Panda-monium

by Stuart Gibbs

  “And were you involved in the actual theft of the panda?” Hoenekker asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How did that go down?”

  “Well, Ogilvy had built this replica trailer, right? Exactly the same as the one the panda was in. So we waited at a rest stop near the border of Texas and New Mexico with it. Ogilvy also had one of the drivers, Juan something or other, on the payroll.”

  “Juan Velasquez?”

  “Yeah. That’s the guy.”

  Summer turned to me, impressed. “Just like you said, Teddy!”

  I grinned, feeling proud that my suspicions had turned out to be right. Although at the same time, I was also enraged at James Van Amburg and Walter Ogilvy for everything they had done.

  James went on. “That night, Juan and the other driver and you”—he pointed to Marge—“made a pit stop in Las Cruces. Juan bought you a decaf coffee instead of a regular one, and then he spiked it with some sleep medicine too.”

  “Aha!” Marge exclaimed. “So it wasn’t my fault I got drowsy!”

  Hoenekker gave her another warning look to keep quiet.

  “Then Juan took over the driving,” James reported, “while the other driver went to sleep in the truck. We fell in behind them as they entered Texas.” He looked to Marge. “Once you dozed off, Juan pulled over at another rest stop and we all swapped the trailers.”

  “How long did that take?” Hoenekker asked.

  “Less than five minutes,” James replied. “We’d been practicing.” He looked to Marge again. “You were snoring like a chainsaw the whole time.”

  Marge turned bright red but didn’t say anything.

  “What happened after that?” Hoenekker inquired.

  “We broke into the trailer and grabbed the vet,” James reported. “Some of the guys and I took him while the others took the truck with the panda. They held the vet in a storage unit for a few hours, then dumped him here with the fake note to frame the NFF.”

  “And meanwhile, you returned to the park in the panda costume,” Hoenekker said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “Ogilvy wanted someone to keep an eye on the investigation. I didn’t steal the costume. One of the other guys did that. But they asked me to wear it in the park.”

  “How’d you get the costume in and out?”

  “I didn’t. It was stashed in some of the tourist lockers here.”

  “So you just walked into the park, got it out of the locker, and put it on?”

  “Yeah. No one even looked twice at me. There were a lot of freaks dressed up like pandas that day. And once I was wearing it, no one stopped me from going anywhere, even the employee areas. Only, I couldn’t get close to the investigation. And then I saw that kid wandering around.”

  “Teddy? The one you threw into the polar bear exhibit?”

  “Yeah. Him. Ogilvy’s guys had shown me a picture of the little punk and told me to keep my eyes open for him. They said he once screwed up some attempt to mess up the shark tank or something like that.”

  At the mention of this, I grew queasy. Walter Ogilvy not only knew who I was, he had specifically ordered a thug to keep an eye on me. As if it wasn’t enough that his plotting hadn’t already killed me once.

  “Anyhow,” James was saying, “I saw the kid over by the crime scene, so I decided to follow him around. Sure enough, he eventually went over to the panda exhibit and started asking questions, so I figured I ought to scare him off the case.”

  “That’s when you threatened him outside the dolphin tank?” Hoenekker asked.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t gonna hurt him or anything. Just make him think he could get hurt. But then he pulled some crazy stunt with the dolphin and ran off. So I split and dumped the panda costume in the trash. Ogilvy’s guys were still worried about the kid. They said he could still be trouble. So I came back here today, like a normal tourist, then cased the panda exhibit. And the kid showed up again. I don’t know what he did inside, but when he came out, I overheard him make a call and say he had important evidence about the crime and, well . . .” For the first time since he’d started talking, James seemed at a loss for words.

  “You decided to get rid of him,” Hoenekker finished.

  “Yeah, but . . .” James’s lower lip trembled. It looked like he might start crying again. “Like I said, I wasn’t thinking straight. I just panicked. I’m not a murderer. . . .”

  “Yes he is!” Summer snapped. “That jerk! He tried to kill Teddy!”

  J.J. couldn’t contain himself any longer either. Throughout the confession, he’d been trembling, livid at what Ogilvy had plotted against him. Now he sprang from his seat and pressed the microphone button to talk to Hoenekker. “Chief! Find out if that weasel has any evidence to prove Ogilvy’s involvement!”

  Hoenekker nodded understanding, then spoke calmly to James. “It seems Walter Ogilvy was never directly involved in this crime. Can you prove his connection to it?”

  “Definitely,” James said. “I’m no dummy. I secretly recorded all my conversations with his men. His name came up a few times.”

  “Hot dang!” J.J. crowed, then thought of something else. He pressed the microphone button and asked, “So where’s Li Ping now?”

  Hoenekker repeated the question to James.

  “Um . . . ,” James said. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t?” Hoenekker replied doubtfully. “Even though you helped steal her?”

  “Like I said, I took the vet, not the panda. I heard Ogilvy had a buyer for her, but no one ever said who it was.”

  “Do you have any clue who it might have been?” Hoenekker pressed. “Were they in the state? In the country?”

  “I’ve told you everything I know, I swear.”

  Hoenekker abruptly stood and left the room. Marge followed him.

  “Wait!” James called. “Where are you going? I gave you enough information, didn’t I? I’m not going to jail, right? Please don’t send me to jail!” He started crying like a baby again.

  “Don’t worry,” Dad told me. “It doesn’t matter how much information that jerk coughed up. He won’t get off easy. He’s going away for a long time.”

  I looked through the window at James. He looked pathetic, clinging to the bars of the jail cell and sobbing. But I didn’t feel bad for him at all.

  Hoenekker and Marge reentered the observation room.

  “Nice work in there,” J.J. told him, “but the time has come to hand this over to the feds. We don’t have the jurisdiction to go after Ogilvy and they do.”

  “I know,” Hoenekker agreed. “Although I’m still not sure the FBI will be open to hearing us. They’ve just proclaimed that they’ve solved the case to the whole world. . . .”

  “Now, look . . . ,” J.J. began.

  “However,” Hoenekker continued, “the US State Department has its own law enforcement agency: the Diplomatic Security Service. This falls under their jurisdiction too, and I’ll bet they’d be happy to scoop the FBI. I have some friends over there I could call.”

  “You mean, they could nail Ogilvy and make my sister look bad?” Marge asked. “Sounds good to me.”

  “I don’t care who handles it, as long as they can get it done,” J.J. said. “We don’t have time to fiddle around here. We still need to find that panda.”

  Hoenekker said, “Unfortunately, that still might take a while.”

  “How long?” Summer asked, worried.

  “I have no idea,” Hoenekker admitted. “Days if we’re lucky. Weeks if we’re not. Maybe even months.”

  “I don’t have months!” J.J. exclaimed.

  “Neither does Li Ping,” I pointed out. “She only likes one kind of bamboo, and if whoever got her doesn’t have it, she’s going to be . . .” I trailed off midsentence, an idea coming to me.

  “Dead?” Mom finished.

  “Maybe not,” I said. “I think I know where she is.”

  ANIMAL HOUSE

  For
the second time in two days, a helicopter landed at FunJungle.

  However, this time J.J. had requested it himself. It had only taken him a few phone calls to confirm my suspicions about who had Li Ping, after which he’d told Lynda to get him a helicopter. Twenty minutes later, it was touching down behind the veterinary hospital.

  J.J., Summer, Dad, and I quickly boarded it. I was invited because J.J. needed me, and Dad was invited because he insisted I ought to have a parent along. Summer simply came because she wanted to, and Summer could be even harder to say no to than J.J. The moment we were buckled in, the pilot lifted off and we raced north over the park.

  The helicopter wasn’t quite as fast as a private jet, but it still flew at 130 miles an hour. The rolling mounds of the Hill Country quickly gave way to the flatter plains of central Texas. It took only an hour for us to reach our destination.

  It was the biggest house I’d ever seen, even bigger than J.J.’s—and he was a billionaire. I had worried there might not be a place for the helicopter to land, but that turned out to be unfounded: The front lawn was the size of a professional football field. The house itself had blatantly been modeled after the White House, with stately columns, an enormous portico, and symmetrical wings.

  That would have been strange enough. Then I noticed the zebras grazing in the backyard.

  At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. The sun was setting, so I figured maybe they were white horses with shadows cast across them. But as we got lower, I could see they were definitely zebras. There were fourteen of them.

  There was also a hippopotamus in the swimming pool.

  It was only a pygmy hippo, which was significantly smaller than the common hippo, but still, it was odd. The pool itself appeared to be unfit for human use. It was murky brown and there were plants growing in it. A second hippo bobbed to the surface as I watched.

  “Holy cow!” Dad exclaimed. “Look at all those cats!”

  He was staring out the window on the opposite side of the helicopter. I joined him and saw a long line of fenced enclosures. Each had a big cat pacing inside it: tigers, lions, panthers, and leopards.

  “Jumping Jiminy, she’s got even more tigers than FunJungle,” J.J. said.

  “They don’t have much room, though,” Summer observed.

  It was true. Each cat’s pen was only a few yards long. And it seemed unlikely they would ever be let out for exercise, as they’d probably eat some of the other animals.

  The helicopter swooped over the house and lowered toward the front yard. A herd of impalas scattered as we touched down.

  J.J. sprang out before the rotors even stopped turning and stormed toward the front door.

  Dad, Summer, and I scrambled out after him.

  A limousine was parked by the front portico. It was periwinkle blue.

  A man in a tuxedo emerged from the house as we came up the front steps. I recognized him as Arthur, the man who had accompanied Flora Hancock on her visit to FunJungle. His face was flushed with anger. “What do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. “This is private property! You can’t just land your helicopter here!”

  “Well, you’re not supposed to steal other people’s panda bears, either,” J.J. replied. “But your employer doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with that.”

  Arthur recoiled in surprise. His anger instantly became fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, though it was obviously a lie.

  “Where’s Flora?” J.J. demanded. “I see that god-awful limo of hers is here, so she must be too.”

  “She’s not,” Arthur said in a voice on the edge of panic. “She had to go see her sister. I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

  As he said this, however, I caught a glimpse of Flora Hancock herself, peeking through the drapes at a window to the right of the front door.

  Summer saw her too and pointed accusingly. “She’s right there, Daddy!”

  Flora quickly ducked away, hiding from sight.

  J.J. dodged around Arthur and slipped through the open door behind him. The rest of us did the same. Arthur now appeared completely unsure what to do. “Stop!” he cried impotently, then thought to add, “Please?”

  We ignored him, heading straight toward the room where Summer and I had seen Flora. Although I did have to pause briefly to take in the entry foyer.

  It was bigger than my entire house. Two enormous staircases swept down the sides, and a gigantic crystal chandelier dangled above our heads. However, the room was in terrible shape. The wood floor and the wallpaper were scarred with thousands of claw marks, while the newels of the banister all appeared to have been gnawed on. Clumps of hair the size of baseballs rolled across the floor like tumbleweeds. And the whole place reeked of animal pee.

  J.J. threw open the doors to the next room and marched right in.

  It was a formal living room, decorated with extremely fancy furniture, oil paintings, and racks of ancient hunting rifles. It looked straight out of a European castle—except everything here had been sullied by animals as well. There were slashes in the upholstery, the carpets were covered with fur, and the tops of the picture frames were speckled with bird poop.

  Flora Hancock sat on a shredded velvet couch, having tea. Even though it was over a hundred degrees outside, she wore a coat and gloves. She was doing her best to act innocent, as though she hadn’t seen us through the window—or even heard the helicopter land on her lawn—but she was doing a poor job of it. She was as skittish as one of her impalas.

  Two scarlet macaws perched on the couch behind her.

  And a young orangutan in a tuxedo stood to her side. It looked to be about five years old. Its tux fit it a lot better than Xavier’s had fit him. Given that the orangutan’s arms were twice as long as its legs, I had to assume its suit had been custom tailored.

  “Why, J.J. McCracken!” Flora cooed, trying to sound natural. “What a delightful surprise! Whatever brings you here?”

  “You know exactly why I’m here,” J.J. growled. “Where’s Li Ping?”

  Flora laughed. “Well, how should I know, sugar? I surely don’t have her.”

  “I’m sorry, madam,” Arthur apologized, scurrying into the room behind us. “I tried to stop them. . . .”

  “It’s all right,” Flora told him, then shifted her attention to J.J. “Would y’all care for some tea? I’m teaching Suki here to serve it, just like a regular young gentleman.”

  Suki, the orangutan, held up the teapot, eager to show off his abilities.

  “No, I don’t want any tea!” J.J. snapped. “I want my panda!”

  “Panda!” the macaws echoed. “Panda! Panda! Panda!”

  Flora glanced at them nervously, as though they had betrayed her. “Like I said, there is no panda here. How on earth did you ever get such a wild idea?”

  J.J. put an arm around me. “Teddy here figured it out. I understand you two met at my park yesterday?”

  “Why yes, we did.” Flora seemed even more nervous now, although she was still struggling to maintain composure. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Teddy.”

  “You too, ma’am,” I said, even though that was a lie. It simply seemed like the right thing to say.

  Behind Flora’s back, Suki stuck the spout of the teapot in his mouth and slurped some tea out of it. Apparently, he wasn’t quite as good at serving it as Flora thought.

  J.J. sat beside Flora so I could be the center of attention. “Teddy, would you please explain to Flora how you know she has Li Ping?”

  I stepped back, surprised to be put on the spot like this. For a moment, I felt a little nervous, wondering if I was actually right.

  Dad gave me a reassuring pat on the back. “Go on, Teddy,” he said. “Tell her.”

  I swallowed, then launched into my explanation. “Well, Miss Hancock, I was thinking about the conversation we had at Panda Palace yesterday—”

  “Exactly my point,” Flora butted in. “Why on earth would I have come down to FunJungl
e to see Li Ping if she was here?”

  “Flora,” J.J. said sternly. “I’m sure a woman such as yourself is well aware that it’s bad manners to interrupt someone when they’re talking. So, if you don’t mind, please keep your trap shut until Teddy’s finished.”

  Flora sat back, looking wounded, but she didn’t say anything else.

  “At first, I figured your being at FunJungle made you innocent,” I told Flora. “But then I thought about the timing. Word didn’t get out that Li Ping was going to be at FunJungle until yesterday morning. So when exactly did you leave for FunJungle?”

  “I suppose around nine a.m. or so,” Flora replied. “Isn’t that right, Arthur?”

  “Er . . . ,” Arthur said, surprised to be called on like this. “Yes, ma’am. That’s correct.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Because the news that Li Ping had been kidnapped was reported around ten. You live three hours from FunJungle by car—so you wouldn’t have even been a third of the way to FunJungle yet. Why didn’t you turn around and go home?”

  Flora grew flustered. Her hands began to tremble. “I . . . uh . . . I think I remembered wrong,” she stammered. “I believe we left much earlier in the day. Seven o’clock, perhaps.”

  “Yes!” Arthur agreed. “That’s right! It was seven!”

  “So then,” J.J. said suspiciously, “at seven in the morning, you heard the news about Li Ping and, on the spur of the moment, jumped into the car for a three-plus-hour drive down to my park?”

  “Well, I . . . ,” Flora began nervously. “I’m not exactly sure when we left. I can’t quite recall the timing of the events.”

  “You can’t?” J.J. narrowed his eyes. “It was only yesterday.”

  Unsettled by this line of questioning, Flora went to put sugar in her tea and knocked the entire bowl off the tea cart. It shattered on the floor. “Oopsie!” she exclaimed.

  “Oopsie!” the macaws repeated. “Oopsie! Oopsie! Oopsie!”

  “I seem to be all thumbs today,” Flora said. “Arthur, could you help me clean this up?” She began to rise from her seat.