Jonathan Kellerman - The Web

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.

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."

The talk hadn't been small: Moreland giving a detailed lecture on the history of colonization. He'd seemed to lose his train of thought a couple of times.

Now there was silence, as Jo peered at the serrated edge of her grapefruit spoon. She cut a section from the fruit, and the rest of us picked up our utensils.

Moreland reached for a roll and spread it with apple butter. He closed his eyes and chewed.

"Dad?" said Pam.

His eyes opened and he looked around the table, as if trying to locate the sound.

"Yes, dear?"

"You were talking about the Spanish."

"Ah, yes, machismo's finest hour. What gave the conquistadores a unique approach was the combination of risk taking and a strong religious commitment. When you believe you have God on your side, anything's possible. Hormones and God are unbeatable."

He nibbled on the roll. "Then, of course, there was the easy funding: outright theft, in the name of heaven. SeÑor Columbus's journeys were funded with the plunder of the Inquisition."

"Hormones, religion, and money," said Pam very softly. "That just about sums up the world, doesn't it."

Moreland stared at her for a second. A worried parental stare that he ended abruptly by shifting his attention to his bread. "In toto, a force to be reckoned with, the Spanish. They came to the Pacific in the sixteenth century, set about trying to do precisely what they'd done in-"

He stopped and looked across the terrace. Gladys had come out of the house.

"I'm not sure we're ready for the next course, dear."

"There's a phone call, Dr. Moreland."

"A medical call?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then, please take a message."

"It's Captain Ewing, sir."

Moreland's stooped frame jerked forward, then he straightened. "How curious. Please excuse me."

After he was gone, Pam said, "This is the first we've heard from Ewing in months. I spoke to him once over the phone. What a sour man."

I repeated what Dennis had told me about Ewing's being exiled for the sex scandal.

"Yes, I heard that, too."

Jo said, "He's crating and shipping Lyman like luggage."

Pam paled. "I'm sorry, Jo."

Jo dabbed at her lips. "Government is like junior high. Your status depends upon whom you're able to persecute."

"Maybe Dad can work something out with them."

"I doubt it," said Jo. "I think they shipped him already."

"Your connections don't help?" said Robin.

"What connections?"

"Working at the Defense Department."

Jo's bosom heaved and she let out a barklike laugh. "Thousands of people work at the Defense Department. It's not exactly as if I'm the Secretary of Defense."

"I just thought-"

"I'm nothing, " said Jo. "Lowly G-12 nerds don't count."

She stabbed the grapefruit, turned the spoon, freeing the last bits of pulp.

More silence, heavier, oppressive. Geckos racing along the rail would have been welcome, but they were keeping a low profile tonight.

Pam said, "Gladys made lamb. It looks great."

Moreland came back out, a loping skeleton.

"An invitation. To all of us. Dinner at the base, tomorrow night. Casual formal. I shall wear a tie."

That night, I awoke at two in the morning and was unable to fall back asleep. As I got out of bed Robin turned away from me. I slipped into some shorts and a shirt and she rolled back.

"Y'okay, honey?"

"Think I'll just get up for a while," I whispered.

She managed to mumble, "Restless?"

"A little."

If her head was clear enough, she was thinking: Some things never change.

I bent and kissed her ear softly. "Maybe I'll take a little walk."

"… not too late."

I covered her shoulders, pocketed the room key, and slipped out of the bedroom. As I passed Spike's crate, he snored a greeting.

"Nighty-night, handsome."

My bare feet were silent on the landing carpet. The stairs were sturdy, not a creak.

Down in the entry, the stone floor was cool and welcome as summer lemonade. All the lights were off and the island silence saturated the house. I opened the front door and stepped outside.

The moon was ice-white and the sky pulsed with stars. Starlight frosted the trees and the fountain, turning the spatter to glycerine, giving life to the gargoyle roof tiles.

I walked to the gates. They were open and I looked down the long, sloping road, matte-black till it hit the onyx of the ocean.

Something moved along the grass at the road's edge.

Something else skittered in response.

I turned back, fully awake now. Maybe I'd look over a few more charts. I headed for my bungalow, then stopped when I heard a door shut.

Footsteps from the rear of the house. The back door, leading from the kitchen to the gravel paths.

Slow, deliberate footsteps. They ceased. Continued.

Someone came out into the open and stood looking up at the sky.

Moreland's unmistakable silhouette.

Not wanting to talk to him- or anyone else- I retreated into the shadows and watched as he descended the path, landing thirty feet in front of me.

Something clunked in his hand. A doctor's bag.