Dead of Night

26

My son and I were listening to Jason Reynolds tell us that he’d worked for a branch of EPOC for two years as a college volunteer, then spent a year on the organization’s payroll before getting hired by Tropicane.

“It wasn’t the money. I felt I could do more good as a scientist with a company known as being antienvironment than with a group of far-out environmentalists.”

I said, “‘Far-out’?”

“‘Far-out,’ as in good. EPOC is real conservative, starched-suit types who file lots of lawsuits. It drives state governments and big-business nuts, which is cool. But I worked for a branch organization that has a more holistic approach. The Albedo Society. More progressive. We accept the Gaia theory: the earth as a single organism. The guy who founded them both is a veteran hipster like your pal, but he’s also made megabucks.”

Desmond Stokes again. The vitamin empire recluse.

“You’re a member of the Albedo Society? Tomlinson went to a rally they held a few months back in Coconut Grove.”

Reynolds’s grin said, I shoulda known. “I was there, man! A bunch of us EX-sters turned out. But, as I was saying, I didn’t go with Big Sugar just for the cash. Although that’s part of the Albedo philosophy, too: Wealth is power. The surest way to protect land is to own it-” Reynolds stopped abruptly, interrupted by Tomlinson, who was still in the water.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Tomlinson had begun to hoot again-but this time, a harsh falsetto. The shrill sound of pain and shock.

“Ohhh… Hahhh! Whoa-a-a-a-a! What the hell?”

The three of us turned to see that he was on the other side of the canal where we’d left him. He had his back to us, but was now bent at the waist, jumping and thrashing, creating small shock waves in the hip-deep water.

“Holy cripes… Oh my God… Whoa, Mamma, that hurts!”

He swung his head toward us, turning, and I could see his wild eyes, and that he had both hands clamped over his genitals.

“Sheeeee-IT!”

Lake panicked. “Hey-he’s hurt! What’s wrong? Tomlinson?” As Reynolds yelled, “Jesus, what was he doing? Get out of there!”

No response from Tomlinson, who continued to jump and thrash, moaning.

Automatically, we were all three sliding down the incline. Before we got to the bank, I grabbed Lake, put a finger in his face, and yelled, “No! I’ll get him,” then lunged into the water, my brain searching for an explanation. Tomlinson had been peeing into a thicket of cattails and somehow managed to hurt himself. How? If he’d stepped on a broken bottle, why was he holding his genitals?”

“Lordy, shitzkee! Doc! Get over here, Doc! Marion!”

“What’s wrong?”

“This is what’s wrong!” he screamed. He was slapping at his groin as if he were on fire. “Something’s inside me. I saw it!” He looked down before yelling, “Come outta there, you little bastard. Goddamn it, I’ll wring your neck. I’ll drown you in cheap whiskey, if you don’t come out!”

It sounded absurd-until I saw blood on his hands and legs, blood coming from his penis. There was too much blood, and too much pain, not to be serious.

I ran high-stepping through the shallows into deeper water. When I got to him, he let me support his body weight, though he continued to writhe in pain as I asked over and over, “What happened? Why are you bleeding?”

He repeated himself, groaning, “Ohhh… I got something up me, man. Came out of the water and swam up the tube. Holy hell, it hurts.”

“What?”

“I’ve got something inside me! I saw it. Like a little eel, or fish, or something.”

The young biologist came splashing up. Tomlinson was in so much distress, Reynolds spoke to me. “He’s freaking, man. What’s wrong? Did he say?”

“No. Something must’ve bit him. He’s incoherent because of the pain.” I was levering Tomlinson’s arm over my shoulder, steering him toward shore.

Reynolds said, “Jesus, look at the blood. What happened to his shorts?”

I said, “I guess he pulled them off,” as Tomlinson yelled. “I’m not incoherent. I saw the thing, damn it. I was taking a piss, and it swam right up my tallywhacker!”

I told Tomlinson, “Okay, okay, take it easy, and we’ll get you to the hospital.” He was sweating, face pale. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No-no sirens,” he said quickly. “I hate sirens, too many bad memories. We go in the Magic Bus. I’ll soak my nuts in ice water. Maybe the little son of a bitch will think it’s time to migrate south.”

Reynolds had Tomlinson’s other arm, helping me guide him. “I’ve got a first aid kit in the truck, but I doubt if there’s anything for pain.” After a few more moments, he said, “The phone. What happened to the woman’s cell phone? Did he give it to you?”

Tomlinson moaned, “Ohhh, what a putz I am. I dropped it when the fish attacked. Forgot all about it, Oh hell… let’s go back and get it.”

I said, “No. I’ll call the sheriff’s department. It’s better if they recover it, anyway. I’ll call from the road.” I looked at Reynolds, interested in his reaction. “Do you mind if I give them your name and number? You could help.”

“Sure,” he replied. “You need to get him to the hospital.”

Twice, on the fast drive to the Bartram County Hospital, I had to stop so Tomlinson could vomit. Pain can do that. Most of the trip, he stayed balled up in a fetal position, moaning.

At one point, I said to him, “Would meditation help? To help block the pain, I mean.”

“Oh-h-h-h… no way. Mr. Zamboni would never get the message. He and my brain stopped communicating years ago.”

Zamboni and the Hat Trick Twins-the man’s nickname for his private parts.

Because I was, driving, Laken called Rona to tell her that we’d found what was probably Frieda’s cell phone. I figured she’d get faster action out of the local sheriff’s department. But the lady was still on Sanibel having fun. Didn’t answer. Among the contact list she’d given us, though, was the name of a department captain. Lake dialed his number, then handed me the phone.

The man’s name was Detective Ken Picking, special crimes division. I used Rona’s name, then told him I’d been at Jobe Applebee’s house the night he died, and that I was a friend of the man’s sister-the woman who’d been found dead on Thursday, hit by a car.

A veteran state patrolman once told me that a cultivated sense of skepticism has saved the lives of more cops than body armor. It has also nailed more unlikely criminals than DNA testing. I expected Picking to be suspicious, and he was. It’s not uncommon for perpetrators to try to find out how a case is progressing by presenting themselves as helpful citizens.

The detective’s Cracker heritage was in his cow-hunter accent, his hard-ass manner. I listened to him say as if he were joking, “Okay, you knew the victims, and now you’re calling me either to confess or to find out if we know you did it. Isn’t that the drill? So tell me where you are and I’ll come put the cuffs on.”

His tone was breezy, but he wasn’t humoring me. He’d thrown it out there to see if I got flustered. If I’d stammered, or laughed just a little too loudly, I had a feeling that Detective Picking would’ve dropped everything and come looking for me.

When I told him about finding the cell phone, though, his tone was anything but breezy. “Are you sure it was Dr. Matthews’s phone?”

“It was the same type. It didn’t look like it’d been in the water long. There’s a good chance that it’s hers.”

“Mr. Ford, I don’t know you from Adam. Now, if Rona gave you my cell number, you’re probably okay. But do you know how dumb it is for amateurs to go around playing detective? Damn. Did you know we can still lift prints from an object that’s been underwater?”

I told him I wasn’t certain.

“Well, we sometimes can. Which you might have completely screwed up. Why the hell didn’t you just call us an’ tell us you had a bee up your butt, thinking the woman was killed not accidental-like. That maybe her phone was in that canal?”

I was tempted to tell him it was because his department hadn’t thought of it.

Instead, I said, “You’re right, the first thing I should’ve done was contact you. I guess I didn’t expect to actually find it. A friend gets abducted and murdered? That’s something that you only read about in the papers.”

“What you did, Mr. Ford, could be called tampering with evidence.”

I was appropriately contrite. “The faster you can get some people on-scene to recover the phone, the better we’ll both feel.”

When he asked me to meet him at the canal in half an hour, I told him that was impossible because a pal was sick and I had to get him to the hospital. But I had the cellular number for Jason Reynolds, who was willing to help.

After I’d given him Reynolds’s number, Picking said he’d have the dispatcher contact their water recovery team and meet them at the canal.

“But don’t go leaving the county without telling me first. If we don’t find it, we’ll need you. If we still don’t find it, there’re a bunch more questions I want answered.”

In the emergency room, the staff gave Tomlinson a shot of painkiller and did a manual examination for testicular torsion-a man’s testicles can twist on the spermatic cord and shut off the flow of blood. It can be fatal if not treated quickly.

The results were negative.

During the examination, they also asked him if he’d ever had gonorrhea.

Groaning, Tomlinson told them no, but it wasn’t through lack of activity.

Next they injected IVP dye and took X rays, looking for kidney stones.

Negative.

It was a good hospital with an energetic staff, and they were not immune to Tomlinson’s charm. Determined to diagnose his mystery ailment, the ER boss, Dr. Mary McColgan, took the initiative and called in a urologist whose name was also Mary-Dr. Mary Ann Shepherd. Laken and I waited in the outpatient surgery wing while the physician used ocular tubing, a cystoscope, to take a look inside the man’s urethra.

Dr. Shepherd came out, still wearing scrubs, smiling, shaking her head: unbelievable. She was an athletic-looking woman, square-jawed, very dark skin-an East Indian or American Indian-her expression telling us the mystery was solved.

The lady doctor’s voice had an upbeat vigor-yes, she’d discovered something unexpected-as she said, “I’ve read about cases like this, but never in my wildest dreams thought I’d get to deal with it in my own practice. The cystoscope moved along just fine until about midway to the bladder. That’s where I found the blockage. Ten years in this business, I thought I’d seen every weird object that can possibly fit inside the sprinkler system of an adult human male-golf tees, lipsticks, marbles. There’s a whole book written by a urologist about strange stuff we’ve found. But I’ve never seen anything resembling what’s inside your friend.”

It was a fish, she said. “Turns out that crazy story he’s been telling isn’t crazy after all. When I got the scope to the blockage, the first thing I recognized was a tail fin. I thought it must be some kind of artificial lure. That he’d stuck it up there himself. Guys do that sometimes, minus the hooks-if they’re smart enough, and not too drunk. But then it moved. I saw it. The darn thing wiggled its way upstream as far as it could. It’s still alive.”

Even with a urologist standing there telling us it was true-even with the plague of exotics we’d been tracking-I still had trouble believing it. “I’ve worked all over the world with fish. I know there’s a rare species of bloodsucking catfish in South America that supposedly swims into human orifices. But that’s a myth. I think it’s been proven to be a myth.”

The physician looked to be in her mid-thirties, had a good face, and her Cherokee hair caught the light when she shook her head. She was shaking it now. “Just the opposite’s been proven. I proved it myself today. Other doctors have documented it before me-but only within the last couple of years. That’s exactly what the fish does. I just looked it up. The thing’s called a ‘candiru.’ Kan-di-ru. I think that’s how it’s pronounced.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d read about it, she said.

“A year or so ago, a Brazilian physician-I can’t remember his name-published an article in the American Journal of Urology. He’d removed a candiru from the penis of a teenage boy. The article included ultrasonographic prints that showed the fish burrowed in the urethra, up near the prostate. There were photos of the thing after it was removed.

“The fish was a lot bigger than I would’ve believed-nearly six inches long, I think, and half an inch wide. That stuck with me because it indicated how tenacious that damn thing had to be to work its way up that far.”

Dr. Shepherd said she’d read the entire piece, it was so unusual, but it’d been a while ago, so some of the details had faded. The boy had been wading in the Amazon and stopped to urinate. Candiru were attracted to the scent of uric acid because they are endoparasitic creatures-they feed from inside their hosts. Locating body openings would be key to their survival.

The boy was in thigh-deep water. He saw the fish leap out of the water into his urine stream. It clung to the penis opening for a moment, then burrowed up his urethral canal.

“I think the article said the kid actually grabbed the fish and tried to pull it out. But it was slippery, and candiru have gills or spines or something they stick up so they’re impossible to remove.”

In the Amazon, she added, indigenous people were the most common victims. No doctors for them, which is why we heard of it so rarely.

“There’s some kind of herb they use to dissolve the fish, but the pain’s so bad that males sometimes resort to self-inflicted penectomy. You can ask your friend about that.”

Catfish have saw-edged spines, sharp as a hypodermic, and secrete a complicated protein poison. Thinking about it made me cringe.

She told me she’d bring a copy of the article when she came back that night to do the minor operation required to remove the candiru. She’d managed to get a catheter in Tomlinson; had the outpatient surgery reserved for 7:00 P.M. The phenomenon had so seldom been documented, she said, that she wanted to videotape the procedure. Other physicians were already asking to attend.

“But it’s not serious. I want to stress that. Within two days, maybe three, he’ll be completely recovered.”

As she was leaving, I said aloud, “A parasitic catfish from the Amazon? Jesus, bizarre.”

I was talking to Lake, but the woman stopped, laughing in a way that communicated congenial sarcasm. “Finding an illegal exotic species in this part of Florida? That would be shocking-if it wasn’t an almost daily occurrence. All right, I’m exaggerating, but not much. The ER staff will tell you: ”

She said that, over the last week, the emergency room had treated five people who’d been bitten by nonnative spiders. Entomologists at the University of Florida had identified one as a Calcutta scorpion. She couldn’t remember the name of the other spider. It was from Africa, and two of the patients nearly died.

“Crab spider? Maybe that was it.”

I said, “A six-eyed crab spider? That’s African-and dangerous. A lot more poisonous than a black widow, or brown recluse.”

“Yes. That’s the one. There were the spider bites and then, three days ago, a grade school janitor drives himself to the ER. He comes in, face white as a sheet, carrying a garbage bag that has a fifty-pound snake in it. The thing was more than eight feet long.

“He said he found it on the playground. The guy killed it when it came after him. One of those guys who carries a shotgun in his truck. His words: ‘It charged me and struck.’ It did sort of graze him, but no venom. Thank God, because we got a positive ID on that, too. African again. An illegal exotic. It was an African mamba, which they tell me is potentially lethal.”

Something-the intensity of my expression, perhaps-had caused her to focus on me rather than on what she was saying, and so she spoke more slowly, almost by rote, as she finished, “The Disney World area’s filled with exotics. Human and animal.”

I said, “This has all been in the last week?”

“Seven, eight days, yes. That’s why it hasn’t made the national news yet. This county depends on tourism, so the local weeklies aren’t going to put it in the headlines. But word’s bound to leak out.”

A South American fish, she added, was no surprise to her.

“Once I remove the candiru, I’ll let you examine it,” she said. “Get your professional opinion.”