Night Kill

by Ann Littlewood

  The man was full of surprises. “Thanks. I appreciate the support, especially since this isn’t one of my finer moments.” To say the least.

  “It may be a difficult transition to Birds, but I’m confident it will turn out well eventually.”

  “Yeah, I’ll get the hang of it—eventually.” If I didn’t break my neck or get fired. I wiped a goo-smudge off my cheek with my left sleeve.

  “Rick’s death was a loss to us all. He was a fine keeper and I liked him. He improved our reptile management quite a bit. Extremely regrettable.” He drummed his long fingers lightly on a chair back.

  He seemed to have saved up that little speech until he caught me alone. It was news to me that the vet had developed so much respect for Rick, probably established during their snake breeding project, but hardly surprising. Rick was good at his job and easy to like.

  I, on the other hand, was a chaos generator who was offending people every day. “Thanks for coming to the memorial service. It’s been tough.” A penguin at the baby gate brayed demands at us. “Calvin already fed you,” I told it. I threw away the soaked paper towels and made a second pass at the floor with a sponge. Leaning over seemed slightly more dignified than crawling on my hands and knees.

  Dawson nodded sympathetically, apparently still oblivious to my culinary catastrophe. “If you don’t mind my saying it, this must be especially difficult, given the way he died. I understand alcohol was involved.”

  “It was. He told me he wanted to quit drinking and get back together. Then he tied one on that same night.” I rinsed the sponge at the sink and went after another section of floor.

  The vet nodded. “Alcohol addiction is powerful.”

  And can lead to overly simple conclusions. I straightened up. If the opportunity and the nerve to question Dr. Dawson would ever come together, this had to be it. I clutched the sponge in a death grip and plunged in. “I keep trying to figure out how it happened. Do you have any idea why he came up to the zoo that last night?”

  “No, I’m afraid I’m as puzzled as everyone else.” He gave a barely perceptible shrug.

  “You’d think someone would know.”

  “Iris, I meant it when I said you could drop by my office any time. I’d like to help in any way I can.”

  I was digesting this when Calvin came in.

  He took an appraising look around before he dumped a stack of food pans in the sink and turned to the vet. “I got you those fecals, just ran them up to the hospital. Thought I was saving you a trip.” He went to a corner cabinet, pulled out a string mop, and handed it to me.

  “I’ll take a look at them later today.” The vet nodded at me and moved toward the door.

  Calvin followed him. “You might remind Wallace about finding a place for those yearling penguins. We’re gonna have problems if we don’t thin them out pretty soon.”

  “I’ve reminded him. I’ll bring it up again.”

  “What’s this?” asked Calvin, picking up the jar on the counter.

  I was wetting down the mop in the sink. “Stuff from Rick’s locker.”

  Calvin held the jar to the light and he and the vet peered at it. “Snake eggs and a shed,” Calvin said.

  “Turtle eggs,” I corrected, “at least, that’s what Denny told me. And some little tooth.”

  Calvin shook it out of the jar. “Looks like a deer incisor.”

  “Yes, it does,” said the vet, his jaw twitching up a little.

  I shoved the mop over the floor. “Probably something he found in the woods.”

  “I’ve got a deer jaw. I’ll bring it in and we can compare the teeth,” Calvin offered.

  “Just the lower jaw? Wouldn’t we need the whole skull?” I asked.

  Calvin gave me a patient look. “Deer don’t have any upper incisors. Just lower ones.”

  Oh.

  I knew that.

  Calvin put the lid back on the jar and set it on the counter. Dr. Dawson took his leave and I started scrubbing food pans, with the vet’s kind words mending a little of my discomfort. I respected the man for responding promptly to animal health concerns and for his thorough research into the hundreds of species he cared for, but he’d always seemed aloof, unknowable. Now I was starting to like him.

  Calvin wordlessly demonstrated how to secure the blender bottom and then inspected the diets I had prepared. “Who’s this for?” he asked, pointing to a paper towel with three tiny, naked mice babies laid out to thaw.

  “The spectacled owl? The chart said three mice on Wednesday?”

  “Not pink mice. If that’s all he gets, his stomach will think his throat’s been cut. He needs three adult mice. The pinkies is for the green jays.” He took a critical look at the other pans. “You got the wrong feed for the nene geese. This is the starter diet for the babies. They’re old enough for the regular diet, been on it for weeks. You want the bin on the left.” He spent a few minutes taking a close look at all the pans, then left without a word.

  Selling furniture? Flipping hamburgers? I rifled through alternative careers, then swallowed my humiliation and dug around a second time through the buckets and bags Hap had sent, finally unearthing three gray adult mice, still a little icy. I set them out to thaw.

  At least Dr. Dawson hadn’t found my questions offensive. Small consolation. I hadn’t learned anything either.

  At lunchtime, I slunk off and found a clean jacket on the laundry shelves at the Commissary. Hap was busy unloading a produce truck. I took the long way to lunch, past Felines, intending to say hi to Raj.

  Simba was posing regally, crouching with his head up and forepaws stretched out like a statue in front of a New York library. Sugar and Spice were sprawled in the weak sun, Spice on her back with her hind legs flopping, decidedly non-regal. Wallace and Dr. Dawson walked toward the Feline service entrance engaged in serious conversation, not noticing me. The tall vet shortened his stride to match the foreman’s heavy pace. Wallace’s voice rose on the phrase “…managing risk…” Spice lurched to her feet, stared at them through blank yellow eyes, then padded down the cement slope to the bottom of the moat. The men moved out of sight and I heard the door slam as they entered. They would be talking to Linda, not to me, about risk.

  Seeing Dr. Dawson reminded me of the jar from Rick’s locker. Which I’d left in my dirty jacket, in the laundry pile at the Commissary. I headed back to retrieve it, wondering why I didn’t just throw it out.

  Hap was moving boxes of lettuce inside from the dock, with the Grateful Dead helping. We chatted for a few minutes about his seasonal transition from BMW motorcycle to Toyota sedan, once the rains commenced in earnest. He said Benita was after him to buy her a Mini Cooper. Red, of course.

  I was leaning into the dirty laundry bin with my rear sticking out when Wallace showed up, without Dr. Dawson. Hap flipped the music off as Wallace began fretting about running out of primate chow and criticizing how the produce boxes were stacked.

  “What are you doing?” he asked with characteristic charm as I emerged from the bin.

  “I forgot something.” My jacket was the smelliest thing in the bin, which was saying something. I fumbled in the pockets for the jar and dumped the jacket back in.

  Hap came over and took a look, possibly hoping to distract Wallace from his critique. “Reptile stuff?”

  “Yeah, from Rick’s locker.”

  Wallace followed him. He reached for the jar and I reluctantly handed it over. He dumped the contents onto his palm. “Zoo property. Ask the Education Outreach people if they can use this stuff.” He carefully returned everything to the jar.

  “Sure thing.” I took the jar back and stuck it into the pocket of my current jacket.

  Wallace scowled. “You staying out of trouble?”

  “No worries. Calvin barely lets me go to the bathroom without supervision.”

  “Good strategy.” He went back to inspecting lettuce, muttering that it was slimy and a rip-off.
/>   “Going to lunch?” I asked Hap, and he was glad to escape with me.

  Hap’s reliable friendship bolstered my courage. I’d tended to avoid my coworkers since the Raj accident and my abrupt transfer to Birds.

  We joined Denny, Arnie, and Linda huddled at a covered table in front of the café, denying the reality of fall chill. A few yards away, two education volunteers were clamping a temporary four-panel bat display to a signpost. Panels about the benefits of bats would be Finley Zoo’s only nod to Halloween. Prizes for the best costumes had come to an abrupt end the year before when a man in a realistic gorilla costume strolled around the Primate building. The monkeys and gibbons had gone nuts, screaming and threatening—we heard them all over the zoo. Kip Harrison, the primate keeper, had come running, but too late. The two female mandrills had truly lost their minds and taken advantage of the riot to attack the big male. Sky, twice their size, was a bully who had it coming, but Violet and Carmine were the ones that ended up in the hospital. Kip Harrison and Dr. Dawson had ensured that costumes were banned forevermore.

  Denny was chowing down what looked like walnut hulls and grass clippings as I settled in with my tuna melt and fries, Hap with two corn dogs and an orange soda. I took one bite out of my sandwich and realized that fish were falling out of the edible category for me. Too much smelt and herring in my life already.

  Linda put aside her crossword puzzle and said hi. Denny began expounding to Hap on the high probability that the British royal family was the successful result of a longevity experiment involving nanobots, whatever those are. “Only one of them has died of natural causes in over fifty years,” he summed up, and segued into the reasons Princess Diana was assassinated, something to do with land mines and Muslims. The diversity of Denny’s conspiracy theories was a marvel.

  I wondered if I should toss the tuna melt and go buy a hamburger. I’d never survive the afternoon’s disasters without food.

  “How’s Benita’s rattlesnake doing?” Denny asked Hap.

  Linda looked amazed. “Benita has a rattlesnake?” she asked. “In the house?”

  “Uh-uh,” Hap said around a mouthful of corn dog. “In the garage. I can’t have it near the parrots. She inherited it when her mother died.”

  “Did her mother, by any chance, die of snakebite?” Linda asked.

  “Oh, no. She and her boyfriend took his crotch-rocket to the coast and he laid the bike down on a curve on Highway 53, on the way to Neahkahnie Beach. Probably a deer or something in the road. Took them both out. Great way to go. That was about a year ago. Then Benita had to keep the snake.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And that mouth thing it had?” I asked, remembering. “Some kind of fungus Rick was helping her with?” That had been weeks ago. We’d visited their place for him to examine the snake.

  “She used hydrogen peroxide and cotton swabs like he told her to. It cleared right up. Eating great.”

  Arnie spoke up, derailing me from starting to obsess about Rick. “Hey, Iris. How’s it going at Birds? Silent Cal treating you right?”

  “He hasn’t kicked my butt out of his area yet.”

  “He’s mighty particular,” Arnie said.

  Arnie probably found most people he worked with to be mighty particular.

  No one brought up tiger attacks or sudden changes in assignments. I breathed a silent thanks to Benita and her venomous family heirloom.

  Linda peered at the name sewn onto my jacket. “Why are you wearing my spare jacket?” she asked.

  “Because yours was the only clean one that fit me.”

  “My pleasure, I’m sure.”

  “I messed up mine and didn’t have a spare. I’ll bring it back clean tomorrow. You don’t mind, do you?” It came to me that I’d taken her jacket instead of, say, Arnie’s as a way of reasserting our friendship.

  She seemed relaxed, our uncomfortable discussion about whether she’d let Raj out on me forgiven if not forgotten. “No problem. I’ll take it out in trade when I need dry socks. I know where you hide your stash. Hey, Wallace wants to get ready to put the clouded leopards together, probably in a week or so. Losa spent most of yesterday lying in full view outside. She’s settling in. Dr. Dawson wants a twenty-four hour watch on them for the first month. Wallace says it has to be volunteer time, no pay.”

  “I can do Wednesdays or Thursdays. Those are going to be my weekend, but I’m not sure when Wallace will switch me over. I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.” The luxury of real weekends off would end after my two weeks of training. Saturday and Sunday were Calvin’s days off and therefore not mine.

  Linda’s offer of a legitimate reason to hang out in Felines again sounded wonderful, catching up with the cats and returning to a place where I wasn’t incompetent.

  Hap and Denny argued about hybrid cars and whether global warming was really happening while Linda and I talked through the whole feline string. Somehow I ate the tuna melt without noticing. She and Spice were having a good time with lessons. She could get the lioness to open her mouth reliably and hold it open for a few seconds. I urged her to start training the other cats and to continue the enrichment activities: big bones, catnip, various scents such as perfume and spices, all to add some variety and sensory stimulation. She wanted to try hiding food in the exhibit for the lions to search for.

  “Watch out they don’t fight,” I warned.

  “I’ll keep an eye on it.” The patience in her voice reminded me that I wasn’t the cat keeper anymore. She left and Denny followed, leaving me wondering if my longing for my old job was pathetically obvious. The comfort of talking about cats oozed away.

  “It’s freezing. Why don’t you guys eat where it’s warm?” Jackie, the administration secretary, pulled out Linda’s chair and yanked her black coat closed. Hap and Arnie shrugged. Jackie was in her forties, divorced and living alone, a tense, bony woman with jet black hair and a nasal voice. Long red fingernails clutched a cigarette. She blew the smoke out of the corner of her mouth, an ineffective concession to purists. Often Jackie was fun, her gossip and cynical wit brightening dull days. Other days her drama addiction was repellent, more like picking at a carcass.

  “It’s a miracle Raj didn’t do you like those lions did Rick,” she said. “I hear you’re on Birds, thank god, where you can’t get yourself killed.”

  A chill breeze cruised through the hole this left in the table’s conversation.

  If I insisted that someone let Raj out, would anyone believe me?

  “Paper said Rick was really smashed when the lions got him,” she added, since this topic was going nowhere. “You guys go out drinking after the party?” She eyed me sidelong, waiting for my answer.

  “No. I don’t know how or when or where he got drunk.” I finished off the fries, eager to flee. “But I would like to know what happened that night.” I looked at her, then at Hap and Arnie. “Any idea why he was up here? Or how it happened?”

  They shook their heads.

  “It was an accident,” Hap said, gruff and certain. “Happens to everyone—your number comes up.” He shrugged acceptance of the unpredictable.

  Arnie nodded. Jackie looked resigned to a disappointing reality.

  “Accident? Rick wasn’t stupid and incompetent, even drunk.” The conviction in my voice surprised me.

  Arnie and Hap gave me identical startled looks. Jackie cocked her head at me, her bright eyes evaluating.

  “You guys can’t really believe Rick would die like that.” My voice was getting shrill. “You knew him.”

  “Police said it was an accident,” Jackie insisted. “Everybody knew he was drinking a lot.”

  Everybody knew because I’d mentioned it to Jackie weeks ago.

  “It’s been real hard on you,” Hap said cautiously.

  Arnie looked confused.

  The dust was settling: Rick died because he was incompetent. I was incompetent and a nut case. Dismayed, I tossed my garbage int
o the can and left without another word.

  Chapter Nine

  Sleeping in on my day off didn’t work out. Bad dreams sent me to the kitchen table at seven o’clock Saturday morning. I took stock over a second cup of coffee. It was a gray, cold day, with rain likely. The house was not great. Dirty dishes in the sink, a thin layer of dog hair on the floor, mail piled on the table like molted feathers. Rick had been the one who knew how to keep the bathroom functional. I was showering in a couple inches of water already, not the ankle-deep swamp it was before Rick, but getting there. The toilet was picking up an attitude also.

  It would be foolhardy to let Marcie or my mother see me slipping in the housekeeping arena. I didn’t need my best friend and parents to decide I required intervention.

  Another slug of caffeine failed to generate the energy I needed to tackle the list. Going back to bed was enticing, but I didn’t have the verve even for that. A week of working as hard as I could while sleeping poorly left me feeling like an old caribou exhausted by migration, mosquitoes, and parasites. The wolf pack should be showing up soon.

  Instead, the domesticated wolves came in from the backyard. Winnie stuck her nose in my hand and shoved. Range nudged my thigh, lips bulging with his tennis ball. There’d be no peace sitting in the kitchen.

  I wiped dog snot off my hand and onto my jeans, put on a jacket and grabbed a couple of plastic bags for poop-scooping. The dogs bounced around in a frenzy, seriously worried that I would change my mind. They bounded into the back of the Toyota, I snapped on the short leashes attached to the truck bed that kept them from falling out, and off we went.

  In ten minutes or so, we left the freeway and wound down a curving, tree-lined road into Leverich Park. It has the usual signs and rules, among them clear prohibitions against letting dogs run loose. So call me an outlaw. It was raining, 7:20 in the morning, nobody but another outlaw was likely to be there, and a walk on a leash is a pathetic form of exercise for a healthy dog. I unclipped Winnie and Range and they leaped ecstatically from the truck and galloped off into the drizzle.