Fish Kill and Other Modern Day Fables
By Horace FletcheriUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Horace Fletcher
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-7225-4 Chapter One
FISH KILL
The blue-green water of the Caribbean Sea was serene. The canoe rocked gently in the waves as the lone fisherman looked out eagle-eyed for the telltale signs of fish. Jakey—short for Jakes—was no Jacques Cousteau, but he was as old a salt of the sea as any. He was a thin, wiry man with bronzed, wrinkled skin from his countless encounters with skies without shade. His crop of hair was bright red from the bleaching effect of sun and sea, while his skin was the colour of chocolate. He stood steadily in the canoe and shaded his eyes to look for the large shimmer of a school of parrot fish, the favourite eating fish of the Hellshire Beach crowd. In his hand, he held a stick of dynamite, illegal but quite effective for his purpose. What did he care about damage to reefs and all of that crap? He had two greedy baby mothers and twelve children to support. He also had to pay back the Co-op for the cost of his secondhand boat engine, and of course he had to be able to be a man and buy the fellows a drink at Friday night's domino game.
He noted the first evidence of a ripple, and then he saw what he had been searching for all morning—a large school of parrot fish. He waited until they came near enough and then lit the fuse. The dynamite sailed through the air and fell accurately in the middle of the school with an imperceptible ploop.
About 300 yards away, the tiger shark swam lazily, swinging his large tail from side to side in the constant effort to stay afloat and keep water rushing through his gills. The shark was hungry; he had not eaten for two days, and the hunger pangs were now sending harsh signals to his tiny brain. Although his eyesight was fairly good, his main senses were his acute sense of smell—which could detect one drop of blood in a million parts of seawater—and his lateral lines, which could detect the faintest vibration of a struggling fish from 100 yards away. The shark felt the unusual vibration as the detonation of the dynamite sent shock waves through the water from 200 yards away. He decided to investigate and swam easily toward the source.
In the meantime, Jakey scooped up dead fish gleefully with his net. He was alone, and the sun was hot, but he smiled as he scooped fish, realizing that he had hit the jackpot today. He wiped his brow and steadied himself in the boat and scooped up another net full of fish. Most of the fish were dead—some shattered and bleeding from the explosion—while some were still alive but stunned and unable to swim away. He was not really worried about fish quality, as all of the fish would be sold or given away by the end of the day.
The shark came closer and closer to the canoe. He noted the smell of blood from the dead fish and swam forward more eagerly. He soon detected the odd shape of the canoe and noted the splashing activity beside the shape. He switched to attack mode, swished his tail vigorously, and swam upward toward the canoe.
The sudden crash into the canoe caught Jakey off guard. He lost his balance and fell headlong into the water. He was only a moderate swimmer, although he spent so much time at sea. Under the surface of the water, he noted the huge, dark shape near to him. He blinked in astonishment, and then his eyes opened in horror as he noted the immense snout and mouthful of sharp teeth inches from his face. With superhuman effort, he swam up and held onto the side of the boat and scrambled in.
The shark was confused; what he had bitten into was definitely inedible. His brain was, however, being bombarded with all kinds of signals—splashing shapes and the smell of blood—and then he noted the dead fish. There were a lot of fish, enough to fill a hungry stomach and drive away the hunger pangs. He opened his mighty jaws and swallowed down about ten in one go. He swam around for another go and downed some more like a drunk at closing time, not even stopping to relish the morsels as they slid down his throat.
Jakey lay in the boat, wet and frightened. His chest heaved, and his body quivered uncontrollably. He gripped the seat of the boat in fear and swore softly as he gradually got his breath back. "What a blow wow shark, ugly and big." He peered over the edge of the boat, almost not daring to look. He saw the huge dorsal fin circling, and he instinctively fell back down in the boat among the slippery dead fish he had already netted. After another ten minutes, he dared himself to look again, hoping that the monster by now had left.
From the boat, he could see the huge shape of the shark eating his catch. He looked around in anger, grabbed a stick of dynamite, and lit the fuse. "Yu brute yu, dead you fi dead." He lit the fuse and decided to blow the monster fish out of the water. But as he stood up to throw the stick, he slipped on his catch, and the dynamite fell from his grasp as he grabbed the boat to steady himself to avoid falling into the sea again. The dynamite slid away from him and disappeared somewhere down toward the other end of the boat. The look of horror returned to Jakey's face as he realized his predicament. The explosion was horrific; it was like nothing he had ever experienced before. He opened his eyes to find the back half of his boat gone and water up to his chest as the rest of the boat and his belongings, including his life jacket, sank rapidly.
He could hear nothing, as the ringing of the explosion was still in his ears, but he was alive and able to tread water. His mind flashed back to his children and how they would starve tonight. He thought of his illegal fishing method that had served him well for so long but had now proved disastrous. Suddenly, he remembered the monster and started swimming vigorously away from the sinking boat.
The shark was startled by the explosion. The acrid smell and the huge vibration had again confused him. For a moment, he forgot about his meal and swam away a short distance. Then he noted the splashing coming toward him. Some animal was coming, a possible meal. He could see the shape—it was larger than a fish. He swam toward Jakey with his mouth of sharp teeth wide open.
Yes, it was a lovely day for a fish kill.
Bleeding Hearts
The bullet had ripped through the ventricles and through the aorta and the azygous veins, exiting through the back and leaving a gaping hole the size of a fist. Death had thankfully come quickly, a combination of exsanguination and the victim drowning in his own blood. The pathologist wrote his notes carefully and made a concerted effort to examine the body himself from head to toe. No cursory look here, despite the fact that this body—like the other fourteen he had seen since coming to Jamaica four months before—was obviously that of a street person. The body had many scars, including burns from constant disputes and abuse from other street people, as well as from people who had caught him in their yards trying to steal a few common mangoes to stave off the constant hunger born of deprivation. His skin was black not only from its pigmentation but from a thick layer of dirt and grease as a result of not bathing for several years. His hair was thick and knotted with no evidence of combing for as long as he had been on the streets. His clothes, now piled in a heap nearby, were grayish brown and had an odour that could be detected from outside the room. The students standing nearby held their breaths and wondered why a postmortem was even needed for these people. The cause of death was obvious, and the man was certainly not a relative of anyone who cared. The pathologist, however, continued his detailed work and explained in morbid detail everything he did. The students had heard it all before. This had become a regular occurrence; fifteen street people had been brought in with a gunshot wound to the heart from close range. Someone was methodically shooting street people for some unknown reason.
The police commander was furious. The murder rate in the country was already high, and now, for the first time in Jamaica, it appeared that there was a serial killer on the loose. Why was someone shooting these street people? He had several theories and was almost sure that he knew exactly who was doing the killings. The most important clue was the type of bullet used in the crimes. All of the victims had been shot with a 9-mm pistol with a rhino `cop killer' bullet, which exploded on contact with the tissue. The result was a small point of entry, massive destruction internally, and a large exit wound. The murderer was probably linked to thugs from the ruling party who were obviously trying to clean up the city by eliminating the many pimps, drug users, and assorted beggars who pestered people at each stoplight. Similar occurrences had happened before in which street people had been piled in a truck and driven from one town to another parish where it was alleged they had come from in the first place. That case had caused an international scandal fueled by local human rights groups. He had often wondered, however, why there was no international outcry when rich countries did the same thing by rounding up undesirable people and deporting them to become homeless people in the poor countries of their birth. Now he had a more serious problem on his hands, and he was sure that the uptown watch groups would have his head. He had heard strong rumours that one group was blaming the police for the killings, and another group was calling the police incompetent for not solving these crimes quickly enough.
They were saying that the gun used was similar to that issued to the elite police and that some of these policemen were being paid as political gunmen, pledging to clean up the town.
He had had several meetings with the pathologist, attempting to get clues to help decipher who the possible killer or killers were. The pathologist was an interesting man. He was an Austrian national who had come to Jamaica about six months before. He had told the police chief that he was an expert on gunshot injuries and could tell useful details, such as the type of bullet and the type of gun, by examining the body. He was also able to tell the police that the attacker was probably seated in a car based on the angle of the bullet entries and exit wounds noted in the bodies. The gunshot residue on the clothes also suggested that the killer had almost pressed the gun to the bodies and fired at point-blank range. The only thing the pathologist had not told him was who had done the deed.
The daily police briefings had taken note of the details supplied by the pathologist. The police had also used their limited resources to assess the fragmented bullets that they found at the crime scenes. None of the bullets were whole enough for use in a ballistic examination, but the type of bullet was easily detected from the fragments picked up. The rhino bullet was unmistakable; it was made of lead covered with a copper casing. This type of bullet was not used by Jamaican police as it was by their US counterparts. It was designed to incapacitate an attacker, making him incapable of retaliating after being shot. The bullets had, however, been available to the underworld within one month of production and had been used to kill the same people they were designed to protect. These bullets were known to penetrate bulletproof vests and led to them being named `cop killers'. How they had gotten onto the island was anybody's guess. Guns and bullets were known to escape customs detection in clothes, barrels, and kitchen appliances. The story has often been repeated of guns coming in cardboard boxes of soap powder. The police had had many briefings and had not come any closer to the truth. One officer remembered something he had seen on TV where a profiler was able to determine who a serial killer was based on the people he had killed. If only they had the services of a profiler now. He also remembered that, on the show, they had used a map of the city and placed a thumbtack where each body had been found. This was not something they taught in the police training school, as serial killers were not a feature of the crimes on the island. With that in mind, he suggested to the inspector that he use a map of the town and use thumbtacks to indicate each of the fifteen murder sites. After the tacks had been placed, they were noticeably all on one side of town. This was, however, not really surprising, as most of the street people frequented certain areas. However, for what it was worth, all of the killings had occurred near the university hospital.
The university hospital was attached to the university, and like all universities, the main themes were teaching and research. Many times, lecturers had heard the old adage, "Publish or perish." The pathology professor was known to remind his charges about this at each turn. But in this area of the specialty, prospective randomized controlled trials were very rare indeed. Most people who did retrospective studies or case reports were often frowned upon by other purists among the faculty. The standing joke was that they could not do interventional studies because they did not treat their patients. The pathologists had heard these remarks before and ignored them, quietly producing many retrospective papers in international journals. It was one of these papers that had caught the eye of the pathologist in Austria, and he decided to come to the island and seek employment for a short stint of one year. He was a forensic pathologist specializing in traumatic injury. He had gained experience doing postmortems on soldiers in the Bosnian War and had come to the island because he had heard of the high crime rate. Here he had hoped to see many traumatic injuries, and he had been a little disappointed; the university hospital only saw about 10 percent of the murder cases, the vast majority going to the public hospital.
The police had suggested several theories over the past four months. Among them, they had thought that the killer was probably a disgruntled, disturbed driver who had been harassed once too often by the `coke head' on the corner and had snapped and started shooting all people who shared any resemblance to him. There was one notorious addict who frequented the stoplights. He was very obnoxious, especially to single women. He had been known to kiss the car windscreen and would sometimes put his tongue out and make suggestive hip movements at the women. It was well known that many women had a strong urge to kill him. Thankfully, it was just a fleeting thought to these women. The police, however, wondered if somebody had carried through with this threat. They had been called many times about him and other young men who aggressively tried to clean the windscreen of the many cars that passed each day. However, the addict remained untouched; he had not been one of the fifteen victims. Another theory was that these were all drug addicts who were been killed by a disgruntled drug dealer who was owed money. This theory was also dismissed by the pathologist, who had only found cocaine in one body and marijuana in only six of the fifteen. The final theory was that the killer was a gang member or gang members who were using these street people for target practice or as some type of gang initiation. This was the hardest theory to dismiss, as the idea seemed most feasible.
The strangest thing was that there were almost no witnesses to the crimes. They had all occurred in the early morning hours at a time when there were very few people around.
One woman who did her daily walk claimed to have heard the shot and seen a green Nissan speeding away from the scene. However, no other witnesses had come forward, so the police had their hands full with fifteen murders—fifteen bodies shot through the heart, no motive, and one witness. One policeman, not the TV watcher, remembered reading somewhere that serial killers were usually white loners, but he also remembered that the young man who went berserk on the Long Island Rail Road in New York was a black Jamaican and also that one of the Washington DC snipers was also a young black Jamaican. This immediately made the possibilities limitless again.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Fish Kill and Other Modern Day Fablesby Horace Fletcher Copyright © 2010 by Horace Fletcher. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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