Flashlight in hand, Carys made her way up the overgrown walk of the old Lamb house. It had become a ruin in the fifty years since it was last inhabited; the chimney was barely standing. The front door was locked, and she could no longer see the light in the window. Making her way through the tall grass and brambles to the sea-facing side of the house, she tried the back door. The frame had warped with time and the door stuck, but she managed to force it open enough so she could slip through.
“Anybody there?” she called.
She was quite sure that somebody was here, keeping quiet in the darkness. She swept her flashlight around and caught a gleam in the darkness. She went closer. An eye. Something was looking at her from a cluttered table… The stuffed great auk, she realized. The glass case had been removed, and the auk stood with its head slightly raised and its tiny wings folded against its body. Beside it was a large elaborate hat, the sort that somebody might wear to the Royal Ascot horse race, along with something she initially took for a wig but turned out to be a feather duster — Kenny’s, she presumed. And that pelt nearby… the sea mink. The table held other items: framed paintings, pieces of bone, laboratory trays filled with feathers and hairs, animal skulls of various sizes, and (at the far end) a wet suit along with a waterproof dry bag.
Artist: Robin Clugston
She shone her light on one of the paintings, which showed two ducks floating tranquilly on a calm sea. The caption said, “Labrador ducks (Camptorhynchus labradorius) in the wild.” Labrador ducks. She had heard Kenny mention them — they were extinct, too. What do you bet (she thought) that the feathers in the hat had come from the Labrador Duck?
She stood still in the darkness. This table of jumbled shadows, she realized, held a lost world — the vanished wildlife of North America, or at least fragments of it.
She had gotten out her cell phone when she was aware of someone breathing in the darkness. Her hand went to her taser.
“Show yourself,” she called out firmly.
A headlamp was switched on, and Carys blinked. Ysabeau the PhD student stood there, smiling a bit ruefully.
“You asked me to help out in your investigation, Carys,” she said. “I am afraid I can’t, because… well, I’m the criminal.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Carys in wonder.
Ysabeau went close to the table. “I was planning to return all this stuff… after I got what I needed.”
“What exactly was that?”
“Well…everything necessary to make a great auk.”
“Make a great auk?”
“Yes, and maybe a sea mink and a Labrador duck and other species.” She smiled again at the look on Cary’s face. “I’m collecting the DNA of these animals — the biochemical instructions that make them what they are. I’m trying to construct the full genome of each species.” She picked up a feather from one of the laboratory trays. “I got this from the great auk. I had to dig inside to find a feather that hadn’t been coated with preservative.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re collecting all this DNA to…”
“Bring these animals back, yes. It’s called de-extinction. First you sequence the genome of the animal. Then you edit the important genes of the extinct animal into the reproductive cells of its nearest living relative. In the case of the great auk, that would be the razorbill. Then you basically grow a living exemplar of the extinct animal —”
“But Ysabeau, that’s science fiction.”
Ysabeau shook her head vigorously. “People are talking about it now. I want to do more than talk about it.”
Artist: Robin Clugston
The old house creaked and rattled in the wind. Carys gazed at the table, bewildered.
“So there was no treasure map,” she said.
“Oh, yes, there was,” said Ysabeau. “A very smart person, a friend of mine, found it five years ago and located the treasure… which is now funding this work.”
“And who is this smart person?”
“I’d rather not tell you that, Carys.”
Carys sighed. “I’m sure my detachment will instruct me to charge you, Ysabeau.”
“As I say, I was going to return everything.”
“That’s fine, but there may be a few preliminaries to that. Look, I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just asked to study these items.”
“I tried that, at first,” replied Ysabeau. “Museums and collectors said no. They thought my project was crazy — that I was crazy.” In the light of the flashlight her face was no longer soft but pinched and taut; a flame hard as flint flickered in her eyes. “The species we’ve lost in North America add up to a civilization. And we’re losing more with every passing day. I want to do something about that.” She closed her eyes for a moment and gave a small smile. “Anyway, it was fun being a cat burglar, Carys. I needed time to examine the items and take samples, so I’d bring them back here. I set this place up as my makeshift laboratory.”
“Well, the first thing we have to do is to return this stuff,” said Carys.
“Right,” said Ysabeau. “Can we use your car? I think I’ve got everything I can from the specimens.”
“Okay. Did you swim here?” Carys had her eye on the wetsuit.
“Yes, to avoid curious eyes.” She had produced a large wicker basket and carefully placed one of the framed paintings inside it. ”I hope you’ve got a big trunk.”
“Let me get the car. I parked well down the road.”
A few minutes later, Carys had driven up to the old house and opened her trunk. She saw no light on the main floor. Once again she pushed open the back door.
“Ysabeau?”
Only the wind answered her. Turning her flashlight to the table, she saw that the wet suit and dry bag were gone… along with the laboratory trays full of feathers and hairs.
*****
“My auk!” said Kenny excitedly, as Carys presented the items to him. “And my feather duster! Who took them, Carys?”
Carys saw in her mind Ysabeau’s face, her passion and resolve, and decided then that she wasn’t going to handle this case by the book.
“I’m working on that,” she said lightly. “This case turned out to be more complicated than I thought. I think I need to pay another visit to Clint Clinton, William Lamb’s descendant. Do you know him?”
Kenny chuckled. “The maritime cowboy! He directed a big ghost gear clean-up in Fundy last year. But why do you want to talk to him?”
To compare dreams, thought Carys, but she just said: “I want to find out more about his work… and particularly what inspired it. Oh, and Kenny — you might want to have your feather duster analyzed. I’m pretty sure you don’t have chicken feathers there.”
Nature Canada and other environmental groups have identified the inner Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia/New Brunswick) and Witless Bay (Newfoundland and Labrador) as two priority marine areas needing protection. Find out how you can help protect these and other ocean sites by becoming a Nature Canada Ocean Defender!
Special thanks to Ottawa artist Robin Clugston for illustrating this original Nature Canada eco-mystery.
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