He went to his office and checked his messages, each written on a blue slip of paper. Mostly reporters, except for one a Rodney Lepke wanted him to call. The boy deserved to hear the truth. Harker just hoped he and his girlfriend could keep their mouths shut for a while.
Harker made the call and Rodney answered.
"Rodney, it's Sheriff Harker."
"Sheriff! You killed it?"
"Yep. Took it out last night at a house over on Sunset."
"What'd it take?"
"A couple shots from the shotgun. I want to thank you and Harry for your help."
"Harry's gonna want to see it," Rodney said. "Would that be possible?"
"Mmm, I seriously doubt it. And that brings me to this a you need to keep this to yourself for a little while."
"Are you kidding? Who'd believe me?"
"As soon as you hear about it on the news, you can tell anyone you want. But for now, keep it quiet."
Shortly after he ended his conversation with Rodney, Roger Rexler called.
"I was told you wanted to talk to me," Rexler said. "About the fire, I imagine."
"It is, but it's not something I can discuss with you over the phone. Would you mind coming over here to the station as soon as possible?"
"I already talked to the deputies," Rexler said. "I told them everything I could, and we're a "
"This is something different. It's very urgent, Mr. Rexler. If you'd prefer, I could send someone to bring you here in a cruiser."
Rexler was at the station twenty minutes later.
He was in his early fifties, fit, medium height, with shivering black hair and a pair of wire-framed glasses. He was dressed casually a a pricey yellow cashmere sweater pulled over a green shirt, black pants, black loafers. He looked ready to hit the links.
"This has not been a good day, Sheriff," Rexler said as he took a seat in front of Harker's desk. "I've had to call the families of those killed in the explosion and fire. To extend my condolences."
"Oh, yes, I'm sure that was difficult for you."
"It wasn't easy. And someone from the parent company is flying in this afternoon. I have my work cut out for me. How is the investigation coming?"
"I talked to the arson investigator earlier, but he had nothing conclusive for me yet. Except that the explosion was apparently centered in a basement lab."
Rexler nodded. "Yes, that's been the result of BioGenTech's investigation, as well."
"What goes on in the basement labs, Mr. Rexler?" Harker asked.
"Well ... I couldn't tell you right off the top of my head. Research programs evolve, they move around the facility."
"I see."
"Is that what you wanted to tell me?"
"No, Mr. Rexler, I want to show you something." Harker stood and walked around his desk. "Come with me out to the garage in back. We found something that I think might have come from that basement lab."
"Oh, really? What's that?"
"I'd rather show it to you."
He led Rexler out the back door and across the parking lot. All four garage doors were closed. Harker opened the door, stepped back, let Rexler go in first. He pulled the door shut, stepped ahead of Rexler and led him out to the open concrete floor and the thing spread out over it. He watched Rexler's face closely.
When he realized what he was looking at, he immediately stopped walking and took one step back, eyes wide.
They had put the spider back together on the garage floor as if it were a jigsaw puzzle. It lay flat on its belly. It smelled like a compost pile, and the smell was getting worse as the day warmed.
"What the hell is this?" Rexler said as a sickened frown lined his brow.
"It's a sun spider, Mr. Rexler. Ever heard of it? Nasty spider."
"What is this?" He turned to Harker and shook his head. "I don't understand, Sheriff Harker."
"They don't usually get this big."
"Why are you showing me this?"
"Because it showed up shortly after the explosion in the basement lab of BioGenTech, Mr. Rexler."
Rexler's frown disappeared and his face smoothed out. He looked at Harker that way for several long seconds. "Is this a joke, Sheriff?"
"No, it's not."
"Are you trying to say this ... this creature came from BioGenTech?"
"I am."
"Do you have some kind of proof?"
"I don't. Not yet. But I want you to know that I know."
"Are you charging me with something, Sheriff?"
"Not right now. But think about it, Mr. Rexler. On the one hand, we've got a big explosion at a place called BioGenTech, a so-called medical research facility that has more security than a military installation, and on the other hand, I've suddenly got a giant spider killing people right and left. A giant spider a something that does not exist in nature, not without the help of, say, scientists playing around with genes and test tubes. The connection does offer itself up, don't you think?"
"If this is all you have to say to me, I think I'll be going now." Rexler turned and headed back the way he'd come. He said over his shoulder, "If you have anything more to say, you can say it to our attorneys."
"Thanks for coming out," Harker said with a smile.
Two hours later, Harker had Professor Enid Hayward in the garage. She was a stout woman in her late forties with ash-colored hair, purse slung over her shoulder. She gawked at the spider for a while, arms spread just a little at her sides.
"This is ... this is just ... " She shook her head slowly as she stared down at it. Then she turned to Harker and said, "This is a sun spider."
"Yes, it is."
"This is ... incredible. It's incredible, Sheriff."
"I thought you might think so."
Professor Hayward walked slowly around the spider's remains, occasionally remarking, "My god," or, "Unbelievable." Finally she turned to Harker again and said, "Where did it come from?"
"Well, that's why I tracked you down today, Professor," Harker said. "I was hoping you might have some idea where a thing like this would come from?"
She laughed as she turned to the spider again. "Are you serious, Sheriff?" She looked at it for a while, slowly shaking her head. "This is ... so far removed ... from anything I've ever ... have you notified the authorities?"
"Which authorities would that be?"
"I don't know. The Department of Fish and Game?"
"How about the Orkin Man?" Harker grinned. "Tell me, professor, is this something that ever happens in nature? Something very small becoming ... quite big?"
"In nature?" She laughed again. "Not unless I missed some very interesting lectures in college. Nothing like this has ever been recorded, that's for sure." She walked around to the spider's hairy face and crouched down for a better look. "This is fantastic," she whispered.
"Could it possibly be the result of, say, some kind of genetic testing or experimentation?"
"These days, I suppose that's not impossible," she said. She lifted her eyes to him. "Have you talked to anybody over at BioGenTech about this?"
"I'm ahead of you there. I just wanted to make absolutely certain that this sort of thing didn't normally happen." Harker walked over to her and looked down at the spider's face. The four fangs curved out of the bristly face.
Professor Hayward touched one of the top fangs and moved it aside. It made a moist sound.
Harker thought of the fang Rodney had given him. "You know, I have one of those in my desk draw a "
It hit him with such force, he took a step backward.
Harker did not know how he had missed it for so long. He'd looked at the dead spider a dozen times or more, looked right at it, and it hadn't hit him, he hadn't made the connection.
This spider had all four fangs, none were missing. There was still another spider out there.
"Tell me something, professor," Harker said, working to keep his voice level. "If a sun spider were to lose one of its fangs, would a new fang grow back?"
"No, it wouldn't."
Harker took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Professor Hayward stood and said, "Could I get a few pictures of this? I have a camera in my car and I'd like to a "
"Uh, well, now might not be a good time."
She sniffed and said, "It's starting to smell. You won't have it for long."
"I'm afraid we're going to have to go, Professor," Harker said. He went to her side and tugged her elbow. "Come with me, let's go."
She went along with him.
"Do me a favor, Professor," Harker said as they left the garage. "Go home, and stay inside. Do you understand?"
She stopped walking and turned to him. "Are you saying this isn't the only one?"
"I'm saying you should go home and stay inside, that's all." He escorted her back into the building and to the front counter. "Thank you so much for coming, Professor," he said as she left. He turned around and hurried into the dispatch room.
He had to let his deputies know.
Thirty-One.
Alberta McCormack, Allie to everyone she knew, stood in her kitchen and watched her husband Sidney pulling weeds in his garden out front. He'd turned half the front yard into a vegetable garden. He planted every spring, then nursed the plants along. The vegetables they got from the garden tasted far better than anything from the store, and they saved money.
She made sandwiches at the kitchen counter while music played on the radio on top of the refrigerator. She and Sid were both in their mid-seventies, but they still listened to rock and roll, and usually kept their FM radios tuned to a classic rock station. She hummed along with "White Rabbit" by the Jefferson Airplane.
They had been had met at a commune a thousand years ago, back when they were middle-aged hippies, he a certified public accountant, she a grammar school teacher, both escaping their lives in a world of beads and sex and acid and protests. A lot of the young hippies hadn't known what to make of them at first because they didn't trust anyone over thirty and Allie and Sid were in their thirties. But they'd gotten through all that eventually, and when they came out the other side, they ended up cutting their hair, bathing, going back to work, getting married, and having kids. They bought a house in Ridgeton in which they'd lived for almost thirty years. She'd stayed home to raise the kids. Sid had been made a senior partner at the accounting firm where he'd worked for twelve years. Allie had gone back to work for a while, once the kids were old enough. But it just wasn't the same anymore. She had come to enjoy her life as a housewife and found it very fulfilling, more so than teaching.
Their kids, both boys, Robert and Scott, had grown up and moved out, and were married with children of their own. Allie thought herself lucky to have them living nearby. But once they were gone, the house in Ridgeton seemed much too big for just Allie and Sid. They'd stayed there until Sid retired, then bought a deluxe double-wide mobile home and moved into Pineway Mobile Home Estates in Hope Valley, where they'd been ever since. It was a seniors-only development and often seemed half-filled with grandchildren using the pool and running all over the place. She especially enjoyed the summer months when grandchildren visited more frequently, and the narrow little streets that wound through Pineway Mobile Home Estates were filled with their laughter.
Sid always looked so content when he worked in his garden. There were two windows side by side above the kitchen sink and counter, and Allie occasionally looked out the one in front of her as she spread low-fat mayonnaise on slices of seven-grain bread, then French's mustard, and topped that with butter lettuce a iceberg irritated Sid's diverticulosis.
Sid liked the Deli-Fresh sliced oven-roasted turkey on his sandwiches, while Allie preferred the honey-roasted ham. She made one sandwich of each. She sliced up a tomato a store-bought, unfortunately a and put a slice on each sandwich, added a slice of Tillamook cheddar, and placed a slice of bread on top of each. She put the sandwiches on paper plates and cut them both in half. She watched as Sid walked out of sight and around the mobile home, headed for the patio outside their back door.
Danny and Maris Zimmer's little dog Pepe was yipping his head off out in the front yard. It was bad enough to hear Pepe's yipping in the night from a few homes away, but Sid got irate when the tiny dog came down and stood staring at him with those big, bulgy eyes, seeming to yip at him and no one else. It was a Chihuahua, but it was small even for that breed. It looked like a toy Chihuahua, if such a breed existed. Pepe would make his way to the back yard, where he would stare and yip at Sid.
Sid insisted it was not really a dog, but that the Zimmers had shaved their hamster, which was now rabid.
Allie hoped she could get out there in time to chase Pepe off before he soured Sid's mood. He'd seemed rather bouyant at breakfast that morning, and he'd kissed her three times. In recent weeks, he'd made some remarks about writing a book, a novel about their time in the commune.
"Oh, you wouldn't," she'd said.
"Why not?"
"You wouldn't use my real name, or anything, would you?"
He'd laughed. "Of course not. It's a novel, I'm just drawing on my past experience to tell a fictional story."
"What an embarrassing experience."
"Why are you embarrassed by it? We were young and idealistic."