The Web

by Jonathan Kellerman

  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.

  Same clothes he'd worn at dinner plus a shapeless cardigan sweater. He headed for the outbuildings, passed my bungalow, and continued past Robin's.

  Stopping at his office.

  At the door, he put the bag down, fumbled in his pocket, finally found the key but had some trouble inserting it in the lock. Starlight filtered through trees slashed his face diagonally, highlighting a cucumber of nose, the deep pouches columning his downturned mouth.

  The door swung open. He picked up his bag and entered.

  The door closed silently.

  The lights went on, then off. The room stayed dark.

  16

  The following morning brought cooler air and cotton-swab clouds drifting from the east.

  "Rain," said Gladys, as she poured our coffee. "Five or six days."

  The clouds were translucent and filmy, not a hint of moisture.

  "They pick up the water as they go," she said, offering the bread basket. "Sucking it up from the ocean. Do you like whole wheat?"

  "Sure."

  "Dr. Bill does too, but a lotta people don't. One time he had me bake rolls for the kids at school. They didn't eat too many."

  She tugged the corner of the yellow tablecloth. We were the only ones at breakfast.

  "Kids like the soft stuff. We used to get lots of white bread on the supply boats. Now, when we get anything, it's stale. Were you planning on swimming again?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, don't be fooled by those clouds: be sure to put on sunscreen. You got the nice olive skin, ma'am, but the doctor here, with those pretty blue eyes, he could burn."

  Robin smiled. "I'll take good care of him."

  "Men think they're tough, but they need to be taken care of. How about some nice fresh-squeezed juice?"

  • • •

  At the lagoon, the fish were quick learners, approaching for a handout but swimming away quickly when we had nothing to give them. Robin managed to get one large, latecoming, pink-and-yellow wrasse to nibble at her fingers. Then it too realized she was all show, and it shot away to a high mound of coral, where it snaked through a hole and disappeared.

  She followed, head turning constantly, her eye for detail in full play. When she stopped, paddled in place, and waved me over, I joined her.

  A tiny bald head floated in the crack. Chinless. Gray-brown skull. Oversized eyes bright with intelligence.

  A baby octopus, legs as thin and flaccid as boiled spaghetti. It kept staring, finally retreated, slithering into a crevice, turning impossibly small.

  We pressed clo
ser.

  It squirted ink in our faces.

  I laughed, got water in my tube, and had to tread water to clear it. The surface of the water was a clean metal plate. The beach was empty.

  I went under again, tagging along with a school of yellow surgeonfish, watching the bony, sharp protrusions under their pectoral fins pivot at the sense of threat, feeling the calmness of their blank, black stares.

  Paradise.

  • • •

  We were back at the house by two. Jo's door was closed and an untouched lunch tray sat on the floor nearby. I imagined her tapping her keyboard in hopes of blunting her grief.

  Studying the wind. Something too vast to control.

  Moreland, on the other hand, delighted in manipulating nature's small variables. Had he once harbored grand plans for the island? Was his own grief what had kept him up last night, sitting in the dark?

  • • •

  I worked. No medical oddities, no gore, and the only untimely death I found was a young woman with ovarian cancer.

  Another two cartons, more routine. Then the name of a drowning victim caught my eye.

  Pierre Laurent, a twenty-four-year-old sailor lost in a squall near the Mariana Trench. The body had been returned to Aruk, and Moreland had certified the death, making note of the eighteen-year-old widow, four months pregnant with Aruk's future police chief.

  Right below, Dennis's birth chart. A ten-pound baby, healthy.

  Two more hours of tedium.

  I liked that.

  • • •

  Just as I was heading for the back room to fetch yet another box, Ben knocked and came in. "Base just called. Navy copter's picking you up in an hour on South Beach."

  "VIP treatment?"

  "It's either that or they send down a big ship or rowboats." He took in the clutter of my desk and I thought I saw disapproval. "Need anything by way of supplies?"

  "No thanks. Are you coming tonight?"

  "Nope. One hour, you'll all be leaving from here together."

  He started to leave and I said, "Hold on, I'll walk back with you."

  He shrugged and we left together.

  "How're the vaccinations coming along?" I said.

  "All finished till next year."

  "Tough job?"

  "Not really. It's for their own good."

  "You had a real rhythm going, yesterday."

  "That's me," he said. "Natural rhythm."

  The taste in my mouth matched his expression. We walked in silence toward the big house.

  As we neared the fountain, he said, "Sorry, that was out of line. I'm not like that. . . . What I mean is, race isn't a big thing to me."

  "Me neither; forget it."

  "Guess I'm bushed. The baby was up all night."

  "How old?"

  "Six months."

  "Boy or girl?"

  "Girl. All of them slept great except her. Sorry. I mean it."

  "No problem. Dr. Bill said the dinner was formal casual. What does that mean, tux jacket and jeans?"

  His smile was grateful. "Who knows? Typical military, give out rules without explaining them. You serve any time?"

  "No," I said.

  "After a month in the Guard I knew it wasn't for me, but no choice by then. I told them I was interested in medicine, so they put me in a hospital on Maui, pulling sea urchin spines out of toes. Never even hit the water. I love the ocean."

  "Do you dive?"

  "Used to. Used to sail, too. Had an old catamaran that Dennis and I took out the few days a year we had enough wind. What with the kids, though, no time. And Dr. Bill keeps me busy. No complaints— it's what I like."

  He gave another smile— full and warm. An old, dented gray Datsun station wagon was parked near the front steps of the house. A Chinese woman got out of it.

  Tiny, with a bone-porcelain face under very short hair, she wore a red blouse tucked into blue jeans. Her eyes were huge. She smiled at me and gave Ben a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

  "Tuna," he said, kissing her cheek. "Excellent. Dr. Delaware, this is my wife, Claire. Claire Chang Romero, Dr. Alex Delaware."

  We exchanged greetings.

  "Everything okay?" said Ben. "We still on for hibachi dinner?"

  "After homework— addition practice for Cindy and composition for Ben Junior."

  He put his arm around her. He was a small man, but she made him look big. Walking her to the car, he held her door open. He looked happy. I left.

  • • •

  Casual formal for Robin was a long, sleeveless black dress with a mandarin collar and high slits on the side. Her hair was piled and mabe-pearl earrings glistened like small moons.

  I put on the linen sportcoat she'd bought me for the trip, tropical wool slacks, blue shirt, maroon tie.

  "Spiffy," she said, patting my hair down.

  Spike looked up at us with big eyes.

  "What?" I said.

  He began baying like a hound.

  The give-me-attention-I'm-so-needy bit. Our dressing up was always a cue.

  "And the Oscar goes to," I said.

  Robin said, "Poor baby!" and bent down and mothered him for a while, then coaxed him into his crate with an extra-large biscuit and a kiss through the grill. He gave out a bass snort, then a whine.

  "What is it, Spikey?"

  "Probably "I want my MTV,"' I said. "His internal clock's telling him The Grind's on in L.A."

  "Aw," she said, still looking into the crate. "Sorry, baby. No TV, here. We're roughing it."

  She took my arm.

  No TV, no daily newspaper. The mail irregular, packed on the biweekly supply boats.

  Cut off from the world. So far, I was surprisingly content.

  How would it suit me, long term?

  How did it suit the people of Aruk? Moreland's letters had emphasized the isolation and insulation. Preparing us, but there'd been a bit of boast to it.

  A man who hadn't switched from rotary phones.

  Doing it his way, in the little world he'd built for himself. Breeding and feeding his bugs and his plants, dispensing altruism on his own schedule.

  But what of everyone else on the island? They had to know other Pacific islanders lived differently: during our stopover on Guam, we'd had access to newsstands, twenty-four-hour cable, radio bands of music and talk. The travel brochures I'd picked up there showed similar access on Saipan and Rota and the larger Marianas.

  The global village, and Aruk was on the outside looking in.

  Maybe Spike wasn't the only one who missed his MTV.

  Creedman had said Moreland was extremely wealthy, and Moreland had confirmed growing up on ranchland in California wine country.

  Why didn't he use his money to improve communication? There was no computer in his office. Journals arrived in the unpredictable mail. How did he keep up with medical progress?

  Did Dennis Laurent have a computer? Without one, how could he do his police tracking?

  Was the failure to find a repeat of the beach murder the result of inadequate equipment, and was that why Moreland was still worried?

  "Alex?" I felt a tug at my sleeve.

  "What, hon?"

  "You all right?"

  "Sure."

  "I was talking to you and you spaced out."

  "Oh. Sorry. Maybe it's contagious."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Moreland spaces out all the time. Maybe it's island fever or something. Too much mellow."

  "Or maybe you're both working too hard."

  "Snorkel all morning and read charts for a couple of hours? I can stand the pain."

  "It's all expenditure of energy, darling. And the air. It does sap you. I find myself wanting to vegetate."

  "My little brussels sprout," I said, taking her hand. "So it'll be a real vacation."

  "For you too, doc."

  "Absolutely."