William Bernhardt - Death Row

“I studied entomology in college, at OSU. Of course I loved all the insects, but I always felt… I don’t know. A special connection to the arachnids.”

“You felt a connection to spiders?”

“Oh yes. I’ve been an arachnophile since I was a boy. They’re wonderful creatures. Diverse. Amazing. I don’t know why they’ve gotten such a bad rap.”

“Could it be… because they’re creepy and they kill people?”

“Well, there is that. But it rarely happens. And there’s so much to study. So much to admire. The web making. The sophisticated strategies for catching insects. The complex mating rituals. And the venoms, of course.”

Christina felt a chill run up her spine at the word venom . “Of course… heh… none of these spiders are poisonous. Right?”

“Well… actually… they all are. To varying degrees.”

Christina felt her knees wobbling. “Could I… possibly… sit down somewhere?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I just… don’t much care for your pets. It’s quite a surprise.”

“But I warned that man about them. Jones. When I called.”

So he had known. This was a put-up job. “If I could just sit…”

Wesley quickly pulled out a chair. “They’re all safely tucked away. There’s no reason to be frightened.”

“Frightened? Me? Don’t be silly.” She lowered herself into the chair. “I’m not frightened.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m terrified.”

Wesley brought her a cup of tea and a slice of cinnamon toast. Comfort foods. Although Christina thought a couple shots of tequila were more likely to be effective. Eventually, she felt her stomach settle somewhat and the trembling in her legs subsided. Especially when she stared at the floor and didn’t look up at the… creatures. All forty thousand of them.

Despite her desire to pretend she was ice skating on Lake Banff, Wesley seemed determined to give her the full tour. “Now this little thing is the Gramostola spatulata ,” he said, pointing at some black beast Christina never came close to looking at. “It comes from Chile. And I have a wide variety of tarantulas-but who doesn’t? This light brown number is the ultrarare African king baboon tarantula. And these slick glistening numbers are the western black widows.”

“But-why?” Christina managed to say. “Why do you have these… things?” She was proud of herself for leaving out the word hideous .

“It’s a farm, basically,” he answered. “I milk them for their venom.”

“You want spider venom?”

“Oh yes. It’s in great demand. Pharmacologists pay big bucks for the stuff.”

“In God’s name why?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain without getting too technical. Basically, the active compounds in spider venom bind with molecules on the surfaces of living cells. And they do so with great specificity. Because of this selective quality, researchers can use it to develop new medicines and to help them better understand how living cells function. They’re used routinely by the National Institute of Health. Most university schools of medicine.”

“How do you get the stuff? Do you just ship them the spiders?”

“Oh no. I extract the venom right here. Want me to show you how?”

She didn’t, but as bad as she felt, she didn’t have the heart to smother his unbridled enthusiasm. He removed a small spider from a plastic cup and took him to the worktable beside a large microscope.

“First, you tranquilize the little beastie with a whiff of carbon-dioxide gas. Once he’s groggy-which doesn’t take long-you pick him up with these metal tweezers.”

Christina noticed that the tweezers were attached to an electrical cord. “What’s the juice for?”

“You’ll see.” He pressed his eye to the microscope while holding the spider beneath the lens. “By pushing this button, I send a mild shock into his system, via the tweezers. And watch what happens.”

He pushed the button. Christina forced herself to look-just in time to see the spider spew.

“That’s basically everything liquid inside the little guy,” Wesley explained. “Venom, and also his stomach’s digestive enzymes. I’ve got a serum that separates the two. Then I freeze-dry the venom and pack it off to the drug companies.”

“That’s just… amazing,” Christina said, trying to be kind. “I notice you didn’t get that much, though.”

“True. It usually takes hundreds of spiders to fill a single order-which explains why I have so many on hand.”

“And you actually make a living selling this stuff?”

Wesley beamed. “Sure do. Not a fortune, perhaps. But enough to pay the mortgage. Heck of a lot more than I made working at the pawnshop.”

“Pawnshop? I thought you worked at the organ clinic. With Erin.”

“That came later. I first met her at the pawnshop. She recommended me to Palmetto at the organ clinic.”

“Erin hung out in pawnshops?”

“Not on a regular basis. But she came in on this occasion.”

“Why?”

Wesley pulled his chair close. “That why I called. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” He hesitated for a moment. “She came in to buy a gun.”

In the space of a sentence, Christina had forgotten all about the fear and sickness that had consumed her since she first stumbled into this house of horrors. Now her mind was focused on one subject alone-a firsthand account of how Erin Faulkner got a gun.

“Did she give you any idea why she wanted a gun?”

“Oh yeah. I’ll never forget that. I mean, normally I wasn’t that chatty with the customers. Frankly, most of them were the scum of the earth, which is why I eventually left the place. But Erin was different. She was not poor, not poorly groomed, not stupider than dirt. She walked with a limp, sure, but that was intriguing, given her age. And she was extremely attractive, which didn’t hurt any.”

“So what did she say?” Christina tried to herd him back on topic. “When you asked her why she wanted a gun.”

“She said-and get this-she said she was ‘haunted by demons.’ That’s a quote.”

“Demons.” Christina ruminated for a moment. That sounded uncomfortably like a woman contemplating suicide. She knew Weintraub would see it that way. “Did she specify what kind of demons?”

“No. But later in the conversation, I got her talking about her work. At the organ clinic, you know.”

“Right. And?”

“I gathered she was having a bad time. Not only that day, but later, when I worked there. She was not happy at work.”

“Then why did she stay? She had options.”

Wesley tapped his electric tweezers on the desktop. “I’m filling in a lot of blanks here, but I think she was very conflicted about her job. She believed her work was important-helping sick and injured people find the transplant organs they needed. But there was some other aspect of the job that bothered her.”

“Did she ever name any names?”

“Not that I recall. Well, Palmetto.”

“Dr. Michael Palmetto? The man I met upstairs?”

“Right. I think she had some problems with him.”

“I heard you did, too.”

James nodded. “I suspected he was causing Erin unhappiness. Pain. I couldn’t work for someone like that.”

“What was he doing?”

“Well, he tried to hit on her.”

“Was there more?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “Maybe.”

Christina bit her lip in frustration. She had the unmistakable feeling that she had something on the hook. She just couldn’t reel it in. “And so you sold her the gun?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t old enough, but… well, I falsified the license. And showed her how to use it. I’m quite good with firearms-comes from working in that place so long. Gave her some ammunition.”