samples from those raccoons, and they aren't infected.'
'They sure are dead,' Eduardo said.
'But not from rabies. Not from plague, either. Nothing that appears
to be infectious, or communicable by bite or fleas.'
'You do an autopsy?'
'Yes, sir, I did.'
'So was it boredom that killed them, or what?'
Potter hesitated. 'The only thing I could find was severe brain
inflammation and swelling.'
'Thought you said there was no infection?'
'There isn't. No lesions, no abscesses or pus, just inflammation and
extreme swelling. Extreme.'
'Maybe the state lab ought to test that brain tissue.'
'Brain tissue was part of what I sent them in the first place.'
'I see.'
'I've never encountered anything like it,' Potter told him.
Eduardo said nothing.
'Very odd,' Potter said. 'Have there been more of them?'
'More dead raccoons? No. Just the three.'
'I'm going to run some toxicological studies, see if maybe we're
dealing with a poison here.'
'I haven't put out any poisons.'
'Could be an industrial toxin.'
'It could? There's no damned industry around here.'
'Well ... a natural toxin, then.'
Eduardo said, 'When you dissected them ...'
'Yes?'
'... opened the skull, saw the brain inflamed and swollen . . .'
'So much pressure, even after death, blood and spinal fluid squirted
out the instant the bone saw cut through the cranium.'
'Vivid image.'
'Sorry. But that's why their eyes were bulging.'
'Did you just take samples of the brain tissue or . . .'
'Yes?'
'. .. did you actually dissect the brain?'
'I performed complete cerebrotomies on two of them.'
'Opened their brains all the way up?'
'Yes.'
'And you didn't find anything?'
'Just what I told you.'
'Nothing ... unusual?'
The puzzlement in Potter's silence was almost audible. Then: 'What
would you have expected me to find, Mr. Fernandez?'
Eduardo did not respond.
'Mr. Fernandez?'
'What about their spines?' Eduardo asked. 'Did you examine their
spines, the whole length of their spines?'
'Yes, I did.'
'You find anything ... attached?'
