"I'd like to know who last counted these fish," he said. "Because a transport company cannot move a valuable breeding population without somebody making a list."
That evening, Ethan came into the house carrying Miriam's notebook under one arm and his own under the other. He had written down two hundred eighty-seven individual observations that day, although he knew many would be repeat sightings. He had also noticed that the same truck tracks behind the pond matched a turn near the old Riverstone road on the other side of the fence. He wanted to know if we could follow them.
"Not on somebody else's land," I told him. "And not while people are arguing about who has permission to be where."
He frowned. "But if the fish came from there, shouldn't we see what's left?"
"Yes. With the right people and the right permissions. That's how we avoid becoming exactly what Karen thinks everyone else is."
He considered that, then wrote something in the margin of his notebook. I asked what it was. He turned the page around so I could read it: FIND OUT BEFORE YOU MOVE ANYTHING. I told him his grandmother would have liked that sentence.
Two days later, Daniel came back with a new copy of the 1991 asset document. The name on the original signature line was Louis Fenwick, the former Riverstone manager. State records showed Fenwick had died twelve years earlier, and the original company had been dissolved roughly twenty-four years before our dispute. Yet the transfer authorization supplied to Mountain Aquatic Services carried a date from the week the fish were moved.
I sat at the table and read the dates again. There was no complicated interpretation of the calendar that made a deceased man's signature current. Somebody might claim the signature was an innocent mistake, a recycled form, or a misunderstanding over succession rights. But somebody had still put those animals on a truck, driven through my gate, and left them in my water.
"We're not accusing anybody yet," Daniel said. "We're documenting the contradiction and asking who created that form."
I set it down. "And if Karen asks me to pay the bill again?"
"Tell her we dispute the charge and have retained counsel. Nothing more."
He was halfway to the door when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and stopped. The caller was the registered representative of the Riverstone agricultural trust. Daniel listened for a minute, asked two questions, and then turned toward me with his eyes slightly widened.
"His name is Martin Cole," he said after ending the call. "He wants to come see the fish himself."
"When?"
"Tomorrow, if you'll have him."
"What does he want to know?"
"He asked only one thing," Daniel said. "He wants to know how a group of fish under his trust's records ended up in your pond without anybody calling him."