“Yeah,” I said, “For awhile he was almost normal around me, but no more.”
Cheyenne didn’t know anything about Dale, Thor’s black-haired shadow.
Pete said, “I am liking this gig less and less.”
Later, getting ready for bed, I felt Thor fading as a suspect. Dale stayed in play. Ian seemed too ineffective for violence. Calvin was still in jail. Janet was still not answering her phone. Detective Quintana had not called me to suggest we work together.
My options were boiling down to one: stick to my birdies.
The next morning we munched our granola in sleepy silence. Pete was a tea drinker, Cheyenne was as addicted to coffee as I was. Having people around was surprisingly pleasant, even if they couldn’t solve all my problems. I ferried them to the zoo.
Pete stumbled a little with the penguins, rushing them while they were still shy of the stranger. They wanted Calvin, would tolerate me, and thought Pete was a shark in disguise. We got through it. Dr. Reynolds had us catch up Mrs. Brown. I wrestled her into an animal carrier and left her for the moment. Pete did well with the aviary, reading the feeding charts carefully to prepare the food bowls. When we set them out, a Brazilian cardinal landed on his head without hesitation and accepted a meal worm from his fingers as her due.
I left him cleaning the aviary and arranged for the security guard to take me and Mrs. Brown up to the hospital in one of the electric carts. Penguins are heavier than owls. Dr. Reynolds wasn’t there, probably out on the grounds, but Kayla was, in a red camp shirt, a cluster of little red gems in each ear. I thanked the guard and handed the penguin over to her. “She likes the little bait herring,” I said. “Try that if she won’t eat. Hap can get them on special order, but they’re expensive.”
“I’m all about gourmet treats,” Kayla said. “My tartar sauce is to die for.” She waited with the animal carrier at her feet outside the quarantine room.
I stalled, not sure how to avoid sounding totally intrusive.
“What’s up? I need to feed things,” she said.
I said, “Has Dr. Reynolds calmed down? Did Linda get her to consider that someone else might have taken that cub?”
“It’s fine.” Kayla didn’t want to talk about it.
I blurted, “What was her married name?”
Kayla looked at me sideways. “Why do you care?”
“I overheard Neal call her Jeannie Franklin.” I’d tried an online search under both names and found nothing useful.
“So? She changed back to her own name. I guess you did, too?”
“She seems to be keeping quiet about something in her background. You wouldn’t know what that is, would you?”
Kayla made a face. “If I did and if she’s my friend, which she still is, why would I spread it around? What’s up with you? This is kind of weird.”
Way to go, Iris. Replace Jackie as the zoo’s czarina of gossip. “Just wondering. Lots of strange things going on around here.”
“Well, if she has some big secret, she’s keeping it from me, too. And I’m sure it has nothing to do with Calvin or Kevin Wallace.” She picked up the carrier and opened the door to the quarantine room.
I took the hint.
Pete and I finished a little early, with the penguins more accepting at the afternoon feeding. I put him to work cleaning the cricket box while I did reports and then watched with my feet propped up on an overturned bucket. He seemed to have plenty of energy left over and once we were home, he stepped up to cooking dinner.
It had become clear that my visitors were stony-broke. I would be on the hook for housing, food, and transportation until Neal coughed up advance pay checks for them. Pete and Cheyenne seemed untroubled by this and slid smoothly into the household. Pete cooked and Cheyenne did the dishes. I began to think of them as bright-colored birds that had wandered outside their normal range, exotic strays that obeyed different laws. This made me a trifle uneasy, but it didn’t keep me from sleeping. Without nightmares.
I did not share the zoo’s troubles with them, much less my surmises and suspicions. Pete might insist they quit for Cheyenne’s safety, and his help with Birds was saving my rear. Having them in the house let me relax, impossible at work.
Monday, with Neal’s permission, I clocked out after the morning penguin feeding, leaving my guests to the mercies of the bus system for a ride home. I swung by Felines on my way out, hoping to catch Linda. She wasn’t around. Both servals were in view, small, leggy, spotted cats from Africa. Pele, the male, secured the perimeter by squirting as he paced. His mate, Spot, drowsed under a sword fern. Their elegance and grace seduced naïve people into buying them as pets. The Oregonian had run an article on how badly that turned out. Hyper-sensitive predators do not good house pets make. Dozens of them were abandoned by their owners and ended up in rescue centers.
I stalled at the empty tiger exhibit, leaning against the guardrail that separated viewers from the shrubs that bordered the moat. The pool was drained and dry to prevent mosquitoes from breeding. Grass in the exhibit was tall and lush, healthier than it had been with Rajah chewing and trampling it. Grass or no grass, it was a desolate scrap of land without Raj.
The lost tiger. Not a hair had turned up. Insurance would replace the van, Neal would find animals to fill the exhibit. Rajah was obliterated. Not even a skeletal mount at a university remained. “Ah, Raj. I miss you,” I whispered.
Like a virus or fungal infection, the disasters had started with Wallace in the elephant barn and had spread to two senior keepers, Felines, Reptiles, and the hospital. Had Janet set off this string of misery? I could picture her clobbering Wallace, no problem. She nurtured her rage and kept it close. If she killed Wallace, that meant a friend of mine hadn’t. But the possibility was breaking Calvin’s heart.
How, exactly, could she manage to do it? She had not come over the fence behind the barn. She had to know the combination to one of the vehicle gates, then enter the barn through one of the keeper doors and encounter Wallace off guard. The elephants began their uproar. How had she left? The exit turnstiles at the visitor entrance were locked. She wouldn’t fit through a turnstile anyway. So she had to use the employee gate into the Commissary/Hospital area, then through the outer perimeter fence using the delivery gate or the gate to the employee parking lot. Whichever, her car had to be parked nearby.
This was reaching deep into the realm of improbability. Keys, gate combinations, me not seeing her…And she would have no reason to find Wallace at the elephant barn unless he’d arranged it in advance. I couldn’t think why he would want more contact with her. It hadn’t exactly worked out for him the last time.
A pair of blackbirds foraged in Rajah’s grass, the gold eye of the male gleaming in his black head.
Why had she vanished? That was the most damning thing she could have done. I set Janet aside. I was sure that Wallace came to the barn early to get the jump on someone sneaking around. That would be someone using the secret access behind Elephants. An outsider. No one who worked at the zoo had any reason to use that.
Yes, they did.
They did if they wanted to come and go without anyone seeing them at Elephants when they had no business being there.
Something about the elephants themselves didn’t seem right. I’d have to think about that.
What had happened to Dr. Reynolds in a previous life that she wanted kept hidden? Something that Quintana had found out. That had the feel of trouble with the law.
I felt explanations floating just out of sight, drifting away when I turned my attention toward them. I pushed away from the guard rail in frustration.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Come on up, Oakley. It’s not a party without you. I’ll buy your soda pop.” Hap, in his cheer-leader, team-builder role, called me at home to announce that he was initiating Pete and Cheyenne into the Vulture’s Roost. My guests had assured me they were world-ranked experts on urban transit and had left at some early
hour to take the bus to Finley Memorial Zoo, another state and fifteen miles away. Apparently they had survived the journey and their first week in good enough shape to party. I felt better after a day off, but still, a tedious drive and a beery gathering was a stretch. On the other hand, I wanted an update on the cubs and Dr. Reynolds’ progress down the warpath. Linda and I hadn’t had a minute to talk for days. I should have asked Hap if she was there…
She was, also Denny, Kayla, Ian, and Arnie. The place was close to full, with more people coming in. Hap had scored our usual table, the big corner booth. The music was loud zydeco and Tex-Mex, spreading positive energy and impairing conversation. Foosball and pool tables were busy. Two bartenders sailed through the crowd with big trays of pitchers and glasses. I didn’t recognize either and missed the powerful blond woman. Arnie held the floor with stories of mules he had known and their ornery antics. No one was paying much attention, and they looked relieved to see me.
“That little stranger is growing like a weed. Nah, like a watermelon!” Arnie chortled. I started to take the end of the bench, and he reached out to pat my belly. I stood back up to avoid him and felt my lips draw back to show teeth. Denny rapped his wrist. Arnie looked astonished. I settled in at the other end of the bench, and ordered a lemonade and a burger.
“I tried to get Sam,” Hap said. He was summery in a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, the long cobra tattooed on his muscled arm once again on display. “No answer on the house phone or the cell. I left messages.”
“He’s probably on vacation somewhere exotic and wonderful,” I said. “Are we expecting Thor?”
Pete and Cheyenne, both still in uniform, looked interested. Ian, shrinking in a corner, flinched.
Hap said, “He butted in last time we were here. I guess he thought beer would make his pitch sound better.”
“He’s not a bad guy personally,” Cheyenne said, tracing lines in the fog on her beer glass with a finger.
Denny, hunched over the nachos, said, “I still haven’t found out where he was the night Wallace was attacked.”
“I don’t think he did it, so don’t bother,” I said. “Too much of a pacifist, right, Cheyenne? Anyway, Marcie’s on a rampage, so you’d better let it go.” I’d finally talked to her, but so far I hadn’t had to come clean about inciting Denny to research alibis.
Kayla said, “Calvin or Janet did it.” She had also adapted to sunshine—teal Capri pants and a white blouse with a pattern of little green glass gems on the front.
“Doesn’t hold up.” I explained why neither made much sense. “That leaves Dale, as far as outsiders go. Anyone know his last name?”
No one did.
I said, “I’ll ask Thor. I want to hear what he has to say about that missing van.”
Denny started in about security at the zoo and visitors breaking in after hours, which led to no one caring about Asian turtles, all they cared about was a missing dead cub. Linda stiffened at this last, but she didn’t say anything.
When Denny ran down, it seemed like a good time to change the subject. I asked Kayla, “How are the cubs? I am so jealous you get to feed them.”
“Also I get to rub their bottoms to make them pee and poop.”
“Like a real cat mommy,” I said.
“All at once they’re in quarantine,” Linda griped, “and I’m not allowed in the hospital. I miss them.”
“They are adorable,” Kayla said. “Bigger and stronger than I expected. They’ve got their eyes open, and they crawl around a lot. Good nursers. They meow.” She meowed. “Mr. Crandall let a couple of board members name them. Ning for the girl. It’s Chinese and means tranquility. Nimbus for the male because of the coat pattern.”
Not bad. I especially liked “Nimbus.”
Kayla was subdued tonight, no flirting with Hap or Arnie. Was she still on Dr. Reynolds’ shit list? I didn’t dare inquire. “Losa?” I asked Linda.
She said, “Calmer. She’ll be back in with Yuri soon.”
To have babies and lose them. Not unusual in the wild, and she probably had managed to kill one. But still…I caught myself assigning my own emotions to her. “We’ll breed them again? I thought we only got her and Yuri because they weren’t prime breeding candidates.”
Linda half-stood to reach the pitcher and refilled her glass. “Species Survival Plan people re-ran the genetic calculations and changed their mind. Another litter would be good. I don’t know if I have the nerves for it. Think I’ll switch to Children’s Zoo or get Kip to take me on at Primates.”
This was horse puckey. “Working in the office might be better. You could sell tickets. Or maybe become a gardener. You’re good with a rake.”
Linda slugged me in the shoulder, not too hard. I looked around for other amusement. “How’s your first week?” I asked Pete. “You coming back for more?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “Neal got us an advance on our pay. He looks like ten pounds of shit in a one pound can. The man needs Prozac.”
No one looked all that sympathetic.
Arnie piped up. “We had a senior keeper meeting today, and he said he’s waiting for a day when no one has a mental breakdown. I told him everything used to work pretty well under Wallace.”
Easy to imagine how Neal took that. “Not going to settle down until we find out what happened to Wallace,” I said.
Kayla made leaving motions, and Denny got out of her way. “Too depressing to keep talking about this,” she said. “I’m out of here.”
“Kayla, I’m sorry,” I said.
She shuddered her head and shoulders, brushing me off. “See you all later,” and she was gone. Ian followed without a word.
I felt like a jerk. This was supposed to be a welcome for Pete and Cheyenne, and I’d let the air out of it. “I should go, too,” I said, and remembered my guests. “If you guys are ready?”
“I’ll take them,” Hap said. “But hold up a minute. My new African greys just want to be pals. No love, no lust. You and Pete, help me out.”
Hap knew most of what there was to know about African grey parrots, but Pete and I worked it anyway, starting with whether the birds were sexed correctly and ending with diet options, including evaluating the calcium/phosphorus balance. Pete knew more than I did and suggested wood chunks for chewing and providing parallel perches to help the female balance during copulation.
Denny said, “Try red palm fruit oil. I’m testing it on two groups of juvenile garter snakes. The treated ones seem a little bigger. Ian’s trying it on the elephants. It’s recommended for birds, too.”
“Don’t even think of telling me to eat it,” I said.
Linda said, “Is it from palm oil plantations? From Indonesia? Where they’re cutting down jungle to plant palms, and it’s ruining orangutan habitat?”
None of us were sure whether this was the same kind of palm oil. We chewed on the irony of tropical forests being destroyed to grow bio-fuel. Arnie said he had to go and left. My houseguests decided to stay, and Hap said he would bring them home. They had a house key.
Outside was pleasantly warm, a breeze tainted a little by automotive smells from the crowded parking lot. No one around, no sign of Dale. It was about ten-thirty, late for me on a work night, but I felt pretty good. I squeezed into the Honda, wondering how this was going to work in another month or two. The seat could go back one notch more and that was it. A least the seat belt seemed ample.
I pulled out onto a deserted street. The surrounding businesses were long closed. At the first cross street, the corner of my eye caught a big pale flicker of motion. I looked left and slammed on the brakes, way too late. A hollow boom wrapped around me. The Honda flew sideways a timeless instant. Slammed itself against something solid. The world went dark.
The night filtered back in fits and starts, with bright lights and incomprehensible sounds. I closed my eyes again, which didn’t help.
Someone called my name. I opened my eyes. Hap. Hap r
ight outside my window. Window with air coming in through a crazy-glass frame. Pain all over my left side. Other voices. Denny. Metal noises. Hap: “On three. One. Two. Three” and the driver’s door screamed and went away. For a confused moment, I thought I’d fall out onto the pavement, but the car was tilted the other way.
A hand on me. A lot of questions and demands. Pain weaving in and out. A siren, flashing lights. A light in my eyes. I batted at it with the hand that worked. A woman I didn’t know asked questions I couldn’t answer.
Clarity arrived in one white-hot piercing beam: “My baby.”
Chapter Twenty-six
At last the world was quiet. Quiet and painful. I lay curled up in a hospital bed with a fresh splint on my left humerus. I’d never been able to remember the name for the upper arm bone. I wouldn’t forget it again. Humerus with two “u”s. Not humorous. My left wrist also throbbed but wasn’t broken. Neck not good, wrapped in a collar that prevented nestling into the pillow properly. Exhausted from questions, MRI, people messing with every part of me. Everything hurt but my heart. My heart soared, its tether snipped loose from dread.
My boy swam his laps, pushing off from my bladder, colliding against the cracked rib, jamming his small self against my diaphragm, tumbling in the tight watery confines of my body.
“She doing okay?” My father’s voice.
“I think she’s asleep.” My mother.
I was facing the wall and couldn’t turn over. I meant to say something to them. Safe, both of us safe. I slept.
Nurses woke me time after time, all night long, and nattered stupidities at me and made me open my eyes. I snarled at them and endured pain until sleep snuck up on me again. I awoke for real at some uncertain time of day, no clues from the lighting. After careful consideration, I decided to try sitting up. My mother flurried over and helped stack pillows behind me. She looked tired and worried.
“The baby’s okay.” I wasn’t sure if I was asking a question or reassuring her.
“Yes, they think he’s fine. The doctor said he would probably survive anything you would.”
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