After fifteen minutes or so he separated the leaves of a laurel quite close to the gym door and found a dark object lodged between the main stem and two branches. Carefully he lifted it out and examined it.
When he got back later that evening, he called Gilmore Hall. Meg came to the phone, and said she was feeling quite a lot better. He told her she was right about the spider.
He did not tell her its death wound was apparently made by a bite. From human teeth.
Sarah drove back from Lake Pinecliff early Thursday morning, just as she had many times before. The gliding had been perfect — like California the previous summer. She had given herself totally to the experience, responding only to the laws of aerodynamics, functioning and mindless. At one with the birds and insects.
Conflicts that had disturbed and tormented her for years had lifted now. She could face the future calmly. She had recognized her need to let the deep, instinctive part of her personality express itself. Not permanently — there was no question of abandoning her rational self — but only when it pleased her. Obviously for sex. She knew now that Spider Girl was capable of fulfilment in sex that she, as Sarah, had not been near to experiencing. But it was more than a sexual fantasy. It was a refuge from so much that constrained her: pressures of family, the university, and the media; old wounds and new threats; moral implications; and conscience. When she wanted, she could block it all off.
She drove into the parking lot. Before she switched off the ignition, she was aware of someone beside the car. She lowered the window.
Don Rigden said, “Before you get out, can we talk?”
“Like this?”
“It’s private.”
She opened the passenger door and he got in and sat beside her.
He said, “I have my interview with the police at eleven-thirty.”
“So?”
“Before I make my statement, I think I have a right to know what really happened on Saturday.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sarah, I’d like to help you. Only you’ve got to do some explaining. The police don’t know this yet, but your jacket was seen folded on the lawn outside the gym.”
“Who saw it?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s the truth, isn’t it? And there was a dead spider under it. How did Pelé get killed, Sarah? You liked that spider.”
“Has it been found?”
“I picked it out of a laurel bush myself. Someone had sunk their teeth into the poor thing. Why, for God’s sake?”
“It’s no loss,” said Sarah evenly. “We’re not using it in the research. It was just a pathetic old male. In its natural environment it would have been dead long before this. As for my jacket — sure, I covered the spider with it. I hated that damn jacket. I should never have worn it.”
“But you must have picked it up later.”
“Of course I did!” she said petulantly. “I saw it when I came out of the gym. I put it back on, and then I chucked the spider in the bushes before the campus cop found me.”
“You admit you wanted to hide it?”
“Okay, I admit it. Now can we go in and start work?”
“Not yet.” He gripped her by the wrist. “Don’t you understand? This could link you with Saville’s death. Maybe we can keep it from the police, but I have to know what happened.”
With a curl of the lip, she said, “The full instant replay, huh? If you want to know, the party was a bad trip for me. I unloaded some of my anger by killing Pelé and covering him with that goddamned jacket. When I got in the gym, I took off my shoes and dress to go on the web... Well, it’s impossible in a skirt.” Don was incredulous. “You took off your clothes to join Saville on the web? Is it surprising he tried to have sex with you?”
“I didn’t join him, as you put it. I was alone. He must have followed me.”
“That isn’t what you told Havelock Sloane and the others.”
“It’s unimportant.”
“No, it’s very important, Sarah. You were naked on that web and he came after you.”
“If we’re sticking to facts, I was wearing a body stocking. But only one fact matters in this: he fell off the web and was killed. If you want to subject me to the humiliation of telling all this to the police, you can. Some people get their kicks that way, I guess.”
“For Christ’s sake, let’s not fight over this. There’s something else you should know. The reason the police are interviewing everyone is that the autopsy showed Rick Saville’s injuries weren’t consistent with the theory that he just fell from the web.”
A shiver went through her. “Who told you this?”
“They told Jerry. It’s supposed to be confidential. I guess it means you must have marked him in some way, trying to fight him off.” He paused. “It did happen like that, didn’t it?”
“So they know someone was with him,” said Sarah, ignoring the question. “Do you think they could trace me? Who was it who saw my jacket?”
“Don’t worry. Someone who isn’t on the list the police are using.”
She couldn’t tell why he was being so mysterious about this. “I’d like to know, please.”
“It’s better if you don’t. Trust me.”
Poor creep. He still cared. “What will you tell the police?”
“What we agreed, I guess. Someone has to make a positive statement that you were off the campus when it happened, or they’re sure to be suspicious. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to link Spider Girl with a web.”
“Will they want to talk to me?”
“You can count on it. Keep it simple, just like we said. I still think we can keep your name out of this.” He opened the car door.
“Don.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with Pelé’s remains?”
“I put them back in the laurel bush.”
“Maybe you could destroy them.”
“I’ll take care of it tonight.”
“Thanks.” She was not ungrateful. When this had blown over, she might even consider teaching him the courtship ritual. One male was as good as another.
Now that there was a rational explanation for her nightmarish experience, Meg felt more in control. At Nancy Lim’s suggestion, she came down for breakfast and had eggs and bacon. Nancy and the others had to get off to classes, so there wasn’t much conversation. She didn’t want to be fussed over.
When they had gone, she picked up a Daily News someone had left and took it back to her room to read. It took a few minutes before her eyes reached the inside page with the report headed
SEPT 10. The New York Police Department has mounted a full inquiry into the death of an assistant producer at NBC-TV, Rick Saville. following Monday’s autopsy. Saville, 24, was found early Sunday morning with a broken neck at the foot of a giant nylon cobweb made for a forthcoming television documentary and rigged up in the gymnasium of Henry Hudson University, as part of an exhibition. The death occurred during a party held in connection with the exhibition. Lieutenant Thomas Flanagan stated that detectives would be questioning everyone who attended Saturday’s party, and he appealed for assistance in tracing Saville’s movements. The police had reached no firm conclusion yet on the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
She dropped the paper. A man dead? Why hadn’t they told her? Maybe the girls in the dorm had said nothing because they didn’t want to add to her fears, but why had Don kept quiet about this? She had told him what she had seen outside the gym. Possibly it had some bearing on the case. Christ, was that why Don had kept quiet?
Don’s interview with the police was short and simple. He was seen in one of the small offices in the department by a young officer of Italian extraction whose name he didn’t catch. “Did you know the deceased, Richard Saville?”