It was a suburban Saturday morning in the San Fernando Valley just west of Los Angeles. This particular neighborhood was a former orange grove, and it was dotted with modest, well-kept single story ranch homes. One modest, well-kept ranch home stood out as its front door was swinging back and forth in the light wind. Several citrus trees dotted the backyard of this home. A sycamore tree stood alone in a corner opposite a tangerine tree. Quite a few bees buzzed around this sycamore. They were agitated and sought to enter their hive, which was stuck in a hollow of the tree about ten feet up. Something had threatened them and they were not happy about it.
Across the yard a middle-aged man drove his Toro rider-mower across the back lawn. He did not hire a mow and blow gardener because this was a bi-weekly ritual of enjoyment for him. He relished the scent of fresh cut grass and the sense of accomplishment from a personally manicured lawn. He was clad in a tank top and shorts. He wore earbuds and did not notice the bees above him. As he drove closer, the beehive vibrated from the sound of the mower engine, further agitating the bees. The man drove the mower closer, listening to his music, oblivious to the environment around him.
The bees had recently arrived at this location so they were anxious. Prior to leaving their former home, they would normally have gorged on honey to sustain themselves. But there was a shortage of nectar at their old hive. These bees were starved for sustenance. They also lacked their queen, who normally provided a calming influence. These bees were part of the scout team to look for a new home. Normally this interim stop in their journey would be a place to rest and send out new scouts to find the most suitable place for a home. But something was wrong with these bees. Right now they were pissed off.
The rider-mower engine rumbled under the sycamore tree. The man had some strong cologne on which mixed with his sweat and permeated the immediate area. The bees were further annoyed by this smell. Then a stick snapped in the blades of the lawnmower and it made a loud crack as it split in two. That was the final straw.
The man on the rider-mower didn’t notice the swarm as it moved out of the hollow of the tree and targeted him. The bees hovered above his head, drawn to the smell of his cologne and the carbon dioxide emerging from his mouth. Then they pounced. First hundreds, then thousands of bees landed on the exposed flesh of the man. Caught off guard, he looked down at his bare legs and arms, covered with the workers and scouts who proceeded to sting him.
He swatted at the bees but that didn’t help. More landed on him. They stung his face repeatedly. In the chaos he hopped off the rider-mower. But he forgot to turn off the engine or set the brake. The bees continued to sting him and he brushed them off his skin. He didn’t notice that the rider-mower was still moving. The mower rolled over his foot. The blade sliced his instep causing him unimaginable pain. He fell to the ground, wincing as the mower rolled away.
Blood flowed onto the freshly cut lawn. In this moment, when he should have been running for his life, the man lay on the ground, writhing. Hundreds of bees swarmed over him. Then thousands. The man screamed for help, but his cries were drowned out by the loud mower engine.
The driverless lawnmower kept moving, cutting the lawn on a diagonal, past the side of the house towards the front lawn. It plowed forward until it met the street curb. There it plunged over the edge and got stuck spinning its wheels half on the lawn and half on the asphalt. Across the street a tall, bearded driver sat in his car with binoculars, watching this spectacle. The driver had an unusual costume on. It was a padded jumper suit, not unlike the kind that beekeepers used. On the car seat next to this driver was a beekeeper’s helmet.
The driver stared at the man writhing on the ground underneath the tree. As the man screamed, the driver revved his engine loudly to drown out the sound. The man went silent again. He barely moved now. The driver watched, almost as if he were counting how many bee stings the man was receiving.
It was as if this driver knew that an average adult could safely tolerate ten stings per pound of body weight. Of course, if that person were bleeding out, they would tolerate fewer stings. 1000 stings would put them in a danger zone. The driver in the beekeeper’s jumper took another look at the body of the lawnmower man and saw that he was not moving. He was not screaming. The driver put down his binoculars and drove off.
***
The horizon gleamed with the morning sun as it loomed over San Francisco. This was not the San Francisco of cable cars, the Transamerica pyramid or the Golden Gate bridge. This was San Francisco Mountain, the highest point in Arizona, just north of the Grand Canyon. It was springtime and the pastures below the mountain were fresh with moisture from the spring thaw. State Route 67 had been closed to vehicle traffic for the winter and, with the recent opening, people were making pilgrimages back to the park.
Kelso Bagley, Special Agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, dismounted his bicycle and surveyed the nearby fauna. This was his favorite time of year, when the wildflowers began blooming in earnest. He found the flowers beautiful, but he was more interested in what they drew to the area: butterflies. The butterflies would emerge from their pupa and spread wings of beauty as they took to the skies in search of wildflower nectar. It was a majestic time, something he savored. But there was work to do and he couldn’t be lollygagging around chasing butterflies. Or so he thought.
Kelso had received a report that poachers were casing the area a few days ago and so he was on high alert. He began his normal surveillance rounds this fine morning around 8AM. He took to the trails on his mountain bike and searched for any anomalies or signs of possible illegal activity. The area was home to desert bighorn sheep, mule deer, mountain lions, coyotes, gray fox, and a large variety of reptiles, birds and rodents, but he was not here for the big game.
He rode down a coyote path towards a large grove of Lomatium Parryi growing out of the sandstone. Lomatium Parry, also known as Parry’s biscuit-root is a member of the carrot (apiaceae) family. It has leaves around its base with thick, reddish-green stems topped by tiny yellow flowers at the end of thin green stalks.
Kelso knew this was where the poachers would lurk. He knew their prey fed on this particular shrub. He staked out the location for an hour of two, kept a safe distance on a butte up above and looked down on the thicket with his binoculars. But no one came. He went back to the grove and photographed the area thoroughly so when he came back he could tell if any humans had visited.
Kelso got back on the bike and rode a trail very close to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Here another blanket of biscuit-root with succulent flowers bloomed fervently above a path that led to the North Rim of the canyon. Nearby caves had been closed to the public because many Indiana Jones wannabees had gone to explore these dangerous perches based on rumors the caves led to vast manmade catacombs with gold Egyptian artifacts in them.
Kelso set up shop in some scrub brush and took out his binoculars. There was no one near the biscuit-root patch but it was early yet. He slumped down onto the ground using his backpack as a pillow. He stared at the ground beneath him. Near the main stalk of the shrub was a tarantula, basking in the shade. Most people would be scared of this creature and back away, but not Kelso. He was intrigued. He stuck out his finger near the tarantula and the arachnid crawled up his arm. The critter was a Grand Canyon black tarantula, known for its black body hair and the reddish/orange tuft on its abdomen. The tarantula kept moving up his arm, past his elbow, towards his bicep. When it arrived there, he lightly stroked its back with his index finger.
As Kelso remained captivated by his newfound friend, some leaves rustled near the biscuit-root. A stocky man wearing desert camouflage gear verged off the path and stared at some of the many Kaibab Indra Swallowtail butterflies who sipped at the nectar of the yellow flower clusters. They fluttered about in ecstasy at their first sips of this nourishment. They were creatures of beauty: azure blue patches adorned their dorsal hindwings along with orange eyespots. The stocky camo man counted to himself the number of butterflies hovering. He didn’t seem terribly captivated by their beauty. Rather he was making some sort of calculation and he seemed really happy about that.
Camo guy removed his backpack and pulled out an aerosol can. He pulled the cap off the can and raised it, as if he were going to engage in an act of graffiti. Maybe he was going to paint the ground like landscapers do to mark locations? But who needed a landscaper out here? Mother Nature was the only landscaper allowed in the area. Maybe it was a can of insect repellent? Maybe he was going to spray his arms and legs to repel biting mosquitoes? Only there were no mosquitoes or even gnats in the area. There was no standing water for them. All the water had seeped into the ground. The camo man put his finger on the trigger of the can.
Kelso heard the rustling of the backpack and gently put down the desert tarantula. He grabbed his binoculars and trained them on the camo man. He couldn’t make out what the label said on that spray can. But he caught one glimpse of one part of the label which read:
Bomb
“Hey!” he yelled at the man in the camouflage. “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Officer! Do not make a move!”
But it was too late. The man depressed the button on the top of the can and immediately a fog of insecticide sprayed and dispersed, forming a toxic cloud in the air over the beautiful biscuit-root flowers. The butterflies, so hungry for their first tastes of nectar post-chrysalis flew into this fog. It killed them immediately on contact. They dropped to the ground and the camo man smiled. He pulled out a specimen case and began to lift convulsing butterflies up with tweezers.
The Kaibab Swallowtail was a rare butterfly and considered an endangered species regionally, as its habitat and source of nectar was under constant threat of extinction from drought and human encroachment. Unfortunately, the fact that it was rare made it a trophy for unscrupulous collectors. Its beauty was renowned and it fetched a high price, inspiring various rings of butterfly poachers to go out of their way to collect it. They did not necessarily subscribe to Kelso’s philosophy of the “butterfly effect,” stated so proudly by Jeff Goldblum in the movie Jurassic Park. “A butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine.” Many people did not believe in this interconnectedness. But Kelso believed the butterflies were that important and the loss of even one species could be catastrophic.
Kelso hopped out of the scrub brush and sprinted towards the man. His blue windbreaker bearing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife logo flapped in the wind. “Stop!” he yelled as he barreled through the bushes. Camo man sprang to his feet and grabbed his specimen box, leaving quite a few of the butterflies on the ground. He scampered off down a coyote trail.
Camo man headed towards a path that led off the North rim down into the Grand Canyon. Kelso knew he had to stop him before he made it that far. If the man could make it into the canyon there were a number of caves for him to hide in. It would make it very difficult to find him. Kelso would have to call in back-up and he didn’t want to do that. Outside law enforcement resources were not usually happy to be called in on a bust like this.
Kelso decided he would flank the poacher. He sprinted up an embankment that looked over the path leading to the North Rim. He looked down as the poacher skulked towards the trailhead that led down into the canyon. This guy was not intimidated – he must have known that the path connected with several coyote trails that would lead back up and out. Kelso had one chance to stop this guy. It was now or never.
He leapt off the embankment and came down hard directly on camo man. He hit the dirt and Kelso bent the man’s right arm behind him as he fumbled for his handcuffs. “Federal Agent. You’re under arrest for the poaching of endangered species.”
“Butterflies, really? You think the DA will prosecute?” the poacher asked tauntingly. “He’s got much bigger fish to fry than me.”
Kelso opened the specimen box of dead Kaibab Swallowtails. He grimaced at the carnage. These creatures’ lives had been ended much too soon. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t,” Kelso replied. “But how would you like someone to do this to you?” He pointed at the pins which held several of the butterflies’ wings in place.
He lifted up the cuffed man by his shirt collar and fastened his canvas shirt to the pole that marked the North Rim trailhead. The man’s feet dangled. “I’m on a bicycle so I have to call in a ranger vehicle to come pick you up. Sometimes it takes them two to three hours.”
“You’re going to leave me here? You can’t do that!”
“Watch me.”
“This is abuse! Cruel and unusual punishment!”
“Word to the wise. If any crows start hovering? Don’t fall asleep. People have been known to wake up with their noses chewed off!” Kelso walked off into the morning sun with the specimen case.
***
The LAPD Admin building loomed over the skyline. It looked more like a financial center than a police headquarters, its gleaming glass and concrete borders stood in stark contrast to the art deco Los Angeles City Hall, just west by a city block or two. Duke, also known more officially as Detective (level 1) John Alan Wayne, sat inside a tenth-floor interview room looking out over East Los Angeles. He could see his favorite taco stand from there: King Taco. Hungry taco connoisseurs queued up for the carne asada and al pastor. If Duke weren’t so nauseated by this proceeding he would be hungry. “I was driving north on La Brea Avenue when a green Toyota Camry headed towards me at ninety miles per hour. He ran a red light at Third Street. A patrol unit was in pursuit,” he told the Internal Affairs Investigator.
“So there you were, in an unmarked vehicle, and you felt the need to join the pursuit?” the IAD officer asked in a soft, gentle voice. She was an attractive blonde-haired woman with piercing eyes. The IAD always hires these types, Duke thought to himself. They want to put you at ease, make you feel like you might have a chance with her, maybe even cry on her shoulder. This is how they get you to slip up, confess something you wouldn’t ordinarily confess to a more confrontational type of interrogator.
“I placed my flasher on top of the vehicle and turned it on to ID myself.” Duke kept speaking in a monotone voice, hoping to bore the woman, maybe put her to sleep. He had been through the story countless times already, no need to add any intonations or vocal accents to enhance the experience.
“But nonetheless you felt the need to join the pursuit, without command authorization?” She ran a hand through her golden locks so that it perched on her shoulders. Was this a ploy, he wondered? Or maybe she really was bored.
“I felt like I might be able to assist the patrol unit to end the pursuit,” Duke went on. IAD typed this into her tablet. Really? She had to type in his answer? She had heard it at least ten times before.
“And you did not call it in,” she finished his sentence for him. He hated people that did not give him a chance to finish answering a question.
“I did not have time. It was a split-second decision.”
“So you figured you would re-enact the plot of The Fast and The Furious?”
“I was trying to prevent them from street racing, not participate, ma’am.”
She paused as she swiped through some document pages on her tablet. She kept swiping the same page over and over. It had some kind of glitch obviously. She gave up and dropped the tablet to the desk. “You could have fooled me. The chase continued at speeds above eighty miles per hour on surface streets.”
“The objective was to corral him into the crash cushions at the median on Highland Avenue where it meets the 101 Freeway.”
IAD raised her eyebrow. “Was this mission objective given approval by the watch commander via dispatch?”
“No, ma’am. There was no time.”
“You could have killed innocent bystanders,” she replied.
“But we didn’t. The perp hit the crash attenuator at sixty miles per hour and it safely brought the vehicle to a stop with only minor injuries,” Duke added, defending himself. Then he reached for his glass of water and took a sip.
“You violated command protocol and put the driver of the patrol unit at unnecessary risk.” Duke’s hand slipped and the glass of water tumbled onto the table. The IAD picked her tablet up so it would not be soaked by the pooling liquid.
“But nothing happened to him. We stopped the perp and he’s in custody.” This guy had two priors for assault and one for domestic violence. Isn’t it a good thing he is off the streets?
“The city didn’t hire you to be a vigilante, Detective Wayne. Nor did they ask you to join in on the anti-street racing task force. That’s not your job.”
“I try to stop crime wherever I see it, ma’am. Just runs in my veins, I guess.”
“Well maybe you need a blood transfusion. If you had harmed someone, the city would be on the hook for millions in damages.”
“But no one was harmed.”
“You got lucky.”
“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity, ma’am.” Duke’s phone pinged and he glanced at it. “Are we done here? Captain wants a word with me.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. Considering I’m on administrative leave, he probably wants me to change out the water cooler bottle or sweep the floor or something.”
