Abducted

by David R Lewis

  The coffee maker belched and began to grumble. Clete moved behind the counter and poured two cups. He opened the cream and dumped a shot into Crockett’s coffee.

  “Got this outa Ruby’s fridge,” he said. “Figured that if you had any it’d be sour.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You got any jaw or left arm pain?”

  “A little in my jaw.”

  “That’s your heart, son. Settle down. I know this is a bitch, but you gotta get your shit in a pile. I love her, too. This ain’t over. Hell, this has barely even started.”

  Crockett’s doorbell rang.

  The detective was a slight man in his late thirties. He wore rimless glasses below a high forehead, a disheveled cord sport jacket over dress jeans, and an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball protruding from a thin neck. He flashed his badge.

  “Lieutenant Ness,” he said.

  Crockett couldn’t resist. “Your first name Elliot?”

  “No.”

  “Good for you. My name is Crockett. First name David.”

  Ness blinked at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  Ness smiled. “David, huh?”

  “Call me Crockett.”

  “My pleasure, Crockett. What have we got?”

  Forensics arrived just a few moments later and Clete briefed them as Crockett sat and tried to relax. He was nearly giddy with worry and fear, and frightened at the unaccustomed pain in his lower jaw.

  After seeing the spiders upstairs, the crime scene crew decided to wait for the exterminator before they proceeded with the rest of the townhouse. The carpet yielded blood samples, hair samples, a broken fingernail, and two partial footprints. Eventually, Ness walked over to where Crockett sat.

  “Mr. Marshal says both of you have a background in police work,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I think somebody abducted Ruby LaCost,” Crockett said. “I think it was one individual, a male with light brown hair, and that the spiders upstairs have something to do with it. I don’t think it was a burglary, I don’t think rape or murder are involved. He could have accomplished either one of those here. I think Ruby is hurt, but not critically. I think his reasons are his own, that CSI isn’t gonna do us any good, and that he is one tough sonofabitch to survive a fight with Ruby without leaving more than some hair behind. I think that there is some of his blood on the carpet, and I don’t think that’ll make one bit of difference in the investigation.”

  “It will at the trial,” Ness said.

  Crockett’s stare was cold.

  “If there’s a trial,” he said.

  Ness swallowed and didn’t reply.

  The exterminator arrived while the crime scene guys were in the basement storage area. A pleasant young man in brilliant white coveralls, he carried a two-gallon chrome pump-up sprayer. He asked Clete about the problem.

  “In your call you said there were spiders?”

  “Yup,” Clete said. “Spiders.”

  “Both sides of the dwelling?”

  “No. Just upstairs over here, but we’d like you to do the whole place.”

  “The little black common house spiders?”

  “No. Very large and brown. Hairy. Fangs. Bad attitudes.”

  “I’ll just go spray the upstairs. After about ten minutes we’ll open the windows. In ten more minutes you’ll be able to go up there without any toxicity. Are there cops here?”

  “Yeah. This is a crime scene. Try not to disturb the area.”

  “The spray won’t bother anything.”

  “Spray’s fine,” Clete said. “I was you, I’d take a five iron.”

  Crockett looked at the wall and smiled as the kid went upstairs. Both he and Clete waited for the shouts than never came. After about five minutes the young man came back down. He was pale and holding a zip type sandwich bag at arm’s length. In the bag was a very large brown spider. The creature appeared to be wet.

  “Probably outa give it about twenty minutes before anybody goes up there,” the kid said.

  “What kind of spider is that?” Clete said, not looking directly at the bag that now lay on the kitchen counter.

  “The large kind. Some kinda tarantula. I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s a guy though.”

  “A guy?”

  “Yessir. An entomologist. Right over in Westport. Not two miles from here. Got a house full of bugs. Written a couple of books. We use him from time to time. He’d know.”

  “You have a name and number?”

  The lad whipped out a cell phone. “I can do better than that,” he replied, punched in some numbers, and put the phone to his ear. In just a moment he spoke again. “Doctor Greisheimer? This is Danny from Accu-Kill. I got a spider here I can’t identify. I wonder if….that’s great. I’ll send someone over with it. Thanks a lot.”

  “We set?” Clete said.

  “Yessir. I’ll finish up here while you take him the spider. He’s expecting you.”

  “Not me he ain’t. He’s expecting Crockett. I don’t want nothin’ to do with this shit.”

  “His name’s Walter Greisheimer. He lives in that big two-story yellow house about three doors behind D’Bronx on Bell. Can’t miss it. Got tanks of spiders and roaches and stuff. He’ll know.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Crockett climbed five steps to the front porch of a faded yellow, ragged and ramshackle old two-story house and knocked on the door. His energy level was low but his jaw had stopped aching. He was about to knock again when the portal was flung open and he was face to chest with an extremely large individual.

  Perhaps six feet eight inches tall, around four hundred pounds, and wearing an immense white lab coat, the man looked like Gene Shalit gone gray. A gnarled afro added three inches to his height. Bushy eyebrows loomed over deep-set eyes made larger than life by thick glasses, and a massive and wiry mustache, set below Santa Claus cheeks, consumed the entire width of his face and then some. He beamed at Crockett like a long lost brother.

  “Come in, my friend,” he thundered. “You must be the man with the spider. Welcome. I am Walt Greisheimer. And you are?”

  “Call me Crockett,” Crockett said, nearly overwhelmed by the expanse of the man.

  “Wonderful! Come in, come in, Crockett. Let me see what you have for me.”

  The living area was surrounded by stacks of five and ten gallon aquariums containing things that scuttled, squirmed, writhed, and wriggled. Beady eyes peered through glass, fangs shone in the light, legs and antenna tested the air, and the constant sound of rustling permeated the room. Instantly Crockett began to itch. He handed the bag to Greisheimer. Greisheimer tossed it carelessly to the top of a desk and scrutinized Crockett.

  “Scotch,” he said. “I have some twelve year old single malt that’s not bad. I assume you’d like a double on ice?”

  “That would be good.”

  “I would suggest a small amount of soda with that. Speeds up the assimilation a bit. Carbonation, you know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Splendid! Half a moment.”

  The big man strode from the room with steps heavy enough to make the floor shake. He returned in a flash with a tumbler of ice backing up what must have been four ounces of scotch and two ounces of soda.

  “That shall help,” he said. “I am well aware that not everyone shares my passion for things that go scratch in the night. I keep a good supply of fortification on hands for just such occasions as this. Drink up, Crockett. You will feel better. I suggest half the glass to start.”

  Crockett did as suggested and joined the immense man at his desk. Greisheimer inspected the plastic bag.

  “Now, who is this little fellow?”

  “Little?” Crockett said.

  Greisheimer smiled at him indulgently. “Have another sip,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Crockett took a deep breath and tore into the scotch. The glas
s was nearly empty when Greisheimer returned, carrying a Tupperware box about twenty-four by twenty inches and a foot deep. He placed it on the desk and smiled.

  “This is Jane,” he said. “I named her after my first wife. She’s a little excitable. Not a good pet at all, actually. The bite isn’t bad, but this particular spider can fling its hairs if it chooses to. Very irritating to the skin. Get a few in a mucous membrane and you’ll be miserable for days. This particular one isn’t as large as they grow. I believe the world record is something over eleven inches. Jane is only a bit over nine.”

  He eased the lid off the box. Inside was the stuff of nightmares. A dark spider with a leg span equal to the width of a dinner plate raised up on its rear legs and quested the roundabout. It appeared to tremble and a hissing sound issued through the room. Crockett froze.

  “Excellent response,” Greisheimer said. “She’s a bit upset. The hiss comes from rubbing leg bristles against one another. Theraphosa Blondi. The Goliath tarantula.”

  The hissing stopped. From four feet away, Crockett could plainly see eyes and fangs.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

  “An appropriate response from a layperson,” Greisheimer said, replacing the cover on the box. “I handle her occasionally, but I think not today. As with her namesake, she has her moods.”

  “Unbelievable,” Crockett said as Greisheimer again regarded the plastic bag. “Four times the size of the one I brought you.”

  “Aphonotelma Hentzi,” Greisheimer said. “Also called the Missouri brown tarantula. I prefer the title Missouri Traveler. A little more pizzazz. More romantic, don’t you think? Where did you find this young man?”

  “It was in a friend’s bedroom. It and a dozen or two more.”

  “Really? Very unusual. These are not house spiders. Oh no. And a clutter of them as you describe would simply not be possible.”

  “A clutter?”

  “Common vernacular for a group of spiders. This particular gentleman is a woodland model. Not native to this part of the country. These little beauties are most commonly found in the Ozark Mountain area, although they are sometimes noted as far west as Oklahoma and Texas. Great time of year for them.”

  “Oh?”

  “The males, this is a male, by the way, are off on their autumn trek, you see. The ladies hole up. Lay out bits of web to leave a pheromone trail and relax. Sitting at the end of the bar, drinking white wine, wearing just a touch of Channel if you will. The boys get quite active with the need to breed. Stop eating and go on the road as it were. See them crossing secondary roads by the dozen. Nothing on their minds but sex. Get relatively irritable if delayed in their quest. Much like the local Westport bar scene on a Friday evening. After they find what they’re searching for, they die, their life’s mission realized. Quite sad, actually. You say this one was inside?”

  “Second floor bedroom,” Crockett said. “A lot of them.”

  “Not possible without help, sir. This is not a spider infestation. This is enemy action.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed. Someone put these fellows where you found them.”

  Crockett’s stomach lurched. “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  “And one doesn’t go to a local exotic pet store and pick up a dozen or two Missouri Travelers. These are not a cultivated vintage. No, if someone wanted a few of these little men, they would have to collect them. Not difficult in itself. I have never seen the phenomenon, but I am told that they may be scooped up from local Ozark roadways quite easily, and in numbers, in the autumn of the year. It is the autumn of the year, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I would.”

  Such an individual would have to have a certain amount of knowledge of Aphonotelma Hentzi. Habits, area of occupation, disposition. Little things that make a big difference. He would have known, for instance, not to house the males together. Their sex drive is too strong right now. They would have fought and killed each other. Just another reason they would not congregate in close proximity with others of their own kind. A tangle such as you report would not happen.”

  “A tangle?”

  “Yes. Another colloquialism. How many did you say there were?”

  “I don’t really know. A dozen or more.”

  “Well, they had to have been housed and transported separate from one another. This is quite a significant effort for something as mundane as a practical joke. And it could only have been meant to harass. If our collector knew enough to accomplish what he has, he would certainly also know that most tarantulas, even the lovely Jane, have a bite that is no more toxic to human beings than a bee sting. It was certainly not an attempt to injure or kill, but to intimidate. As you know, without knowledge and experience, encountering a tangle of Missouri Travelers could be extremely stressful.”

  “Ya think?”

  Greisheimer chuckled. “We all have our phobias. Arachnophobia is one of the most common and widespread. Certainly an encounter with a Missouri Traveler by an individual with limited exposure to spiders and no real knowledge of tarantulas could be very traumatic. I deal with creepy-crawly creatures all the time. It is my life’s work. And yet, I suffer from Ophidiophobia.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “Fear of snakes. Completely terrified by the damn things. Freeze up, can’t move, can’t speak. Absolutely horrible. That is why I no longer do field work. I hope your friend is dealing with the fright.”

  “She’s been abducted. It looks like the spiders were part of the plan.”

  “My God, that’s awful,” Greisheimer said. “If it ever becomes possible, I have a millipede I would like to introduce to whoever might have perpetrated such an act. I submit that he or they would never again frighten or abduct anyone. If there is anything I can do to assist you, Jane, the millipede, and I are at your disposal.”

  Clete was in Crockett’s kitchen microcaving macaroni and cheese when Crockett returned.

  “Hey, son. Welcome back. I just closed the place up and put the air on circulate. We’re de-spidered. Ness was a little irritated that you took off. He had some alibi questions and shit for you. I told him to lighten up. He may be back tonight. If not, he’ll see us in the morning. He contacted the Feebies. They’ll be over tonight. I got my Secret Service Department I.D. limbered up in case we need it. How ‘bout you?”

  “Fuck ’em,” Crockett said.

  Clete grinned. “There’s that,” he said.

  “I’m serious,” Crockett went on. “Other than forensics, what do we need these guys for? The only thing we have is the fact that Ruby has been abducted and there were spiders in her bedroom and blood, hair, and drag marks on her floor. There’s no secret code written in sugar on the kitchen counter, no list of possible suspects taped to the bottom of a drawer, Lassie isn’t trying to lead us to where Ruby fell down the well. We got dick, Clete. Zip. And I don’t know anybody who can make more out of less than we can.”

  “We gotta go through at least some of the motions,” Clete said. “There are several laws being busted here. We have to play along, Crockett. Some of the way anyhow. Want some mac n’ cheese?”

  “Nope. I’m gonna get Ruby’s keys, get into her office, and start going through her patient files for the past couple of years.”

  “Latents hasn’t done her office area yet. They’ll be pissed.”

  “They’ll live. Plus, the dicks look at her files and they’ll just see words. I’ll see Ruby. I’ll have a lot better chance of picking up something useful if it’s there. And I won’t need a judge, a court order, or a warrant.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Clete said. “I’ll do my best to run interference.”

  Crockett’s computer skills were about as sharp as a deflated beach ball, but two hours later he was through the past six months of patients. Not one rapist, child molester, or terrorist to be found. Most of the problems seemed laughingly trivial compared to his current situation. He was learning about the horrible burden of being unappreciat
ed by a teen-age daughter, when the office door opened and a thin man in a seedy gray suit walked in. He wore horn rimmed glasses, short dark hair, and a concerned expression.

  “David Crockett, I’m agent Kleffner of the FBI.”

  “How are ya?” Crockett asked.

  “Mister Crockett, I’d appreciate it if you’d vacate the area. This is a crime scene and you’re impeding a federal investigation.”

  Crockett stopped his computing and looked at the man. “No, it isn’t, and no I’m not. This is Ruby’s office. It was locked. The event that concerns you occurred primarily in her living room. Forensics won’t be available on that until at least tomorrow. You would be far better off to check out her bedroom, living room, the basement and the parking area. If you need any information on the spiders, I have that for you. If you investigate the areas that need investigating you’ll find that I am not in your way at all. I have no intention of vacating the area. I own the area, and I am far better able to understand Ruby’s notes than anybody else. Are we done with our pissing contest, or do I have to ask you for a warrant to allow you access to this building or make a citizen’s arrest of the FBI for criminal trespass to land?”

  Kleffner smiled. “Establishing boundaries are we?”

  “You betcha,” Crockett said.

  “Can you account for your whereabouts for the past three days?” Kleffner asked.

  Crockett sighed.

  “Yes I can. I’d rather not waste time so that you can put me in my place, but if it’ll get you outa my way…”

  “I am not in your way, Mister Crockett. You are in my way. When did you last see the victim?”

  Crockett leaned back in his chair and looked at Kleffner.

  “The victim’s name is Ruby,” he said.

  “Very well. When did you last see Ruby?”

  “Over two months ago.”

  “Had you spoken with her recently?”