“I did not barge, and I did not yell. This is going to bite us all.”
I retreated, defeat bitter on my tongue. Seemed that whatever Sam had, it was going around.
The day’s disasters weren’t over. At the Commissary, ready to clock out and crawl home, I found Denny sitting on the counter swinging his legs and waving one hand. His audience included Arnie, Hap, Linda, Ian, and Calvin and they all looked fascinated by whatever he was saying. I braced myself for yet another torrent of almost-facts and half-baked theories.
No theories. He was describing real life, this afternoon in fact.
He saw me and said, “Wait. Let me back up ‘cause Ire just got here.” A pause for me to join the group. “You won’t see Sam clock out today because he’s done doing that. He went and talked with Neal about the new elephant exhibit this afternoon—I asked Jackie—and it ended up with yelling. Jackie said it was about to get physical, so she got Mr. Crandall. He went in, and Sam stomped out.”
Hap said, “Neal came down and changed the schedule on the board. Really had his warrior on. Looked like he was ready to pulverize the next guy who said ‘hey’ to him. He took Sam off Elephants and put him on Children’s Zoo for the rest of the week. Sam blew in half an hour later and erased his name from the schedule. I asked him what was up, and he said he was outta here for good. Ian?”
Ian was not ready to pick up the ball. He took a step back.
“What happened at the barn?” Denny asked with what was, for him, considerable patience.
Ian stood his ground, for the moment. “Sam took a call. Said he quit. He left.”
“What else?” I asked, my stomach churning.
“Said Elephants was all mine.” His faced tightened. “How’s that going, going to work? I can’t do it alone. Just, just walked out.”
Hap raised both hands, palms out, commanding our attention. “This fumblebum Neal hacked Sam off to the max. He’s high up the tree of righteous rage, spitting sparks and razor blades. You all know he’s a good man, and we need him. Who’s going to man-up and talk him down?” He looked around, waiting for one of us to accept the challenge.
Why did he look at me like I was the lead candidate? Denny started to say something. “I’ll try,” I said. Chewing my hand off at the wrist was a more appealing prospect.
At home, I found good reasons to put this off. For starters, the dogs had a vet appointment. I loaded them into the Honda, and they experimented with hopping from the back to the rear seat and then to the front passenger seat. I explained once again that the rules had changed, and they were required to stay in the back. All the way back. This made no sense to either Winnie or Range, but I pointed out that, unlike in the truck bed, they weren’t tied up. That could change if they didn’t cooperate. Range, ever the peacemaker, flopped down in the rear, and Winnie sat beside him with an injured air.
I had picked my veterinary clinic partly because they were open late two nights a week. After exams, shots, and treats, and a fascinating discussion about heart worms, we made a pass through Burgerville for my dinner and drove home for theirs.
I took an early shower and decked myself out in the pink jammies from my mother. I called Marcie. Denny wasn’t there so we talked for half an hour about nothing much. Denny was taking her to a comic book convention. “I’m trying to care,” she said, “but I’m taking a paperback. Give me a mystery any day over a graphic novel. They’re all so dark.” The TV news had nothing about an arrest. My inhabitant wiggled and jiggled inside of me like the spider in the kid’s song.
Being adult is all about making yourself do what you ought to but don’t want to. I never asked to grow up. A mental search for additional reasons to wait came up empty. The stomach twitches weren’t at all like baby calisthenics. I sucked it up and called Sam’s house. Brent answered and muffled the phone while he checked whether Sam would talk to me. The wait seemed long, and I prayed Brent would come back so I could leave a message to have Sam call me when he felt like it. But Sam came on the line.
“Iris.”
“Yeah. I heard you quit. I got elected to talk you out of it. Hap and Denny and Linda and so on. We want you back.”
Silence. I braced for the blast.
What I got wasn’t bitter or angry. More like resignation. “No, it’s my time to go. Brent’s wanted me to quit for months now. He thinks we can get by on his income, and I guess we’ll have to try. He wants to travel, and we can’t with my job. It’s done, Iris. I’ll miss the people, most of them, and I’ll surely miss the girls, but it’s over. I can’t fix anything there, I can’t do anything but the regular routine. It’s making me crazy, it’s going to get worse, and I need to let it go.”
There wasn’t much to say to that. I asked him to keep open the possibility of coming back.
“No, I don’t think so. I apologize for the way you saw me behave. And the way I turned on you. There was no excuse for that.”
“Sam, it’s forgotten. Really.”
“Iris, do not trust Ian.”
“Is that why you wanted to carry a gun?” That had worried me for weeks.
“I don’t even own a gun. I didn’t want him or anybody else to think I was a sitting duck like Wallace was.”
I promised to be careful and signed off, relieved that the Sam I knew was back, sorrowful that I would not be working with him. Or seeing him at all, for that matter.
But a few minutes later, wandering the house to tidy up while my nerves finished settling, it came to me that Sam would likely be out of the country soon…out of reach of any investigation. I shut down the thought. Sam was never that angry, never that crazy…
The phone rang as I was brushing my teeth. It was Linda.
“I just watched the late news,” she said. “Calvin’s confessed to murdering Wallace.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Detective Quintana did not answer his phone at seven in the morning. The papers had nothing, but television had a still of Wallace and one of an elephant hook, followed by a few seconds of video showing Calvin from the rear, head bowed and hands cuffed behind him, as he was escorted from the police station to the county jail. It almost broke my heart.
I drove to work and called Detective Quintana at seven thirty from the phone by the time clock. No answer. I stared at Linda’s handwriting on the whiteboard: “Neofelis nebulosa 2.1” Two males, one female. Even that didn’t cheer me up.
I needed to interrogate Jackie, but elephants came first. Sam was gone and Ian had to do all the work alone. But Ian said I was out of the pee business. “Neal says I do it now.”
“He could have mentioned that to me.”
Ian twitched a “not my fault” twitch.
“I talked to Sam. He’s not coming back. I hope he’s eligible for retirement.”
Ian nodded. I left.
Jackie was pale and almost as uncommunicative. She said that all she knew was what was on TV. Mr. Crandall’s office was empty. Neal was seated in his office with the door open. I ignored him, walked back to the Penguinarium, and called Quintana again. Again, the voice message.
After the penguins were fed and the food for the aviary prepared, I made a cup of coffee—the one a day I was allowed—and took a short break, scarfing a health-food muffin and a banana.
My IQ rose with my blood sugar. I’d been thinking like a friend. Time to try thinking like a parent. Calling Quintana might not be the brightest way to support Calvin. This situation put me in a quandary.
Linda knocked as she opened the door and sloshed through the foot bath, looking as upset as I was. She grabbed the second chair. “Why didn’t you come find me for break? We have to talk. First Sam, now Calvin. This is insane.” Penguins studied us through the baby gate.
“I needed to think. Sit.”
She sat and fiddled with a tea bag in one of the beautiful cups she’d made for me. “You work with him. How could he have done this?” She glared at me. “Talk.”
; “Linda, this has to be just you and me. No discussing any of this with Denny or Jackie or anyone else.”
“No promises. Tell me now, or I’ll steal all your food.”
“What kind of a deal is that?” Feeling bullied, even by a weak joke, I said, “First off, there’s no budging Sam. Brent has the bit in his teeth. I predict he will whisk Sam out of town within the week, off to some romantic vacation. Brent wanted him to quit because this place was making Sam crazy. Which it really was.”
“It’s making me crazy.”
“Yeah, it’s going around.”
“And it started with Calvin killing Wallace?” Linda shuddered. “Is there LSD in the hot dogs or something?”
“Calvin didn’t kill Wallace any more than you or I did. He thinks his daughter Janet did, and he’s protecting her.”
Linda sat back. “Oh.”
“That’s what I want you to shut up about. Here’s what’s going on.” I reminded her about the old story of Janet’s entrapment and firing, and told her about my visit to her house. “Wallace wrote Janet a month or so ago and apologized. I think he meant to clear the slate for a new relationship with another woman. He must have known how ineffective that was, but he probably couldn’t see anything better to do for Janet. They met and talked. She went along with the reconciliation at the time, but once she got home and remembered how the accusation led to her crappy life, she sent him a hateful email. The police read it, I’m sure. They tracked her down and talked to her before I did. Anyhow, something convinced Calvin that Janet came to the zoo and got into the barn and whacked Wallace. So he confessed.”
She looked at me sidelong. “Um, Iris…You don’t really know he didn’t do it.”
“Yes, I do. If he did it, he’d have confessed right away. Why would he wait?”
“Because he wouldn’t expect his daughter to be suspected.”
“No, no, no. He didn’t do it. He thinks she did it. He doesn’t lose his temper, and he wouldn’t plan a killing this poorly. Trust me.” She knew Calvin. The idea was absurd.
Linda said, “Tell the police. They need to check this out.”
“I was going to, until I realized it was kind of a betrayal.” A penguin brayed, and I closed the door on them and sat back down. “Look, you’re not a parent. I’m not either, not yet, but I’m in training. Calvin is doing what he thinks is right for his daughter. Is it my place to try to wreck that? He’s already decided he would rather go to jail than see Janet in the slammer. She’s raising two kids, did I mention that? One of them is autistic. I’m sure he sees this as the best option. It’s not right for me to meddle.”
Linda tucked her lips in and bit them. “You want a killer raising kids? She could flip out again. She needs to be locked up for everyone’s safety, especially the kids. Calvin’s not thinking clearly, and you aren’t either.”
“We don’t really know that Janet did kill Wallace.” This was getting even more muddled.
“Call the police and tell them what you think. Let them sort it out.”
“Promise me you won’t call them yourself.”
“No promises. You let me know when you’ve done it.”
And that was where we left it. I had no doubt she’d ask tomorrow whether I’d called. She could usually tell when I was lying. I stewed about it all day, but I didn’t call Quintana again and he didn’t call me back.
Dr. Reynolds found me cleaning parrot cages at the Children’s Zoo in late afternoon. It was Arnie’s day off, and there was no Calvin to do it. Happy Birthday, the red-crowned parrot named for his favorite phrase, was screaming at me for ruining his life. I’d locked him in the little den box while I scrubbed perches and plastic toys and set out his dinner. My real crime was being me, not Calvin or Arnie.
“Iris, I need to interrupt you for a minute.”
“What’s up?”
Visitors—families with strollers and toddlers—were all in the goat corral at the moment so we had a little privacy. Dr. Reynolds stood in her white lab coat with her arms crossed, looking worried. “Why were you asking me about Ian Sullivan? I found him asleep in his Jeep two doors down from my house this morning. I think he was there all night.”
“Like a stalker?”
“Exactly. I woke him up. He said he was there to protect me. I told him I would tell the police.” She looked more angry than frightened.
“Sam said he had a crush on you.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
The parrot screamed, “Trick or treat! Shut up!”
“Because they dislike each other so much I’m not sure if Sam knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Ian.”
Dr. Reynolds said stiffly, “I’m telling you this because I am concerned about your safety, in case he was stalking you as well. You said he was acting oddly toward you. Please let me know the next time you learn something relevant to my safety.” She dismissed me with a nod and started away.
“Wait. Dr. Reynolds, is that why the security guards have been escorting you to and from the parking lot?”
“Of course.”
“But what tipped you off before finding him this morning?”
A pause. “I am not free to discuss that.”
Why not? Bewildered, I set that aside. “I can follow you home to make sure no one is hanging out there.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary.”
How could I have screwed up by not sharing a rumor? This wasn’t fair. I parked that notion also and tried to focus on the main issue. “Uh, Dr. Reynolds?”
Kids were pouring out of the goat corral, on to the next thing to catch their attention. A woman pushed a stroller between us, one kid running ahead, another following. I waited until they were occupied with rabbits. “If Ian has a crush on you, he had a motive for killing Kevin Wallace.”
She looked at me in alarm, but not for the right reason. “Being stalked by Ian has nothing to do with Kevin. Calvin Lorenz confessed last night.”
“I know. I don’t think Calvin did it.”
“If you have any evidence to back that up, you should share it with the police.”
She gave me a troubled and wary look, and this time I did not interrupt her departure. My effort to protect Ian had left her feeling at risk, and she would be slow to trust me again. Discouraged, I returned to arranging chew toys for Happy Birthday.
Denny called forty-five minutes before my day’s end and caught me in the middle of the afternoon penguin feeding, rushing to finish up. “Ire. I need to talk to you.”
“Denny, busy here. Tomorrow.”
“This new curator wants a tour of Reptiles today. What do we know about him, really? What if he’s Thor’s boss, and he’s setting us up? What if he killed Wallace to get this job?”
Even for Denny, this was peculiar. So was his voice—tight and anxious. “That’s crazy. What’s wrong with you?”
“He could be anybody, and he’ll be here soon. I want to understand the risk.”
Something was not right. “I’m coming over. Sit still until I get there.”
I got to Reptiles as fast as I could and found Denny holding a grass snake up to the light, studying its scales like they held the secret of the universe. The snake wasn’t happy about this, and I made him put it away. “Are you stoned?” The answer was obvious. “Are you out of your mind? Do you realize what Neal’s going to think?” Denny had to have history with drugs, all things considered, but I’d never seen him ripped at work.
“Didn’t smoke anything.” He looked at me closely. “Why did you say that? Is this some kind of a joke?” He stepped away from me.
“Did you take any pills?”
“No. I don’t do pills. You never know what’s really in them.”
“What did you eat?”
“A brownie. It’s giving me energy.”
“Energy, my foot. Where is it?”
He frowned. “I told you, I ate it. It was a gift.”
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This was so not good. “A gift. From whom?”
“It was an apology.” His mental light bulb went off, and he straightened up. He dug around in his uniform pants’ pocket and handed me a folded piece of paper. “See? Gift.”
I scanned it swiftly, expecting Neal to show up any second. The typed message said, “I am so sorry my boyfriend cut your tires. It won’t happen again. Please take this as an apology.”
“It was in my van, on the driver’s seat.” Denny adored his van, a dented panel truck that smelled of mildew.
Someone had left a doped brownie inside his van? “Don’t you lock it?”
He thought about that for longer than seemed necessary. “No one ever bothered it before. Tires are so expensive and so not green. I hate buying them. Made me late to work twice.” He blinked a couple of times and got back on track. “It was from the store, but it was good. Like home-made.”
“Let me see the wrapper.” I found it in the garbage can, the cellophane package from a cheap supermarket brownie. It was ripped open and crushed, but a close look at the seam showed where someone had cut and carefully re-glued it. This was some bad neighbor. “You would never survive in the wild. We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Can’t. Need to find out who Neal really is. You already know, don’t you?” He looked at me with deep suspicion and took another step back.
“He’ll tell in a heartbeat that you’re stoned on your butt. He will never believe this story. Come on.”
“Why are you trying to get rid of me? What are you and he planning?”
So this was why he didn’t use. Cannabis made him paranoid. He was minutes away from getting fired, and he wouldn’t budge. I took a deep breath, stood up straight, and used a sober, serious voice, aiming for something between Sarah Connor in The Terminator and Obi-Wan Kenobi. “Denny, I have to show you something right now. It’s in the parking lot. I’ve been waiting, and now it’s time.”
His eyes widened. “Oh. Okay.”
It wasn’t easy getting him across the zoo because he was uncoordinated, and he wanted to stop and look at everything, especially visitors. The visitors stared back at the two of us stumbling along. I smiled at them, hoping they would invent an explanation that didn’t require notifying the front office. The radio on his belt buzzed twice. We ignored it.
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