A Taste Fur Murder

by Lyle, Dixie

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Be better.” He glared at me for a second, and then looked away. “That’s what she always said to me. When I was a boy.” His voice had gotten softer. “It was never an accusation, though. Always an encouragement. She knew I could do better, most of the time. I just didn’t bother.”

  “Where were you, Oscar? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

  “Can’t you tell? I was drinking. As my sorrows have recently learned how to swim, drowning them requires not only complete immersion but holding them under the surface until they quit struggling.” He punctuated this statement with a hiccup, which took a little of the sheen off its elegance. “An inny case, my whereabouts are irrelevant. Where were you?”

  Doing my best to prevent this and failing was the honest answer, but what I said was, “Trying to figure out who poisoned Maria, actually. If I had, ZZ wouldn’t be in that bed.”

  Oscar looked befuddled. “Maria? She was poisoned?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Then … good God, Foxtrot. Have we all been poisoned?” He put a hand to his chest as if afraid his heart might suddenly decide to abandon ship.

  “No, Oscar. That’s highly unlikely. But whoever poisoned Maria and ZZ is most likely still here.”

  He scowled. “The grave digger. I knew it! That grimy, flea-infested Bohemian—”

  “I don’t think so, Oscar. Even if he and ZZ did have a thing, I can’t think of any reason for him to try to kill her—”

  “I can. Five million of them, in fact.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen Mother’s will, Foxtrot. She likes to pull it out from time to time and wave it under my nose to make sure I behave myself. There’s a stipulation in it—one I wasn’t meant to see, I’m sure—that when she dies one Franklin Cooper is to receive five million dollars from her estate. I’d say that’s plenty of motive to put her in an early grave, wouldn’t you?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Five million dollars.

  Oscar was right. That was more than enough incentive to bump someone off—but only if you were aware of that fact in the first place. “Does Cooper know?”

  “He must,” Oscar replied.

  “So you don’t know that for sure.”

  “Perhaps we should ask him. I say, old boy, did my mother happen to mention the contents of her will while you two were reliving the Summer of Love? Oh, you don’t recall? What with all the illicit reefer-sex while grooving to Jimi Joplin?”

  “I think you mean Janis Hendrix.”

  “Whomever. He’s not going to admit it, is my point.” Oscar staggered a little, and put his hand on the bed rail to steady himself.

  “You should go, Oscar. I’m looking after ZZ. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

  “Anything else, you mean.”

  Ouch. Still, I kind of deserved it. “Go. She’ll be fine.”

  Oscar nodded. He looked down at his mother, then away. He blinked a few times rapidly, then straightened himself and marched toward the door. His path there was a little crooked, but he managed. He left without having the last word, which was unusual for him.

  “All clear,” I said.

  Tiny squirmed out from underneath the bed. [What do you think? He seemed genuinely distraught.]

  “Yes, but why? Is it because his mother nearly died, or because he’s overcome with remorse for trying to kill her?”

  [You know the man better than I. All I can say for sure is he reeked of alcohol.]

  “Which is hardly out of character.” I shook my head. “Let’s get you re-introduced. I want you back here at your post as quickly as possible.”

  Smuggling him out of the room was easy. I headed straight for my car, and called Shondra as I walked. I told her I was bringing in some extra canine help, which she didn’t sound crazy about. “My guys can handle security, Foxtrot. A guard dog is overkill.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But the friend I got Tiny from made the offer, and since I have to take Tiny back today anyway, I said I’d give this new dog a chance.”

  “Your friend has a lot of dogs.”

  “He’s a miracle worker. You wouldn’t believe some of the pooches he works with. Circus dogs, trackers, search-and-rescue … they come to him smart, and leave smarter.”

  “So he’s a trainer?”

  “Kind of. Like a dog whisperer, but better. A dog babbler.”

  “If you say so…”

  It didn’t take me long—I just drove into town, stopped at a pet store to buy some supplies, and drove back again. Tiny shifted into his new rottweiler form and rode beside me in the passenger seat.

  “So, what do we call you now?”

  [Good question. What do you suggest?]

  “Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate.”

  [That does have a certain ring to it. Bit long, though.]

  “It’s from a Dr. Seuss story. How about we shorten it to just Zanzibar?”

  [Done.]

  Zanzibar was a much more serious dog than Tiny. He didn’t so much walk as prowl, his eyes alert and wary. I brought him inside, introduced him to the guards, and told them he was highly trained. “He won’t let you near ZZ, though, so don’t even try.”

  One of the guards, a muscular guy in his thirties with a mustache from the seventies, said, “What if there’s a medical emergency, or a fire?”

  “Then he’ll stand down.”

  The other guard, a stocky man with a blond crew cut, said, “Really? He’s that smart?”

  “You’d be amazed.”

  I assured them that I’d be back to walk and feed him, then put down a dog dish and water bowl. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” I told him.

  [I’ll be here.]

  I went downstairs and back outside.

  Tango? I thought.

  No answer. She must have been out of range. I walked around the grounds, calling her name in my head every few minutes until I got an answer.

  I found her at the edge of the animal enclosure, right next to the fence. She was staring up at Oswald the ostrich, who was staring right back.

  “Tango. I’ve got news, and it isn’t good—”

  Tango yawned. <’Scuse me. Late night.>

  I frowned. “You seem to be taking this in stride.”

 

  Well, there was a certain cold-blooded—and very feline—logic to that. “What have you come up with?”

 

  Oswald cocked his head to the side, as if he knew we were talking about him.

  “Him? You’re kidding. I don’t know how big his brain is, but I’m pretty sure the only things he has room for in it are identifying food and Houdini’s biography.”

 

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

 

  “Who?”

 

  “Male or female?”

 

  “Short? Tall? Fat? Thin?”

 

  “He can’t tell the sex or size, but ‘a little box that lights up’ he remembers?”

  Tango blinked and somehow made it seem like a shrug.

  “Okay,
so our mysterious two-legged person had a cell phone. So wha—” I stopped. “Wait. Maybe it wasn’t a cell phone.”

 

  I told her about the GEQ, Estevez’s arrest, and why Tiny and I thought he couldn’t be guilty. “If someone stole the controller out of Estevez’s room, they could have used the GEQ to commit the murder. Maybe that’s what Oswald saw.”

 

  Tango opened her mouth and emitted a series of short hisses, followed by a snort. Oswald puffed up his throat, then hissed and snorted back.

 

  I nodded. “Was the person with the box holding it in two hands or one?”

  More snorts, more hissing.

  Oswald interrupted her with more noise. Tango listened intently.

  “Why would he think—oh. The person he saw didn’t have it when they left.”

 

  “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I make a call within ten feet of him. You know what this means?”

 

  “Now who’s bitter? No, Tango—it means it’s possible they got rid of it in the menagerie. And it could still be there.”

 

  * * *

  The estate menagerie takes up a lot of real estate. It can accommodate animals both small and large, from lizards in terrariums to grazing bovines the size of a truck. I thought we should start with the bigger, nocturnal animals; they were the ones most likely to have seen something.

  We walked in through the path that led past Oswald’s enclosure. There were habitats on either side, but the animals they held had most likely been fast asleep when their late-night visitor strolled by.

  Then we came to an enclosure that held a plain, earthen burrow. I knew what was in it, just as I knew the animal was largely nocturnal. “Hey, Tango. How’s your Spotted Hyena?”

  Tango opened her mouth and emitted a series of most un-cat-like noises: groans, whoops, and a sort of giggle.

  We waited. After a moment there was an answering whoop from inside the burrow. A few seconds later, a sleepy-looking pair of eyes above a blunt snout poked out.

  I made a point of knowing which animals were present in the menagerie at any given time, even if I wasn’t all that well-versed on their finer points. I knew, for example, that spotted hyenas mostly slept during the day and made some pretty weird noises at night, but that was about it. I had vague notions about their behavior, but I’d be the first to admit my knowledge was largely drawn from Disney cartoons.

 

  I hesitated. The hyena stalked out of his den, stretching his hind legs one after the other like a cat, then shaking his head like a dog. He stared at me curiously.

  “Uh, I guess we should do introductions. Hi, I’m Foxtrot, and this is my translator, Tango.”

  Tango emitted more whoops, grunts, and a kind of chattering laugh. The hyena replied in kind, making it sound like two lunatics sharing a private joke.

 

  “No, but I’ll come by later with a nice juicy piece of raw meat.”

  More grunting and giggling. Bongo sat down, splayed her hind legs, and began licking herself just like a cat. When I saw what she was licking, I realized that she was a he after all, and any answers I got were going to be unreliable at best.

  “Okay, we’ll play by your rules. Did you see a human being walk past your pen late last night?”

 

  “I see. What did he do with the moon?”

 

  Dammit, I couldn’t even rely on Bongo using the right pronoun. But there must have been some truths buried in there, right? “What did she do then?”

 

  Terrific.

  Bongo turned around and padded back into his den.

  “This is my own fault,” I said. “I should have come prepared with bribes. Informants always want a payoff, right?”

 

  “True enough. I could wind up getting a confession from a greedy giraffe—Yeah, yeah, I drove over that guy with my pickup. Now hand over the bushel of acacia leaves.”

 

  “He, Tango. That was definitely a he. And I’m guessing he saw someone with a light source—maybe a cell phone, maybe the controller, maybe just a flashlight.”

 

  I sighed. “No, Tango, I’m saying he was screwing with us. You know, telling us a blatant lie right up front? The real question is, how much truth did he add to the mix.”

  Tango’s voice was getting that annoyed tone to it again.

  “But that’s exactly what Bongo did. He told us he was going to lie to us.”

 

  “Is this making your brain hurt, too?”

 

  “Good. Okay, let’s go with your scenario. Our friend Bongo is not only a pathologically honest liar, he’s a transsexual opportunist with a keen eye for giant dancing hippo fetishists. That work for you?”

 

  “You think I’m worked up now, wait until I chow down on some grasshoppers and turn myself into a penguin.”

 

  “Can we get back to finding the controller, please?’

 

  I strode down the path, Tango trotting behind me.

  The hippos—two of them—were no more than gray bumps sticking out of the water. I didn’t know a lot about hippos, either, but I did remember one interesting statistic Caroline tossed at me: Hippos were responsible for more deaths every year in Africa than any other animal. Plus, they were generally aggressive and unpredictable. I didn’t know if they were nocturnal or not.

  I stopped and stared at the pool. Tango stopped beside me.

  “You don’t speak their lingo?”

 

  “Let’s keep going. I want to talk to some animals past this point, and see if we can find one that’s reasonably reliable.”

  We got lucky at the very next pen … kind of.

  I heard a gruff chuffing noise and saw a short, squat animal with a dark underside and a white top. He was a new acquisition for the menagerie, illegally smuggled into the country and then abandoned when his new owners decided they didn’t like they way he smelled. So much for the glory and
fame of being an Internet meme.

  “How’s your Honey Badger?” I asked Tango.

 

  “Sure. Ask him—or her—if they saw a human being here last night.”

  Tango chuffed and snorted, while the honey badger watched her intently. He replied as soon as she was finished, and went on for quite a while. Tango’s reaction was … well, have you ever seen cats encounter something that truly unnerves them? Their eyes get wider, their ears go back a little, their tails start to twitch. That’s what happened to Tango.

  “Well? What did he say?”

 

  “He said um?”

 

  “You’re having trouble translating?”

 

  “Well, do your best.”

  Tango gave me a quick glance, then looked back at the honey badger.
  “Fine.”

 

  I blinked. “That seems a little rude—”

 

  I stared at the honey badger. It stared back calmly.

  “That’s not really useful,” I said.

 

  The honey badger chuffed and growled a few more times, then waited expectantly.

  “Do I even want to know?”

 

  “Think he’s telling the truth?”

  Tango licked one of her front paws.

  The honey badger coughed, grunted, and whined a few more times. Tango stared at the animal quizzically, as if she couldn’t quite believe it was real.