The door to the lab was open. Tables, beakers, flasks, test tubes in racks, a centrifuge, a balance scale, equipment I couldn't identify. Next to the scale was a tall jar full of the gray-brown pellets he'd used to feed the insects. A smaller container of some sort of brownish liquid sat beside it.
"So," he said, taking off his glasses. His tone was strained; I'd interrupted something.
"I wanted to check if it was okay to use the phone for long distance."
He laughed. "Returning Detective Sturgis's call? Of course. There was no need to ask. Give him my best. He's a pleasant fellow."
• • •
Robin sat there caressing her two hairy pals as I dialed. The phone rang twice and a cranky deep voice grunted, "Sturgis."
"Hi, it's me. Still up?"
"Alex." Milo's voice lightened. I hadn't thought much about his missing us.
"Yeah, wide awake," he said, reverting to a grumble. "So how's Bali Hoo?"
"Sunny and clear. Want to hop over and join us?"
"I don't tan, I parboil."
"Thought you were Black Irish."
"That's temperament, not complexion. So, you pretty much settled in?"
"Very nicely. Just got back from diving in a gorgeous coral reef."
"Yo, Jacques. There really is a Garden of Eden, huh?"
"My fig leaf says yes. What are you doing up past your bedtime, sonny boy?"
"Working double shifts and building up the overtime. Reason I called is the guy who's handling your house has a couple of questions. Seems the crown and floor moldings Robin told him to order have been discontinued. He can get something similar, a little wider, or go for her exact specifications and have it custom milled. The difference is a couple of thou and he wants authorization. Also, the cost of your alarm is going to be a little higher than estimated. Something about having to connect up with a power line that's outside the basic contractual area. Probably another grand. It's never below estimate, is it? Anyway, ask the lovely Ms. C. what she wants to do, get back to me, and I'll forward the message."
"I'll put her on right now."
I handed over the receiver. Robin said, "Hi!" and KiKo's eyes widened. As she began to speak the monkey stuck his head closer to the phone and began talking along in a wordless chittering singsong.
"What? Oh . . . no, it's a monkey, Milo . . . a monkey. As in barrel of . . . No, he hasn't replaced Spikey, we still love him. . . . No, they're getting along fine, as a matter of fact. . . . That's it in terms of mammals. . . . What? . . . No, just some bugs. . . . Bugs. Insects, spiders . . . tarantulas. Dr. Moreland does research on them. . . . What's up, detective?"
She talked to him about the construction, then ended with more small talk and returned the phone to me. "I'm putting these guys outside again, then running a bath. Love it if you'd join me when you're through."
She left.
"Bugs," said Milo. "Eden has bugs."
"God created them, too. What day was it?"
"His bad-joke day. Exactly what kind of research does this guy do?"
"Nutrition. Predatory behavior."
"He sounded a little spacey when I talked to him."
"How so?"
"Taking the message, but somewhere else."
"He thought you were a pleasant fellow."
"That proves he was somewhere else."
I laughed. "What kind of things are you working on?"
"You really want to know?"
"Intensely."
"Four armed robberies, one with hostages in a meat locker and a near fatality. One drive-by of a drug dealer slash rap artist that we probably won't solve, aw shucks, and the beauty that's been keeping me up late: sixteen-year-old girl out in the Palisades shot her father to death while he sat on the can. She claims long-time molestation, but the mother says no way and she's been divorced from the old man for years, no love lost. The kid has a history of naughty behavior, and Daddy had promised her a brand-new Range Rover for her birthday if she passed all her classes. She flunked, he said no go, and friends say she got mighty pissed."
"Any evidence of molestation?"
"Nope, and friends say she was a big fan of those two little shits with shotguns from Beverly Hills. She's got dead eyes, Alex, so who knows what was done to her. But that's not my concern, right now. She retained a mouthy lawyer with dead Daddy's dough . . . but enough, Ishmael. You set sail to escape all this barbarism."
"True," I said, "but allow me to raise your cynicism quotient even higher. Even Eden has its problems."
I told him about AnneMarie Valdos's murder.
He didn't answer.
"You still there?"
"Cracking her bones to eat the marrow?"
"That's Moreland's hypothesis."
"You go to Paradise and outdo me in the grossness department?"
"According to Moreland, cannibalism's pretty common across cultures. Ever come across it?"
"He an expert on that, too? Tell me, is there some huge guy stomping around the estate with a bad haircut and bolts in his neck? Marrow . . . no, thanks, dear, I'll pass on that breakfast steak and stick with the veggie plate."
"Funny you should say that. Moreland's a vegetarian. His daughter says he saw things after the Korean War that made him never want to be cruel again."
"How sensitive. And no, I haven't personally come across any bad guy gourmets. But there are a few years left to retirement, so now I've got something to live for."
"How's Rick?"
"He says, changing the subject. Doing the workaholic thing as usual, night shift at the ER. . . . Marrow? Why do I keep hearing jungle drums going oonka loonka? Come across any missionaries in a pot?"
"Not yet, and Moreland says not to worry. There's no history of cannibalism here. Both he and the chief of police see it as a sicko killer trying to look exotic. Local opinion pins it on a Navy man who moved on."
"Moreland's a crime sleuth, too?"
"He's the only doctor on the island, so he handles all the forensics."
"Cannibalism," he said. "Does Robin know about this?"
"She knows there was a homicide, but I haven't given her the details. I don't want to make too big of a deal about it. Other than that, there's been no serious crime here for years."
" 'Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play.' Why a Navy man?"
"Because the locals aren't violent and the killer seems to be transitory."
"Well," he said, "I was Joe Army, so you won't get any big debate from me. Okay, hang loose, don't eat anything you can't identify, and stay away from jokers with bones in their noses."
"A creed to live by," I said. "Thanks for calling, and good luck on your cases."
"Yeah . . . all bullshit aside, I'm really glad you guys got to do this. I know what last year was like for you."
A phone rang in the distance and he grunted.
"Other line," he said. "More sludge. Sayonara and all that, and if you see a bearded French guy painting ladies in flowery muumuus, buy up the canvases."
14
Robin napped and I took a walk, crossing the rose garden and descending the sloping acres of lawn. Four men in drive-and-mows were working on the turf. The rotting-sugar smell of cut grass brought to mind childhood Sundays.
So had Victory Park, I realized. The war memorial in my Missouri hometown had been only slightly larger. Sunday meant my mother bundling my sister and me off to the park when my father chose to drink at home. Bologna sandwiches and apple juice, climbing the cannon, pretending to fire, Mother's sweet, forced smiles. When she died, Dad's drinking stopped, and so did the rest of his life.
Shaking off melancholy, I continued down to the fruit groves, stepping among fallen oranges and tangerines and a popcorn spray of citrus blossoms. The meadow Moreland had created out of wildflowers was brilliant. A collection of miniature conifers had been trimmed surgically and a boxwood knot garden was as intricate as any maze I'd encountered in graduate school. Then the greenhouses, every pane spotless, and
trees full of orchids, the plants tucked into the folds and hollows of branches like hatchlings. I kept going till I spotted patches of granite and the brown, thorny fuzz of rusty barbed wire.
The eastern border. Plumbago and honeysuckle and wisteria covered most of the high stone walls, softening the wire but not hiding it.
On the other side, the banyan tops formed a greener-gray awning, aerial roots shooting through the canopy like the tentacles of a beast in pain. From what I could see, the tree trunks below were stout and kinked cruelly, whipsawing in a struggle for space.
For a second, the entire forest seemed to be moving, tumbling down on me, and I felt myself losing balance.
After I restored equilibrium, a tight spot remained at the base of my throat.
I looked up at the trees again.
Robin had mentioned a subtle coolness drifting over the walls, but all I felt was an internal chill.
I hiked along the border, listening for sounds from the other side but hearing nothing. When I stopped, the same illusion of movement recurred and I placed both hands on the stone and breathed in deeply.
Probably low blood sugar. I hadn't eaten since breakfast.
I headed back. When I got to the grove, I picked up an orange, peeled it, and finished it in three bites, letting the juice run down my chin the way I'd done as a child.
• • •
Back in my office, I tackled another carton of medical files. More routine; the only psychological diagnoses Moreland had noted were stress reactions to physical illnesses.
I pulled down another box and found myself growing bored till a folder at the bottom made me take notice.
On the front cover Moreland had drawn a large, red question mark.
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 shiny and combed out.
>
"Go on with the small talk." She sat and unfolded her napkin. "Grapefruit, one of my favorites."
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