by Diane Kelly
We exited the courtyard and circled around the outside of the savanna habitat. As we approached the fence, a bird swept down and plucked the liver treat from the top of it. Probably should’ve marked the spot with something inedible.
I led Brigit to the panel of fencing and again issued her the order to trail. She put her nose to the ground and snuffled around before sniffing her way up the fence. Dropping her snout back to the ground, she set off, we mere humans in her wake. Though she lost the trail a few times at places where one pathway intersected with another and led us in a few inadvertent circles and figure eights, she eventually picked the trail back up each time. My partner’s nose is the best in the biz.
In the end, she led us past all of the exhibits, past the garbage and storage areas at the rear of the zoo property, until she stopped at the back fence where the zoo gave way onto an older upscale neighborhood. Once again, welding marks were visible on the fence supports. Brigit earned two more liver treats and a two-handed scratch at that special spot at the base of her tail. She wolfed down the treats and closed her eyes in pure doggie bliss as I dug my nails into her fur.
Bustamente turned to the CSO. “You got cameras on this area?”
“We do.”
He led us a dozen yards away to a metal pole that stood around ten feet tall. A camera was mounted on the end of it. The lens was coated with what appeared to be snow, but the temperature was in the upper forties and we’d had no flurries.
“Dammit!” spat the CSO. “What is that stuff covering the camera?”
As the men squinted upward, trying to figure it out, I realized what the substance was. “It’s flocking. You know, the artificial snow that’s sprayed on store windows and Christmas trees?” Heck, they’d used gallons of the stuff to decorate the store windows at the mall.
The detective sighed. “So much for the camera footage.”
Even if we couldn’t obtain actual video of the thieves, at least we had determined the methods they’d used to access the springbok and move it off the zoo property. Still, while we’d figured out how the thieves had committed this crime, the biggest question remained.
Who?
THIRTY
INS AND OUTS
Brigit
When Megan had first asked her to trail from that gate, Brigit had picked up the disturbance caused by Megan, Detective Bustamente, and those other people from the zoo. But Brigit was smart enough to know that Megan didn’t want her to follow that trail and lead them right back to themselves. They already knew where they were. So she led Megan on the much lighter trail, the one she could barely detect, the one that was even more difficult to follow once they were out in the main part of the zoo where so many people had walked back and forth, interfering with the scent. It had taken all of her concentration, but Brigit had managed to pick it up again each time she lost it.
From the scent trails left where the thieves had come in and out of the zoo, she could tell that two men had come into the zoo alone, and that they’d left with one of those animals with the horns. Brigit thought it might be nice to have a pair of pointy horns like that hooved creature. If she had horns, she’d be able to scratch that sweet spot at the base of her tail herself.
THIRTY-ONE
FAIR SHARE
The Poacher
They hooked up at a gas station in the town of Temple, making it about a two-hour drive for each of them. But while he didn’t mind going halfway when it came to driving, he’d decided on the drive down that going halfsies on the cash wasn’t fair. The Poacher had done all the work, taken all the risks. He’d bought the equipment, paid the assistant, too. Delivered the antelope to that rancher out in Glen Rose. All his prison buddy had done was make a few phone calls. He should get half the take for that?
He handed the envelope over.
His buddy opened it, counted the money inside, and looked up at him, slack-jawed. “What are you trying to pull, man? There should be two grand in here. Where’s the other half of my money?”
“Twenty-five percent is more than fair!” the Poacher snapped. “I had to do all the real work, and I nearly got caught by a security guard last night.” Okay, so he was exaggerating. The guy had sniffed the air and moved on. Still, he could have gotten caught and, even though the guard had eventually walked away, the Poacher had spent a few seconds in utter terror. “All you’ve done is dial some numbers and talk to people.”
The guy’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. “If I didn’t talk to those people, there’d be no deal. You’d have nothing! Thanks to me, you’ve got thousands of dollars in your pocket.”
The Poacher snorted. “I got less than two grand in my pocket. I dropped eight hundred on the trailer.” It was the cheapest one he could find and pocked with hail damage, but it got the job done. “I had to buy supplies and pay a lookout, too. You’re coming out pretty good, bro.”
That seemed to shut his buddy up. The guy tucked the envelope into his back pocket and raised his hands. “All right, man. We’re cool.”
The Poacher returned to his truck. A ding came from his pocket, along with a jiggle. He pulled out his cell phone to find a text from Harper—or, as he’d listed her in his contacts, Squirt.
I love you Daddy! I love my phone too!
He felt his mouth spread in an involuntary smile. Stealing those animals had been illegal. But if he’d done it to make his daughter happy, he wasn’t a bad man.
Was he?
THIRTY-TWO
PRESS CONFERENCES AND PRESSURE COOKERS
Megan
We left the zoo, and soon my butt was back in the same fake-leather wing chair in the chief’s office where I had sat as he’d chewed me out for Tasering Derek. This time, the detective sat in a matching chair next to me. The oversized chief sat on the other side of his oversized desk in an oversized chair. A veritable zoo of animal heads stared over his shoulder with their unseeing glass eyes. Creepy and ironic. I averted my gaze from the chief’s collection of carnage.
“Good God a’mighty,” he muttered. “What’s that on your hands, Officer Luz?”
I cringed. “It’s a Valentine’s manicure, sir. I wasn’t supposed to be working today.”
“You expect to fight crime looking like a fairy princess?” Before I could respond, he barked. “What’s going on over at that zoo? And what’s with the people of this city? They’re as worked up over that monkey as they are when a child goes missing. And now we’ve got some kind of deer gone. Thank heavens Christmas is over or we’d be accused of letting one of Santa’s reindeer be kidnapped.”
Despite his hyperbole, and his incorrectly referring to the springbok as a deer rather than an antelope, he had a point. People had accused the department of not doing enough to find Sarki. As I’d been writing a woman a speeding ticket a few days ago, she’d hissed, “You’re out here giving innocent people a hard time when you should be looking for that monkey!” Innocent, my ass. Though I had to admit I would’ve much rather been looking for Sarki than working traffic duty. Another person had pulled to the curb at Forest Park as I’d let Brigit out to relieve herself. “When are y’all gonna find that poor monkey?” he’d demanded. As soon as my dog finishes taking her dump, I’d wanted to say. Instead, I’d said, “Soon, we hope.”
The public’s concern was the reason behind the press conference, which would begin as soon as we concluded our briefing. The chief needed to assure the public and the press that the department was doing all it could to bring the cuddly creatures back home.
The chief’s rant over, he looked to the detective. “Give me the poop, Hector.”
Detective Bustamente summarized our efforts and the evidence efficiently and effectively. “When the hyancinth macaws went missing, there wasn’t enough evidence to prove they’d been stolen. The zoo chalked it up to human error on the part of a custodian and didn’t file a report. When the monkey turned up gone, Officer Luz and I performed an inspection of the enclosure along with zoo staff. We found no obvious signs
of a break-in. The most likely scenario seemed to be an inside job, with the monkey being sold to a private collection, circus, roadside zoo, or somewhere out of the country. Officer Luz spent a lot of time trying to track the animals down online, and personally contacted all of the wildlife parks and pet stores in the area but had no luck. I interviewed zoo staff extensively, and both Officer Luz and I paid a visit to the custodian, but we came up with nothing. Today, Officer Luz noticed that the secured gates had been cut with a welding torch. Brigit trailed the thieves to an outer fence that had also been cut and welded back together.”
The chief took it all in, his head bobbing as he thought. “So whoever did this knows something about welding?”
“Looks that way,” Bustamente said. “Of course we told the zoo staff not to mention that fact to anyone. We don’t want word getting out that we know how the job was done. The thieves might skip town if they know we’re on to them.”
“Got it,” the chief said. “But the welding, that’s your only lead at this point?”
“Yes,” Bustamente admitted.
The chief grunted. “We’re in the middle of the oil patch here, not to mention all those planes being built over at Lockheed and the cars at the GM plant. We’re up to our balls in welders. Is there some other angle you can explore?”
I looked up in thought and there, looking back at me, was a hairy javelina with tusklike bottom teeth. A bobcat not much bigger than Zoe. A pronghorn antelope that looked remarkably similar to the stolen springbok.
“Oh, no!” I sat bolt upright in my seat. We’d assumed that whoever stole Fabiana, Fernando, and Sarki intended to sell them to a collector or zoo, but what if the thief intended to sell the springbok for sport? Rather than living out a life of leisure with its herd at the zoo, it could be pursued and killed by hunters it wouldn’t know to be wary of. After all, as a zoo animal, Dinari was accustomed to humans, trusted them. “Maybe the thieves are planning to sell the springbok for hunting!”
The chief steepled his fingers and frowned. “You could be on to something. Trophy hunters pay upward of thirty grand to shoot an African bongo. About half that for a wildebeest. A little under ten thousand for an Arabian oryx.”
The hunters didn’t have to travel to Africa or Arabia to do it, either. Thanks to the proliferation of canned hunting ranches throughout the state, they could kill these rare species in their own backyard.
The chief pulled a pen and a legal pad from his desk, plunked the pad down on the desktop, and held his pen aloft. “Give me some talking points for the press conference.”
We gave him a quick list of bullet points he could cover. The crime had taken place overnight. Given the type of animal that was taken this time, we suspected more than one person was involved and that a large vehicle, a truck, or trailer would have been needed for transporting the springbok. Crime scene techs were currently on-site looking for fingerprints the thieves might have left behind.
He looked up at me. “What’s that monkey’s name again? Snarky?”
“Sarki,” I said. “No n.”
He jotted it down. “Got it.” He turned his eyes on me. “Whatever you do, make sure your fingernails don’t show on camera.”
I flinched. “Yes, sir.”
With that, we headed down to the first-floor briefing room where press conferences were held. Two dozen reporters from local newspapers, radio, and television stations filled the chairs. Several more who’d been unable to snag a seat stood along the back wall beside a number of camera operators with equipment perched on their shoulders. A tech from the department’s PR office sat behind a projector that displayed a rotating series of photos on the screen at the front of the room. Hyacinth macaws, a colobus monkey, a springbok.
Derek stood in the front corner of the room, ostensibly to keep order. But I knew why he was really here. Because he was the chief’s hunting buddy and golden boy, and because having both a female K-9 team and an alpha male cop on the case would make good optics. The chief hadn’t risen through the ranks on his law enforcement skills alone. He had public relations acumen, too.
The chief took his place at the podium, while Derek, Detective Bustamente, Brigit, and I lined up behind him as a show of force. I kept both of my hands tightly curled around Brigit’s leash to hide my manicure. My stomach fluttered as if filled with tiny parakeets from the zoo’s Parrot Paradise exhibit. Press conferences could go either way, helping us or hurting us. Sometimes the press was the police department’s best partner in fighting crime and maintaining accountability when officers went astray. Other times they were a thorn in our side, making us look inept or worse. We had a love/hate relationship.
The chief launched into a short monologue, informing the press that yes, despite our increased patrols around the zoo, another animal had been snatched from under our noses. “I’ve assigned a team of my best people to relentlessly pursue those who’d dared to take Sarki and the other beloved creatures from their homes at the zoo.”
Best people? Aw, shucks. I somehow managed to blush and beam at the same time.
Trish LeGrande, a cheesecake reporter from Dallas with a breathy voice, pumpkin-spice hair, and a Texas-sized bosom, shot her hand into the air and stood, teetering on her stilettos. “Do you have any clues as to who might have committed these crimes?”
The chief’s response was intentionally vague. “We’re working some angles.”
“What angles exactly?” Trish demanded.
“I can’t give you more details at this time,” the chief said. “But I feel confident we’ll close in on the thieves soon.”
He hadn’t seemed so confident a few minutes ago in his office, but I knew he had to put on a brave face out here, to give the people hope.
The grilling began, reporters badgering the chief with essentially the same question slightly rephrased, as if he’d somehow be tricked into giving away his secrets. Eventually, the reporters gave up, and turned their attention to my partner.
Trish pointed a pink-tipped finger at Brigit. “Is that the K-9 who was shot recently?”
The chief confirmed. “Yes, it is.”
Trish tilted her head in a coy manner. “I can see that the fur on her chest hasn’t fully grown back yet. Isn’t it soon for her to be back on the job?”
The insinuation that I’d force Brigit back to work before she was ready cut to my core. I loved this precocious pooch with all my heart.
The chief responded with, “The dog’s handler can best answer those questions.”
Uh-oh. Is he expecting me to address a room of reporters? On live TV? I could face violent creeps on the job and barely bat an eye but, thanks to my unpredictable stutter, public speaking scared the heck out of me.
Chief Garelik glanced back at me and held out a hand to invite me to the podium. “Officer Luz?”
There was nothing I could do. My heart pounded and I willed my stutter to stay at bay as I stepped forward. The chief eased aside as I led Brigit to the podium. When the dog realized she couldn’t see anything from behind the large lectern, she stood on her back legs, put her front paws up on the top, and, as if to respond to the question herself, woofed into the microphone.
I raised a hand to indicate my partner. “You have your answer.”
The reporters chuckled. No doubt my partner’s impromptu performance would become the day’s sound bite.
I leaned into the microphone, speaking slowly. “Brigit is not only my partner and packmate, but she’s my best friend. If I’d had any concerns whatsoever about her b-being ready to return to work, I would not have allowed her back on duty. She’s very smart and very driven to do her job, and she let me know she was ready to resume patrol.” It was true. She’d quickly become bored being cooped up at home. All there was to do at the house was guard the backyard against squirrels. Squirrel patrol was the petty duty of mere house dogs.
Trish was relentless. “The bullet struck her chest. It was a serious injury. Surely it’s slowed her down some.”
I retreated and the chief resumed his place at the podium, responding to several more questions.
The final question, asked by a reporter from the local NPR radio station, was less forceful and more supportive. “What can the public do to help?”
“Several things,” the chief replied. “We ask anyone with security cameras who lives or runs a business in the vicinity of the zoo to share their footage from last night with us. They can also keep an eye out for these animals.” The chief pointed at the screen on which the springbok currently appeared. “Somebody out there has seen something, knows something. We ask that anyone with information call the number on the screen or 911. Thanks, folks.”
With that, he raised a hand in good-bye and left the podium. He passed us as he aimed for the door, commanding us under his breath, “Find those animals!”
As if we haven’t been putting enough pressure on ourselves. Now I felt like a pot roast in a pressure cooker. Lots of tension and lots of heat.
As Derek went to follow the chief, the detective grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. “You’re not just for show, Officer Mackey. Pay a visit to the businesses along University Drive near the zoo. Get their security tapes. Ditto for the houses on Winton Terrace. The thieves brought the springbok out of the back of the zoo where it borders the street. They must have parked there.”
As much as I despised Derek, adding a third person to the case would help us move the investigation along faster. For the sake of Fabiana, Fernando, Dinari, and sweet little Sarki, I’d suck it up and work with the jerk.
* * *
Detective Bustamente and I returned to his office at the station and holed up for a powwow. While we waited for Derek to round up the security camera footage, we needed to move ahead on the other two angles—the wildlife trafficking angle and the welding angle.