The Anteater of Death

by Betty Webb

  I swallowed. “On the Merilee. Asleep.”

  “Alone?”

  My face flamed. “Yes, alone. Joe, what happened to Barry?”

  “You don’t know?” His eyes looked into mine without the least hint of affection.

  “No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “No!”

  “Do you have access to a gun? Through your mother, perhaps?”

  “What, you think Caro totes a Magnum to Library Guild luncheons?”

  He sat back and crossed his arms across his chest. “Now that’s interesting. What made you say ‘Magnum’? When I asked if you have access to a gun, I didn’t specify manufacturer or caliber.”

  Oh, God. Was there a Magnum something-or-other lying beside Barry’s body? In my panic, the red light on the tape recorder seemed to glow brighter. “Because that’s the only kind of gun I know anything about. There was one on that old TV show with what’s-his-name, the tall guy with the mustache. I watch the reruns when the reception’s too fuzzy for Animal Planet.”

  “Tom Selleck.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The tall guy with the .357 Magnum.”

  “Joe, was Barry shot?”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  Leaning back, I crossed my arms, too, increasing the distance between us. Forcing myself to ignore the tape recorder, I stared straight at him. “I’m not saying anything else until I call my attorney.”

  After a silence too lengthy for comfort, Joe spoke again, his voice chillingly formal. “That’s certainly your right, Ms. Bentley. Have him or her call me at his or her earliest convenience to set up an interview at the station first thing tomorrow.”

  He leaned forward and clicked off the recorder.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As soon as we made it back to the administration building, I ran into a stall in the ladies’ room, fished out my cell, and called Tommy Prescott.

  “I’ve been expecting to hear from you,” the attorney said.

  “You were?” My voice bounced off the bathroom walls, sounding as hollow as I felt.

  “Zorah Vega phoned me the minute she found out about the zoo director’s death. I hate to tell you this, Teddy, but since I’m already representing her re the other murder, our firm can’t represent you. However, Jessica Kimbroe, one of my old law school buddies, is a top criminal law specialist in the City and she’s already told me she has room for you on her calendar. She’s almost as good as me. Absolutely ruthless.”

  Funny how we all hate attorneys until we need one. Praying Tommy’s assessment of the woman was accurate, I called her immediately. She agreed to contact the sheriff and arrange an interview.

  “Don’t talk to him until I’m present,” Kimbroe warned. She had a young voice, but there was a lot of edge to it. “Without meaning to, clients can blurt out some pretty damaging stuff.”

  Remembering my injudicious comment about the murder weapon, I swore to keep my mouth shut. We hung up. A few minutes later she called back and said we were scheduled to talk with the sheriff at one p.m. Saturday. I wondered if she charged double time for weekend work. Where was I going to get the money to pay for all this unless I dipped into the pool of my father’s ill-gotten gains?

  Glum, I went back to the office and found the others grouped in a circle around Barry’s secretary. In defiance of sheriff’s orders, they were pumping her for information. Helen’s middle-aged face, normally not all that creased for a woman in her late fifties, looked ravaged. She acknowledged me with a weak wave, but kept on talking.

  “...been banging on the door for a what seemed like a long, long time, I went ahead and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked. By then I’d started worrying. Not answering his phone or radio wasn’t like Barry, and since botheemer and his zoo cart were parked in the drive, I realized he was still inside, maybe sick. You know how he is, was. A Type A personality, the type that keels over from a sudden heart attack. So I went in.”

  She gulped. “At first I didn’t see him because he was wedged between the sofa and the wall. It ... it looked like he’d been trying to hide.”

  “Could you tell the manner of death?” This from Dr. Kate.

  “Oh, yeah. Since my father was a hunter, I’ve seen animals sh ... uh, I know what gunpowder smells like. Besides, there was blood on the wall near the door, in the entryway, across the carpet—we’re going to have to order a new one—all the way to where I actually found him.”

  If Helen’s description was accurate, Barry had been shot as soon as he opened the door. After he didn’t go down right away, the killer chased him through the living room to deliver the coup de grace as he cowered behind the sofa. I shuddered. Somebody had wanted to make sure he was good and dead.

  As Helen wound down, Zorah reached over and tapped me on the shoulder. “I need to talk to you in private.”

  The others exchanged meaningful looks, but Jack was the first to speak. “On the way back, we compared notes. Most of the questions the deputies asked were about your problems with Barry, what you did when he hit you, what he said about firing you.” He had trouble meeting my eyes.

  Dr. Kate seemed uncomfortable, too, but at least she addressed her comments to my face. “The deputy I talked to asked if you had a history of violence. You do have an attorney, don’t you?”

  I nodded. But something felt odd about this. Since Zorah had already been arrested for Grayson’s murder, why were the police focusing on me as the prime suspect? Why not her? Not that I would have it any other way, of course.

  While I stood there trying to figure things out, Zorah made a big show of looking at her watch. “You guys better get back to your posts. Helen, there’s nothing here for you to do, so go home for the day. And everybody, please be careful what you say. Let’s not give the police any more ammunition to use against us.”

  As soon as the others were gone, I asked her, “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “I have an alibi for this one.” She didn’t look as happy as she should have.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” And I was.

  “When Barry got shot—the sheriff thinks it was around two a.m.—I was at San Sebastian General Hospital surrounded by a ton of witnesses, some of them even cops. It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper, so I might as well tell you. My nephew was shot late last night over some kind of drug thing, and I was down there at the emergency ward holding his hand with the rest of the family. There were cops stationed at the door.”

  When I recovered from my shock, I asked, “Is he all right?”

  “The little punk’s doing fine but the bullet took off half his earlobe. I just wanted you to know that the sherifflready checked out my alibi and I’m in the clear on this one. And that he’s, uh, he’s looking elsewhere now.”

  Like at me.

  “Teddy, think hard. Are you sure there’s no one who might have seen you at the Merilee last night? Friend? Lover?”

  “Just my dog and cat, and they’re not talking.”

  A crafty look flitted across her face. “Come to think of it, I have a cousin who keeps a fishing boat down at the harbor. Maybe he was out walking last night right around the time Barry was killed and saw you fussing around your boat, doing something with a sail. Get what I mean?”

  Her clumsy attempt at giving me an alibi made me feel better. “That’s very nice of you, Zorah, but I’ll be all right. And by the way, the Merilee doesn’t have sails. She’s not that kind of boat.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t do it, you know. Murder Barry.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “As if I’d care if you did.”

  On that friendly note, we returned to our duties.

  ***

  Saturday, my attorney made mincemeat out of Joe.

  He sat in his office chair, his deeply tanned features arranged in a stern expression. His warm, Irish blue eyes spoiled the effect, though, and Jessica Kimbroe was quick to notice.
r />   The moment he referenced the right cross I’d delivered to Barry’s nose, she laughed. “Oh, come on, Sheriff Rejas. So an employee who was the target of a supervisor’s unwanted sexual advances defended herself. Big deal. That gives my client no more reason to kill him than all the other employees he harassed.” With her long legs, spidery eyelashes, shoulder-length blond hair and enormous breasts, she looked like a Playboy Bunny on steroids, but the overdone look was intentional. Tommy had informed me, in a follow-up telephone conversation that morning, that she was such a killer in court because opposing council kept forgetting there was a brain attached to all that cleavage.

  It didn’t work with Joe, though.

  Ignoring her appearance, he said, “From the new splint the victim was sporting, it looks like she hit him hard enough to break his nose.”

  “I did?” For some reason, that information loosened the small clog of grief blocking my heart. Poor Barry. Not only had he been murdered, he’d go to his grave wearing a nose splint. “But I didn’t mean to! I just...”

  My attorney nudged me with her elbow. “Quiet.”

  Joe’s face would have made a poker-player proud. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  Another nudge. “No, there isn’t,” Jessica answered.

  “But I...”

  This time her nudge almost knocked me off my chair. “My client has nothing more to say. Now either arrest her or say goodbye.”

  “Then goodbye, and make sure your client doesn’t leave town.”

  When we got outside, the attorney smiled. “That went well.” She walked so fast on her spike heels that I had to trot to keep up with her.

  “You’re kidding,” I panted, hurrying my steps.

  “He’s only fishing. I do have one question for you, though.”

  “Ask away.”

  We reached the parking lot and found her car, an electric blue Mercedes long enough to haul freight. She opened the door for me and the scent of expensive leather rushed out to mingle with the smell of hot asphalt. As I slid into the passenger’s seat, she asked, “Do you and the sheriff have a history?”

  “Kind of.”

  She smiled. “Want some free legal advice? When this is all over, kiss and make up. He’s hot.”

  ***

  Knowing that an interview with the sheriff could be rough on the nerves, Zorah had given me Saturday off. Lying on the deck of the Merilee with nothing better to do than watch the gulls feast on garbage spilling out of an overloaded Dumpster, I decided that relaxation was overrated. I’d already finished the Jack Hanna book I’d been reading, and the Saturday afternoon TV programming was so bad as to be nonexistent. But as I sat there bored, something my attorney had said popped into my sludgy brain.

  That gives Teddy no more reason to kill him than all the other employees he harassed.

  Other employees. It was time I found out who else Barry had been bothering.

  I grabbed my cell and punched in Jessica’s number, but received her answering machine. Then I called Zorah. My attorney’s information must have come from Tommy Prescott, and the only place he could have heard it was from Zorah, his own client. Did lawyers exchange information? Or was that against their code of so-called ethics?

  When Zorah picked up, I didn’t waste time with chit chat. “Who else was Barry harassing?”

  A dark chuckle. “I prefer to keep the names of the women involved confidential, but I can tell you this. He was quite the horn dog, a Hornus canis of the highest order.”

  “I need to know their names.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Yes I do.”

  A sigh. “Ask yourself, if you were the kind of guy who saw himself as a stud, who would you set your sights on? Besides you and the Bentley millions, of course.” Realizing what she’d just said, she backtracked quickly. “Which is not to say you’re not cute enough to attract men on your own.”

  “Zorah...”

  “My mouth is sealed. As much as I owe you, Teddy, I’m not going to etray other women’s confidences.” With that, she hung up.

  More gulls arrived, along with a couple of black-bellied plovers. They haggled over the garbage for a while, but when a charter fishing boat pulled away from the dock, most flew off after it. Watching them disappear over the horizon, I picked up the phone and called Zorah again.

  “What now, Teddy?”

  “Barry was married and divorced twice.”

  “Which isn’t much, by California standards. What’s your point?”

  “Give me his ex-wives’ names. If you know them.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “If I do, will you stop bothering me? Erasmus, one of the flamingos, got out again and I need to do something about that stupid enclosure. He’s the third runaway flamingo in a month.”

  I crossed my fingers. “I promise.”

  “Hang on while I pull his file. I seem to remember...”

  She put me on hold and Wayne Newton began singing “Danke Schöen.” When he moved onto “Red Roses for a Blue Lady,” she came back on the line. “Have a pen?” Without waiting for a reply, she rattled off the names and telephone numbers.

  “Those are both San Francisco exchanges.”

  “Sure. He’s from there. Born and raised.”

  Names and numbers duly written down, I reiterated my other reason for calling. “The other women Barry was harassing. How about Dr. Kate? Kim Markowski? Miranda DiBartolo?”

  “Oh, for God’s....” She stopped, then started again. “Not Kim. Now I gotta go see a man about a flamingo. Bye.” She hung up.

  I looked at my watch and discovered it wasn’t yet two o’clock, plenty of time to drive up to San Francisco. But first I’d give the ex-wives a call and see if they’d found out what had happened to him.

  Sue Fields, wife No.1, didn’t pick up her phone so I left a message, then tried Pamela Curiani, Wife No.2, a Bay Area yacht broker. Not only was she home, but once I’d explained my involvement with the case and my concern for Zorah, she loosened up. Apparently she felt kinship with any woman who’d been wronged by any man. Especially her ex.

  “You’re that poor zookeeper’s friend, huh? I read about her arrest. Good luck to her, I say, and to you, too. That joker had a talent for spreading misery. He couldn’t keep his hands to himself, which is why I’m the ex-Mrs. Barry Fields.”

  Considering the reason for my own divorce, our hearts beat as one on that issue. “How long were you married?”

  “Six years, which was way too long. I must have masochistic tendencies I’m unaware of.”

  “Were there any problems in the marriage? Besides the infidelity, I mean.”

  A bitter laugh. ll kinds. He liked money, especially mine. He could never get enough.”

  I sat up straighter. “Was he having financial difficulties?”

  “Not really. He was greedy. It came from being raised poor, I think. His mother, who wasn’t married to his father, by the way, lived in one of those welfare-subsidy apartments over in Hunter’s Point. I’ll give the bastard this, though. After he graduated from college—on a full-bore scholarship, I might add—he never looked back. When we first met, I’d recently brokered the sale of almost an entire fleet full of luxury yachts, so I was living the high life. I ran into him at an A-list party where I was trying to sell a few more. He could literally smell money, which I guess is what made him so good at what he did. Right after we married, he insisted we open a joint checking account and to keep the peace I went along. As things turned out, he availed himself of it about ten times more often that I did. And though for a while he earned more than me—the yacht market turned soft for a couple of years—his deposits were always less than mine.”

  “Was he hiding money?”

  “The scum bucket sure was, but my forensic accountant found it. Barry came away with a lot less than he’d counted on, which is why he took that loser job at the zoo.”

  I winced. Zorah had wanted that “loser job” with all her heart. />
  “Next time around, I’m getting a pre-nup,” she continued, acid in her voice. “If there is a next time.”

  Before we hung up, she tried to sell me a sixty-five foot Irwin ketch.

  I’d gone back to watching the remaining gulls pick through the garbage when my cell rang. Sue Fields, Wife No.1, returning my call. She, too, already knew about Barry’s death, but unlike his other ex, her voice carried sadness. I also noticed she’d kept his last name.