Did Not Survive

by Ann Littlewood

  I’d thought of Calvin as another Mr. Crandall—ageless, permanent. He was a sturdy guy, in physique and in health, but apparently not exempt from getting older, and someday he would retire. I put the thought away. I had enough real changes to worry about.

  I left ten minutes before quitting time and walked through departing clots of school groups shepherded by burnt-out teachers trying to survive until summer vacation started. It was Wednesday, my Friday, and I was tired, hungry, apprehensive, and more than ready for a couple of days off. I hoped whatever Dr. Reynolds had on her mind wouldn’t take long. Marcie was cooking dinner for me and Denny. I craved a shower, clean clothes, and a break from zoo disasters.

  Dr. Reynolds closed the door after me and waved me to a guest chair in front of her desk. She sat behind tidy stacks of books and papers and chewed on her lower lip for a moment. A little centrifuge whirred in the corner. I was impressed once again that this slender woman, a few years older than myself, was managing the health of every animal in the zoo. I suspected she wore a lab coat more to convey her role to skeptics than to protect her clothes.

  She flipped stray hair over her shoulder. Her tone was brisk. “Iris, the situation is different now. The police are treating Kevin’s death as a homicide, but they are working under difficult circumstances. They have pictures of the original scene, but the stall has been scrubbed several times since then, and of course the elephants trampled everything in their normal activity. They tried a chemical called Luminal to see if they could bring up residual blood smears, but it isn’t working properly because elephant stool and the cleaners mask the effect. It’s a tough situation.”

  “I’d hate to see whoever did this get away with it.”

  She nodded. “No motive has been found, and no one has any idea why Kevin was at the barn so early in the morning. It wasn’t typical for him to be there at that hour or to enter the stall without Sam or Ian around.”

  I didn’t disagree out loud, but I wondered. Ian had implied differently.

  “Iris, this is another reason I’m glad you’re continuing the research project. I’d like you to keep an eye out for anything unusual, anything that might explain the…attack. The keepers will talk to you more than they will to the police or a committee or to me. You know everyone and you know where the bodies are buried—sorry, poor choice of words—and might find out something that no one else will have a chance to discover.”

  My apprehension was justified. First Calvin, now Dr. Reynolds. Where was this notion coming from? “I wish it were true that people will spill to me, but I really don’t think it is.”

  “You picked up on Damrey’s vision problems right away.”

  That didn’t seem particularly relevant.

  “Iris, Kevin said he’d seen someone sneaking away from the barn early in the morning. That was a day before the accident. It was only a glimpse. Perhaps you could find out who it was.”

  This was news. “Did you tell the police?”

  “Yes, of course, the same day as the attack. They said they hadn’t found anything when I reminded them today.” She wound a wisp of hair around her index finger and frowned.

  My shoulder twitched. She had this plan in mind when she first asked me to take on Kayla’s task. She and Sam had separately manipulated me into the barn, each for their own reason. “I’ll keep my eyes open. That’s all I can do.”

  Stress lines around her eyes relaxed a little. “I appreciate your help very much.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, awkwardly parroting Dr. Rassmussen.

  Dr. Reynolds leaned back. She rotated her office chair to look out the window at leafy branches and a scrap of cloudy sky. Her voice softened. “It wasn’t the same, I think, as when you lost your husband. We weren’t very far along—a few dinners and a lecture or two—and I don’t think it would have gone anywhere, not in the long run. Still, it was nice to be noticed. We agreed it was best to keep it undercover. I liked him, but I suspect he was more optimistic about us than I was. Who knows…”

  I said, “He was…cheerful the last few months. He seemed happy. And…it sounds like he didn’t suffer. At the end.”

  “Yes. I think that is true.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. I said, “I should have visited him in the hospital. I should have thanked him for not firing me when I was screwing up after Rick died. He was cranky and fussy, but he was fair. I think he was good at his job.”

  She turned back to me and shook her head. “The hospital wouldn’t let anyone but family in.” She looked out the window again. “I don’t know a soul here except Kayla, and I’m coming off a bad divorce. As if there ever was a good one. He was fun to be with.” A wry smile.

  She’d known a different Wallace than I had. “He had a few failed relationships of his own. Not entirely his fault.” Impulsively, I added, “I hope you stay.”

  She smiled. “I’d like to. The salary here is dismal. I’d buy a house if I could.”

  I understood that one. Rick’s life insurance was all that made my home ownership possible.

  “Iris, I hope you and Kayla get along. She doesn’t know anyone here either. I seem to feel responsible since I recruited her to come work here. Of course, she’s very social.”

  Another request? “She seems good at her job. And fun. People like her. I wouldn’t worry.”

  The vet nodded and fell into silence, staring out the window again. After a moment, still looking away, “Kevin liked you. You were tough to manage, but a good zoo keeper. That’s what he said. He felt that your husband’s death was the worst thing that had happened in all his years at the zoo.”

  I was blind-sided and unable to speak.

  Dr. Reynolds turned her chair back to face me. The narrow, serious face was transformed, predatory. “A killer broke into our zoo. We don’t know who it is or whether it will happen again. Let’s figure this out. Let’s get whoever did this to Kevin.”

  Chapter Eight

  Chicken artichoke casserole over rice, green salad, roasted red bell peppers with sweet onions. I had showered and changed before driving over, and I sat in a green sweat suit like a swollen toad with my hair still wet. I ate until common sense finally kicked in, and I could raise my eyes from my plate. “Oh, Marcie. Will you marry me and cook for me forever?”

  “I’ll give it some thought.” Marcie flipped a hand at me, brushing it off, but she had the embarrassed glow she got when anyone said something positive about her, as though it couldn’t possibly be true but she couldn’t resist being pleased. She had already cleared her plate and Denny’s. I relinquished mine in hopes that it would be replaced by dessert. It was—strawberry-rhubarb pie and a cup of coffee.

  We sat in her little dining room in her perfectly neat apartment. Marcie was very advanced in home making. That included cooking and baking, so I totally approved. All our plates were from the same set, and they were color coordinated with the place mats, which matched the napkins. The cream and red color scheme did not, however, match Marcie’s pale blue pullover and neat navy slacks. That would have been too much. We’d been friends since college, Oregon State U. She got me through sophomore year, my last, and I got her through a breakup that left her man-shy and un-paired, until she hooked up with Denny. He was the last man on earth I would have chosen for her, but she didn’t ask.

  I had to admit, she looked happy. Sexy, actually. Voluptuous rather than chubby, comfortable with herself in a way I hadn’t seen before. For now, being with Denny was working for her. He was more than casual in a faded purple tee shirt and jeans. He looked pretty cheerful himself, but who wouldn’t after that meal? The pie was springtime itself.

  “You should drink red raspberry leaf tea and not that caffeinated stuff,” Denny said.

  “It’s decaf,” Marcie said.

  “Buzz off,” I said.

  “They can hear negativity. Impairs their emotional development. Raspberry tea tones the uterus.”

 
“My uterus is so not your business. And not a ‘they.’ Only one. Don’t frighten me like that.” I scraped off the last gooey sweetness and decided I really must not lick the plate. Life was, if not good, at least much improved. Clean, fed, no impossible expectations coming at me out of the blue…I relaxed for the first time in a week.

  “If you won’t tell us whether it’s a boy or girl, it’s gonna be a ‘they.’ I am not going with ‘it’.”

  Marcie nodded agreement. I’d kept this secret from her, too, because she couldn’t keep it from Denny.

  I sagged back in my chair. “Denny, if I tell you, you’ll be off and running about genderness and what I should be doing about it.”

  “I haven’t researched that yet. I’ve seen a lot of warnings about golden seal and dong quai. Pennyroyal is not good either. Stay away from all of those.”

  “I have never consumed any of those to the best of my knowledge, and I promise not to start now. Meth and cocaine, ditto.”

  “You think therapeutic herbs are addictive?”

  Marcie stood up to clear the dessert plates, waving a hand at me to stay seated. “Denny, please. She’s pulling your chain. Could we attempt a normal conversation?” She would never adapt to our habitual bickering. A limitation of being compulsively nice.

  Denny handed over his plate and filled the empty spot on the table with his forearms. He leaned forward toward Marcie. “What she really needs is something to keep her stress level down. You didn’t see her after she found Wallace, and she’s been totally reactive about it ever since. It’s got to be affecting her pH balance. Not good for Rick, Jr. At this stage of gestation, they—”

  “Drop it,” I snarled. Wallace, Rick, and the baby thrown into a heap ignited an unsuspected pile of emotional gunpowder. They both flinched. After a frozen moment, I said, “I’d better go,” and got up from the table. Blinded by tears and unbalanced by new weight, I stumbled. Marcie set down the plates hard enough to risk breakage and grabbed my arm.

  “I brought a couple of DVDs,” Denny babbled. “We could watch one.”

  Marcie towed me into her pristine living room and pressed me down onto her white sofa. “Sit for a minute. Pet a cat. Digest.” She enforced these commands by plopping The Princess, a rickety old Siamese, in my lap. Princess stood stiff-legged on my thighs, sniffed around to orient herself, and carefully collapsed into a round warm pillow. I stiffened for a moment, thinking about toxoplasmosis, and remembered that cats weren’t the threat, only their droppings.

  Marcie waved Denny away. “Go do dishes or something.” She sat next to me with a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me.”

  “I’m tired, that’s all, and it is a boy and, and I’m suddenly starving all the time…Rick and Wallace…The nightmares are back.”

  Marcie produced a tissue and nodded as though this made sense.

  I wiped my nose. “Now it’s not just lions and Rick, it’s lions and elephants and Rick and Wallace, all gory and scary. Sometimes the baby is there…I’m trapped in slow motion, and I can’t help them. My cell phone is stuck in my pocket, I can’t remember if it’s 911 or 119, my fingers don’t work…” I trailed off.

  Marcie put on her matter-of-fact therapy voice. “Finding your boss dying brought back Rick’s death.”

  “Yeah, it fried me more than I expected. I was dealing really well, but now…” I shifted on the sofa to help my stomach compete for room with my other internal organs. Princess put her ears back and stopped purring. “Until this, I was okay with Rick gone forever. Not over it, I can’t imagine being over it, but moving on, thinking about the kid, not wallowing in stuff I can’t change…Lonely, but not whacked out.”

  “It’s been a terrible week.”

  “I know Rick and Denny were best friends, and he misses Rick, too. This baby is all that either of us have left of Rick, but Denny keeps telling me how to be pregnant. So does Calvin and my mother and everyone else. It’s throwing me off. I have to trust myself. This single-parenting thing is scary enough without people assuming I can’t possibly handle it.” I leaned my head back.

  Marcie’s hand was warm on my shoulder.

  “Well, what do you want your friends to do to be supportive?” She tilted her head at an “I’m listening” angle.

  “Don’t ask me that now. Right now I want everyone to back off.” I drew a breath. “There’s more.”

  “What?” Denny couldn’t stand being out of the loop and sat himself on a wing chair across from me, hunched forward with his elbows on his thighs.

  I wanted to wait for a private meltdown with Marcie, but once begun, meltdowns are not easily deflected. “People are on me to figure out what happened at the barn. Marcie, remember I told you I’m supposed to collect elephant pee every day? The vet is after me to spy while I’m there. Even Calvin thinks I should root around in this, and I don’t want any part of it. Maybe it was a stranger and maybe it wasn’t. I hate suspecting coworkers. Those are my friends. It’s creepy.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. I stroked Princess, who vibrated with forgiveness. The youngster of Marcie’s three cats, Impossible, used his claws on Denny’s jeans and, after attaining his lap, flopped over on his back bonelessly. Six-Toes slept somewhere out of sight.

  “It’s not just you,” Denny said. “The negative energy is everywhere. First we thought Damrey went berserker, and that made us all wonder if our number’s up next. Some animal or equipment that you trust comes unhinged or your foot slips, and you’re the one on the stretcher. But it was murder. The press is all over the zoo. Crandall is getting creamed, even with the new cubs.”

  “I can’t fix it,” I wailed.

  “No,” Marcie said. “Of course you can’t.”

  “But if we never find out who killed Wallace, it’s my fault.”

  “That’s silly,” Marcie said.

  Denny thought a minute and nodded.

  Marcie said, “Don’t agree with her! How could it be her fault?”

  “I can see it,” Denny said. “You called it wrong at the beginning, thinking Damrey was smashing him. So the cops treated it like an animal attack and didn’t totally work the scene. Now the evidence is trashed. No CSI instant answer.”

  I nodded.

  Marcie frowned. “Don’t be so quick to give up on the police. They’re the experts.”

  Denny swung a foot back and forth, jostling the cat on his lap. “Everything that happens changes what goes forward. Sometimes you have to follow the trail back to understand it and realign it.”

  “Not you, too,” I said.

  Denny shrugged. “You need to restore your harmony so the kid’s not marinating in stress hormones. Sounds like you’ve got Dr. Reynolds talking to you and access to the barn. That gives you the advantage.”

  “Not so much.”

  “Iris, no one has any right to put you in this position,” Marcie said, her hands folded tightly in her lap. “Denny, please do stop encouraging her. This is a really bad idea. Iris has other priorities right now. This is a police problem.”

  I considered that. “My priorities are staying healthy, doing my job, and getting ready to deal with a baby.” A baby. What was wrong with the world that a basket case like me would end up responsible for a baby? My friends were right to worry. “Having my work scene, the zoo, in a mess isn’t good. It’s going to stay in a mess until we know what happened and why. I want to know.”

  “Iris, this is not your problem.” Marcie’s voice had a flavor of calm that would be shouting from anyone else. “You are talking yourself into interfering, and that is unnecessary and maybe dangerous.”

  “Not interfering. Trying harder to notice. I’ve got the inside perspective and the lead detective’s phone number. If I’m proactive—is that the word?—maybe the nightmares and flashbacks will slack off. I won’t do anything dangerous, and I’ll call that Quintana guy if I learn anything he might not know.”

  “We can work together,” Denny said, en
ergized. “I think we should start with the activists. And Ian. There’s something not right between him and Sam. Another thing—”

  “Denny. Please.” Marcie said. “You and I need to talk, but not now. We’re going to stop discussing this and watch one of those DVDs you brought.”

  “Okay, fine. You want Raising Arizona or Rosemary’s Baby?”

  Chapter Nine

  One of the better reasons for living with dogs is that they are oblivious to shame, especially when their brains are flooded with hope for a run in the park. Winnie and Range did not care in the slightest that I awoke feeling like a cretin. At Marcie’s the night before, I’d been unstable, unpleasant, and incapable. The dogs hadn’t been there to observe gluttony, hair-trigger rage, and sniveling, and wouldn’t have cared anyway. With a leash in each hand, I radiated the glory of a goddess.

  It was my day off and doggie entitlement got me moving. Mt. Tabor Park wasn’t far, but I was in no mood to walk. The dogs hopped into the pickup, I tied the leashes to eyebolts in the middle of the truck bed for safety and hauled my unwieldy self into the cab.

  The legality of doggy freedom comes and goes in Portland parks, as does enforcement. On this early Thursday morning, neither got in our way. Parents walked their preschoolers, birders with binoculars wandered around making “pish pish” noises at little birds in the trees, crows investigated whether eatables had grown from the ground during the night. A woman flung a tennis ball for her golden retriever. Winnie hijacked the golden for a romp while Range stole his ball and brought it to me. I tossed it to the owner, a hefty woman in shorts, and hurled my own tennis ball for him.

  It was a beautiful spring morning full of birds and blossoms. I scooped poop with a better heart, although Kevin Wallace kept intruding. I thought I’d made a decision to find out what happened to him, but in the light of day, I couldn’t see where to start. My musings circled back to what Calvin and Dr. Reynolds had suggested in the first place: keep my eyes open, especially at the elephant barn. There must be something more, but nothing came to me. The dogs exercised themselves happily for most of an hour, and we all went home.