---1---
Don broke the news to Charlie over the phone: Lab results confirmed weed killer had poisoned the koi, including the fish in the car. It was disturbing, because the perpetrator would have had to poison the koi under cover of night, wait for one to die or almost die, then steal it from the property while Alan and Charlie were sleeping upstairs.
Over the week, the investigation uncovered zilch in leads. No witnesses, no revealing evidence other than that the weed killer was a common brand sold in most garden shops in the city.
Don also learned from Alan that he'd suggested to Charlie that the koi be replaced as soon as the pond was scrubbed free of poisonous residue, that he would feel better for it. Charlie flat out said no, he didn't want anymore fish, and refused to discuss the matter further.
It's my final decision, Charlie later told his brother, I'm busy with work. Don dropped the subject.
They all needed a break. Prior to the incident, Don had been scheduled to testify on a case which had occurred on federal land. After court, Don had planned to meet Charlie for a hike to a cabin belonging to a professor who'd kindly let them borrow it. Don thought about canceling the excursion, worried about leaving their father alone after such strange happenings. His mind was relieved when he found out Alan was participating in a senior citizen's golf tournament, not by chance. Dad needed to get away, too.
Don's testimony went well and as he expected, he was released from having to stick around on call. The days were his to seize-and Charlie's too. He'd been dropped off at noon and was patiently waiting in Don's hotel room, engrossed in his notebook. Don was pleased he had not let his loss keep him from coming.
Before leaving, Don changed clothes and they had lunch in the hotel restaurant whereupon Charlie related how he'd passed the time by strolling through a nearby mall until he got bored, which took about ten minutes. Back in the room, a man had come to the door wearing a shirt reading, "Don't tell..." on the front.
I had to look up to him, Charlie said.
"What'd he want?"
"He was asking for Mr. Mapleson. The unique ingredient is, he had a book in his arms. Nishikigoi Nomad."
"So?"
"Do you know what Nishikigoi means? It's Japanese for koi."
Don's eyebrows lifted; his heart drew an upbeat. "See him here?"
Charlie scanned the restaurant. "No, it's been hours. The back of his shirt--"
"He could be our man." Don pushed the plate away, got up and produced his cell phone. "Describe him."
"What're you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing? He could still be in the vicinity."
Charlie rose and gently stuck a palm between Don's ear and the phone. Customers turned their way. "Don," he said. "It's a coincidence, that's all."
Pulling away, Don brought up a number that promised action. "I'm not taking chances. What'd he look like?"
"People often--usually--underestimate the frequency of coincidences. What if you're wrong?"
Don walked into the lobby, expecting a real person to pick up on the line. "Doesn't matter. We're used to long-shots."
Charlie insisted. "Come on, we're on vacation."
No one answered and Don gave up. "What are the odds of someone having a koi book?"
"There're over 50,000 koi owners in the United States, forty percent in our state alone. People that own them are the same people who would be tourists in this area, like you and me. And it wasn't necessarily a koi book. Nishigoiki can be translated as carp, sort of...colorful carp. It's a coincidence."
"Koi are carp."
"It had a cover, like a novel, and, obviously..." He measured with his fingers. "Thick. A tome."
"Koi Nomad? Never heard of it." Don put away the phone. "Charlie, he came to my room."
"Am I standing here talking to you?" he asked.
"Like usual. Except you need to pay up. Waiter's giving us the evil eye."
---2---
After driving up, they endured a swirling road ride up the mountainside in a shuttle bus (no cars were allowed beyond the ski resort's parking lot), and disembarked at the ninth stop, unloaded their things. Three other travelers had gotten off at the third stop. Outside, Don tucked his sidearm into a compartment of the pack and they started up Mean Marmot Trail toward the cabin. If the trail wasn't too taxing, they could comfortably reach their destination tomorrow.
At a stream, they stopped to rest, lowly brook trout flitting in and out amongst the smooth rocks. Its gentle current lapped at Charlie's boot-toes and a breeze picked up, then died again. Under a tree, Don pulled off his pack and let it slide to the ground, then himself. They had discovered a beautiful natural arbor, and as in every waterside grove, sounds were amplified, crisply carried into the atmosphere. Across the stream, a four-foot high embankment ran the length of the stream into the forest, dotted with vegetation in packed and loosened soil. Charlie had crouched down, tickling the bubbling surface with his hand, then splashing his face and forehead. Don drank bottled water, asked him if he was interested in fishing.
Charlie bid farewell to the trout and joined him. "Not directly," he said, and proceeded to comment on the annual impact, by way of stats, of hydrology on native habitats. In a minute or two, he lost steam and leaned against the tree, closed his eyes. "This is infinite."
"I'm with that," Don said, finishing his drink. Dragging his pack nearer, he unfastened the main flap and dug around for a snack. Charlie's head drooped; he was dozing off. It was nice he was able to get quiet, in the quiet. No matter how long Don lived, portions of Charlie's mind would always remain an enigma and other portions he would always be able to see right through without thinking about it. Sometimes it felt as if they were telepathically linked, others like they were strangers who'd just met, each speaking a different language.
The water gurgled and Don relaxed, shut his eyes, focused on its chaotic rhythm. There was nothing like this in the city unless you paid for it, drove to it, or set it up yourself. At home, he'd grown so accustomed to the roar of freeways day and night that he didn't notice them any longer. Now, with the roar many miles away, he noted its absence. Curious how that worked.
But he didn't miss it. Not one bit.
His eyes popped open. A noise made him scan toward the north embankment where pebbles spilled off the top. They tumbled down, puddled at the bottom. Don thought he saw a blue smudge behind the boughs. The light, must be the light, reflecting off the water.
"What is it?" Charlie sat forward, rubbed his face.
"Nothing, maybe deer. I've been working way too hard, my friend. Good to go?"
Charlie said, "I'm always good to go."
---3---
They spent the first night at the perimeter of a clearing where the sky was magnificently crystalline, stuffed with stars. Charlie offered his knowledge, saying because it had taken their light so long to travel to earth, some of the stars no longer existed. We're seeing into the past, he said.
"I know that, from somewhere," Don said. "Maybe Larry. Time traveling." He lay in his sleeping bag, half out of their tent. The last thing he noted before falling asleep was Charlie fooling with the GPS software on his PDA (as if they didn't know where they were already), and informing him that there was a twenty percent chance the tail-end of a northwestern summer storm would befall them by afternoon.
The moon unmasked at midnight, hours after they'd fallen asleep.
In the morning, Don razed the fogginess out of his brain and reached for his boots at the entrance to the tent. They weren't there, but sitting two feet away.
"You must've moved them," Charlie said. "And don't remember."
"I wasn't that beat." Don swept the perimeter, concentrating on trees and shrubs on the other side. Everything appeared peaceful. He was trained to pick up on subtleties yet he wondered if he should connect the dots strictly by the numbers, instead of by the way things looked.
Near noon, after tackling a steep, unrelenting acclivity on the trail, which roughly paralleled the river, they were glad to catch sight of the elevated cabin, built on a three foot foundation, and gratefully headed towards it. In case of fire, the area around it had been cleared about thirty feet by the owners. It wasn't much: three rooms with bare cots, table and chairs in a front area with pairs of windows at the rear and front and a view of an ancient water pump. No bath facilities, a sad stock of leftover canned goods and a portable barbecue grill, unused for ages.
"Now what?" Charlie said, after settling in. He had a book in his hands.
"I knew you'd be lost without the PC," Don said. They sat on the front deck, relishing the sunset. Their dinner had been ready-to-eat meals, which weren't bad, convenient. "You aren't joking with me, Charlie?"
"I didn't touch your boots."
Don rested an elbow on the stair. "Because if you did, there will be consequences."
"Personally," Charlie said, opening the book. "I wouldn't proceed without proof."
Examining the cover, Don read it aloud: "A Fundamental Unity of Mathematics, Volume Two. Why am I tempted to add, 'And You' ?"
"Professor Mindus is appraising it."
"It's your lumbar." He yawned, head tipped back until he was staring up into a clump of dried pine needles at the top of a fir tree. "What color was his shirt?"
Charlie set the book behind him. "Whose shirt?"
"The guy who asked for the Mapletons."
"Mapleson. It was, ah...beige."
"Any other colors?"
Charlie seemed to be picturing the man. "In the center, around the words, there was a blue circle."
"Shade?" Don said.
"You're still not maintaining he's our suspect?"
A flurry of gnats zipped about the fir, backlit in sunset. "Fly with me on this," he said.
"Shade. A prominent blue, sapphire."
Don nodded, pondering the match. Had his imagination been playing tricks?
"Thought about who it was?" Charlie said.
"I've arrested lots over the years. Some are in prison, some are out, some are dead. It's a pretty hefty list."
"Any jump out at you?"
"Yeah. Man named James Wingfield, just got out." Don swatted a bug off the bridge of his nose. "But when we get home, I'm searching the database for tall guys."
Charlie had gotten up and was sorting through the book. "They're isolated incidents. There's no manifestation of a pattern." He paced the length of the cabin. "Maybe he's on to something new."
Don changed the subject; he didn't want to make Charlie nervous. "Why not get more koi?" he said. "I saw you admiring those trout down there."
"Do we have to talk about it?"
"No-if you have a problem with it."
"You and dad want fish..." Charlie clapped the book shut. "Then you and dad get fish. I have better things to do than worry about pH balance."
"You didn't mind before," Don said.
"I do now."