by Dixie Lyle
[Maybe we should check the hose.]
We did, but found nothing. If someone had filled the hose with antifreeze, though, I was pretty sure at least a little would have dribbled out near the tap or elsewhere, and I couldn’t find any trace of antifreeze anywhere but inside the enclosure.
ZZ arrived while I was still looking around. She went to talk to Caroline first, then knelt briefly and touched Augustus’s mane. I knew ZZ well enough to leave her alone until she was ready.
“Foxtrot,” ZZ said after a minute. “Come here, please.”
I came over. Whiskey, as always, came with me.
“Caroline says the poison was in the pool,” ZZ said. She used the brisk, business-like tone that meant she was very, very, upset and struggling to keep it in check.
“Yes,” I said. “I have no idea how it got there. Yet.”
She nodded. “All right. I need you to inform the guests as to what has occurred. I expect that some, if not all, will want to view the body. Please arrange a tasteful way to do this that satisfies everyone. I expect there’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing, and I don’t want this situation getting any worse. I’ve already told Shondra.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“And please—keep everyone away from me, will you? I need a little time alone.”
“I will.”
Then she turned around and left. I knew how badly she must be hurting; ZZ felt things very deeply. But this is why she kept me around, to handle crises when they popped up. It wasn’t the first time, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.
Time to earn my paycheck.
* * *
Telling the guests was going to be tricky.
If I told them simultaneously, there would be chaos. If I told them separately, the order they were informed in would cause speculation and raise suspicions.
In the end I decided the only person’s opinion I had to worry about was Navarro’s. He was my biggest and therefore most immediate problem.
I didn’t bother trying to track him down—I just called his phone. He answered on the second ring. “Foxtrot? Nice to hear from you. How’s our supersized kitty-cat?”
“You should come down and see for yourself. But don’t tell anyone else where you’re going, all right?”
He chuckled. “But I’ve grown so close to all of them. I guess I’ll just have to live with the guilt … I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
I disconnected without saying good-bye. Smarmy bastard.
He strolled up five minutes later, looking entirely unconcerned. Caroline had rigged up a large blue tarp as a tent over Augustus’s body, concealing it from anyone outside the enclosure. When Navarro saw it he said, “Hey, look at this—a private room. Nice to see my boy is getting nothing but the best.”
Caroline wasn’t there. She had living animals to worry about, too, and it was feeding time. I stood just outside the enclosure’s gate, Whiskey beside me. I motioned him over.
“You wanted to see how he’s doing?” I asked. I kept my voice neutral. “Let’s go take a look.” I opened the gate and stepped inside.
He hesitated, but his ego wouldn’t let him decline. He stepped in after me, closing the gate behind him.
I walked up to the improvised tent and crouched down on my haunches, looking inside. Navarro joined me.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked quietly. I guess he thought the big cat was asleep and didn’t want to wake him up.
“What’s wrong with him? He’s dead, Mr. Navarro. That’s what’s wrong with him.”
“What?”
I turned to face him. He wore an expression of genuine surprise—an expression that quickly changed to one of realization. “Oh. Dead, huh? How tragic. How conveniently tragic.”
“You think I’m lying? That this is some kind of trick? Go see for yourself.”
“How stupid do you think I am? You really expect me to go up and poke him?”
“Oh, for God’s sake—”
“This is the plan, huh? Use him to get rid of me, maybe convince my boss that owning a liger isn’t such a good idea—”
Which was when I lost my temper.
It wasn’t his arrogance. It wasn’t his paranoia. It wasn’t the fact that I’d just witnessed the murder of a unique, amazing creature by a member of my own species. It was some unholy combination of all those factors, plus the memory of Tango’s heartbroken wail still ringing inside my skull.
I ducked inside the tent, strode over to the body. “You see that chest? Does it look like it’s moving?”
“Maybe you drugged him.”
“Yeah? To do what? Fake his death, or get him to attack you? Can’t be both, genius.”
I grabbed a handful of Augustus’s mane. Used it to lift that massive, still head and shake it. “Hey! Wake up!” I shouted. “Somebody here wants to talk to you!” I shook it again, then slammed it down into the dirt. His mouth opened and his tongue lolled out.
“Hey, take it easy—”
“Wake up! WAKE UP!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs now, and a distant part of my mind could hear Whiskey’s voice, trying to calm me down. I ignored him. “There’s a very scary, important guy here, and if you’re faking he’s going to be really upset! You want to wind up in a rug?”
“Hey,” said Navarro. “Take it easy.”
“I don’t take orders from you.” I glared at him through blurry eyes. Yeah, I’m one of those people who cry when they’re really, really angry.
“You mind if I take a closer look?” Navarro asked.
“Go right ahead.” I stepped back and tried to get myself under control.
He got closer, then knelt down. He touched Augustus’s tongue with the tip of his index finger and left it there for a long minute. “Okay,” he said, straightening up. “He’s dead. Just had to check for myself—my boss is going to ask.”
“So you’ve checked. Is there anything else we can do for you? Maybe more threats you’d like to make?” I kept my voice cold, but I was still seething.
“What are you going to do with the body?”
“What?”
“The body. I hate to offend your sensibilities, but arrangements are going to have to be made. My boss was more interested in a live liger than a dead one, but stuffed and mounted is better than nothing. I can probably get him to agree to a third of the amount we offered—that’s still a lot of money.”
I deal with oversized egos on a regular basis, but arrogance and insensitivity on this level could still make my brain lock up for a second. I blinked—and then my diplomacy gland kicked in. “I’ll take that up with ZZ and see what she says.”
“Thank you. What killed him?”
“We don’t know.” A lie, but a necessary one. I didn’t want Navarro extracting some kind of violent revenge against one of the guests because he thought they’d taken his prize away from him.
“Kind of suspicious, though. Very sudden.”
“We’re just as surprised as you are.”
“Mm. Well, no one here would be stupid enough to kill him, I’m sure. Would they?”
“No, Mr. Navarro, they would not. None of them would kill him just to spite your boss—for one thing, they’re all terrified of you. For another, none of them stands to gain in any way from his death. And unlike you, they all saw him as living being, not a possession to be acquired.”
He stared down at Augustus’s body, his face impassive. “Really. Mr. Gunturu wanted to display him in a casino; that sounds pretty profit-based to me. Karst’s game park would trumpet the fact that they had a white liger far and wide, and see all that advertising pay off in sold-out bookings for years to come. Ms. Yao’s zoo stood to make a few bucks in attendance and marketing spin-offs, too.”
“All true. Which means none of them has any reason to want him dead.”
“No? Yao said her zoo wanted him for their breeding program, which means they already have ligers. Maybe even another white one. Two would be better, of course—bu
t having the only white liger in existence is pretty good, too.”
I hated to admit it, but he had a point. “I notice you haven’t mentioned Abazu. Is he not on your list of possible killers?”
Navarro smiled. “He’s at the top, actually. It’s the true believers you have to watch out for—they’ll defy all reasoning. And Abazu is definitely one of those.”
“How can you tell?”
“The same way I can tell for sure that the liger is dead. I looked into his eyes.”
He turned around and left the tent. I followed him. “And how about me? Are ZZ and I on your list, too?”
“No.”
That wasn’t an answer I’d expected. “Why not?” I asked despite myself.
“Because you’re too smart and too determined. You would have tried something else—like moving him off-site—first.”
In other words, he’d ruled me out for the same reason I’d ruled him out. “Maybe we would have—but we never got the chance. That’s very suspicious, too, wouldn’t you say?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that an accusation? Out of all the people here, I’m the guy who wanted the liger alive more than anyone. Disappointing my boss is not something anyone does, not even me. Not twice, anyway.”
“If you say so.” But I doubted that; good seconds-in-command are hard to come by, and—despite what TV tries to tell us—even hardened drug barons don’t kill them on a whim. You can be born into greatness, attain it on your own, or have it thrust upon you; but if you want to keep it, you better have a damn good right-hand man, woman, or other backing you up. The power behind the throne is usually an overworked assistant with an addiction to caffeine and no social life, and a smart boss knows that. I guessed Navarro would have to screw up big-time—and more than once—before his boss threw him under a truck. Or, you know, whatever large vehicle meth kingpins preferred throwing their employees under.
“You told me first, right?” Navarro said as he pulled open the gate and left the enclosure.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“But not because you’re afraid of me. You just didn’t want it to look like some kind of conspiracy, which is what would happen if you told me last.” He turned and smiled, pulling a pair of very expensive-looking sunglasses from his pocket. “Maybe you should have stuck me somewhere in the middle.”
“You don’t strike me as a middle kind of guy.”
“You’d be surprised. I like the middle. The middle is off the radar. The middle is safe. And for somebody in my business, safe is a very important word.”
He slipped the sunglasses on. “I’ll be around until ZZ makes her decision. The sooner you let me know, the sooner you can tell me good-bye.”
He started to walk away. I stared after him for a second, then called out, “Navarro.”
He stopped and looked back. “Yeah?”
“You must like your job an awful lot, to work for a man like that.”
“It pays the bills.”
“Sure. You ever have time to spend any of that money?”
Now he grinned. “No, not really. Always another fire to put out.”
“Or start.”
His grin faded. He looked at me for a few seconds before replying, his eyes invisible behind the dark ovals of the glasses. “That’s not what I do. I’m a facilitator, just like you. I’m not a thug, not a killer, not a dealer. I convey information, for the most part. Occasionally, I provide advice. Don’t think you know me.”
“I may not know you, but you made it pretty clear who signs your paychecks.”
He shrugged. “The government in this country—in any country—does horrible things to private individuals on a daily basis. Does that mean that the guy who brings the president his coffee is a monster? Everybody needs to make a living, Foxtrot. Even guys like me.”
He turned around again and walked away.
* * *
I had to repeat the process four more times; thankfully, none of the others questioned the fact of his death like Navarro had.
Each of the guests reacted differently. At least at first.
Rajiv cursed; Zhen Yao seemed disbelieving and then utterly baffled; Karst went from shocked to quietly sad. I didn’t know how Abazu was going to take it, but I was braced for anything from hysterics to complete denial.
What I got, though, was just simple grief. He stared at the body for a long time, and then he started to sob. He covered his face with his hands and cried for a while, then pulled himself together with a visible effort. He turned to me, wiping his eyes with his hands, and asked me if Augustus had suffered.
“No,” I said. “It was relatively quick.”
“That is something, anyway.” He put his hands behind his back, as I’d seen him do before, and regarded the corpse quietly.
And then he asked exactly the same question each of the other guests had.
“What is going to be done with the body?”
“We haven’t decided yet.”
“I believe he should be buried in the wild. In a proper grave, in a remote and hidden location. His spirit deserves that.”
Does it? I wanted to say. I guess I should have asked, but it didn’t stick around long enough for me to conduct an exit interview. “I’ll bring it up with ZZ. It’s still ultimately her decision.”
“I understand.” He sighed unhappily. “How does something like this happen? He did not appear sick when I saw him.”
“We’re trying to determine that. I believe Caroline is going to perform a necropsy.”
Abazu nodded. “Of course. And what of Mr. Navarro? Will there be a police investigation, considering his threats?”
“We haven’t made any decisions about that. He didn’t actually threaten anyone, he just told a story.”
Abazu frowned. “I suppose. But a man such as him—he is capable of great evil. I can see it. Deny him what he desires and he will destroy it rather than let someone else possess it. He said as much last night, did he not?”
“Actually, he didn’t. The story he told was about his employer, not himself.”
Abazu gave an impatient wave of one hand, like he was brushing away a mosquito. “When you speak of a general, you also speak of his soldiers—they are simply extensions of his will. Navarro is a soldier. He will act exactly as his general wishes, no different from a knife or a gun.”
“We’re keeping an eye on him. I don’t think he’ll be here much longer.”
“I should hope not.” Abazu knelt beside Augustus’s corpse and stroked his silvery mane. “Farewell, Great One,” he said softly. “The world is a poorer place without your presence.”
He got to his feet and left the tent, his hands behind his back and his head down.
I pulled out my cell phone and called ZZ. “Five for five,” I told her.
“I’m not that surprised, actually. It might seem tasteless, but all of them are still competing. Human nature, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “I suppose.” Rajiv had said that a stuffed and mounted liger would still make an impressive display for his casino; Karst had wanted it for the lodge at his wildlife reserve; Zhen Yao said her zoo would like it for scientific study. Any of those claims would have sounded authentic on its own—but hearing the same thing with slight variations five times in a row was tugging at my suspicion reflex. I told ZZ I’d keep her updated and hung up.
Apparently Augustus was wanted dead or alive. Why, I had no idea—but I was going to find out.
First, though, I thought I should track down my cat. Tango hadn’t come back yet, and I was a little worried about her. There’d been so much pain in her voice …
[She’ll be fine,] Whiskey said.
“Sorry. Was I braincasting again?”
[No. But I know you and Tango have a special bond, and the look on your face isn’t hard to read. She’ll come back when she’s ready.]
Which, when it came to cats, was usually good advice. Maybe I should concentrate on other things—like who poisoned Augu
stus. “Okay, you’re right. Any thoughts on our list of suspects?”
[Rajiv, Karst, and Zhen all left the estate grounds last night. Any of them could have purchased the antifreeze and returned with it.]
“True. We should start by talking to Victor.” ZZ’s driver would know if Jaro Karst had come back with any bulky purchases, like a few gallons of antifreeze.
I heard the rumble of an approaching vehicle, but not a car or truck. It was Caroline, driving a forklift. My heart sank as I realized what it was for.
“You need help?” I asked as she parked it beside the enclosure and climbed out of the seat.
“No, I’ve got this,” she said. “And honestly—you might not want to watch.” She pulled a pair of wire cutters out of her back pocket and approached the fence.
“You’re going to do a necropsy here?”
“In the examination room of the clinic building. I’ll let you know what I find in a few hours.” She started to methodically snip apart the links in the fence.
“All right.” I opened my mouth, then shut it again and shook my head. “I don’t know what to say.”
Caroline paused. “When the Grim Reaper comes to call, words fail—they’re just too small.” She gave me a sad smile. “Don’t know where I heard that, but it’s always stuck with me. A condolence card, probably.”
“Wherever it came from, it’s true. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
She nodded and went back to work.
Whiskey and I went back to the house. None of the guests seemed to be around, but Victor was in the garage, doing mysterious things to the engine of the Rolls. His gray coveralls were clean enough to pass military inspection—I swear they were even pressed. He worked as we talked. “Yes, I took Mr. Karst to a bar. He wanted to go somewhere ‘fun.’ I did my best.” Victor scowled, as though the very idea of fun was somehow wrong. “I am not very familiar with the nightlife in town.”
He told me the name of the bar—it was one of those loungey singles places right downtown. “And when did you drive him home?”
Victor reached under the hood and either tightened or loosened something with a wrench. “I did not. He told me he didn’t know how long he would be and he didn’t want to keep me waiting. He said he would take a taxi home. I left him there.”