Vespers (4 page)

When she first spoke to Westchester wildlife commissioner Cliff LoDolce-he reached her in the van as the TV crew was driving down-Joyce hadn’t expected to need the outfit. From LoDolce’s description of the attack, she assumed that Tom Fitzpatrick had disturbed a small bat maternity roost or harem, prompting the assault. Female bats could be extremely protective and a little cross, especially early in the evening when they hadn’t yet fed. Until she saw some home video footage shot by one of the parents, Joyce hadn’t realized that the bats actually had charged the boy and his father. Unfortunately, she couldn’t speak to either of the victims about what had happened. Both were still in intensive care and heavily sedated.

The scientist looked up. Against the near-black sky she could see bats zipping here and there in perfectly normal fashion. A pass over the woods in a police helicopter had failed to tell her anything because of the darkness and heavy leaf cover. She would have to go in on the ground.

She glanced out at the grandstand, which was partly lit by two large spotlights well behind first and third base. A large pack of reporters and TV crews was huddled there, along with resident state trooper Bill Anderson and six other troopers. Initially, the Little League parents and children had been there as well. Most of them lived in wooded areas and were afraid to go home. But when the crowd began to grow, Bill Anderson had had enough. He consulted with LoDolce and Joyce, who agreed that people stood a greater chance of being attacked here in the open than in their homes. The trooper then imposed a curfew and told everyone to leave. He made sure that people who didn’t have a ride got one.

The scientist was glad when everyone left. Not only was it quieter, but she’d felt pressure while they were there. She’d caught the glances, the nervous smiles, the pointing fingers. She’d volunteered to go in becauseshe needed to know what was going on. Now everyone was waiting for her to give them answers. One of the reasons she’d stayed apart from them was that she didn’t want to speculate. Privately, she didn’t believe a disease was behind this. Once in a while nature whipped up a mutated virus or bacterium. One of her two colleagues, Dr. Carla Kelly-a specialist in veterinary diseases-had gone back to Columbia University with blood, fur, and guano samples. The blood came from the boy’s wounds; if they could find traces of bat saliva, that might tell them if there were a new kind of illness. But Nancy didn’t think that was the case here. From all accounts the open-field attack had been coordinated and demarcated. Healthy or sick, bats were smart. But notthat smart.

The other colleague who had come up here was Dr. Herman Berkowitz, who added nothing to their limited body of knowledge. Dubbed “überputz” by the people who worked with him, the self-promoting, German-born zoologist from the Central Park Zoo had come up with one of the other camera crews. After doing his TV bit, talking about how gentle bats normally were, he headed back to his third wife’s Central Park West penthouse. He was not a man who liked to dirty his hands with science.

The other reason Joyce stayed by herself was that as long as she had to think, this was how she enjoyed doing it. Alone, outside, in the dark.

Joyce grew up on eight isolated acres in the hills of Cornwall, Connecticut. Whatever the season she’d walk the wooded grounds after twilight. She would watch bats in their crooked flight and listen as foxes moved through the crickety silence. She marveled at the great horned owls-big birds with deep, throaty hoots-and at the smaller, faster screech owls. She had never seen a field mouse get away from one of those birds. Never.

The kids at school thought Joyce was spooky and avoided her. Her teachers and guidance counselor and Father Joseph thought she was troubled. Her mother worried because her fascination with nocturnal predators wasn’t ladylike. Her father, a local GP, was concerned because she was always using vines to rappel into deep gullies to catch frogs, wading through lagoons because the swirling silt felt cool around her toes, or climbing high ledges to see how trees grew out of them. He absolutely forbade her from doing any of that; she did it anyway and got punished.

Only her grandmother understood. The older woman once confided that she never felt as free or as important as when she and her parents were fleeing from the Bolsheviks. She said that sleeping beneath the stars or clouds in woods and on hillsides made her feel like she was part of all nature. Compared to that, being a member of the aristocracy faded to insignificance.

Grandma Joycewicz also taught her that it didn’t matter what other people thought. Joyce liked what she liked. And what she liked was dangerous, compelling nighttime. Old books, just like her grandfather had. Solitude. Candy corn, which she wished she had a bag of right now.

Joyce looked back across the picnic area just as Marc Ramirez arrived on his motorcycle. The wiry graduate student stopped on the other side of the baseball diamond, killed the engine, dropped the kickstand, and slid off. Even before he removed his helmet-which was black, save for a large gold bat silhouette just above the visor-he began unstrapping the silver case from the large luggage rack behind the seat.

Joyce walked over.

“Hey,” Marc said.

“Hi.”

The young man hefted an armful of aluminum case to the ground. Camera crews and reporters, followed by the police chief, the wildlife commissioner, and the health inspector, hustled toward them.

Marc pulled off his helmet. He used his fingers to comb his short black hair as he looked at the cameras. “How are the victims?”

“Critical.” Joyce bent and unlatched the top of the case.

“What happened?”

Joyce removed the folded headgear. She nodded toward the parking lot. “They walked in over there and didn’t walk out again. Four volunteer firefighters in helmets and fullface masks had to go in and pull them out.”

“Were the firefighters attacked?”

Joyce nodded. “And they were there for only a few seconds.”

“Amazing,” Marc said. “A bat line in the sand. Any idea why the bats pack-attacked?”

Joyce lay the floppy headpiece and gloves on the ground. “My guess is there’s something in the woods. A bear or a big cat might cause a bat frenzy. Or a chemical contaminant like amyl nitrite or some kind of amphetamines might have made them disoriented, aggressive.”

“You mean the bats could’ve gotten into someone’s stash?”

“Don’t laugh. The police chief said that people go into the woods to do drugs.”

“I’m not laughing. I’m actually wondering how many of those people were in the grandstands tonight giving statements to the police.”

Dr. Joyce frowned. The twenty-four-year-old Queens native was an enthusiastic zoologist-in-the-making. Though he hadn’t quite outgrown his MTV sense of priorities, at least he’d limited his visible body piercing to one ear and one nostril.

Marc picked up the rubbery suit and shook it out. “Anyway, drugs wouldn’t explain the boundaries those bats set. Or the timing. Why now?”

“I’m hoping the bats will give us some of those answers when I go in.”

With the bright TV lights on and the news cameras turning, Joyce took off her shoes. Then she slipped into the leggings and built-in boots. Though her mind was on the bats, there was no ignoring the invasive cameras and the hot white lamps. They answered a question her unlamented, was-I-really-that-lonely boyfriend Christopher had asked over and over and over. Getting dressed and-especially-undressed on camera was not something she could ever get into.

The one-piece antibat outfit was heavy and loose-fitting, like a radiation suit. It was colored Day-Glo orange with reflectors on the front and back to prevent her from being shot by hunters. There was a zipper in the rear, another around the neck, and one more around each sleeve to attach to the gloves. When the headpiece and gloves were attached, the suit was completely sealed, except for the faceplate, which was made of rigid plastic mesh. That allowed her to communicate and to breathe.

Marc helped Joyce finish dressing. Before donning the headpiece, she slid on a lightweight radio headset. Marc donned his, and they checked the reception.Then the young man took a large flashlight and Nomex sample bag from the compartment under the motorcycle seat.

“Doctor,” Kathy Leung asked. “Will it be all right if we light you up out there?”

“Sure.” Joyce pointed up with a gloved hand. “See the way those bats are zigzagging?”

Kathy said she did.

“They’re echolocators.” Joyce slipped on the hood. “Roughly half of all bats are. Vision is a secondary sense to them. Bats that rely on smell or eyesight to hunt tend to be frugivorous or nectarivorous.”

“Meaning you’re safe in the light unless you’re a banana,” Marc said.

“Fruit, nectar, pollen, leaves,” Joyce added. “They’ll eat any food that doesn’t move.”

One of the newsmen shouted, “Are you nervous, Dr. Joyce?”

Joyce paused and peered into the lights. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “Just awfully curious.”

“We all are,” said the health inspector, a chunky, balding man whose name Joyce couldn’t remember. “So if you’ll all just stay back and let Dr. Joyce do her work-”

After zipping up the “bat hat” as Marc was fond of calling it, Joyce turned toward the parking area. Marc handed her the flashlight and slid the sample bag over her arm. He gave her shoulder a little pat. “Good luck,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Trooper Anderson stepped closer. “Anything we can do?”

“Just keep everyone away,” Joyce said.

The cameras followed Dr. Joyce as she ducked under the yellow tape that had been stretched along the backs of the parked cars. Though the spotlights from the baseball diamond didn’t reach this far, the camera lights illuminated most of the parking area and about twenty feet of airspace. Joyce stood for a moment looking out at the forest some five hundred yards distant. Therewas something mysterious and seductive about it, like nights in Cornwall. For a moment Nancy Joyce felt like a little girl again.

She took a deep breath and slowly walked forward. Her footsteps and breathing sounded very loud inside the suit. When she neared the spot where Scott Fitzpatrick had been attacked, she stopped and tilted her head back. Her vision was limited by the sides of the visor, but it seemed as though the bats were still going about their business, just above the treeline.

“Marc?”

“Here.”

“What’re you seeing?”

“Bats bug-eating.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope.”

She started walking again. “Odd,” she said. “They don’t seem to be exhibiting any of the behavior the towns-people-”

Joyce gasped as a bat slammed against her face. Its claws and teeth locked onto the mesh and its wings batted fiercely.

“Shit!”

“ Nancy?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “Just a little heads-up.”

“It must’ve come in pretty low,” Marc said. “Damn. Sorry. I didn’t even see it.”

The bat twisted and tried to nibble at her nose, but it couldn’t get through the mesh. Joyce grasped the creature’s fat, round body between her thumb and index finger and pulled it away from the visor; the bat felt soft, like an overripe peach. The animal flapped and screeched, but she held firmly. She examined the wriggling creature under the flashlight.

“It’s a vespertilionid,” she said. “GenusMyotis, a little brown bat with-man, he’s jumpy-with what appears to be a normal physiognomy.” She angled the head back. It continued to squirm. “Enough, you.” She shoved a thumb under its jaw, steadying the head and forcing the mouth open. “No rabid salivary accumulation or discoloration. Also no discharge from the nose leaf or eyes to suggest a viral infection. Weight seems normal, about ten grams.” She pushed aside the fur of the lower belly. “And it’s a young male, so scratch my theory that they could be females protecting a nurs-”

Joyce’s head snapped back as three more animals flew at her face. They attacked the mesh, and she lost the first bat. The new sets of teeth twisted left and right, trying to bite her nose, eyebrow, chin, and cheeks. Joyce angrily pushed them away. They came back.

“ Nancy, yousure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. From the corner of her visor Joyce saw the first bat circle up, stop, then shoot down to the back of her glove. It clutched her knuckles and tried to bite her wrist. “They’re just getting a little pushy. Hold on a second. I want to check something.”

Joyce leaned her head forward slightly. She breathed deeply through her nose. Then again. She smelled the distinctive dampness of the bats’ breath. A meal of a few thousand bugs a night produced a “swampy” odor that the bat shared with no other animal.

“The nose lab gives me a normal on bat halitosis,” Joyce said. She felt a flurry of tiny punches along her arms, legs, and torso as other bats struck. She continued walking. “That would rule out a toxin or bacteriological or parasitic infestation that might affect the stomach acid, give them bad breath.” She inhaled lower. “The fur smells musky, as it should. Except for the violent behavior, I’m not seeing or smelling anything unusual.”

“I am,” Marc said. “You’re wearing four bats.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Iam worried. That suit was tested for guano and a bat or two, not catastrophic exposure. Listen, why don’t we just take one of the cars? We can drive in closer.”

“No. The gas fumes and noise might change the bats’ behavior.Besides,there are still far fewer bats than attacked the field before. Can you see if they’re flapping?”

“They are. Why?”

“Because if they were only trying to bite me they wouldn’t be moving their wings.”

“Right. Well, they’re not feeding. This is definitely an attack.”

“Bats as territorial carnivores,” Joyce said. “There’s your doctoral thesis, Marc-”

The scientist started as another bat slapped against the mesh. It cried in a high, ululating chirp as it joined the other bats, snapping and pushing its flat muzzle at the plastic.