“Then you are in trouble. Or trouble is going to find you soon. Probably once you have my report on Thomasin.”
“Can you treat it as an unknown cause of death?” Andi angled the cell away from George.
“Oi ioe, I can do that. I haven’t had time to read the preliminary report yet, and I won’t do it if you think that’s counterproductive.”
Not for the first time, George marveled at how easily Evangeline trusted Andi. Despite him being the most anti-social and grumpy person George had ever met, people still trusted him or rather his ‘intuition’.
“Thank you, Evangeline. I want you to look at this death without any preconceived ideas.”
“Stop being polite. It scares me.” Evangeline chuckled.
Andi flipped her the bird with the hand not holding the cell despite her not being able to see it. “Won’t happen again.”
“Evangeline?” George waited till Andi turned the cell back in his direction.
“Yeah?”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but please be quick?”
“Ioe. I’ll do my best. Luckily for you, Agent Gelman has made it clear that this autopsy has priority.”
“Thank you! I owe you!”
“Don’t forget it.”
“Never.”
Andi ended the call and pocketed his cell phone, this time in the outer right pocket of his jacket.
“What do you think of Rosalie and her daughter?” George kept his eyes on traffic with occasional glances at the navigation on his Escalade. It was showing him the way to Lake Craig, which was located ten miles outside Spartanburg in Croft State Park. It was usually a twenty-minute drive from downtown Spartanburg, but from their location and in late-afternoon traffic, George estimated that it would be closer to forty.
Judge Dunhill and his buddy Trevor had started their fishing trip from a pier on the eastern side of the lake and kept relatively close to the shore. George had the geotags for where they had died on the water—or drowned in it—and they would start looking for the hornets starting from the closest point on land. Luckily, the woods surrounding the lake weren’t too dense so traipsing about wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
“Life hasn’t been kind to either of them. They seem like textbook victims who never got a chance.”
“They seem?” George knew Andi’s different tones. It was amazing what his man could convey just with the inflection of his voice.
“Something doesn’t add up. I can’t put my finger on it yet. It’s the same with the black widow.” Without looking at him, George knew Andi was furrowing his brow.
“Did the spider not kill Thomasin?”
“Oh, she did. No doubt about it. The memory was just—off. Not like what I’m used to.”
“To be honest, dear, I still marvel at the fact that arthropods have a memory at all.”
“They do. It’s not the same for all of them. Some are better than others, but they are aware of their surroundings. They would be extinct if they weren’t.”
“Still. I’m old-fashioned. I kind of cling to the belief that there has to be a brain with a certain size for higher thought processes.” George was aware how narrow-minded this world view was. It was just hard to let go of something he had held true for most of his life.
“Brain size, as we measure it, has remarkably little to do with functionality. Take paper wasps, for example. Their brains are roughly the size of a sesame seed with about one million neurons. Compared to humans with their eighty-six billion neurons, they must be pretty dumb, one would think. But they aren’t. Recent studies have shown that paper wasps, as well as hornets, by the way, can recognize faces. For that, they need memory and not just short-term memory. They can differentiate between all their sisters because every paper wasp has a unique face coloring, and they make their decisions based on what they know about the other wasps. For example, when they know they have already beaten Lilly in a fight and then see Lilly beating Suzie, they know they don’t have to fight Suzie because she’s weaker. This ability to deduce allows them to hunt more efficiently, adapt to changes in their environment, and be more successful overall. And all that with a brain humans see as inferior.”
“I know. It’s just a concept I have trouble grasping.” George changed lanes when the GPS told him to take the next off-ramp. “So, no big epiphanies from the spider.”
“No. Just more riddles.” Andi sounded sullen.
“Are you okay, or do we need to meditate before we go looking for the hornets?”
“I’m fine. Meditating tonight’s a good idea though. All these unfamiliar images make my brain itch.”
