Spider Season (28 page)

Conroy reached over to adjust the position of her tape recorder.

“Is there anything more you’d like to say, Justice? In the interest of complete disclosure? Now would be the time.”

I barely heard her. I was deep inside my own head, and far away.

“As a courtesy,” she went on, drawing me back, “I’ll call you before the story runs. Perhaps by then you’ll change your mind and have something more to offer, something pithy I can insert into the finished piece without too much trouble.”

“Something pithy,” I said.

She smiled and nodded. “As you know, I write in-depth pieces for
Eye,
and I’m not the fastest writer. I like to take my time and get it right. So you’ve still got a little time if you decide you want to respond. All things considered, you’d look better if you did, more forthcoming, and I’d have a more complete story. Your choice, of course.”

I slid from the booth and stumbled numbly from the restaurant, back into the glare of sunlight and the din of traffic, feeling as if my life had just imploded, like a detonated building collapsing in on itself.

I hadn’t been this low or this lost in eighteen years. I laughed bitterly, thinking that now—finally—things couldn’t get any worse.

But I was wrong.

TWENTY-SEVEN

There was certain to be collateral damage when Conroy’s article was published, and I decided to alert Jan Long and Judith Zeitler immediately. It seemed the least I could do.

In my e-mails, I didn’t spell out exactly what Conroy had on me. I needed more time to weigh all the legal ramifications before I incriminated myself any further. My single message, copied to both Jan and Judith, went like this:

It’s my unfortunate duty to alert you that Cathryn Conroy has uncovered something from my past that could place me in serious legal jeopardy and will also trigger new questions about my credibility.

Her upcoming article for
Eye
will specifically discredit
Deep Background,
characterizing it as the latest in a string of fraudulent memoirs. Her information only pertains to one section of the book, no more than a scene, really, but an important one. Conroy claims to have a credible source who has essentially debunked my version of that particularly violent moment in my life.

For legal reasons, I’m unable to tell you more at this time. I’m deeply sorry for the regrettable situation I’ve caused, and accept full responsibility for whatever ensues.

When I’d sent the messages, I shut down the computer and washed my face in cold water, trying to clear my head. Then I stood at the front window, looking out to the street, as I’d done so many times over the years since taking over the small apartment where Jacques had once lived. I thought about how far I’d come in the eighteen years since he’d died. Not far by the standards of many people, perhaps, but further than I’d ever hoped when I’d started the long crawl back with the help of Maurice and Fred and, later, Harry Brofsky and Alexandra Templeton.

Now, with the publication of one magazine article, it would all be gone.

Even worse, I could face murder charges, for a crime I committed more than thirty years ago. The truth was, if it came to that, if charges were filed and I was arrested, I wouldn’t fight them. I’d own up to what I’d done—that I’d killed my father with hatred in my heart and premeditation in my mind, that it wasn’t the spontaneous and necessary act of self-defense I’d made it out to be. It was the final ugly secret, the last great lie of my life, that I’d hoped would never surface. I’d spent much of my life unearthing the lies and secrets of others. There was no reason for me to expect some special grace.

My greatest regret was how this would affect Lance if he ever found out—that I’d murdered his grandfather in cold blood.
He’s got enough problems to worry about, without adding you to them.
Haukness had been right about that, I thought, clearing up any conflict on that point.

It occurred to me that if I hadn’t written my memoir, if I’d just been able to resist the money and the chance to tell my story, none of this would have happened. I could have plodded on in relative anonymity, unscathed. What was happening now was karmic, I told myself, old debts coming due.

Be careful what you wish for.

From the window, I watched Fred emerge from the back of the house and move slowly down the drive toward the mailbox, repeating the nearly daily routine that had been going on for weeks now. Maurice appeared at the back door and quietly followed, waiting at the corner of the house and watching Fred plod slowly toward the street, hunched and gasping for oxygen, putting one foot in front of the other like a high-altitude climber struggling up a summit one step at a time.

It seemed like an eternity before he reached the mailbox. One more mail delivery, one more day. I didn’t understand how he found the will or desire to go on. He lifted a palsied hand, tugged until the mailbox door came open, then reached in to collect whatever parcels were inside. He leaned forward a little and stuck his hand in deeper, apparently to get to the letters at the back.

Then something strange and frightening happened.

He jerked his hand out and stepped back unsteadily, dropping the mail and shaking the hand like he’d burned it. With his other hand, he slammed the mailbox shut. He started hollering, making an awful racket for so diminished a man. Maurice was down the driveway in seconds, while I dashed down the stairs to join them.

When I got there Maurice said, “Fred thinks something stung him. I suppose it was a bee or a wasp.”

“I didn’t say I’d been stung,” Fred grumbled.

“Let’s get him into the house,” Maurice said.

I gathered up the spilled mail and we each took one of Fred’s arms. He fended us off, insisting he could walk on his own.

“I said something
bit
me,” he muttered, making his way to the steps. “Probably a damn spider.”

“In the mailbox?” Maurice asked, hovering close.

“My hand wasn’t down your pants, was it?”

“It’s not like I haven’t been available, sweetheart.”

Fred scowled and mounted the steps, gripping the handrail purposefully. Inside, he eased himself onto the couch, while the two cats stirred from their naps at the other end. Maurice plumped a pillow, placed it behind Fred’s back, and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I took Fred’s big paw to inspect it. He pulled away.

“Stop fussing over me! It’s a little spider bite, that’s all.”

“Stop being such a grump,” Maurice said, pushing the glass at him. “Drink this. It’s a warm day and you’ve just suffered a trauma.”

“Trauma,” Fred said, making it sound silly, but took a few sips.

Maurice inspected Fred’s hand.

“I see a red mark.” He put his hand to Fred’s forehead. “How do you feel?”

“Put upon!”

Against Maurice’s protestations, Fred started to rise, but wobbled badly as he reached his feet, and sat back down.

“Dizzy,” he admitted. He rubbed his hand. “It stings like hell.”

“We’re taking you to the emergency room,” Maurice said. “Benjamin, get the car ready.”

Ten minutes later, as we pulled into the emergency room parking area of the nearest medical center, Fred was breathing with difficulty and feeling nauseated. By the time we got him signed in and two orderlies had him in a wheelchair, he was complaining of blurred vision.

Maurice kissed him on the forehead and told him not to give the doctors any trouble. He held Fred’s good hand until the last possible moment, giving it a final squeeze as one of the orderlies turned the wheelchair toward the ER.

“My baby,” Maurice said, as we watched Fred being wheeled away.

I reminded him that Fred was in a first-rate hospital and assured him that everything was going to be okay.

*   *   *

Fewer than fifteen minutes had passed when a doctor named Kaplan found us in the waiting room.

“It’s definitely a spider bite,” he said. “There’s a bull’s-eye wound at the puncture site. Given his symptoms, it’s almost certainly one of the more venomous spiders—black widow, possibly, or a recluse.”

“Is this common?” Maurice asked. “A bite like this?”

“We’re seeing more bites this year,” Dr. Kaplan said, “because of the early heat and humidity. It’s been a very active spider season.”

“What’s being done for Fred?” I asked.

“We’ve iced the wound and we’d like to inject antivenom. It would help if we knew what kind of spider bit him. Did either of you see it?”

We shook our heads. I’d never dealt with a spider bite situation before. It hadn’t occurred to me until now to capture the spider and bring it with us.

“It was in the mailbox,” I said. “It might still be there.”

“We have an entomologist available,” Dr. Kaplan said. “If we could see the actual spider, it would be of great value. But we need to move quickly.”

“Are you saying this is serious?” Maurice asked.

“Most spider bites are relatively harmless. But given the patient’s age and general condition, there’s concern.” The doctor turned to me. “If you feel it’s safer to kill the spider than capture it, that’s fine. But the abdomen—the main body mass—needs to be relatively intact. That’s how we’ll make the identification.”

*   *   *

As I sped home, I went over in my mind what I’d need: a flashlight, heavy gloves, a long, narrow tool of some kind, and a glass jar with a lid. Or a Tupperware container; that would do. Maurice had plenty of those—Tupperware collecting was one of his last remaining vices.

In the kitchen, I found a clean Mason jar and lid on a shelf and a pair of salad tongs in a drawer. I found the other two items on the back porch.

Fully gloved, I opened the mailbox door slowly and peered in. Between the glare outside and the dark interior I couldn’t make out any unusual shapes. But when I searched the deeper recesses with the flashlight, the beam fell on a bulbous brown spider, hunkered down in a far corner. It was tawny in color, with fine hairs covering its eight legs and body. I switched the flashlight to my left hand, keeping the beam on the spider. As I reached in with the tongs, the spider began to stir. At the first touch of the tongs it wriggled, pressing against the metal walls. If possible, I wanted to take it alive, but as I closed the tongs it managed to scramble away to the other corner, where I followed it with my light. As I squinted with my one good eye, I could just make out two small fangs protruding from the creature’s head, coming together like pincers. Above the fangs were six tiny eyes, arranged in pairs of two each, with one anterior pair and one lateral pair on each side. The spider definitely had the advantage on me in the vision department.

I took a deep breath, steadied my hand, and moved in with the tongs opened wide, expecting the spider to scramble away again. But it remained where it was, counting on its fangs for protection. A moment later, I closed the tongs around it, trapping but not crushing it. Its hairy legs flailed as I drew it out, but I had a firm grip on its body and was able to drop it into the Mason jar and screw on the lid.

I jumped in the Metro and headed back to the hospital.

*   *   *

When I reached the ER reception area, Maurice was speaking quietly with Dr. Kaplan. As I joined them, he informed us that Fred was suffering from muscle rigidity and a spiking fever but that his vital signs were stable. I handed him the Mason jar and he disappeared with it into the bowels of the big hospital.

We heard nothing more for nearly an hour. Finally, Dr. Kaplan reappeared, carrying the Mason jar with the spider still inside. He held the jar up high enough for us to see the spider from below.

“It’s a brown recluse—
Loxosceles reclusa
—also known as a violin spider,” he said. “If you look closely, you’ll see a darkened violin pattern on its abdomen. After the black widow, this is probably the most common dangerous spider we see in Southern California. They prefer to hide in dark places, often under houses. But they venture out at night, which sometimes brings them into contact with humans.”

“But Fred was bitten in broad daylight,” I said, “reaching into an enclosed mailbox.”

“This recluse must have crawled inside during the night. Perhaps the mailbox had been left partially open. They only bite if they feel threatened, or if something brushes up against them.”

“How dangerous?” Maurice asked.

“Most bites from
Loxosceles
range from localized, requiring little or no care, to dermonecrotic, in which tissue damage occurs around the wound and supportive care might be needed. But if the venom spreads quickly through the system, it’s much more serious.”

“
How
serious?” Maurice demanded.

“Your friend’s symptoms concern us. We’re not seeing necrosis, the localized tissue damage I spoke of. Early symptoms such as fever and nausea without necrosis often indicate a systemic reaction. Full systemic effects may not show themselves for twenty-four to seventy-two hours after the bite.”

Maurice raised his voice. “How serious, doctor?”

“Loxosceles systemic syndrome is uncommon but not unknown, especially with immune-depressed individuals.” Dr. Kaplan placed a hand on Maurice’s shoulder. “He’s an elderly man, in extremely frail condition.”

Maurice searched the doctor’s face with stricken eyes. “Are you telling us that Fred could die from this?”

“We’ve injected your friend with antivenom and placed him in the ICU,” the doctor said. “He’s getting excellent care.”

“He’s not my ‘friend,’” Maurice said, sounding more bewildered than angry. “He’s—we’ve been together as a couple fifty-seven years. We were married in June. Legally—at least for now.”

“I understand.” The doctor smiled sympathetically. “Believe me, we’re going to do everything humanly possible to save him.”

The doctor asked if he could turn the brown recluse over to the hospital’s entomologist for medical purposes, and we consented. As he walked away with the Mason jar, I realized he might have another reason for hanging on to it. If Fred were to die and the coroner to investigate, they’d want the spider as evidence. A bite from a venomous spider trapped in a mailbox wasn’t something that happened every day.