Insects: A Novel (3 page)

6

State of Amazonas
Civil Police Inspector Eduardo Dias was skeptical when Jose Silva related his narrative about finding his friend Raul Barbosa’s body. He’d been taking notes dutifully when he asked Silva about the condition of the body.

“Were there any obvious wounds?” the inspector asked, his fingers poised on his computer keyboard.

“No.”

“What was the condition of the body?”

“What do you mean, ‘condition’?”

“Was it fresh or had it been lying there for awhile. You know, how much did it stink?”

“Oh, it didn’t stink at all. It was mostly bones.”

Dias stopped typing. Turning in his swivel chair, he faced Silva, who was sitting beside the inspector’s desk.

“I thought you said you talked to him recently?”

“I did.”

Dias eyed Silva suspiciously. Silva didn’t flinch.

“How did the body turn into a skeleton in a single day?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Silva replied, nervously. “I only know what I saw.”

“This is very puzzling,” Dias said, thoughtfully. “You have no idea then how Mr. Barbosa was killed?”

“No, no, no. As I told you, I was expecting him to visit, and the only reason I went to his place was because he didn’t respond to my radio calls. That is not like him.”

Dias realized he had no choice but to go to Barbosa’s camp in the forest and see for himself. Silva offered to take him in his boat. Initially this appealed to Dias until Silva described the boat and mentioned that it would take three to four hours. He shook his head. He didn’t mention that he couldn’t swim and had a fear of water and had trouble with motion sickness.

“That’s a very small boat for such a big river,” he observed. Silva shrugged.

“I’ll see about getting one of our boats. They’re bigger, have twin outboards, and it won’t take as long.”

After some coaxing, Silva agreed to accompany the inspector.

“Is there any way I could get paid for guiding you?” Silva asked, sheepishly. “I make my living as a guide.”

Dias frowned.

“This man was your friend, correct?

“Yes.”

“You want to profit from his death?”

Silva grimaced and stared at his hands, which were folded in his lap. He felt ashamed, but his wife was constantly after him not to share his time freely. She accused him of being an easy mark and not taking advantage of opportunities, such as when he helped friends do a job without pay, or for payment in liquor. Now he would lose a day guiding the police, something he hadn’t counted on. Without pay. And then his wife would have her say. Now he was glad he’d taken the hides. The money he would get for them would help compensate him for the lost day as well as his wife’s badgering. The small pang of guilt he’d felt when he took the hides evaporated. His wife would be proud of him for turning nothing into something. For once.

7

Howard Duncan spent
the evening poring over Professor Azevedo’s four unpublished papers, which were in English. He could see why they’d been rejected.

“They’re not well organized,” Duncan noted to Boyd in a whisper. “Lots of typos and the conclusions are overly dramatic, almost like he was writing fiction. But don’t ever repeat this, okay?”

“Do you think he made it up, the papers?” Boyd asked.

“I don’t think so. The science seems strong, and he knows a hell of a lot more about these bugs than we do.”

“Still…” Boyd wondered.

“He’s an emeritus professor, for chrissakes. I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t think anyone could fake a forty-year academic career.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve barely started my academic career. I’ve got no reason to doubt him and, besides, I like him,” Boyd said.

“I like him, too. He’s very friendly and not anything like some of the old guys on campus I have to deal with.”

Boyd understood that Duncan was confiding in him and expected discretion. Most of the time Duncan treated him civilly but without any warmth. Boyd was Duncan’s employee and little more. But he treasured these moments when he and Duncan spoke as equals, while on the job no less.

Duncan handed the papers to Boyd.

“Here, you read ‘em, and then we’ll talk.”

8

Jose Silva tied
up his boat at the floating dock in Manaus where he agreed to meet Inspector Eduardo Dias. It was just after sunrise and his shirt was already soaked with sweat. He poured coffee from a thermos into a plastic cup and between sips downed several cornstarch cookies his wife had baked. The cookies seemed to melt in his mouth, and he had a satisfied look on his face as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Her cooking more than made up for her stubbornness, he thought.

The cookies were gone in no time, and he wished he’d brought more. But as he looked around, he grew impatient. The inspector was now fifteen minutes late, and Silva started to wonder whether he was wasting his time. Fortunately, the floating docks were busy places, and there were plenty of distractions, such as boats unloading tubs of freshly caught fish and the comings and goings of the boats themselves. Momentarily engrossed in the scenery, Silva hadn’t noticed the Civil Police boat as it tied up at the dock thirty meters from his own.

Dias surveyed the dock briefly and then stepped expertly from the boat onto the dock and moved quickly toward Silva. Dias recognized Silva, even though his back was turned toward him, because he was wearing the same clothes he had worn the day before.

“Mister Silva,” Dias called in Portuguese as he approached. Silva turned to face the inspector, who offered his hand.

“I hope we haven’t kept you waiting,” he said.

“Not long,” Silva replied. “You know, I’ve never paid attention to what happens on these docks, but while I was waiting, I saw many interesting things.”

“It is an interesting place,” Dias said. Nodding toward the patrol boat, he added, “How about we get on our way?”

As they boarded, Dias smiled at Silva and said, “I hope this doesn’t turn into a long day.”

9

Duncan and Boyd
discussed
reptilus blaberus
until they could no longer stay awake, crashing at the office about three a.m. By the end of the discussion, they were moderately drunk and in agreement that they could help Azevedo get recognition, which would reflect favorably on them. Although they took notes when they started their conversation, it was not long before they stopped writing and rambled into the kind of conversation humanities undergraduates have in late night coffee shops—but focused on insects. Having agreed that Azevedo’s papers were revelatory, the topics they discussed consisted of equal parts of fact and speculation. Duncan saw in
reptilus blaberus
potential for new grants while Boyd secretly hoped that Duncan would give him equal billing on the papers they would write based on Azevedo’s findings. Most of the research had already been done. It was simply a question of publishing and exploiting, which were two skills that served Duncan well throughout his career.

They learned from the papers that there was only a handful of colonies, that the creatures were extremely powerful for their size, and that despite having wings, they could not fly. However, Azevedo noted that they could use their powerful hind legs to jump and then possibly spread their wings to catch wind currents. In addition, he had seen them floating on their backs by extending their wings. They looked like piles of leaves when floating.

Toward the end of the evening, or early morning, their conversation degenerated into pointless speculation, with Boyd leading the way.

“Just imagine if these things didn’t have a fungus to kill them off. You’d have an apex predator a little fatter and longer than your middle finger, It’s got wings, it’s got cutting surfaces. And teeth! I wonder what their population would be?”

“They’d take over whatever habitat they were in,” Duncan said laconically. “Other than the fungus, they don’t seem to have a natural enemy.”

“Except man. Wouldn’t man be its natural enemy? He is for everything else.”

“I suppose, but what would be its enemy in the forest or jungle? I’d hate to run into a few thousand of these things. How would you defend yourself?”

“Run like hell!”

Duncan nodded. Holding up his half-empty bottle of Antarctica, he mindlessly read the label and then, turning to Boyd, smiled.

“You know what we hafta do,” he said. “We need to find one of these colonies and follow it, find out how they eat and what they eat. Film them.”

“I like that,” Boyd said. “But how are we gonna find a colony?”

“You did.”

“Once.”

“But you could do it again, couldn’t you?” Duncan asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I was lucky the first time.”

“Or, maybe there are a lot more colonies out there than Azevedo thinks,” Duncan said.

Boyd thought for a moment, looking at Duncan.

“You think, really?”

“I don’t know, but we needta talk to Azevedo some more. Maybe he knows. I mean, you saw all the markers on Google Earth. We needta ask if he’s seen colonies in the same places. You know, he used different colors on the tags. Why’d he use different colors? The colors must mean something. I’m wondering now why I didn’t ask that when were at his office,” Duncan said.

“You know, the markers were in places pretty far into the forest. It’s not like we could just walk there. We’d have to take a boat or a plane, maybe both. It would cost
mucho dinero
.”

“Yeah, but he could take us there. And why wouldn’t he? It would benefit all of us.”

“He might. And even if he wouldn’t, I don’t think he’d mind if we went to the places he marked and see for ourselves,” Boyd suggested.

Ideas were flowing now, and it would have been a good idea to write them down, but they were nearing the end of their beer and were beginning to yawn and rub their eyes. Boyd stretched out on a sofa while Duncan propped his feet on a coffee table, sinking more deeply into his leather club chair.

“You’ve been on expeditions in the jungle before, haven’t you?” Boyd asked, staring at the ceiling.

“Yes. Several.”

“We could get the others to go with us. You know, I’ll bet they’d pay. We could hire a guide and make a small expedition of it. I’ve never really been on an expedition.”

Duncan, too, was staring at the ceiling, imagining what the expedition would be like and the accolades that would follow. It wouldn’t take long to put it together if the others agreed to pay to support it, even if Azevedo declined to participate. As he closed his eyes, a slight smile crossed his face.

10

Raul Barbosa’s property
was about five or six feet above water level; thus, only the upper section of the cabin could be seen from the boat. Because of the shallowness of the tributary running in front of the property and the boat’s draft, the driver killed the motor and anchored about fifty feet from the water’s edge. They would have to wade ashore.

Inspector Eduardo Dias, who was wearing shorts, removed his shoes and socks and lowered himself over the side using the boat’s ladder and sank to his ankles in the muck. Watching this, Silva, who was wearing jeans, removed them and his sneakers, which he wore without socks, and followed the inspector into the water, holding his shoes and pants over his head as if expecting the water to be neck deep. Shuffling to the shore, they dipped their muddy feet into the shallow water and did what they could to rinse off before putting their clothes on.

The two scrambled up the slope and slowly approached Barbosa’s body.

“Is this where you found the body?” Dias asked.

“Yes, yes,” Silva said.

Dias stopped about ten feet short of the body and scanned the scene. He saw the path that Barbosa had taken from the garden. Pieces of clothing and disturbed soil marked every step the victim had taken. Prior to becoming an inspector, Dias had worked for a forensics unit, which is why he didn’t bring a forensics investigator with him. His boss would not have liked the extra expense. Although not an expert himself, he was skilled at collecting evidence and photographing crime scenes. He stepped carefully toward the body, took photos with his smartphone and began taking notes in a reporter’s notepad. Using his pen, he carefully lifted a portion of the victim’s torn shirt and saw bones but very little flesh. He instructed Silva to help him move the body, but Silva hesitated.

“Help me move the body. You grab the trousers, and I’ll grab the shirt. It looks as if the bones are still articulated, so it shouldn’t fall apart.”

“Are you certain?” Silva asked.

“Well, even if it does fall apart, he’s not going to care.”

Silva hesitated momentarily, grimacing. He wondered if his dead friend would mind.

“Here,” Dias said. “I understand it’s your friend. I’ll do it myself. No big deal.”

That’s all it took for Silva to take his place at the foot of the body and prepare to lift it and set it down several feet to the side.

“It’s the least I can do for poor Raul,” he said.

The soil beneath the body was darkened and still damp from the victim’s blood.

“He must’ve bled out here,” Dias said quietly, as if to himself. He spent several minutes photographing and taking notes. He took a small plastic vial out of his shirt pocket and dipped it into the moist soil to take a sample. Capping it, he used a marker to date it and placed it in his pocket.

That was when he noticed the dead cockroach where the body had lain. Suddenly, he saw many dead cockroaches. They seemed bigger than any roaches he’d seen before. Carefully placing several of the insect bodies into a plastic evidence bag, he sealed it and wrote on it with the marker. When this was done, he followed the evidence trail from the body to the garden. There were at least a hundred dead roaches scattered about. He found Barbosa’s hat and bits of clothing. Looking at Silva, who had followed closely behind him, Dias shook his head.

“Whatever happened here, I don’t think it was a crime. What do you think, Mister Silva?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’m trying not to look too hard. I’m afraid we might find parts of my friend.”

“Really?”

“In truth, I’m nervous. I’m not used to this kind of thing.”

“Well, what you’ve done is a good thing. Without you, we wouldn’t even know that your friend is dead. You are a good friend.”

“That may be, but I wish I weren’t here.”

“If you like, you can go back to the boat. I’ll check out the cabin.”

“Okay, thanks.”

As Silva made his way past the body and toward the tributary, Dias shouted, “Mr. Silva, please ask Corporal Sanchez to bring the body bag. Thanks.”