Did Not Survive

by Ann Littlewood

  “And you saw…?” Quintana said.

  “Like I said, Kayla clipping Nakri’s tail. You’ll find scissors and the cut hairs by the back stall. Nakri scented me, and Kayla caught on in an instant. She was so fast. She pulled me out from where I was hiding. I went in with the elephants to get away from her and fell down. She was going to kill me with the ankus, but Nakri grabbed her and pulled her against the bars. It was so quick…” I slipped back into that moment and felt my head go light.

  Quintana’s deep voice brought me back. “This time you’re trying to convince me that the elephant really did do it?”

  I nodded and gnawed on the doughnut to ground myself. “Yeah, this time she did.”

  Neal said, “The missing tiger?”

  I nodded. “Rajah’s probably at her house in the freezer. Some of him, anyway. She knows, knew, how to dress out game. She took the dead cub and the turtles, too. All of them are used in traditional medicine. The real money was probably the tiger.”

  Quintana, as usual, looked disappointed by humanity, me in particular.

  “Search her house,” I said. “You can’t dismember a tiger and not leave evidence. And look for that other turtle. Denny really, really wants it back. And please turn Calvin loose.”

  Quintana said, “Did that last night. His daughter showed up. She was in Seattle with her kids seeing some doc who says he can cure autism with a special pill. Then she went touristing with a friend. She says didn’t know about her father.”

  Good news. “Calvin withdrew his confession.”

  “His daughter told him she was at a church retreat the night Wallace died.”

  She’d never mentioned that. Maybe she liked people thinking that she was a person who could settle a score for good. Maybe her alibi was totally phony. It didn’t matter.

  “More importantly,” Quintana said, “Lorenz’s neighbor finally noticed that he was gone, and his cat was hungry. Somebody gave him the story. He came in to tell us his emus got out the morning Wallace was attacked, and Lorenz helped him round them up. Couldn’t have been at the zoo at the same time.” He made a face. “Emus. What has happened to the American farm?”

  Calvin was back home and in the clear. I felt a huge relief. Calvin behind bars was not the way the universe should operate.

  Quintana said to me, “You go back there and wait with the others. Send out that other woman.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m sure Kayla sent those letters to Dr. Reynolds to implicate Ian. Can you tell by looking at her printer? I read about that once…”

  Quintana said, “Go back there and wait.”

  When Quintana was done with us, he issued various warnings and let us go. Denny said the detective needed to pay more attention to his spiritual side—he had way too much yang and not enough yin.

  Neal followed us outside and told Denny and Linda to get to work. “You”—pointing to me—“come with me.” He commandeered the security guard’s electric cart, and we drove to the Administration building. While I was grateful for the ride, my body had forgotten the carrot and that doughnut. My neck and shoulders hurt, not to mention the arm, and I was filthy from sprawling in elephant dung. Neal said, “We need to talk, but it can wait until tomorrow if necessary.”

  “Might as well get it over with. Are you going to fire me?” I hoped that was a joke.

  “Can’t. Not while you’re pregnant and disabled. You could sue the socks off the zoo.”

  “Nice to know.” The implication about the future, after I healed up and gave birth and thereby lost my free pass, was not lost on me.

  Somehow it was after eight o’clock. Jackie’s eyes were huge as I slogged past her and into Neal’s office. It still didn’t seem right for him to settle into Wallace’s chair behind Wallace’s desk. I dropped into the guest chair. Neal looked at me and walked to the door. “Jackie, go get a sandwich or something and bring it here. Carton of milk and two cups of coffee.”

  “Senior Administrative Assistants do not go out for snacks,” she said. “And the cafe doesn’t open until eleven anyway.”

  Neal leaned his forehead against the door frame. “Jackie, a Senior Administrative Assistant knows how to make things happen. Make it happen.”

  A sullen “yessir” came from the reception area.

  I waited, mind going blank, while he messed with his fine new computer. “Where are those temps?” he muttered. “People think they can come in any time they want around here.”

  “They’re on the bus,” I said. “I stole their car.”

  He didn’t lean his forehead on the monitor. He merely closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Right.”

  “You can tell when people clock in? From here?” That was a level of surveillance I hadn’t expected.

  “Only if you load the software that came with the time clocks.”

  My inhabitant woke up and did his own messing around inside me. Jackie came back with food much sooner than a trip to the nearest convenience store would require. She put an aromatic takeout bag and two mugs on Neal’s desk without a word and returned to her desk. I heard the intern’s voice outside as she closed the door. “Now what am I going to eat? You can’t just take—”

  I unearthed a breakfast sandwich—fried egg and sausage patty. “You want half?” I asked. He shook his head, and I consumed it all with excellent manners. Rapidly but delicately.

  He said, “I used to have a wife with a metabolism like that. Reminds me of short-tailed weasels.”

  I sipped a little coffee. I’d barely touched the cup in the elephant barn, so I was still within my quota. “One of us has to tell Dr. Reynolds that her best friend killed Wallace and is dead now. And about the missing animals so no one else is blamed.”

  Neal said, “I’ll take care of it.”

  “She’ll take it hard, even if she doesn’t show it.” That was all I could think of to say, in hopes he would do it gently. As if there were any way to soften this. “Tell her those stalker letters came from Kayla and not Ian. She must have found out he had a crush on Dr. Reynolds and tried to implicate him.”

  He said, “If the police confirm the letters, I’ll tell her. That will not let him entirely off the hook, however. I will deal with Ian later. You, I will deal with now. What, exactly, made you think setting up this scheme in secret was okay? One person’s dead, and it’s pure luck you aren’t, too. This is beyond loose cannon. I’ll be starting disciplinary action, and I am definitely putting you on office duty for as long as you work here.”

  Some internal compass needle quivered between tears and anger. As usual, I found out which way it settled when I opened my mouth. “You wouldn’t be sitting in that chair if Kayla hadn’t killed Kevin Wallace. Maybe that means squat to you, but it means a lot to the people who worked with him. It’s not like you or the police were figuring this out. This could have gone on for years, and she was starting to take live animals. Of course I kept it secret. You’d never believe a word I said, anymore than that cop. She tried to kill me and my baby, and I sure couldn’t count on your help.” I managed to stop myself there and sat still, taking one shuddering breath after another.

  Neal’s face was cold and still.

  I said in a near whisper, “It got personal, but I didn’t think it would end like it did.”

  Neither one of us said anything for a little while.

  I said, “I tried to work with Detective Quintana, but he wouldn’t. He said I was trying to link too many things together, and that I should stick to my birdies. That made me mad so I tried to see if everything could be connected. The only link I could find for the missing animals was traditional Asian medicine. I looked it up on the Web, and they all had medicinal uses. I was amazed at the volume of animals and the billions of dollars.”

  Neal rubbed his nose and moved his jaw around. “Did you know it was Kayla?”

  It seemed we’d agreed to a sort of truce. “It had to be someone at the zoo, even with the hidden w
ay in. It didn’t make sense that Damrey and Nakri were so upset when the NAZ committee was here. They were both in circuses. I saw a performance recently. It was incredibly noisy, with flashing lights and people doing all kinds of weird stuff. The elephants were steady as could be. Damrey and Nakri shouldn’t have been so agitated by a bunch of people standing around at the barn. I figured that whoever killed their buddy Wallace must have been there.”

  “That was a stretch. They haven’t been in any circus for years, either one of them.” He was disagreeing, but without the arrogance that set my teeth on edge.

  “The turtle in my car clinched it. How could anyone except a zoo person steal it and know where I was and which car was mine and what direction I would turn to go home? A bunch of us were at the Vulture’s Roost Tavern, and I made it clear that I was still trying to figure it all out and that I was connecting Wallace’s death to the stolen animals. She left before I did. She didn’t live far away. She must have put the turtle in my car before she set up the zoo van and waited to t-bone me.”

  “The zoo van? You were hit by the zoo van?”

  I realized too late that this was another item I’d kept secret. “Hap found the van in a parking lot all bashed up.”

  The phone rang, and he picked up, scowling at the interruption. His side of the conversation was mostly “uh-huhs”, ending with “Thanks. Let me know.” He tapped his fingers on his desk. “The police are at her house. They’re hoping to bust her customers. We’re to keep quiet about the traditional medicine angle.”

  I liked the idea. Her customers might be buying rare animals killed in Asian forests as well as the zoo animals.

  He said, “She gets caught in the act with the elephants, kills a guy, and keeps on stealing animals. And she tried to kill you. That takes brass.”

  Neal was staying calm. I wasn’t sure why or how long it would last. “She was tough, but she may have killed Wallace out of panic. She had lightning reflexes, and he might have surprised her. When I showed up, she knew I would cost her the income, her job, and her friendship with Dr. Reynolds, plus she might be tried for murder. She reacted really fast—impulsively.”

  The phone rang again. He muttered, “I told Jackie…” but answered. A lot of uh-huhs and thank-you-very-much’s. He drummed his fingers on the desk and seemed to switch gears. He leaned toward me, compelling blue eyes in a tanned face. “Oakley, I will think about what happens next. You dealt with the problem, but you won ugly. No more Lone Ranger. I am responsible for this whacked-out institution. I am paid to make decisions and to take certain risks, and you are not. Not this kind of risk. Next time you get an inspiration or a suspicion, next time you learn something about this place that matters—”

  “I talk to you,” I said. I’m not stupid. He was rethinking firing me. And yet. “And you’ll listen to me?”

  His jaw clenched and relaxed. “I will listen. However, that’s not the same as agreeing. If I do not agree, that is not a license for you to do whatever you feel like. Is that clear?”

  “Yup.”

  He leaned back in the chair, appraising me. “You’re pretty tough yourself.”

  I remembered that Jackie said he’d been in the military.

  “You covered for your buddies. Sometimes that’s admirable, sometimes it’s stupid. You didn’t fool that cop, but I don’t think we’ll have any trouble there. I said I was the new foreman and would keep you out of trouble. He said he’d send me a condolences card.”

  “I kind of liked him. He was a step ahead of me most of the way. I wish he’d have worked with me.”

  “Not in this life. That last call was to say Denny’s going to get his turtle back. It was in her bathtub. And Quintana found a key and a receipt for a meat locker at Kayla’s house, so the tiger is probably accounted for, too.”

  “Ask them to check her printer against those letters.”

  “I’ll remind him.” He tapped his fingers and straightened up. “I don’t see how we can prove Kayla killed Wallace. Convicting her of violating the Endangered Species Act might not have worked either. The courts would struggle with selling parts of endangered species when they were captive bred. Nakri saved us a lot of legal hassle. Not that anyone wanted Kayla dead.”

  I nodded.

  “But Nakri also created a lot of hassle.” He was thinking out loud.

  I made a concerned-and-listening face. Neal was swifter than I’d thought. I was having trouble keeping up.

  “The elephant exhibit can’t meet current requirements. They should be in herds of at least three animals, and it would be good to breed Nakri—cows love having a calf around. We won’t meet optimum standards, regardless of investment, because the square footage potential is inadequate. Kevin Wallace and the Species Survival Plan coordinator made arrangements to ship them to a zoo that’s expanding their elephant yard by several acres. They’ll have state-of-the-art facilities for a big herd. It was a good solution. But they won’t take a proven killer and an old blind cow.”

  Sam had been right about Wallace not being straight with him. But that plan was dead, and we were still stuck. “What can we do?”

  He shrugged. “Wait until Damrey dies of natural causes. Then ship Nakri to any place decent and go out of the elephant business. In the meantime, hope Nakri doesn’t blow away anyone else.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Be nice if you’re right. We’re already short-handed.” He glowered a little. “That was a joke.”

  “Um, I have a suggestion.”

  An unwelcoming stare.

  “Okay. Never mind.” So much for promises.

  Neal rubbed his nose. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Drive around behind the elephant barn, outside the perimeter. There’s a big buffer zone between the zoo and the road. It would be interesting to know who owns that strip and whether the zoo could claim it. It looks like several acres, and there’s more land adjoining that’s not being used for much of anything.”

  “Already looked into it. The city owns it and wants to sell that land to balance the budget.”

  “You and Mr. Crandall are going to roll over and give up?”

  “Oakley, you are not in a position to play hardball.”

  We glared at each other until the phone rang again.

  After fielding the call, apparently from the mayor, Neal hung up and said, “I’ll take another look at it. Beat it. Call me when you’re ready to come back.”

  I beat it.

  Chapter Thirty

  It was Denny’s day off, and he wasn’t around. He didn’t need to be part of this. I was still on the disabled list, still wearing the neck brace and sling. Linda was in uniform. We looked like “Wrong Way!” and “Right Way!” in an OSHA safety video. It was early in the day, the time before the zoo opens when keepers are scrambling to get as much done as possible before the crush of visitors begins. It was also the time when we were least likely to be observed or interrupted.

  Linda unlocked the keeper door to the Reptile building. We walked into the center aisle, the back sides of exhibits to the right and left. Pumps hummed, reptile smells greeted us. The air was humid and a little warmer than outside. Arnie was standing on a stepstool leaning over an aquarium. He looked up, surprised at the intrusion. I watched him recognize us, watched a little fear cross his face. He was manipulating a suction tube that pulled crud out of the gravel in a frog exhibit. Arnie shut the little machine off.

  “Good morning, ladies! What can I do for you?” His greeting was a little less perky than usual. He stepped down to solid ground.

  We eased down the aisle toward him. I stood by his left side, Linda by his right side. I took the tube out of his unresisting hand and put it down on the lid of the frog exhibit. “Arnie, we need to talk.”

  “Sure! Any time. What about?”

  Linda smiled with her teeth showing. “Arnie, you know and we know that Kayla took those turtles while you were working Reptiles when Denny w
as sick. You thought it wasn’t important, right? No big deal if she wanted them for pets. I mean, they were pets before we got them, and we had four of them. Kayla was nice to you, and you decided not to notice.”

  “No, no, I wasn’t here. It was news to me. It was all fine when I left that day.”

  Linda smiled again, and I was glad she was my friend and not my enemy. “Arnie, Arnie,” she said, “what are we going to do with you? You saw how mad Dr. Reynolds was about that work order for the repairs next to the clouded leopards. And then you knew Kayla took those turtles, but you didn’t say a word.”

  “I didn’t take those turtles.” A feral glint arose in his eyes. He would bite if we pushed him too far.

  Linda didn’t care. “What do you think, Arnie, that Neal would say if we told him you saw Kayla take those turtles? I mean, after the cub dying and all. How do you think he’d react?”

  Arnie shook his head. “No. I didn’t. He wouldn’t like it. It’s not true. I mean…”

  I took over. “Arnie, I never saw you as a guy who wanted a lot of stress in his life. You’re more laid back, right? Go home and sleep well at night?”

  He knew it was a trap, but he couldn’t figure out what to do about it. “Yeah, I try to be easygoing.”

  I laid a hand on his upper arm, a friendly grip. “This senior keeper gig, it’s got to be wearing on your nerves. More pressure?” My grip tightened a little.

  He looked at my hand. “No, it’s fine. No, I mean, yeah, it’s more pressure.”

  “You realize it’s going to get worse. Right, Linda? I mean, Neal’s going to kick ass about the work we do, and he’s not easy to please. He’ll pick on every little thing. Going to get rough.”

  Linda nodded brightly. “Neal’s a mad dog. He’ll go through this zoo like a chainsaw through butter. He’s got big expectations for us all, especially senior keepers. Very demanding.”

  I said, “Arnie, we don’t want to see you get hurt. We’re thinking that keeping your head down is the best thing for you. I mean, Wallace is gone, you have to start over with Neal. It won’t be much fun. Maybe better to keep a low profile. Maybe better to go back to being a regular keeper, and let someone else take the hits.”