Supernatural 1 - Nevermore

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  The scholar in him wanted desperately to explore the inner workings of that monument, whether to play tourist and see the sights, like he and Jess had done in San Francisco, or to check out the underside of the place, see if the thousands of legends that had grown up around the city were true: the alligators in the city sewer system, the phantom subway conductor, the missile silos in eastside apartment buildings.

  He sat back in the passenger seat with a sense of melancholy. Their lives didn't allow for that sort of thing. They came in, they did the job, they left. Hell, now Dean was on the feds' radar, and, while Sam couldn't find any specific warrant out for his own arrest (and didn't Dean love giving him crap about that?), he was pretty sure he wouldn't be ignored if they got the attention of law enforcement, either. They had to keep their heads down—which meant no self-indulgence. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, going to the top of the Empire State Building, exploring Central Park, even going underground to check to see about the alligators and the ghosts and the missiles, none of that could afford to be on the agenda. Them doing the job saved lives, which meant time spent not doing the job meant people might die.

  That's the job. And it needs doing. One of the items on his eight-mile-long list of regrets was that it took Dad dying for him to realize that. The exit for the Henry Hudson was right after the bridge ended, and to Dean's loudly expressed relief, most of the traffic that took the exit was going southbound, which would take them into Manhattan. Almost nobody else was going north. However, Dean's desire to speed was tempered by the parkway itself, which was hilly, twisty, and turny, and Sam found himself once again holding the dashboard in a death grip.

  Feeling the need to distract himself from the fact that Dean was using the lane markers as a guideline more than a rule, Sam said, "So I checked out this guy's band on the web. I'm starting to see why Ellen thought of us—they're a cover band, and they do seventies rock."

  For the first time since the cars started moving slowly on I-80, Dean's face brightened. "Really?"

  "Yeah, they named themselves after a DJ who died a couple years ago named Scott Muni."

  "Dude," Dean said in a familiar tone. It meant that Sam didn't know some arcane and pointless piece of musical lore that Dean thought was essential to being alive. Sam steeled himself for the tirade even as Dean said, "It's pronounced 'myoonee,' not 'money.' They called him 'the Professor,' he was one of the greatest rock DJs of the sixties and seventies. You know Van Morrison's 'Caravan'? The 'Scottso' he's talking about is Muni."

  Sam just nodded, despite not knowing the song or DJ in question, and not caring all that much. He'd gotten enough of a tongue-lashing on the subject of Robert Johnson's music during that Hellhound job.

  "Well, Ash's friend," Sam said once he was sure Dean was done chastising him, "Manfred Afiri, is the lead singer, and he plays guitar. There's four other guys, a keyboard player named Robbie Maldonado, another guitar player named Aldo Emmanuelli, a bass player named Eddie Grabowski, and a drummer named Tom Daley. They play weekends at a place in Larchmont called the Park in Rear."

  Dean shot a sidelong glance at Sam. "Seriously?"

  Sam shrugged. "That's what the website says."

  The road finally straightened, just in time for a sign indicating another toll.

  "Oh, you have got to be freakin' kiddin' me! Bad enough we had to pay six bucks to get into this town, now we gotta pay more?"

  Raising his eyebrow at the use of we in that sentence, Sam pointedly said, "You've got four bucks in your pocket."

  "Yeah, yeah." Dean pulled in behind several other cars in the one and only lane labeled cash only, while other cars zipped through one of the six E-Z Pass lanes. Sam was starting to think it was a conspiracy.

  Once they got through and went over another, smaller bridge that welcomed them to the Bronx, Sam said, "We wanna get off at 246th."

  "Okay."

  The road continued to curve menacingly past several exits, most for streets numbered in the 200s, before they reached the right exit. Within seconds they were completely lost. They drove up and down several hills, and went on several roads that did not go straight, and were frustrated by jumps in the numerical sequence of streets. The area was also surprisingly suburban looking, with some really big houses that had yards—neither were images that Sam associated with being in New York City, especially after the view of crammed together skyscrapers he got from the GWB.

  "I thought this city was on a grid," Dean said through clenched teeth.

  "That's Manhattan, Dean," Sam said patiently.

  "Great."

  The road angled down and to the right, nearin... intersection. Sam caught sight of a green street sign that identified the upcoming street as East 248th Street. "There!" he said pointing, "that's 248th. Turn right."

  "I swear to God, Sammy, if it's not on this block, I'm turning around and going back to Indiana."

  Sam refrained from pointing out that regardless of whether they were going to Afiri's house or back over the bridge, they were still lost. Besides, he got a look at one of the house numbers they passed.

  "We're on the right block. There, that's his place."

  There weren't any parking spots on the street, but there was a driveway next to Afiri's place, so Dean parked the Impala there.

  Once the car came to a stop, Sam hopped out, grateful for the chance to stretch his long legs for the first time since they'd gassed up in Scotrun, Pennsylvania. His knees popped as they straightened.

  "Nice," Dean said, and Sam had to agree. The house was a three-story Colonial, with a stone chimney on the side, a wooden front porch, complete with porch swing, and a dark wood front door with a small stained-glass window. All Ellen had provided Dean was a name and address, as well as the name of the band the guy was in, so they had no way of knowing if he'd be home. A ring of the doorbell followed by a full minute of waiting indicated that he wasn't.

  "Fine, let's break in," Dean said, reaching into his jacket pocket for his lock picks.

  Sam put a hand on his arm before he could remove the paper clip in question. "Let's not. We're supposed to be helping this guy, remember?"

  "We'll tell him Ash sent us."

  "And if he doesn't believe us and calls the cops? Dean, we can't afford to commit felonies unless we absolutely have to, and we're not there yet. Hell, we just got here. Look, he probably has a day job. Let's check out the Poe thing and come back in the evening when he's more likely to be home."

  Dean stared at Sam for a second. The way Dean's eyes were going back and forth, Sam could tell that his older brother was trying to figure out a way to be right and for Sam to be wrong and was failing miserably.

  Finally, Dean turned around and went back to the car. "Fine, but we ain't goin' nowhere until you figure out how to get us out of this nuthouse." He opened the driver's side door. "Which crime scene you wanna hit first, the house with the bricked-up guy or the street where the monkey spanked back?"

  Sam smiled. "Neither. The orangutan that killed those two kids was from the Bronx Zoo. We should start there. Say we're with, I dunno, Wildlife Conservation magazine or something."

  "No, not that—National Geographic."

  "Uh, okay." Sam shrugged. "Not that it matters, but why not Wildlife Conservation?"

  "'Cause that's run by the WCS, who're the people who run the Bronx Zoo. It'd be like investigating something on the Skywalker Ranch and saying we were with Star Wars Insider. They'd know we were bogus right off." With that, Dean got into the car.

  Sam opened his door and folded himself into the front seat. "Since when do you know so much about animal magazines?"

  "Cassie was a subscriber."

  That got a grin out of Sam. Cassie was one of Dean's ex-girlfriends. Given Cassie's crusading character, based on the one and only time Sam met her in Missouri, he wasn't at all surprised that she supported the Wildlife Conservation Society. Sam pulled out the maps to figure out the best route to the zoo. While he did so, Dean asked, "Hey, does the Bronx Zoo
have penguins? Like in Madagascar?"

  Without even looking up, Sam said, "That was the Central Park Zoo. I mean, the Bronx Zoo probably has 'em, too..."

  "Yeah, but they're probably not as cool as the ones in Madagascar. I mean, I doubt they can take over a freighter or do hand-to-hand combat."

  "Well, Dean, if they can, then we'll have three jobs..."

  FOUR

  The Bronx Zoo

  The Bronx, New York

  Thursday 16, November 2006

  Clare Hemsworth brushed the bits of grass off the Wildlife Conservation Society logo on her blue shirt as she headed out into the pavilion in front of the Wild Asia ride. The crowds were a bit sparse in November, but visitors to the Bronx Zoo still wanted to go on Wild Asia.

  Clare remembered her mother talking about how thrilling Wild Asia was back when it first opened in the late seventies. For her part, she couldn't imagine why anybody would make such a fuss. The monorail was so retro, and it wasn't as if it was that big a deal to see animals wandering around free. Of course, back in the stone age when Mom was a kid, she guessed it was a big deal not to see animals in cages, but there wasn't any novelty to it now. The monorail was a cheesy piece of plastic that Clare was convinced was gonna fall off the rail any day now.

  Then again, she was in a bad mood generally. Ever since what happened with those two kids, she'd been talking to reporters, to police, and to lawyers representing Fordham University, and she was really, really sick of it. The lawyers were the worst—okay, cops and reporters were doing their jobs, but why should she have to listen to crap from Fordham's legal eagles just because the two kids who died happened to be their students? They weren't even killed on campus!

  "Excuse me, Ms. Hemsworth?"

  Clare closed her eyes and let out a breath. She'd had about fifty conversations that started with those four words this past week, and they were always like having root canal, only without the anesthetic. If it wasn't someone from law enforcement or from the WCS, she was going to tell them to screw off so fast...

  She turned, and saw the hottest man she'd ever seen in her life.

  There was another guy with him, but Clare didn't pay much attention to him, she was focused on this one guy. He had such amazing brown eyes, and, if he was the one who'd called her name, the sexiest voice she'd ever heard. Right there and then, she decided that she would do whatever this guy asked. He was tall, too, but not intimidating the way some tall guys were. His semishaggy dark hair was combed neatly, and he had an adorable small nose. "Uh, yeah, I'm—I'm Ms. Hemsworth. Uh, Clare."

  The other, shorter one, said, "Nice to meet you, Clare. My name's John Mayall, and my friend here is Bernie Watson—we're with National Geographic."

  Clare blinked, and tore her eyes away from Bernie Watson—what a wonderful name!—to look at the shorter one with the close-cropped hair, blue eyes, and mouth that looked like it was in a permanent smirk. John, was it? "Uh, okay." Then the text message she'd gotten from Frieda, her boss, came back to her. "Right! Frieda said you guys'd be talking to me. What do you need?"

  "We're doing a story on the orangutan that killed those two students, and we were told you were the one who cared for them."

  Bernie added, "If it's too much trouble—"

  "Oh no!" she said quickly, not wanting Bernie to go away, but also still not entirely clear as to why NG would be doing this kind of story. Frieda's text had said that they were cleared by the press office, as long as they stuck with the questions in the memo that had gone around on Monday, but Clare was confused as to why they'd bothered in the first place. "This isn't really, I dunno—typical of you guys, is it?"

  John grinned. "Hey, we can't have all our stories be naked pictures of pygmies."

  Rolling her eyes, Clare ignored John, and looked up at Bernie's tall form and soulful eyes. "So what is it you guys want to know? I mean, I've already told this story, like, a thousand times. You can probably get whatever you want from the newspapers."

  "They're being very sensationalistic," Bernie said. "We're trying to print the truth, and make it clear that this wasn't the orangutan's fault."

  "Oh, it wasn't Dean's fault at all!"

  The short one suddenly developed a coughing fit, and then said, "Dean? That was the orangutan's name?"

  "Well, that's what I called him. We've got two on loan from Philadelphia for a while, and I named them Hank and Dean—y'know, after the Venture Brothers."

  Looking at John, Bernie said, "Actually, I think Dean's a great name for a big ape, don't you?"

  "Not really," John said in a low voice, and Clare started wondering what was going on. But then John looked back at her. "So, Clare, can you tell us in your own words what happened?"

  "Yeah, okay." She was feeling a little exposed, so she led the two reporters to one of the wooden tables near a food stand. Taking a deep breath, and trying not to get lost in Bernie's eyes, she went through the whole story: how Dean suddenly went crazy and started jumping up and down, before retreating under a rock. "Nobody saw him for a while after that—we don't really keep an eye on them 24/7, y'know?—and then when I went to feed him and Hank, I couldn't find him. Now you gotta understand, both these guys never miss a feeding—like, ever." She found her eyes misting up, and she wiped them with the cuff of the sleeve of her blue shirt.

  John said, "You must care about Hank and Dean very much. That's really admirable—I've always been impressed with the work people like you do."

  "Thanks," she said quickly, then looked at Bernie. "So I knew something was wrong, and we instituted a search. Animals wander off sometimes, and Dean had been acting a little weird, but we usually have really good security. But we didn't find anything." Good security was an understatement. Allan and Jimmy had lost their jobs thanks to Dean's escape.

  Bernie leaned forward while John suddenly got up. "The paper said that NYPD Animal Control took Dean in."

  Clare nodded. "They called us first, since we're the only people in the city who have orangutans. Our animals have transponders so we can verify who they are, so they sent me to Animal Control."

  She shuddered at the memory. "God, what an awful place. All these animals stuck in tiny metal cages and treated like crap. I mean, I know, most of 'em are involved in crimes and stuff, but God."

  A napkin appeared in front of her face. She looked up to see John, with a look of what she guessed was concern on his face. "Thanks," she said as she took the napkin and wiped the tears away. She even almost smiled; John was trying way too hard. He sat back down next to Bernie, across from her. "So you checked the transponder."

  "Well, yeah, but I didn't really need to, y'know? I know my Dean." She wiped new tears with the napkin. "The poor little guy was scared to death. They did blood tests on him, and he was hopped up on amphetamines of some kind, can you believe that?"

  "Who would do that?" John asked.

  "Well, duh, somebody who wanted to kill those two kids." God, what kind of idiot was this John guy?

  "So it wasn't Dean's fault?" Bernie said, sounding relieved. Clare shook her head. "And we were so afraid that we'd lose him. Sometimes the families of victims insist that the animals be euthanized, and judges usually come down on their side."

  "Really?" Bernie said. "That's awful."

  At this point, she couldn't work up much outrage. "It's typical. They're part of this world, too, but try to get most humans to acknowledge that. In fact, I'm going to law school part-time so I can make the laws about this kinda thing tougher."

  "Good for you," Bernie said. "I actually almost went to law school."

  "Really? Why'd you give it up?"

  Bernie hesitated. "Weird family stuff," he said quietly. "Anyhow, I'm real happy with what I'm doing right now, believe me."

  "Well, good for you. Still, you should think about it. So many lawyers these days are just in it to represent corporations and make big money—we need more people who care about the world, y'know? Where were you gonna go?"

  "Stanford—that
's where I did my undergrad work."

  Clare whistled appreciatively. "I'm at NYU. I wish I had more time for class, but it's expensive, and I work a lot of hours here."

  John then said, "I'm sure you'll get through it fine. You seem determined."

  "I am, yeah," Clare said quickly to John, then looked back at Bernie. All that, and brains, too, if he made it through Stanford.

  But then John said, "You said families of the victims usually ask for the animals to be—to be euthanized." John pronounced the word as if he'd never used it in conversation before, which struck Clare as odd. "But they didn't ask for that this time?"

  She'd been hoping to quiz Bernie more on his law-school aspirations, but John seemed determined to actually do their job, which Clare supposed she could understand. "No, Dean lucked out." Was it her imagination or did John wince every time she referred to the orangutan by name? "Both the kids were members of WCS, and their families were sympathetic. Once the blood test proved that Dean was drugged, they didn't insist, and the cops were in a good mood that day, so they let us have him back."

  She shook her head. "I remember one time—in Minnesota, maybe?—a meerkat bit a kid who was too stupid to actually pay attention to the sign that said not to stick your hand over the fence. The family refused to give the kid a rabies test, so the zoo had to euthanize the entire family of meerkats."

  "Sounds to me," John said, "like the wrong family got put down."

  Clare nodded, conceding the point to John, then turning back to lose herself in Bernie's eyes. "So Dean's back with us, but we won't put him back out in the habitat yet."

  "Why?"

  "You kidding? He's, like, totally traumatized. I just came back from feeding him, and he wouldn't eat until I left. He won't go near Hank, and he won't let me hold him."