“I heard in Australia, orcas scare off great whites.”
“Orcas aren’t a concern here,” she replied deadpan, though she was impressed he had done some research given the fact when they’d met, he didn’t even know what a shark biologist was.
“Maybe something else then.Dolphin?”
Mac could tell he was grasping at straws, but he was wasting his time and breath.“Barry, I appreciate you trying to think of other causes, but this is what I do for a living.I research, and everything points to him.I just need proof.”
“And you thought you’d find that at the bottom of the ocean?”
“I found this.”She bent down and grabbed the fish head from her weight belt on her wetsuit and held out for him to inspect.
Barry didn’t take it but looked at it.“Okay.”Barry blinked, clearly not understanding its importance.“It’s a fish head.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
“So what?The ocean is full of fish.”
“Not like this.People use this for chumming.”Again, he stared blankly at her.So apparently, he hadn’t dug that deep into shark research.“They are used to lure sharks close.We use fish heads when we need to get the sharks close to the boat so we can put trackers on them.We don’t chum though, just put a fish on the end of a rope and make noise in the water to bring them in.”
“How do you know this is for chumming?Couldn’t one of the sharks have eaten it and not finished it?”Barry suggested.
Mac sighed, striving for patience.She forgot she was talking to someone who essentially knew nothing about sharks.Mac turned the fish head to show where it had been cut.“It’s a clean cut which means it was done with a knife, not teeth.”
Barry looked at it again as if studying it with new eyes.“Okay, so you found chum, but obviously, they didn’t lure sharks here for research.What else would they lure them here for?”
“I don’t know,” Mac said through gritted teeth.She was so tired of not having answers to the decline of the sharks.
“Could a local fisherman have lured it?”
Mac shook her head.“No, the people here respect sharks and give them distance, not try to capture them.Besides, they don’t have the equipment to tag them or the computers for the research.Doing that would be pointless.”
“So, you think that still leaves Miles?”
“I don’t know who else would.”She threw her hands up in the air.
Barry held his hands up in a surrender motion.“Okay, I’m just trying to talk this out and not accuse.”
Mac threw the head on the floor of the boat and planted her fists on her hips in irritation.“I know you and everyone else think I’m obsessed with it being Miles, but I will prove it’s him.I can’t prove it yet, but I know it’s him behind this.”And she suddenly had an idea on how to catch him in the act.“I also found signs of bottom trawling; it’s where people have weighted nets, and they drag them across the ocean floor to scoop up fish.”
“And?”
“The nets don’t care if a shark or a turtle are in its way.It will pick them up and kill them.That’s why they are banned here.”
Barry eyes widened in final understanding.“And you are sure that’s what it’s from?”
“Yes, and when I did my research here months ago, it wasn’t here.”
“Which means recently…” Barry filled in the rest.
“After Miles bought the water rights.”This was the proof she needed, only she couldn’t prove it was him behind it since she wasn’t supposed to be here.She needed to find the boat that had caused it.
“Let me help you with this,” Barry offered.
“Why?”Mac looked at him wearily; no one had ever offered to help her before.
“Do I need a reason?”Barry asked, looking baffled by her lack of ‘yes’ reply.
“Yes.”
