Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle (114 page)

“I need to keep the dog focused,” Alena said. “Every couple of hours I have him sniff the original stuff to remind him exactly what he's looking for.”

Kathryn looked down at the base of the first plant where Nick had collected his strange green specimens. She saw the remnant of the marijuana exactly where it was before. It was as black as chewed tobacco now. “So?”

“Not down there—up here.”

Kathryn looked. Alena was pointing to the leaves of the first tomato plant—they were dotted with wriggling white larvae. Kathryn shuddered and stumbled back away from the plants.

“What's the matter?” Alena asked.

“I—I can't—”

“Oh yeah, your bug thing. Forgot about that.”

“Describe them to me,” Kathryn said.

Alena plucked a leaf and shook off a few larvae into the palm of her hand. She held them up close to her eyes and sorted through them with her index finger “They just look like little worms,” she said. “What am I looking for?”

“What color are they?”

“White—maybe a little pale green. There's kind of a pointy thing on one end—sort of like a little horn.”

“Are you sure?”

“That's what it looks like to me. What are these things?” Kathryn shook her head. “Disaster.”

Nick picked through the marijuana with a long silver forceps. Almost all the little green eggs had hatched and had now been replaced by wriggling white maggots. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. He isolated one of the larvae and pushed it out to the side; he adjusted his glasses and studied it closely. White, with just a hint of green—and a little red horn located dorsally on the terminal abdominal segment.

He straightened. “Well, I'll be a son of a gun.” He took out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“Nick, hi—I was just about to call you.”

“You've got a problem, Kath,” Nick said.

“I think I'm looking at it. Are these things what I think they are?”

“
Manduca sexta
,” Nick said, “the tobacco hornworm. They could possibly be
Manduca quinquemaculata
—tomato hornworms—but I don't think so.
Sexta
is much more common in the South. Are you sure we're looking at the same thing? White, with a little horn on one end?”

“Nick—every tomato farmer in the U.S. knows what a hornworm looks like.”

“How many do you see?”

“There's too many to count—they could be everywhere.”

“That's not good. Hornworms can strip a tomato field bare in one weekend.”

“Believe me, I know. Did these things come out of the marijuana?”

“Yes, they did.”

“How in the world did they get in there?”

“I have no idea.”

Just then a student poked his head in the laboratory door. “Dr. Polchak?”

Nick held up one hand to silence him.

“Nick, what am I supposed to do?”

“You have to use an insecticide, Kathryn—right away.”

“Nick, you know I can't do that. I'd lose my organic certification.”

“You don't have a choice. If you don't spray, you'll lose your whole field.”

The student cleared his throat. “Dr. Polchak? Sorry to bother you, but you told me to.”

“I can't spray,” she said. “What's the point? Either way I lose everything.”

“Kathryn, tobacco hornworms can overwinter—that means if you don't kill them now, some of them will burrow into the ground when they pupate and they won't come out until next spring. If you don't kill them now, you'll have them next year too.”

The student again: “Dr. Polchak?”

“Hang on a minute,” Nick growled. He cupped his hand over the phone and glared at the student. “Have you ever seen flesh-eating beetles? Would you like to see some up close?”

“I'm sorry, but you told me to come and look for you here whenever you're more than ten minutes late for class.”

“Oh. Right.” Nick stood there for a moment, blinking at the vindicated student—then he put the phone back to his ear. “Kathryn—I've got an idea. I'll be out there in an hour.” He closed the phone.

Nick looked at the student. “Mr. Jones, I have an assignment for you. I want you to go back to the class and tell everyone I've got a special treat for them today—and find out how many of them have cars.”

The student grinned. “What's the treat?”

“Mr. Jones, we're taking a field trip.”

17

T
his is
Manduca sexta
,” Nick said, holding the photo over his head so all the students could see, “commonly known as the tobacco hornworm.”

The group of students crowded around Nick near the edge of the tomato field. It was mid-afternoon, but the sun was still high overhead and the light was still good. Kathryn stood beside Nick with Callie beside her, while Alena watched the group from the shade of a nearby tree.

“
Manduca
begins its life as a round green egg approximately one to one and a half millimeters in diameter. The adult
Manduca
is a moth—a very large one—and it lives for less than five days. But during those days the adult female stays busy—she lays between three and five hundred eggs per day, usually on the surface of leaves. Not just any leaves, mind you;
Manduca
prefers only plants from the family
Solanaceae
—chiefly tobacco and tomatoes. That's why you're here: The plants behind you are tomato plants, which can be identified by the fact that they're bearing tomatoes. Are there any questions so far?”

Someone in the back called out, “Can you go over the tomato part again?”

“Google it. As
Manduca sexta
develops it passes through five instars. Who can tell me what an ‘instar' is?”

No one raised their hand.

Nick looked around the group. “Who has been conscious for more than five minutes at a time in my class?”

Again, no one.

“That explains a lot,” Nick said. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves. There's a woman right here who has never taken an entomology course in her entire life, and I'll bet even she knows what an instar is.” He turned to Kathryn. “Ma'am?”

Kathryn cleared her throat. “An instar is a stage of development an insect passes through on its way to becoming an adult. Blowflies have three.”

Nick bowed. “Thank you, ma'am. You may stop showing off now.”

Kathryn made a polite curtsy in return.

Alena watched the scene and groaned. “I think I'm going to puke.”

“The tobacco hornworm is a defoliator,” Nick continued. “It has three sets of forelegs to grip the plant and a mandible that acts like a pair of shears.
Manduca
prefers leaves, but it will also eat blossoms and even green fruit. They will eat everything in sight and they'll do it in a matter of days. The field behind you is infested with tobacco hornworms. The owner refuses to use pesticides because her farm is certified organic—but if the hornworms are left unchecked, a week from now she will have a field of empty vines. We are here to help her with her problem.”

The students applauded.

“I appreciate your willingness to help,” Nick said, “not that I'm giving you a choice. Now, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is:
Manduca
does 90 percent of its damage during its final instar, and the ones in this field are still in their first instar—that means we're catching them early. The bad news is, they're very small and they'll be harder to pick.”

There was a pause. “Did you say, ‘Pick'?”

“That's right. We have to pick them off the plants.”

A timid voice in the back asked, “With our hands?”

“No, with your teeth. Of course with your hands—what did you think? The hornworm can't harm you—it doesn't bite and it doesn't sting. The little horn on the dorsal end is only for decoration and serves no practical purpose—much like your undergraduate degree. The photograph I'm holding up is an L5
Manduca
—a hornworm in its fifth and final instar. Notice that the larva is very large and green in color, and it has seven diagonal white lines on its sides—that's
Manduca
's distinguishing mark. The ones you're looking for, however, will be small and white and they have no marks—they will not look like this photo.”

“Then why are you holding it up?”

“Because I don't want you to be morons for the rest of your lives. Now, I want you to break into groups of two or three. Start at the end of one of the rows and work your way across the field. Be sure to check the undersides of the leaves—that's where you'll find most of them. Make sure each of you has a bucket, or a cup, or a plastic bag—something to collect the hornworms in.”

“How do you want us to divide into groups?” someone asked.

“I don't care. Do it the way your species usually does it: by social dominance or physical attraction. Come on, people—if
Manduca
can find tomatoes with a brain the size of a pin, you can figure out how to form groups.”

The students began to break up, but Nick gave a shrill whistle and called them back. “There's one more thing,” he said, “and this is very important. I'm passing out a simple diagram of this tomato field. I want each of you to take one and keep it with you. When you finish picking the hornworms from a plant, I want you to indicate on the diagram where the plant was located and how many hornworms you found on it.”

“We have to
count
them?”

“Unless you have another method of arriving at their number. We only have a few hours of daylight, people, so let's get going. Please work as quickly as you can, be thorough, and do not eat the tomatoes unless you pay for them.”

“And thank you!” Kathryn shouted as the students grabbed diagrams and plastic containers and scattered.

She turned to Nick. “This is really sweet of you, Nick.”

He shrugged. “You didn't give me much choice. Personally, I would have doused the whole place with insecticide.”

“No, you wouldn't. You're a bug man.”

“There are an estimated ten quintillion insects on earth. The entomologist's motto is: ‘There's more where those came from.'”

“I thought you loved bugs.”

“Bugs are like people,” Nick said. “It's easy to love them as a group, but it's hard to get attached to individuals.”

“You just haven't met the right individual yet.”

Alena approached from behind. “Great lecture, Professor. Is the class closed or can I still sign up?”

“We can use all the help we can get,” Nick said, handing her one of the diagrams. “Grab a bucket and take one of these—we should all pitch in.”

Six hours later the skies were black and the students were gathered around a group of folding tables Kathryn had retrieved from her roadside produce stand. Pizza had been ordered from the Papa John's in Newton Grove, accompanied by bowls of tossed salad made from Kathryn's own fields. Torchlights flickered all around, encircled by moths and beetles entranced by the flames, and every few minutes a bat would appear in a silent flurry of wings and another insect would suddenly disappear. The torches filled the entire yard with a cheery orange light and cast flickering shadows in every direction. The students were laughing and joking about afternoon classes they had willingly missed and maggots they had fearlessly confronted.