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Chapter 61
John's advice to try the Westwood Apartments had been good, Heather realized. The apartment was nothing special, but it was cozy and clean and in good repair, and at the mention of his name the manager had brightened. She did indeed have an apartment looking out
over the lake; it was on the upper level, but the manager said that since they weren't full, she could have it at lower level prices.
After her grubby apartment in L.A., looking out at a wall at twice the price, it was like Heather had stepped into a dream. It was going to be hard to leave. There was a beach, right across the road, and although the water looked cold, it was going to be refreshing to
take a swim, once in a while.
But that was beside the point; there was work to be done, and the first thing to do would be to look up this Appleton girl, and see what could be seen about the snake.
Heather had Pam's home address, and as luck had it, she caught Pam coming home Sunday evening, after a long, tough, fruitless day of looking through the swamps.
Pam was a serious enough looking girl, Heather decided at the first look, although she seemed rather sunburned and bedraggled. "I understand you're the person that's been carrying on the Gibson's Water Snake investigation," she said by way of introduction.
"What there is of it," Pam said, a little surly and out of sorts. "It hasn't been going real well."
"Well, I wanted to talk to you about it," Heather replied, nonplussed. "I'm Heather Sanford, from the Defenders of Gaea. We funded your television surveillance program."
Pam brightened a little. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess," she said. "I was just on my way to change and go to the beach, and rinse a little of this swamp scum off of me before I clog up the shower."
"I've got a beach by my place," Heather said. "Why don't you come on down, and we can both go for a swim and open a cold one, while you tell me all about it."
"That may be the best invitation I've had all month," Pam replied, a lot of the tiredness going away. "Where are you at? I'll change, then drive down and meet you."
"I'll drive," Heather offered. "That way we can talk on the way."
Pam was back in a couple of minutes, wearing a T-shirt over a swimsuit, carrying a towel. Heather stopped along the way, bought a six-pack of Hamm's, and drove to her apartment. "I gotta change," she said. "Meet you on the beach."
The water was indeed cold, especially after what she remembered from Hawaii, but Pam didn't seem to mind. She'd already been in the lake for a while by the time Heather got out to the beach, and she was still in when Heather spread a towel out to let the warmth
of the late-afternoon sun dry her out. When Pam did finally get out of the water, she spread out on her towel next to Heather, and accepted a cold beer.
"So," Heather said, getting down to business. "What's the story on the Gibson's Water Snake?"
Pam shook her head, some of the exhaustion beginning to creep back in. "The story is that there doesn't appear to be any story," she said. "Other than that one specimen that was found back in April, I haven't seen a sign of one of them. I really thought that we'd
find something with the TV surveillance, since that specimen was obviously living in the sewer system, but we're more than halfway through with the surveillance project, and we haven't found a thing. The only thing I can think of is that if there is a colony of Gibsons here,
they only spend a part of the year in the sewer system, but I've spent plenty of time looking outside the system, and haven't seen a thing. Lots of water snakes, but nothing that's even remotely close to a Gibson's."
"We were led to believe there was a pretty large colony of them," Heather said.
"There could be," Pam said. "But, I haven't found it, yet. There's only that one specimen, and it really falls in the range of the color pattern of the Northern Water Snake, especially considering the immaturity."
"So, you're saying that there are no Gibson's Water Snakes here?" Heather asked, a little disappointed. She'd been starting to get her teeth into the possibilities of this project.
"I didn't say that," Pam replied, taking a long swallow of beer. "I can't say that yet, and it would be foolish to say it. All I know is that there was a snake found in the sewer system that could be a Gibson's. If I were to find more of them, then, yes, it would be possible
to say for sure that they're here. On the other hand, I'm a long way from proving that there are definitely no Gibson's Water Snakes here. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."
"But there was a snake here that could be a Gibson's?"
"Yeah," Pam said. "A little black thing, about nine inches long."
"I know, I saw it in Minneapolis the other day," Heather said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service has declared this area an interim critical interest area as the result."
"Well, good," Pam said. "Maybe we'll have time to find out whether there is really a snake here before they do this sewer project," Pam said. "We know that there was a Gibsons, or what could be a Gibson's in the system in the early spring, before the Northerns are
usually out, so that would seem to indicate that they spend part of the year in the sewers, if they exist at all. On the other hand, we could be missing the boat with the TV surveillance; they could be living back up some feeder where we can't get with the rat."
"Rat?"
"The TV camera the guys use to inspect the sewer."
As Pam described the television surveillance program, Heather's mind was working hard. Not having a proven colony of Gibson's Water Snakes made the job a whole lot tougher, but, as Pam had said, there had been one here, and it couldn't be proven that there
weren't any more, so it wasn't impossible, either. "I think I got it," Heather said finally. "All right, now I want you to explain to me the importance of this sewer system separation to the snake habitat."
