I forced myself to focus through the fatigue.
The last forty-eight hours had revealed new pieces of the Loch Ness puzzle, but they were swirling in my head, and I was too tired to think.
Organize your thoughts. Write them out so you can see them.
Activating the laptop, I began typing.
Angus and Theresa.
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
Calum Forrest feeding the monster every winter. The mission of the Black Knights.
Adam Wallace.
The collapse of the North Sea aquifer in the early 1930s.
Calum Forrest erecting underwater lights last winter.
Oil seeping into Loch Ness.
Beta blockers found in eel's bloodstream.
John Cialino's death.
Angus deliberately lying about the salmon.
I stared at the screen, then cut and pasted, reorganizing my notes in what I surmised to be a chronological order.
Adam Wallace.
Calum had said Adam Wallace was the first Black Knight. Strange that my father had never mentioned him. Whatever the Knights' primary mission, it had obviously included feeding the species referred to by both Calum and my father as Guivres.
Fast-forward to the construction of the A82 in the early 1930s. According to Calum and my own unpublished theories, dynamiting the basin had collapsed an underground river that served as a North Sea access way, trapping a few of the creatures within Loch Ness. Both Alban and Calum confirmed Nessie was the last of her kind in the Loch. Calum said he and his late wife fed the beast during winters. That made sense, since the fish population of Loch Ness in winter would not be enough to sustain such a large predator. Of course, it was also possible that the beast had adapted to Loch Ness winters by hibernating.
Since Loch Ness was not teeming with 60-foot creatures, the animal my father had called a Guivre was most likely a mutant. Under normal conditions, mutations can occur in one of every 100,000 creatures. Beta-blockers in the eel's bloodstream would decrease the animal's sex drive. If the Guivre was a mutant, it was most likely sterile, explaining why there was not a breeding population of its kind in the Loch.
Whatever Nessie was, she obviously preferred to inhabit the Loch's deepest waters—
— until last winter.
Somewhere in the Great Glen, oil was leaking, and it was finding its way into Loch Ness. Though still undiscovered by the water bailiff and Scotland's EPA, it had nevertheless altered an entire season's migration of fish. Since the spawning fish could only enter Loch Ness from the River Ness, that meant the oil was most likely deterring them before they reached the Bona Narrows.
The oil had also altered the disposition of the eel population and the Loch's last Guivre. The Black Knights were patrolling the shorelines at night, trying to keep the tourists safe from the agitated Anguilla — and Nessie? Was that their mission?
No, it had to be more than that.
Last winter, as a precaution, Calum Forrest had reinforced his croft's fencing and installed underwater lights, along with…
Stop!
I stared at the computer screen, reworking the last assumption in my head.
Yes, Calum's lights were designed to scare off the creature, but that fence was still kindling to something as huge as Nessie. I had assumed the fence had been reinforced, but maybe… maybe it was just newer than the rest of the perimeter.
Maybe Calum had been forced to replace the rear fence last winter after the creature had attacked his herd of sheep?
But Calum was filled with rage. He not only wanted to keep Nessie away, he wanted it dead.
"My wife, God rest her soul, often had tae feed it for me."
His wife? Had the monster killed his wife?
A shiver ran down my spine as I typed out:
Investigate Mrs. Forrest's cause of death.
Calum could have killed Nessie himself. He could have poisoned one of the sheep offerings, or lured the beast in close to shoot it, but he hadn't. The oath of the Black Knights had kept him from seeking revenge.
What mission could be so important?
And what had my father done to remove himself from the Order? So it was possible Tiani Brueggart wasn't Nessie's first victim, there was a good chance the monster had killed last winter. Angus was close friends with Calum Forrest. Fiercely loyal, the death of his friend's wife, if true, must have surely upset him. Was that the reason he'd been banished from the Templar? Had Angus attempted to kill Nessie against Alban MacDonald's orders?
Angus and Theresa.
I stared at the clue, and then, suddenly, everything hit me at once.
Johnny C.'s death was no accident, Angus had killed him to be with Theresa! But instead of pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter, my wily father had gone for broke. Knowing the creature was out there, knowing it would probably kill again, Angus had created his "Nessie defense," making himself a local legend while forcing the Black Knights to destroy the creature that had killed his best friend's wife.
It was a clever plan in its own sordid way, filled with risk and rewards. If Angus could prove the monster was out there, then he'd be found innocent and have Theresa Cialino, sharing in her inheritance. The two lovers would live happily ever after, while Angus still maintained his blood oath as a Black Knight.
All my father needed was to make sure a jury would find him innocent. To do that, he needed an expert on the case, one who not only could convince a jury that the monster really did exist, but someone who could even track it down.
And so, after seventeen years of silence, my father had reached out… and used me again!
Anger surged in my veins, tempered only by the fact that it had been my testimony that had exposed his lie.
I stared at my notes, still seething.
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
One monster was on the loose, the other was sitting in an Inverness jail cell, waiting to be released so he could spend the rest of his days with his mistress.
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
Angus had counted on using the scars of my childhood to play out his charade, but it had been my research, my testimony that might end up burying him!
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
And what would my role be in the rest of this unholy mess? With David dead, the Highland Council would most likely approach me again for help, but I had no interest in capturing the beast. As far as I was concerned, it was already captured, in a lake twenty-three miles long. The key was to find the oil leak, shut it down, and return the biology of the Loch to its normal state.
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
I kept staring at the words.
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
Anguilla eels and the Sargasso Sea.
The left side of my brain finally took over, allowing the mental gear to tumble into place.
"Jesus, how could I have been so fucking blind!"
I clicked on the sonar array program, rewinding to the system's passive sonar recordings. The computer must have captured the monster's sonar signature earlier that evening, but I'd been too preoccupied to listen.
Locating the recording, I turned up the volume.
Blee-bloop… Blee-bloop… Blee-bloop… Blee-bloop …
My heart raced, my head swimming with the implications.
Blee-bloop… Blee-bloop… Blee-bloop… Blee-bloop …
"It is… it's the Bloop! How could I not see it? It was there, it was right there in front of me the whole time!"