The Web by Jonathan Kellerman

down to diagnosis,
dosage, and incision. Encountering my own impotence taught
me it was much more. And less. You worked in pediatric
oncology; you understand.”
    “By the time I got involved, cancer was no longer a
death sentence. I saw enough cures to keep me from feeling
like an undertaker.”
    “Yes,” he said. “That’s wonderful. Still, you saw the
misery, too. Your articles on pain control—scientific yet
compassionate. I read them all. Read between the lines.
It’s one of the reasons I felt you were someone who would
understand.”
    “Understand what, Bill?”
    “Why a crazy old man suddenly wants to organize his
life.”
       
    The other cases
were
routine and he seemed to tire.
As I scanned the chart of a woman with diabetes, he said, “I’ll
leave you alone. Don’t try to do too much, enjoy the rest of
the day.”
    He stood and headed for the door.
    “I wanted to ask you something, Bill.”
    “Yes?”
    “I met Tom Creedman in the village this morning. He
mentioned something about a murder a half year ago and some
social unrest that led to the blockade.”
    He leaned against the jamb. “What else did he have to
say?”
    “That was it.
Ben told me he lived here, caused some problems.”
    “Oh, indeed.”
    I pointed to the rear storage room. “Was that where Ben
caught him snooping?”
    “No,” he said. “That was
my
office. Two bungalows
down. Creedman claimed he’d wandered in and was on his way out
when Ben found him. I might have let it pass, but he
insulted Ben.
That kind of thing isn’t tolerated around here. I ordered
him off the grounds. He delights in accentuating the
negative about me and Aruk.”
    “He called this place Knife Castle.”
    “And probably told you that yarn about the
slaves butchering every last Japanese.”
    “It never happened?”
    “Allied bombs killed the vast majority of the Japanese
soldiers. Three days of constant bombardment. On the third
night, the Americans radioed victory and some of the forced
workers left the barracks and came up here to
loot—understandable, after what they’d been put through.
They encountered a few survivors and there was some hand-to-hand
fighting. The Japanese were outnumbered. Mr. Creedman calls
himself a journalist, but he seems attracted to fiction—not
that there’s that much difference, nowadays, I suppose.”
    “He also said that you did the autopsy on the murder victim.
Do you agree with the theory that it was a sailor?”
    He sucked in breath. “I’m growing a bit concerned,
Alex.”
    “About what?”
    “Picker’s accident, and now this. You certainly can’t
be faulted for seeing Aruk as a terrible place, but it’s not.
Yes, the murder was terrible, but it was the first we’d had in
many years. And the only one of its type I remember in over
three decades.”
    “What type is that?”
    He pressed his hands together, clapped them silently and
looked up at the ceiling fan, as if counting rotations.
    Suddenly, he opened the door and stepped out. “I’ll be
right back.”

Chapter
    11
    The folder he returned with was brown with a white paper
label.

    ARUK POLICE
INVEST: D. LAURENT.
CASE NO. 00345

    The first four pages were a typed report composed by the
police chief in slightly clearer-than-usual cop prose.
    The body of a twenty-four-year-old woman named AnneMarie
Valdos had been found at three A.M. on South Beach by
two crab fishermen, wedged between rocks overlooking
a tide pool. The amount of blood indicated violence at the site.
    Other fishermen had been at that exact spot at nine P.M. , allowing Laurent to narrow the time the corpse had
lain there.
    During that period, birds and scavengers had done their
work, but Laurent, referring to a conversation with “Dr. W. W.
Moreland, M.D.,” had been able to distinguish the “external
shredding and mostly superficial laceration from multiple,
deep knife wounds leading to exsanguination and death.”
    The victim had lived on Aruk for two years, coming over
from