Ian said, “Never called you because he never found anything wrong. Wallace used to come play, play with them.”
Sam snorted. “Wallace understood elephants better than you ever will. Must be nice for you to know all there is to know, so early in the game. Who needs experience?”
Shocked, I took another step back. I’d known Sam for years and never seen him mean.
Ian looked like a man who had finally been pushed too far. His voice rose in volume and pitch, words tumbling out in jerky bursts. “Right. I don’t have thirty years with the same, same two cows. I worked with, with a dozen elephants in four facilities. Including bulls and calves. So, so don’t preach to me about experience.”
Sam reared his head back. “What did you learn from it, besides teaching tricks? Have you thought about running away and joining the circus? Might be a good fit.” He glanced at me. Was I the real target of this argument? I’d learned that Sam was happy to use me. Ian didn’t seem to think that way.
“I can get a job, a job anywhere in the country. I’m here to make it better for these animals. Could train standard commands. Help with accrediting. If it weren’t for you. Anything new is a challenge to the herd bull. Has to be beat down.”
“Damrey behaves fine with me,” Sam said in that same cold voice, “and she did with Wallace. Now everyone knows that.” He spoke to me, ignoring Ian. “Crandall is nuts to go for accreditation. Why do we need curators and directors from other zoos telling us what’s good for our animals? Did you know the animals have to be trained to tolerate us sticking probes in their rears?”
I’d heard Dr. Reynolds on that subject. “Sam, what’s the big deal? The vets want ultrasound because they can see what’s going on inside the animal. You know it’s a good tool, and the cows don’t mind as long as the treats keep coming.”
“It’s disrespectful. There’s more to elephant-keeping than this kind of training.”
“Yeah, a lot more.” Ian was still hot. “Especially in a dump. Like this. Only reason to keep these animals here is that new exhibit. That I don’t see happening. Those picketers are doing more than you or me to get them decent housing. More space.”
The elephants started pacing and ear-flapping.
Sam forgot me again. “Oh, is that it? You think those sign-wavers know what’s best? That’s rich. Every week I sit in some brain-snuffing meeting busting my ass trying to get the new exhibit moving, and you’re ready to pitch it all out for some fantasy of a perfect sanctuary.”
“So why, why isn’t it happening? You and Wallace were such buddies.”
“Because I don’t run this place, and I couldn’t get him off his rump any faster.”
“And why was that?” Ian pressed.
Sam shrugged, losing energy, losing the offensive. “He was staging the construction. It was coming up.”
Ian’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t think so. Think he took another look at the plans and realized, realized that you’d invest millions in a new exhibit. And it would still be too small. Finley Zoo doesn’t have the acreage. You’ll never get an exhibit big enough, not for more than two cows. No way to breed them. No way to keep a calf. Much less a bull. Reason small zoos aren’t keeping elephants much anymore. That’s what I think Wallace figured out.”
“If he did, it was because you told him so, and he was dumb enough to believe you.”
Ian said, “The next foreman or a new curator will take another look—”
Sam interrupted. “Yeah, and that might be me. We’ll know soon. Won’t that be interesting?”
Ian shut up, and I stopped cowering and came to attention. Mr. Crandall had decided to split the old foreman position in half and put the animal part into a new curator position. The foreman would hire and manage the keepers. Sam must have applied for curator. He was a senior keeper with years of experience. Why wouldn’t he? Because, I realized, he’d have to leave Elephants. But a promotion might position him to get the exhibit he wanted.
“I got work to do.” Ian walked stiff-shouldered to the work room. After a minute, the door to the outside grated open. The two elephants stepped out briskly, putting hostilities behind them.
“I’ll see you around, Sam.” I put my second cup of pee in the fridge and got out of there.
Cool wet air was a welcome relief. Clouds and drizzle had moved in, the weather as changeable as the people I worked with. The old giraffe was out in his yard near Elephants. He swung his head down toward me, hoping for a treat or just being sociable. Lord love a duck, what an emotional cesspool the elephant barn had become. Ian and Sam were a match made in hell. Ian said “you” and not “we” when he talked about the new exhibit. I wondered whether he planned to stick around. He must have some guess or theory about what had happened to Wallace, but he wasn’t sharing it with me.
The elephants were messing with a big pile of browse Ian had set out for their amusement. I couldn’t resist stopping for a moment. Nakri selected a long branch from the pile and tugged it free. She stood on one end of it, wrapped her trunk around the other, and yanked up. The limb snapped in two with a strip of bark still connecting the pieces. She stood on one and pulled on the other to separate them and began stuffing the leafy end into her mouth. I could hear wood being crushed to pulp. Damrey didn’t bother with the preparation. She stuffed a leafy end into her mouth and chewed. The branch worked its way slowly up into her maw until she’d had enough and bit it off, the thick end falling away. Wood chippers were far noisier and less effective than those two.
As I walked to the Penguinarium and my nerves settled, I considered what Sam had said. Wallace’s death opened up a career opportunity that no one had expected for decades. Sam might have two options for advancement: curator and, soon, foreman. Clearly he was interested. If Ian was right and Wallace no longer supported the new exhibit, his death also removed an obstacle to the better housing Sam wanted so badly.
Surely these were not sufficient motives for murder. No, not for a planned killing, but the depth of Sam’s anger frightened me. Arguing with Wallace? A sudden, violent release of frustration…Where in my list of scenarios had that been? Number Two?
No, Sam was not a violent person. One shouting match didn’t mean anything. I was over-reacting. Pregnancy hormones, maybe.
***
On Saturdays, the zoo was jammed with kids of all sizes and their adult shepherds. Jackie worked Saturdays, like Mr. Crandall. She and I leaned against the wall in our usual spot, hidden from staff and visitors alike. I shifted sides as soon as she lit up and I could figure out the wind direction.
I listened impatiently to her gripes about Mr. Crandall and the press and how black cohosh pills weren’t helping her hot flashes. When I’d completed my quota of sympathetic murmurs, I broke into her critique of the contractors for Asian Experience and their expectations of the office staff. “Jackie, what’s going on with replacing Wallace? Has Mr. Crandall posted the position yet?”
“Nope, and he’s not going to. Not for a while.”
“How’s that going to work? He can’t be foreman for months. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. We’re coasting on what Wallace set up.”
She took her time, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth away from me, her idea of etiquette. “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch. I think he’s got another plan. He’s going to recombine foreman and curator for now, hire somebody right away from the curator candidates, and deal with the foreman job later. Splitting them was stupid anyway. So maybe next week.”
“Huh. That fast. I guess that’s a good thing.”
She quirked her eyebrows at me. “Sort of depends on who he hires, right?”
“Any internal candidates?”
“Yeah. Sam. The rest are from outside.”
I thought that over while Jackie puffed. “So who’s it going to be?”
She shrugged. “Can’t say.”
I was pretty sure that meant she didn’t know.
“So
,” she said, “you know about the senior keeper position that’s posted? It’s for Bears and Felines. You could apply.”
The keepers had wondered if this position, funded by the bond measure, would ever be created. “I’ll think about it.” Trying for senior keeper was full of pros and cons. I changed the subject. “Have the police said anything about who killed Wallace?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Could be anyone with keys to the elephant barn or Wallace could have let someone in. I don’t see how they can ever find out.” She waved the smoke away from her face, frowning. “Icky.” She ground out her butt. “That big old cop looked in Wallace’s file cabinet and took his computer.”
Wallace’s files immediately seemed like a source of crucial information, now that they were out of reach. Damn. “Just unplugged it and took it? Is he going to bring it back?”
“How would I know? We’ve got another one for the new guy, whoever it is. A better one. Wallace didn’t want to upgrade and have to learn a new interface.”
“Won’t New Guy need Wallace’s files?”
Jackie gave me a pitying look. “We do have backups, you know. We aren’t living in the bronze age.”
Of course. “What about Wallace’s email? Is that backed up, too?”
“It’s all on a server. We’ve got everything except what Wallace kept on his hard drive and didn’t save to the server. He wasn’t good with computers. Mr. Crandall is even worse. I spend half my life straightening out his files. He does this Save As thing and has all these versions of the same file and then he—“
“Jackie, I want to take a look at that computer.”
“Why? What do you care about it?” Her brow furrowed in alarm. “You want to see Wallace’s files. Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“To find out if anyone had a reason to want him dead? Not your problem.”
“You don’t think the cops are going to figure this out, do you?” I asked.
“Might.”
“Is Mr. Crandall in or not?”
“He’s got a telephone conference in his office for…” She looked at her watch. “Another forty minutes. What could you find that the cops couldn’t? You’re wasting your time.”
I waited out her struggle between common sense and professionalism on one side and a little excitement on the other.
Her eyes narrowed. “He might come out to go to the bathroom or something. It’s a risk. It’s set up with Wallace’s logon. He’s still getting email, and I have to deal with it. You’d never guess that the password is ‘neofelis.’ If I’m out of the office, I’d never know who went in there, would I?”
“No, you come, too. You’re supposed to read his email. I’ll look over your shoulder.”
Jackie thought this over. The pheasant stepped up to the poacher’s snare and hesitated. I couldn’t come up with any corn to sprinkle on the ground. Jackie shook her head. “Nah. You’re on your own. Mr. Crandall’s already crabby.”
“Have a nice lunch,” I said, and she tossed her stub into the mulch and headed for the café.
Inside the office, I found the summer intern, a chirpy high school girl in a skimpy tank top and big hoop earrings, there to handle the phones and run errands in the busy season. She beamed a welcoming smile.
“Um, I’ll be doing some data entry using the computer in here,” I said, walked into Wallace’s office, and closed the door. It didn’t feel right to be there, anymore than it ever had. The room was small, with two ordinary wooden arm chairs for guests, gray carpet, a wooden desk with a monitor. Cheap wood paneling. An army green file cabinet. Swivel chair behind the desk with a cushion dented in the shape of Wallace’s butt.
Nothing good had ever happened to me in that room. That was where keepers were chastised for their sins, where I’d learned Rick was dead, where I was busted from Felines to Birds. The photo of a younger Wallace with an elephant was still on his desk. Not Damrey, an elephant from a different zoo. The room smelled stuffy, with a hint of elephant. I wandered to a small closet and opened the door. A warm-up jacket, rubber boots, a white shirt neatly hung on the rod, a blue tie draped over it. I checked the jacket pockets and found a package of dried mango slices, a piece of monkey chow, and a grocery receipt.
I put my butt on the chair behind the desk and looked in the drawers. One was locked, probably full of personnel files. A chance to inspect my own file? And Denny’s, which probably shared some of the same disciplinary forms. But I couldn’t find the key in any of the other drawers. Wallace hoarded paper clips and pads of yellow sticky notes. I stood up and checked the file cabinet, which wasn’t locked. Every drawer held folders labeled by species or year or topic. It was stuffed with paper. No way did I have time to examine all that.
This seemed hopeless. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. No, I did. I was trying to find out who he met or found at the barn.
I turned on the computer. It came to life much faster than my own. Did Wallace have a personal calendar? If he did, the police probably took it. Maybe he used an online calendar. I logged on and opened his email. It was the same software I used at home. I clicked on the Calendar button and was excited to see that Wallace actually used it. Every day had entries. I hit the back arrow until I got to the day of the incident. Nothing for seven in the morning. The first entry was a meeting with the senior keepers at ten. I rummaged around, looking at the week before and the week after, and found nothing interesting.
Disappointed, I clicked on Mail. He’d received a gazillion emails since he’d died. Many of them were newsletters from wildlife and zoo organizations. Most hadn’t been read. Jackie wasn’t keeping up.
Feeling criminal and not in a competent way, I took a closer look, trying to sort out the personal emails. Those were few, judging by the subject lines. I paged back, sampling anything not quickly identifiable. I tried sorting by “From.” Reading emails from Dr. Reynolds seemed intrusive, but I did it anyway and learned that she had requested that the zoo pay her way to a zoo vet conference in Georgia. Also that she was over budget for lab tests she sent out. Nothing juicy.
I skipped all the emails from Mr. Crandall once I figured out that they were forwarded memos to and from the city council. I skipped the zoo newsletters.
I opened three emails from names I didn’t recognize. One was a link to a YouTube video of a woman old enough to know better hugging an adult male lion she’d raised. Another notified him of his high school reunion coming up and reminded him to come dressed as his favorite movie character. The notion boggled. The third was from his dentist reminding him to come have his teeth cleaned.
This was not working. It would take many hours to paw through all of the emails. I checked my watch. I had twenty minutes before Mr. Crandall’s meeting was scheduled to end.
As though I’d summoned him, the door opened and Mr. Crandall put his head in. “Iris? What are you doing here?”
Flustered, I clicked the mouse and missed the spot to close out the email. “Oh, hi. You startled me!” I prayed he couldn’t see the screen from where he stood.
“Are you on light duty today?”
“Yeah, I mean, yes. My ankles are swelling, and Calvin said I could find something to do sitting down. Jackie set me up to enter animal records.”
“Well, good. You take care of yourself now. No heavy lifting. No ladders.” He pulled his head out and shut the door.
Rattled, I gave up on emails. I scrolled up to the top and moved the mouse to reset the sort back to Date instead of From, covering my tracks. Before I clicked, I saw that at the top was one from [email protected], with the spam-like subject “Your letter,” sent two weeks ago. I opened it. The message was short and to the point: “Too little, too late. I hope you rot in hell, like I am.” No signature. I jerked back as though I’d put my hand on a hot stove.
Mr. Crandall was chatting with the intern when I walked out. “Done?” he asked.
“No. I’m not comfortable i
n there. Too much Wallace. I’ll find something else to do.”
He nodded. “Yes, I miss him, too. It’s a hard adjustment.”
My nerves shredded, I found Jackie and told her how close I’d come to being busted.
“Good save,” she said. “You’ll be doing identity theft before you know it. Big money in that. You’re a natural criminal.”
When I glowered at her, she said, “I’ll cover for you, but you owe me. Did you find anything good?”
“Not sure. Who’s ‘A Team Mom’? She’s really pissed at Wallace.”
“A visitor, some soccer mom? Maybe one of the petting goats bit her kid. Let me know if you find out.”
“Deal.”
“Do you think we’ll ever know what happened?” Jackie was almost plaintive.
“We’d better.”
How do you track an email address back to a name and street address? I had no clue, but I was going to find out.
Chapter Eleven
I had an armful of outraged spectacled owl when my radio crackled. The owl was clamped between my right elbow and my hip, with my right hand clutching his legs tight together so those powerful talons couldn’t get at me. I fumbled around with my left hand and got the message: “Iris, call Felines.” Dr. Reynolds’ voice. I was immediately certain that Losa had killed her cubs. No, I was surely overreacting. Surely. With an effort, I continued checking out the bird.
What inspired my meddling was that the owl had skipped breakfast and was fluffed up and dull eyed. As Calvin would say, he looked “crumpy”. A minute ago, I’d casually poked around in his exhibit like I always did, then made a fast back-handed swipe at his ankles with a leather-gloved hand, wiping him off the perch and into my clutches. This would not work twice. If I didn’t examine him now, we were facing an ugly scene of chasing and flapping. If I used a net, he’d still end up exhausted and possibly with broken feathers.
In my five months under his supervision, Calvin had done his best to teach me how to examine a bird. A check of the owl’s breast muscles confirmed that he was too thin. Mouth looked okay, feet were fine…Maybe the cubs were all right, but Losa had died of some post-partum infection. I re-focused, parting feathers on his back and peering at the bases, nudging my little white face mask with a thumb so that I could see. Ah-ha. Feather lice. He was old and tired and not keeping up with his grooming. I carried him to the little shed outside the aviary where Calvin kept cardboard boxes and stuffed him inside one. Powerful as the feet and wings were, the owl couldn’t break out of a cardboard box and wouldn’t even try. He would be safe and quiet. Later I’d take him to the hospital for treatment. Maybe Linda had saved one of the cubs.
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