The Web

The patient was a fifty-one-year-old laborer named Joseph Cristobal, with no history of mental disorder, who began to experience visual hallucinations-'white worms' and 'white worm people'- and symptoms of agitation and paranoia.

Moreland treated him with tranquilizers and noted that Cristobal did have 'a fondness for drink but is not an alcoholic.' The symptoms didn't abate.

Two weeks later Cristobal died suddenly in his sleep, the apparent victim of a heart attack. Moreland's autopsy revealed no brain pathology but did discover an occluded coronary artery.

Then the doctor's final remark in large, bold print, the same red color as the question mark: A. Tutalo?

I figured that for a bacterium or virus but the medical dictionary he'd provided me didn't list it.

A drug? No citation in the Physicians' Desk Reference.

I returned to the storage room, squeezed my way past the columns of boxes, and searched the bookshelves.

Natural history, archaeology, mathematics, mythology, history, chemistry, physics, even a collection of antique travelogues.

One complete case devoted to insects.

Another to plant pathology and toxicology, which I went through carefully.

No mention of A. Tutalo.

Finally, in a dark, musty corner, the medical books.

Nothing.

I thought of the catwoman. Moreland's telling me about the case moments after we'd met.

Now another case of spontaneous death.

I'd reviewed perhaps sixty files. Two out of sixty was three percent.

An emerging pattern?

Time for another collegial chat.

***

When I reached the house, I saw Jo Picker near the fountain, watching Dennis Laurent's police car drive away. Water dotted her hair and face. As I came up to her she wiped her cheek and looked at the moisture on her hand. The spray continued to hit her. Slowly she moved out of its arc.

'That policeman came over to tell me what's going on.'

She rubbed her eyes. Her new tan had been replaced by mourner's pallor. 'They say Ly landed on the base and they're shipping him back today… I should've expected it, working in Washington. But when it happens to you… I've been calling his family.'

One of her hands rolled tight.

'I didn't really chicken out,' she said. 'Though that would have been rational.'

She looked at me. I nodded.

'I probably would've been stupid enough to go up even though I had bad feelings about it. But this time… he got mad at me, called me a… I just said to heck with it and walked away.'

She moved her face nearer to mine. Close enough to kiss but there was nothing seductive about it.

'Even so, I still probably would've relented. But he wouldn't let up… as I was walking through that bamboo I heard the plane engine start up and almost ran back. But instead I kept going. To the beach. Found a nice spot on the rocks and sat down and stared at the ocean. I was feeling pretty relaxed when I heard it.'

Our noses were nearly touching. Her breath was stale.

'I miss him,' she said, as if finding it hard to believe. 'You're with someone for a long time… I told his mother she could bury him in New Jersey near his father. We never made any plans for that kind of thing- he was forty- eight. When I get back we'll have some kind of service.'

I nodded again.

She noticed a stain on her shirt and frowned. 'My ticket out of Guam isn't for another two weeks. I guess I should say that I can't wait to get back, but the truth is, what's waiting for me? I might as well stay and finish up my work.'

Wetting her finger with her tongue, she rubbed the stain. 'That sounds cold to you, doesn't it?'

'Whatever helps you through it.'

'My work helps me. Coming here's the final leg of a three-year study- why throw it away?'

She backed away and drew herself up. 'Enough blubbering. Back to the old laptop.'

***

It was just before five. I strolled to the rose garden, and watched through the boughs of a pine tree as the men in the mowers painted broad stripes in the lawn. I thought about sudden death.

The catwoman. White worms.

AnneMarie Valdos killed to be eaten.

Routine medical cases collected during a thirty-year practice.

Some routine.

I was probably making too much of it. After all, I'd initiated the conversation about the Valdos murder.

Though it had been Moreland who'd brought over the autopsy photos, sparing no detail.

Maybe the old man had a strong stomach and assumed I did too.

He'd implied as much during the tour of the bug zoo.

Research on predators.

I recalled the animation with which he'd discussed the history of cannibalism.

Not exactly your simple country doctor.

Milo had thought him spacey. Joked about Frankenstein monsters.

Milo was a self-admitted sultan of cynicism, but he was also a trained detective, his hunches more often right than wrong…

Neurotic, Delaware. Bunked down in Eden, getting paid handsomely to do a dream job and you just can't cope.

I returned to the house but couldn't get the catwoman out of my mind.

Her ordeal. Bound to a chair while her husband made love to another woman. The final scream…

Such cruelty.

Maybe that was it.

Over the years, Moreland had seen too much cruelty.

Radiation poisoning, the hopeless deterioration of the Bikini islanders.

The catwoman. Joseph Cristobal. The cargo cult leader.

Absorbing the pain the way sensitive people often do.

Confronting his helplessness but able to forget about it during dark hours in the bug zoo. His lab. His own private paradise.

Now, watching Aruk deteriorate- nearing the end of his own life- his defenses had been shaken.

He needed to make sense of the cruelty.

Needed someone to share it with.

15

That night at dinner, there were five places set.

Jo was last to come down. She wore a white blouse and a dark skirt; her face looked fresh and her hair was