I took a flashlight and walked toward the lake. At the first bend in the path the chemical odor grew sharp enough to sting my nose. The surface looked strange under the beam, more blue than water had any reason to be. Along the bank I saw small shapes floating between the reeds. I crouched and realized they were fish.
I called the county emergency dispatch number immediately. The dispatcher transferred me to an environmental response contact and told me to keep people and animals away from the water. I did not touch the fish or try to drain the lake. I closed the access gate, put a warning on the path, and sent Sandra inside to call neighbors who occasionally brought their dogs near the shore. When I returned with my phone and camera, I photographed the banks from safe ground and recorded the time.
By dawn the death toll was worse than I had imagined. Big Bertha had drifted close to the dock. I used the long-handled net to bring her to the edge before the response team took custody of the fish as a sample. Her scar was still there beneath the jaw. A ridiculous part of my mind expected her to twitch, to turn, to push back into the lake the way she always had when I released her. She didn't move.
I had loved that fish. Maybe that was foolish in a world where people had much bigger troubles. But the lake had kept a piece of my family alive through deaths, bad years, and changes I couldn't stop. Big Bertha was part of that living continuity. Looking at her, I felt I had failed something my grandfather had entrusted to me.
Jim Patterson arrived just after sunrise. He was a county environmental officer with years of experience investigating unauthorized dumping, and he approached the bank as though it were a scene that needed to be preserved. He brought a field team, sampling containers, protective equipment, and a photographer. They marked locations, documented the color of the water, and collected dead fish for analysis. Initial field instruments showed abnormal readings, but Jim refused to guess at a substance until a laboratory identified it.
"I can tell you this wasn't an ordinary overnight fish kill," he said. "I can't tell you exactly why until we get results. Don't let anyone turn a guess into a fact."
He asked whether anyone had entered the property recently. I told him about Mrs. Henderson's report, about Clearwater's possible involvement, and about the months of conflict with Vivian. He wrote everything down, including things I admitted I hadn't seen myself.
Mrs. Henderson came over with video from the camera above her garage. The angle covered part of the shared road and the entrance to my north service track. At 2:17 in the morning, a truck with Clearwater Solutions markings turned toward the lake. Two workers in protective clothing were visible near the vehicle. The truck departed a little after 2:40, its headlights sweeping across her driveway as it left.