Detective Quintana looked bored.
I soldiered on. “I figure either she panicked and ran away because she thought the email made her a suspect, or else she took the kids to Garibaldi to go crabbing and hasn’t heard that her dad fell on his sword for her.” Come to think of it, I might have helped trigger her flight by my original visit. First the cops, then me might have been too much for her nerves. I didn’t see any reason to mention this. “Have you found her yet?” I waited a bit and sighed. “This would be easier if you said something now and then.”
“It’s your show. I’m still hoping that you’ll come up with something useful.”
I’d decided not to mention Denny’s cut tires and loaded brownie unless I had to. That was likely to backfire. Instead I said, “Pull up your sleeve.” That surprised him. I pushed back my own sleeve. He frowned, but he unbuttoned the cuff of his blue shirt and slid it up, pulling back his dark jacket sleeve as well. I leaned forward and inspected the back of his hand and wrist. They looked much like mine, except for being hairy and bigger. “I’d say you’ve been messing with blackberries and got scratched up a little. You found the route into the back of the zoo. I’m not sure what that tells us. Janet couldn’t have gotten in that way, and Calvin had no reason to.”
He pulled his cuff back down and rebuttoned it. In an uninterested, neutral voice he said, “Why couldn’t Janet have used it?”
“Ah. You haven’t found her. She’s really big. Not a climber. So if Janet did it, she came in some other way. I should have seen her when I ran to the elephant barn. I’m not saying she didn’t do it, just that I can’t figure out how.”
A mistake. I’d accidentally tricked him into revealing information, and now he was mad. “Ms. Oakley, withholding information about a homicide is a crime with serious penalties. If you have information you have not yet shared with us, this would be the time to do it.”
“You should eat something. The shrimp cakes are good.” I meant well, thinking it might improve his mood, but my suggestion fueled the ire lurking in his sagging face. I said, “Look, I called it wrong at the beginning and led you astray. I really thought Damrey had trampled Wallace to death. I’m not an elephant keeper, and I didn’t understand what she was doing. I’m trying to work with you here, trying to give you information that you can only get from a zoo employee.”
One side of his face winced in a skeptical way.
“My father does that silence thing, but it works out a lot better. I think you should talk to me. Like about whatever Dr. Reynolds’ big secret is. Was it enough for her to kill Wallace if he found out? You know they were dating…”
This didn’t cut any ice. “Let’s make this clear, Ms. Oakley. There is no way I’m going to share confidential information with you. In fact, all this scrambling around you are doing makes me think I should take a much closer look at your relationship with Kevin Wallace.”
“Waste of time. You can’t prove I did it because I didn’t.” I took a breath and persevered. Ian’s crush on Dr. Reynolds was also in the skip-unless-essential category, but I could come at it from another angle. “Ian Sullivan smokes Camels, and yesterday I found an empty pack near the cottonwood tree behind the manure shed. I think it’s a plant. Somebody’s trying to implicate him and must have left it recently because you didn’t find it and you were there before I was, right?”
I didn’t get a nod. I moved on. “Why would Wallace be at the barn alone so early except to catch an intruder? And the first people who come to mind are these animal rights activists who’ve been making pests of themselves about the elephants. This Thor Thorson pops up everywhere at all hours. He’s sort of a reverse Houdini, good at getting into places.” I explained about his backpack, which could hold a rope ladder. “He’s got this creepy sidekick, Dale something, who was following Sam around. He tried to scare me, too.” I explained Dale’s suspicions about Nakri’s wound. “If he or Thor broke into the barn to take pictures, Wallace might have caught him. Maybe they fought, one of them nailed Wallace, and they left out the back, and I never saw them.”
“Is that it?”
“Well, yeah. I think you should look at Thor and Dale.” I hesitated, not sure whether pushing would help or hurt. “And then you could turn Calvin loose. I’ve known him for years. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He and Wallace worked together for years after Janet was fired. No reason for him to fly off the handle now. He’s a good person. It’s just that he’s a parent.”
Detective Quintana sipped his tea and studied me. He set the cup down. “What I’m hearing is a load of creative speculation and a lot of nosiness. It’s also clear you’ve been messing around with the evidence in this case, which is more unacceptable than you can begin to imagine. Let me put it this way. I’m willing to stipulate that you’re a pretty good zoo keeper. I know for a fact that I’m a pretty good cop. This investigation will work out best for both of us if we stick to our own jobs. I won’t screw with the birdies, and you stay out of this from now on. Otherwise, you may be contaminating evidence and getting people stirred up who don’t need to be stirred up. Do we have a deal? Because otherwise I’m going to have a chat with your boss or else charge you with obstructing justice.” His face was not friendly.
“Don’t be so mean,” I wailed. “I work there, and I know stuff you don’t. Did you even know about Thor?” Once again I felt like crying. Another pathetic side effect of pregnancy? “You’re never going to figure this out because the elephants wrecked the crime scene, and it was days late before you found out it was a murder. Calvin’s knees hurt, and jail isn’t good for him. And lots of other bad stuff is happening at the zoo.”
“Such as?”
“Animals disappearing, and the wrong people being promoted. Tire slashing.”
It was his turn to sigh. He spoke as if I were dimwitted.“We have a confession from a person with motive, opportunity, and means. He’s a friend of yours. You’re trying to help him. But you are doing more harm than good, and you are straying into fantasy when you try to link unrelated events to the murder. Stay out of this or I am going to come down on you like the hammer of Zeus.”
“It’s the hammer of Thor,” I said. “Thor Thorson. Not his real first name, which I forget. But I—you—could find out.”
“I am not kidding,” he said. He slid out of the booth and stood up. He shook his head at me like a bloodhound with ear mites. He left.
All I had gotten out of this was Pad Thai and a dent in my budget. He knew everything I knew, had the same suspicions, had hit the same walls. Or else he didn’t believe me or didn’t care. I had no magic abilities with Sam or Ian, no special perceptions, and I had learned nothing useful about why Kevin Wallace had died. I couldn’t save the friend I knew was innocent.
I flagged down the waiter and ordered the shrimp cakes. Fiscal irresponsibility was better than bawling.
Chapter Twenty-four
Saturday morning, two bleak, exhausting days later, I shut the alarm off in my sleep and showed up for work an hour and a half late. I called Neal to tell him I’d made it in. “Don’t make a habit of clocking late,” he said. “I have to approve schedule changes, overtime or not, and you need to manage your time. Incidentally, I noticed a lot of trash around the pond. Let’s get that cleaned up.”
I was within a microsecond of hanging up on him when he added, “I have some help for you today. Should be in around noon. His name is Pete Latimer. An experienced bird keeper. Let me know when you think he’s ready to solo. I’m guessing three-four days of training.”
I’d be dead by then.
All our schedules were disrupted, and Linda was off today. I could imagine what it felt like to leave Arnie in charge of Felines for two days. I hadn’t heard how her meeting with Dr. Reynolds had gone. If I weren’t too tired to think, I’d remember to call her and ask. I hoped she’d stopped Dr. Reynolds from making Kayla’s life miserable.
After seven work days in a row, I had no brain power ava
ilable for thinking about Calvin or Janet or Thor, only a nagging sense that yet another disaster lurked, waiting for me to relax. Someone had tried to stop Denny. It was logical to go for me next.
I no longer had my elephant chore, but this was weighing day for the penguins, a monthly ritual. I set the electronic bathroom scale down on their island. The birds gathered at a safe distance and regarded it as if aliens had dropped off a portal to an unknown planet.
This was normal. I stuffed vitamins into fish gills and, when that was done, checked how the group process was going. The birds were now clustered around the scale pecking at it and braying about their courage. I stepped over the baby gate with a clipboard and a bucket of fish. Mrs. Green, ever the opportunist, hopped on the scale and collected her smelt. I put the bucket down, fastened the lid, and wrote down her weight using the clipboard. Mrs. Yellow did her best to work the lid off the bucket. Mrs. Green insisted on being weighed again. Mr. White brayed long and loud and then pecked the toes of my rubber boots.
This was much easier with two people. After a good amount of frustration and an extra half hour, almost everyone was weighed and had eaten a vitamin fish. The exception was Mrs. Brown, who declined her smelt and even refused a particularly choice herring. Calvin’s absence was a bitter ache. I couldn’t even call him at home for advice. Instead, I left a message for Dr. Reynolds that Mrs. Brown was again off her feed.
Word got around, of course, about the new person arriving. At lunch break the café had a brisk business in keepers who showed up hoping one of us had real information. We pushed two tables together, although Arnie chose to sit at a third one nearby. A couple of visitors wandered over once we’d all settled. “Hello there!” the woman said with a big smile. None of us was particularly welcoming, but I was raised right and made the effort. “Can I help you?” The last thing we wanted to do was answer visitor questions during our lunch.
“I’m Cheyenne Courtenay, and this is Pete Latimer. We’re not from the government, and we’re here to help.”
“The temps!” I said. “Save us!”
We established that they weren’t hungry, found room for them at the tables, and introduced ourselves. Cheyenne looked tanned and fit, mid-thirties, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt for the warm day. No makeup or jewelry, wiry brown hair cropped short and thick. Pete was dark-haired, darker skin, also jeans and t-shirt. His arms and chest were muscular, tattoos twining around his fingers. Linda, Denny, and Hap took turns grilling them while I ate. They turned out to be partners and had worked at a major zoo in the Northeast. They quit to spend a year in Thailand looking at wildlife and working in little Southeast Asian sanctuaries and zoos. Neal had somehow gotten their email address and set up the gig while they were still overseas. They’d gotten off their return flight in New York yesterday, landed in Portland a few hours ago, and were delighted to have jobs. If they were jet-lagged, it didn’t show.
Pete’s experience was in marine mammals, cheetahs, and birds. Cheyenne was an elephant keeper and remembered that she’d met Ian before. Ian managed a nod and brief smile.
“What, is there an underground network of elephant keepers?” I asked. Turned out there was. They knew each other from a conference and visiting other facilities.
Pete and Cheyenne asked for suggestions for a place to stay while they found more permanent housing. I caught their expectant look at Ian, who kept his eyes down. After a moment’s consideration, I said, “You can crash with me for a few days. I’ve got a spare bedroom.” They were grateful. “My house is in Portland. Have you got a car?” They did not. I wondered what I’d gotten myself into.
Pete followed me around for the rest of the day. He seemed to grasp the routine easily and didn’t sneer at our exhibits or offer a boatload of suggestions or question my face mask. He provided an energy boost that made up for the extra time training. We even got the trash at the back of the pond cleaned up.
We met Cheyenne at the time clock, rounded up their duffle bags from where Jackie had stored them in the office, and loaded ourselves into the Honda. As I drove by the front of the zoo, I pointed to the sole picketer on duty, a woman. “You guys wouldn’t happen to know a Thor Thorson, would you? He’s in charge of a bunch of people making trouble about the elephants.”
Cheyenne, in the seat next to me, said, “Ohhhh-yeah. So it’s your turn. We had him for months.”
I filed that away. We stopped by my parents, who I’d warned in advance, and picked up a foam mattress and bedding. My mother thrust a meatloaf on me, solving the issue of dinner. I nearly wept.
At my house, I left my guests to set up the second bedroom, once I shoved baby gear into the closet. This was one more opportunity to be glad I’d made Denny take Rick’s iguana, Bessie Smith. Her big glass habitat would have taken up half the room. The third bedroom was hopeless, full of boxes I hadn’t yet dealt with. I threw potatoes into the microwave. Frozen peas made it a complete meal.
Over dinner, Cheyenne asked how long Neal had been with Finley Memorial Zoo, which led to me explaining about Kevin Wallace’s demise. They’d spent a month in a little village without Internet access and had somehow missed the news.
Pete put down his fork. “What? Neal never said a word about a murderer on the loose.” His eyes flashed. “He’s sending Cheyenne to Elephants without a word of warning? Who the hell knows what might happen in there?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Ian will be with me most of the time, and Neal’s looking to hire another elephant keeper, so then there’ll be two of us all the time. Whoever did this is probably long gone. I’m not in any danger.”
Pete wasn’t so sure. I had no idea.
“My job’s enough,” Pete said. “You don’t have to work there. You could quit.” But it was clear from her tolerant, stubborn face that he’d lost before he started. She got up and put a hand on his shoulder before rummaging in the freezer for ice cream.
“Tell me about Thor,” I said as we polished off the chocolate swirl.
Pete and Cheyenne looked at each other, one of those couple things I’d almost forgotten. “He’s sincere as all hell. He never quits,” Pete said.
Cheyenne nodded. “He loves elephants, but he’s got a blind spot about zoos. He thinks we can never provide good conditions. He’s stuck on having hundreds of acres, like that’s all that matters.” She explained that Thor enlisted Ian to help establish a new elephant sanctuary. Ian had elephant experience with a couple of zoos and a circus and was an eager convert. But he changed his mind. She said, “One of the sanctuary volunteers is a friend of mine. The vet had no experience with elephants. The safety procedures for staff and volunteers weren’t good. They didn’t approve of breeding more elephants, and Ian thought that was cheating the cows out of having a family. He told Thor and the director about all this—you can imagine him trying to say anything that complicated. Everybody yelled at him, and he ended up walking five miles with his suitcase to the main road so he could hitchhike out.”
“He came here,” I mused, “thinking he could be part of building a really good elephant facility. Then he found out that the project hasn’t gotten off the ground.”
Cheyenne nodded. “He’ll probably stick around until a decision is made about what to do with Damrey and Nakri.”
“We’re all worried about that,” I said. “Sam, the elephant keeper that quit, thought Wallace planned to ship them to another zoo instead of improving the exhibit. Thor is pressuring the zoo to send them to a sanctuary.”
Cheyenne said, “Sanctuaries can be a good option, but it’s not just about acreage, and it’s not just about hanging up the ankus forever. Nutrition, veterinary care, foot care, managing their friendships and feuds, lots of things need to be in place. Oh, and stable funding. Elephant care isn’t cheap.”
“You’ve talked about this before,” I said.
“Well, yeah. I had practice at our old zoo.”
I said, “Sam said that sanctuaries usually limit pu
blic access, so problems can be hidden.”
Cheyenne shrugged. “Possibly. I’d like to see them have a strict accreditation program, like zoos do.”
“Which aren’t all accredited. Finley isn’t there yet.”
Pete said, “And won’t be until you solve the elephant problem.”
Cheyenne said, “On the plus side, Ian’s good at training and enrichment. Their feet look okay. The girls are good friends.”
“Tell me more about Thor. Did he ever get violent? What sets him off?” I asked.
Pete shook his head. “He’s totally under control. With the press, with pissed-off keepers, with teenagers mouthing off. He started a media circus at our old zoo that lasted a month, and he enjoyed every minute.”
“There was a story,” Cheyenne said. “Nothing I saw myself.”
“Tell me,” I said.
Cheyenne looked uncomfortable.
“I need to know about Thor and how he operates.” I wasn’t letting this go.
She said, “It’s not just about Thor…It’s about Ian, too. I’m going to be working with him. I don’t want to be telling tales.”
Pete said, “I think you should. It might matter.”
She gave that a thought, then she told me that Thor had a girlfriend who also worked at the elephant sanctuary, although “she wasn’t an animal person. She did the web site.” Ian had developed “a crush” on the girlfriend, which eventually annoyed her. She told Thor, who asked Ian to back off. When Ian kept staring at her, the girlfriend lambasted Thor for not being man enough to punch him out. This led to a protracted argument about whether there was an appropriate role for violence in personal or public life. In the end, she broke up with Thor and left.
“The only problem I’ve had with Ian,” Cheyenne said, “is that he’ll barely speak to me. He acts like I’m poison ivy.”
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