The Koala of Death

by Betty Webb

  “Okay, Wanchu, we’re headed home,” I called as I cinched my seat belt. Hearing an answering “Eeep,” I pulled out of the parking lot.

  Rush hour being well over I made it through town to the Gunn Landing turnoff with little trouble, and we were soon cruising along Bentley Road toward the zoo. The road was deserted by now and, since the gentle dusk of evening had segued into full dark, I flipped on the van’s brights. My surroundings were invisible beyond the headlights’ arc, but to my right lay the remnants of the old Bentley cattle ranch, now reduced to a strip of pastureland. A mile further back from the pasture was Bentley Heights, the ticky-tacky housing development that so offended the Gunns. On the other side of the road stood the tall blue gum eucalyptus forest that bordered the Gunn family vineyards. Not only did the trees provide meal after meal for Wanchu and her mate, but it created a refuge for wildlife, too.

  My headlights suddenly illuminated a doe and her fawn standing in the middle of the road. I stood on the brakes, and the van’s tires screeched for several teeth-clenching yards before stopping mere inches from the doe’s shining eyes. Oblivious to their near-death experience, the two deer bounded across the blacktop and into the trees.

  “You okay back there?” I called to Wanchu.

  No answer. Just more gnawing of koala teeth on eucalyptus leaves.

  As I pressed the accelerator, I said, “Glad to hear you’re fine, Wanchu. Just stay settled down, and we’ll reach the zoo in about fifteen minutes. After you’re tucked into your night house, I’ll…”

  Headlights behind me, approaching fast. Someone was in a hurry.

  Slowing my speed, I edged over to the right to give the driver room to pass. Not wanting to blind him, I dimmed my lights. He, not so courteous, flipped on his brights. He didn’t even slow down. When the car closed the distance between us much too quickly, I began to worry. Drunk driver?

  I edged even further to the side, so much so that the tires on the passenger’s side crunched on gravel. This maneuver should have given the other driver room to pass.

  It didn’t.

  Before I could grasp what was happening, the car slammed into the van’s bumper.

  My hands clenched around the steering wheel while I fought to keep the van on the road. Out of the rear-view mirror, I saw the car back off several yards, then speed up again as if aiming purposely for the van.

  Attempts at evasion having failed, I floored the accelerator to get as much speed out of the van as possible, but it wasn’t enough. The car’s bumper made contact again, this time even harder. The van lurched forward, and I was thrown against the seat.

  “Eeeeeeep!” Wanchu shrieked.

  “Hang on, girl!” I shouted.

  As I prepared for another rear-end assault, the driver changed tactics. Instead of aiming for my bumper, he dropped back several feet, then sped up and pulled alongside me. It was a Mercedes almost twice the size of my mother’s, and although I couldn’t see its driver, I knew who it was.

  Ford Bronson.

  The man who had killed Kate and Heck.

  The man who only a few nights ago had tried to kill me.

  For a few seconds we sped neck-and-neck along the narrow blacktop, then he dropped back again, but this time, not all the way. Before I could even gasp, the Mercedes swerved sharply to the right and hit the van’s rear left fender so hard that the van began to spin. The steering wheel wrenched itself out of my grasp, and I lost all control. Seemingly in slo-mo, the van toppled over and slid on its roof straight along the pavement, lighting up the night in a shower of sparks.

  During the roll, the van’s rear doors popped open. Still suspended upside down by my seatbelt, I could only watch, horrified, as Wanchu’s carrier tumbled end over end, out the door, and onto the blacktop.

  “Oh, Wanchu!” I grieved, briefly distracted from my own perilous situation.

  My grief was short-lived. The van continued to slide, but by the time it came to rest facing back in the direction of San Sebastian, its still-working headlights illuminated a terrified koala scampering across the road toward the eucalyptus forest.

  At least one of us would make it, then. But I’d try for two.

  With shaking fingers, I unlocked the seat belt, dropped to the roof of the van, and staggered across the road in Wanchu’s wake. No point in waiting for help. None of the keepers working the marathon lived in this direction, nor did any of the guest stars. The keepers who’d needed to return animals to the zoo had already done so, then taken the zoo’s rear exit toward their apartments in Castroville. At this time of night, chances were good that no other cars would come this way.

  No help would come from Gunn Castle, either. It was still at least three miles away, atop the crest of a steep hill.

  I was on my own.

  To a certain extent, luck was with me. Other than a few scrapes and sore spots, I hadn’t sustained major injuries in the crash. Also, as Bronson’s car had hurtled forward, its speed had sent it a hundred yards further down the road. By the time he got turned around, I’d almost reached the trees.

  Almost.

  Brakes squealed and a bullet buzzed past me as I fled in a zigzag pattern across the grass verge. Another shot. The gunshots sounded deafening, giving me hope that a Bentley Heights homeowner wouldn’t mistake them for a car’s backfire and decide to call the police. Then again, those houses were more than a mile away…For the first time in my life, I wished that Bentley Heights was closer to Bentley Road and that—pasturage be damned—the houses marched right down to the blacktop.

  That heretic thought disappeared the moment I entered the protective gloom of the forest. It had been dark on the road, but the darkness intensified a hundredfold under the blue gums’ broad canopies. Plunging deeper into the forest, I soon realized that the darkness alone wasn’t enough to protect me. Blue gums are big shedders; their bark peels off in long, narrow strips, littering the ground. A thick carpet of the things snapped under my feet, providing an easy sound track for Bronson to follow. At least my cell phone was set to vibrate—not that my “Born Free” ringtone would be noisier than this crackling forest floor.

  As I ran deeper into the woods, all the time angling up a rise in the vague direction of Gunn Castle, concern for my own safety blurred with concern for Wanchu. The koala had never lived in the wild, and thus never learned how to survive on her own. Yes, given the thick eucalyptus forest she wouldn’t go hungry. Water presented no problem, either. But Central California nights were cold and damp, which is why we had placed a heating lamp in her night house.

  And then there was the traffic problem.

  For a while Wanchu would be content to stay in one tree, but at some point she would decide to move, perhaps even to check out strange scents on the other side of the blacktop. Bentley Road might be deserted most of the night, but come morning it would be a different story. If the koala decided to cross the road at the same time as a car sped along…

  No, I couldn’t think about that, just what was happening now, that a murderer was intent upon making me his third victim.

  Because of my labor-intensive job I was in good shape, but Bronson had run the Boston Marathon in little more than three hours, his endurance matched by considerable speed. My chances of making it to the safety of Gunn Castle weren’t good, but I saw no other option. I certainly couldn’t hide. Since so little sunlight had managed to reach the forest floor, there was not much undergrowth to be found. I saw no friendly thickets, no stands of low-branched pines, nothing but eucalyptus. So I ran on, each gasping breath rivaling my footsteps for noise.

  “Hey, Teddy, I just want to talk!” Bronson called, his voice full of cheer. “Those were just warning shots. We can work this out.”

  Said the cat to the mouse.

  I didn’t bother answering, just picked up the pace.

  A new difficulty presented itself. Despite my resolve to head toward Gunn Castle, I realized there was no such thing as running in a straight line. Men had planted the blue
gums in even rows a century ago, but over the years the trees had seeded themselves in random patterns; my surroundings resembled a maze more than an orderly orchard. While dodging around this tree trunk and that, I caught myself in the act of making too many right turns. If the incline toward the castle had been steady, all that dodging around wouldn’t matter; I could keep my bearings by continuously heading uphill. But nature stymied me there, too. I was on rolling terrain, with rising and lowering elevations sometimes subtle enough to be near-undetectable. After my last right turn, I belatedly realized I was headed down, not up. Was I running back to the highway, where I would present an easy target for a killer?

  My labored breaths began to sound like sobs.

  Bronson didn’t sound at all winded. Only a few yards behind me, he called, “Give it up, Teddy! You know you can’t outrun me!”

  I turned to the left and felt some satisfaction when the ground began to slope upwards, ushering me into a thick stand of newer blue gums. The trees loomed like massive charcoal pillars against the night’s black velvet, as close together as lovers, so close that I…

  Ran straight into one.

  As I fell, a shriek escaped my lips.

  It was answered by a laugh. “Hurt yourself? Here, let me kiss it and make it well.”

  Another laugh.

  He was enjoying this.

  I tasted blood. The sandpaper bark had ripped along my face, but worse damage occurred when I’d fallen face down on a rock. The pain told me my nose was probably broken, that I’d look like Robin Chase in the morning.

  If I ever saw the morning.

  I scrambled to my feet, not only winded, but dizzy, too. There was no way I would make it to Gunn Castle, no way to summon help, no way to…

  “Ready or not, here I come!”

  This was just a game to Bronson, a game he’d play to win.

  But I refused to lose without a fight.

  Kneeling back down, I searched through the bark strips and found the rock that had damaged my face. I raised it…

  And heard something crashing through the forest toward me.

  From the other direction.

  While I stood there with the rock in my hand, a doe and her fawn—the deer I had braked for earlier?—dashed past me, making an ungodly racket as they fled up the slope. Fooled, Bronson chased after them. Using the resulting noise as cover, I stumbled along in the opposite direction, finally clearing the stand of new growth and entering a grove in the older section of the forest where the blue gums’ trunks were thick enough to hide behind.

  That was all I could do, now. Hide until found.

  Bronson would eventually realize his mistake and double back. When he did, well…

  I was too sore and tired to run any further.

  Kneeling behind the largest eucalyptus in the grove—a monster whose trunk was as wide as a car door—I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. Flipped it open. Got a signal. Hunching over so the light from the display wouldn’t give my presence away, I speed-dialed Joe.

  Got voice mail.

  Punched in another number. Heard the ring.

  Then…

  “San Sebastian Sheriff’s Department. Deputy Ralph Lazlo speaking.”

  “It’s Teddy,” I whispered. “Don’t say anything, just let me talk.” I told him where I was and how I’d come to be there, told him to dispatch cruisers down Bentley Road, told him Helen had proof, told him…

  The nearby snapping of dried blue gum bark signaled that my time was up.

  “My, my, Teddy. If I’d had a rifle, I’d be dining on venison tonight,” Bronson chortled, less than a few yards from my hiding place. “Oh, well. Another time.”

  “Teddy, is that…?” Ralph began.

  “Shhh,” I shushed Ralph. The fact that he’d heard Bronson’s shout gave me an idea.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” my pursuer called.

  I placed the cell down as close to the tree trunk as possible and covered its glowing screen with leaves and bark. Then I cleared the remaining bark strips away from the tree so that I’d be able to move around silently. I picked up my rock. If he liked to play, we’d play.

  “Don’t come near me, Ford Bronson!” I yelled, making myself sound more terrified than resigned. Not that it was difficult.

  “Gave yourself away, didn’t you?” More laughter. The suave golf partner to presidents had long since disappeared, leaving behind the heartless predator he truly was. As Bronson stepped from behind a tree almost as large as my own, I saw a faint gleam of white shirt. He’d always been a snappy dresser.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you now, Teddy,” he said.

  “I’ve got a rock!”

  “Teddy’s got a rock! Ooooh, I’m so scared!”

  “It’s a b-big rock!”

  White teeth flashed as he erupted into laughter. “Oh, I’ll bet it’s big. But guess what, sweetheart, my gun is even bigger! And if you think the shots will make those folks in the Castle come running, think again. You’re so stupid you doubled back on yourself! We’re almost at our starting point, so they won’t hear a thing.”

  Considering the gravity of my situation, it wasn’t too hard to fake sobs. “Why, B-B-Bronson? Why are you doing this? I thought we were f-f-friends.”

  “You know why.” At least he stopped laughing.

  “No, I d-don’t!” I wailed. The helpless female act might make him drop his guard.

  “Oh, c’mon, Teddy. I heard you on your cell phone down at the station. I was leaving my office, but when I opened the door, there you were in the hall, yammering away to someone about piracy.”

  “Piracy?” I thought fast. “I was t-talking about that oil t-tanker off the coast of S-Somalia!”

  A sigh. “Give me a break. You were talking about software piracy, so stop trying to pretend you weren’t. What I want to know is, who were you talking to?”

  This was good, very good. He wanted to know so he could kill them, too. “All r-right. I won’t lie. I was t-talking to the s-sheriff!”

  He started laughing again. “You think I can’t tell when a woman is talking to her lover? You were talking to a friend, and it wasn’t about some oil tanker. I don’t know how you did it, but you figured out why I killed Kate, didn’t you? Fess up, Teddy, or I’ll shoot you in the kneecap first. Then the other one. Then…Believe me when I tell you that you will die slow.” He jiggled the gun up and down for emphasis.

  Time to play the game in earnest. If nothing else, the delay would buy me time—not that it would be enough. I gave a couple of loud sniffles. “Figuring it out w-wasn’t all that hard.”

  “Hmmm. I’ve changed my mind. If you tell me who you were talking to, I won’t shoot you. Hell, I won’t hurt you, or your friend, whoever she was. And yes, I’m betting it was a ‘she,’ because I didn’t hear any sexual tension.” His tone was sly.

  “P-promise?”

  “Promise. I’ll just…Let me see, if I remember correctly, your father escaped to Costa Rica. Maybe that’s where I should go. I hear the weather’s nice.”

  Pretending to believe him, I took a deep breath and began. “I found the key to Kate’s storage unit on her boat, so I drove to Oakland…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard about your little excursion at the party. What I want to know is, what exactly did you find, and who did you tell?”

  “I found old computers. Discs and printouts. A big stack of Kate’s father’s software programs, including the one you stole and founded SoftSol with—the PCIFS, the Personal Computer InterFile Search.”

  Bronson grunted. “Nice try, but no cigar. Tyler didn’t bother to copyright it, so there was no piracy. Didn’t know that, did you? That little money-maker was just sitting around in his crappy workshop, gathering dust. The hippie fool had no head for business, so I just snuck into his workshop and copied the discs. No problem there, since his workshop was actually my parents’ garage. Is that a riot, or what? A few years later, I copyrighted the program myself, mak
ing it legally mine. Tyler could whine all he wanted, but it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Over the year, he eventually forgot about it.”

  Bronson moved closer. “Old history. My company’s sold and leased hundreds of software programs since then. Even if Kate had taken me to court and won—which is doubtful, because my attorneys would have tied the case until the end of time—I’d still have billions left over.”

  “S- so why kill her?” As if I didn’t know.

  This time the sound that emerged from his mouth resembled a growl more than a laugh. “Don’t play coy with me, Teddy. You said it yourself. Loss of face. An antiquated term, but hey, I run with some pretty important people, and reputation means everything in those circles. Why should I let that greedy little bitch threaten that?”

  Because Kate wanted the money for her sick father’s care, you heartless monster. “Okay, I understand. But why kill Heck?”

  “Are you dense? Because he and Kate were thick as thieves. I couldn’t take any chances.”

  Keep him talking. As long as he’s talking, he’s not shooting. “Was that you who shot at me the other night?”

  “Aren’t you the smart one!” With that, he ambled casually toward my tree, secure in his triumph.

  My cue.

  As I slipped the cell phone from its hiding place under the forest debris, I whined, “You promised not to hurt me as long as I told you who I was talking to!”

  “Oops, I forgot. Say, I’ve got an even better idea. Let’s compromise and have a little fun. Who knows? You might even like it. Then you can tell me. After that…”

  I sidled to the left. With the tree trunk still sheltering my body, I stretched out my left arm, revealing the cell phone and its lighted display. “See this? It’s an open line to the sheriff’s office. They’ve heard everything.”

  At that, Deputy Ralph Lazlo shouted loudly enough that every deer in the forest could probably hear him. “Bronson! Touch that woman and you’re a dead man!”

  The glee vanished from Bronson’s face. “Teddy, you bitch!”

  Time’s up.

  I threw the rock with all my might. My aim was good, but not perfect. I’d wanted to hit him in the face. Instead, the rock bounced off the side of his head. While the blow didn’t knock him out, it did make him stumble backwards, where he stepped on…