be locked up for the rest of his life. From what I have seen, he had so much stuff in the house that either jurisdiction can get him.” “What will you do?” “Let the lionesses do whatever they want to do.” “What do they want, speaking hypothetically?” “They want to see me beat him to death with my fists, which I wouldn’t mind doing, but for being an officer of the court.” “I may be instructed by my client to take this case to trial.” “In that case, my office will try an impeccably honest case. There will be no discovery games, no police perjury, and no discourtesy to you.” “I’ll talk to him. Is there a time limit on this offer?” “I don’t want to play that. You have to tell us pretty soon if you want to try it or plead it, but let’s leave that for a while, see how things go.” They shook hands, and she left. Will came out to a media riot. “Calm down, everyone.” They did. “Will, do you have a suspect in custody?”
In Love and Law Page 14