“More llamas?” he asked, sounding anxious. “No, that's all the llamas. But we’ve got penguins, hyenas, and some kind of rodent, last I looked.” “Oh, Lord,” he muttered.
“We’ll miss them, of course, but we have to think of the animals. We haven’t really got enough room to take care of them.”
“You’ve got a lot more room than we have,” Savage said. “Count your blessings.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It's a small county. We’ve only got a small shelter. We can’t house more than a dozen dogs or cats at any one time, and that's if some of them get along well enough to share a cage.”
“Can’t you call a neighboring county?”
“Most of them are calling all the time, trying to dump animals on us,” he said. “I might be able to take some of the smaller animals if I can get rid of a few dogs. You wouldn’t like a beagle or two, would you? Got some very nice beagles.”
“Thanks, but the last thing we need right now is a puppy.”
“Oh, they’re not puppies,” he said. “Full-grown beagles. They’d be—let's see—three years old now. Housebroken. Fully trained. Raised them myself from puppies.”
“At the shelter?”
“We don’t have much turnover,” he said. “I’d recommend taking all four—that way they’d entertain each other much of the time.”
“All four?”
“Or how about a collabrador?” he suggested, no doubt sensing my lack of enthusiasm for beagles. “Nice collie-lab mix. Probably has good herding instincts—get along well with your llamas.”
“We have enough dogs,” I said. “And they’re not our llamas. Are you telling me there's nothing you can do?”
“When we’re full up, like now, what we usually do is get one of the nearby farms to take the overflow. Since they’re already settled in at a farm, I don’t see any reason to worry about them.”
“That's it? You’re not going to do anything about our animal problem?”
“I’ll go up to the house and check on the other animals,” he said, pulling a small notebook out of his pocket and beginning to scribble in it. “You said penguins, hyenas, and what?”
“Some kind of sniveling rat,” I muttered. I confess, I was hoping he’d take it personally, but he just nodded and jotted something in his notebook.
“I’ll check them out and let you know if you need to do anything differently for their welfare.”
With that, he turned and trudged toward the house. Great— not only was the Animal Welfare Department not going to take any of our unwanted animals, but now it was going to nitpick how we took care of them. Shaking my head, I turned back to lean against the fence as he’d been doing. Maybe contemplate the llamas until I calmed down a bit.
And contemplating the llamas was curiously calming. Though I was a little annoyed that they’d stopped humming.
“So how come Mr. Savage from the animal shelter gets humming and I don’t?” I said aloud.
“Maybe they like you,” Michael said. I started slightly when I realized that I’d been so focused on the llamas that I hadn’t noticed him coming up to lean on the fence at my side. “Apparently humming can be a sign that they’re unsettled in some way,” he added.
“Oh, if that's the case, far be it from me to unsettle the llamas.” “Unless it's a mother llama humming to her cria,” Michael went on.
“Her what?”
“Cria. Baby llama. And you know the whole thing about them spitting on people?”
“Yuck,” I said, taking a couple of steps back from the fence. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“Don’t worry,” Michael said. “They usually spit only at each other—it's part of establishing the pecking order. If a llama's been properly socialized, with other llamas, he’d spit on a human only by accident, if the human got in the middle of a llama fight. Or maybe if he was really mad at the human.”
“So how do we know these llamas have been properly socialized?”
“They haven’t spit at anyone yet. Tried to kick Spike when he got into their pasture, but that's perfectly understandable.”
“And if I told your mother you’d said that, do you think she’d take Spike back?” Spike was technically Michael's mother's dog, though we’d had him on semipermanent loan ever since her allergist had recommended a trial separation.
“I expect she’d sooner take one of the hyenas,” Michael said. “They’re smarter than dogs, you know.”
“Hyenas?”
“Llamas. The Peruvians have been breeding them for intelligence for centuries. Basically, they eat the stupid ones.”
“I’ve been at parties like that,” I said. “So you’ve been reading up on llamas?” The idea alarmed me. Since childhood, I’d known that bringing home stacks of books on a topic was a danger sign that a new enthusiasm had seized Dad. By the time I’d recognized the same symptoms in Michael, it was a little too late to change how I felt about him.
“Well, not yet,” Michael said. “There hasn’t been time. But Blake's been telling us all about them.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “I can hear him from here.”
We both turned and glanced back at the house. Randall and Vern Shiffley, along with several of Chief Burke's officers and a handful of my relatives, were gathered around something in the middle of the lawn. Blake, standing on a picnic table bench, was lecturing his makeshift student body.
“Officious old goat,” I muttered, turning back to the llamas.
“You don’t seem to like Dr. Blake much,” Michael said. “Any particular reason?”
I was opening my mouth to protest that I liked Blake just fine when I suddenly realized it would be a lie.
“No, I don’t,” I admitted. “Don’t ask me why. I’ll watch myself. Be extra polite to him and all that.”
“Odd,” Michael said. “That's just what your mother said a minute ago. She doesn’t seem that keen on him, either.”
So it wasn’t just me! I felt a surge of relief.
“Well, after all, he's spoiling Dad's fun, or hadn’t you noticed?” I said. “Dad's usually the one who gets to give the wildlife lessons.”
“That's why you dislike him?”
“I don’t Jislike him,” I said. “But I don’t trust him. What's he doing here, anyway? Why isn’t he off in the veldt or the tundra or the bush somewhere, rescuing something in front of a camera?”
“Supposedly, he's here to rescue the Caerphilly Zoo,” Michael said. “Not sure whether he's going to donate the money Patrick needs or find him some other donors or maybe take over the zoo—your Dad was a little vague on what Patrick is expecting. Or maybe it's Patrick who's being vague. But whatever it is,
sounds like a good idea to me. Soon as Patrick shows up and they can work things out, our animal problems will be over and we can move full speed ahead on The Plan.” “I wouldn’t count on it,” I muttered.
“You haven’t changed your mind,” Michael said, looking ashen. At his tone, all the llamas stopped grazing and lifted their heads to stare at us. “We’ve got the license and the plane reservations and—”
“No, I haven’t changed my mind, and there's no threat to The Plan,” I said, raising my voice slightly to be heard over the humming of the llamas. “But I wouldn’t count on Montgomery Blake solving all our animal problems anytime soon.”
“Why not?”
“How long has Blake been in town?” “A few days—why?”
“Blake shows up, Lanahan goes AWOL, and the next thing we know, Dad's digging up bodies in the basement.”
“Bodies! Have they found more than one?”
“No, just the one,” I said. “But one's enough. I gather Chief Burke hasn’t announced whose body it is.”
After a moment, Michael's face turned from puzzlement to dismay.
“You think it's Patrick Lanahan's?”
“I’ve seen it, remember?” I said. “I had to drag Dr. Smoot into the basement. It's Lanahan all right.”
“Damn,” Michael said. “He seemed okay, Patrick. Your father's going to be pretty upset. He’d been spending a lot of time with Patrick, working on the zoo. And what happens to the zoo? It could take a while to sort that out.”
“Let's just hope Lanahan was organized enough to make a nice, straightforward, uncontestable will. One that spells out quite clearly what happens to the zoo and the animals.”
Michael burst out laughing.
“Patrick?” he said. “Organized? You really didn’t know him that well, did you?”
“So much for that hope.”
“Seriously, if he’d been at all organized, things would never have gotten so bad at the zoo to begin with, and we wouldn’t have all these animals underfoot.”
He was looking rather resentfully at the camels. I thought the camels were getting a bum rap—after all, so far they hadn’t been any more trouble than the llamas. But I didn’t expect him to blame the llamas, who were humming gently and wearing expressions of warm sympathy and heartfelt regret.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure Dad and the rest of the family can take care of the animals till we get back.”
Michael frowned slightly. No doubt it was dawning on him that if Dad was capable of trying to stash a baker's dozen of penguins in our basement while we were still in residence, there was no telling what lunacy he might commit if we left the house undefended for two weeks while the denizens of the Caerphilly Zoo were still homeless.
“I’ll talk to him,” he said.
“And say what? ‘Please don’t tick Meg off just when she's finally agreed to marry me’ won’t work, obviously, unless you’ve given up all hope of keeping our planned elopement secret.”
“I’ll think of something,” he said. “Meanwhile, I came over to let you know that your mother has arrived with lunch.”
“Excellent.”
“And Rose Noire wanted me to tell you to hurry up if you’re taking her class. She's starting right after lunch.”
“Her class? What's she teaching this time—more aromatherapy?”
“Massage and acupressure for animals.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Oh, come on. She claims it does wonders to calm and mellow animals. Think how useful that would be with Spike.” “I’d sooner massage one of the hyenas.”
Chapter 12
As we strolled back to the house, I mused that I wouldn’t mind watching Rose Noire's class—at least if I could talk her into demonstrating on Spike. But since childhood, Rose Noire had always assumed that “I’d rather just watch” meant that you needed a little more coaxing. And I suspected she was planning to have her pupils practice on some of the sheep that had, as usual, wandered over from Seth Early's pasture across the street. So if the class was starting after lunch, I’d eat and run.
We found Mother presiding over a buffet table, looking tall, cool, and elegant in one of her summer party dresses, not a single strand of improbably blond hair out of place. Mrs. Fenniman and the other family members who’d actually done the food preparation scurried back and forth from the kitchen with plates and bowls. Someone had moved one of our picnic tables to the far end of the lawn, apparently so Chief Burke and his officers could discuss the case privately while eating their lunches.
At least two members of the investigation team were paying little attention to the discussion. Sammy and Horace kept glancing over at the part of the lawn where my cousin Rose Noire was whiling away the time until her planned class began by ministering to Dr. Smoot.
The M.E. was still sprawled in one of our Adirondack chairs, looking picturesquely frail. He had a compress over his eyes and a steaming teacup in one hand, and Rose Noire appeared to be trying to light some sort of incense at his feet.
“I see Rose Noire has found a new victim for her aromatherapy,” Michael said. “At least she's doing it outdoors.”
“She knows I’d kill her if she tried it in the house again,” I said with a shudder. Several weeks before, in a well-meaning attempt to add a note of romance to Michael's and my harried life, Rose Noire had sneaked into the house on Friday afternoon and burned an excessive amount of what she claimed was aphrodisiac incense. Unfortunately, Michael had turned out to be allergic to something in the incense, so instead of a romantic weekend we had suffered through what we both still referred to as The Big Sneeze.
“At least Smoot doesn’t seem to mind,” Michael said, shaking his head.
“I think he's enjoying the attention,” I said.
Seth Early, who owned the sheep farm across the road from our house, was also casting hostile stares at Dr. Smoot. I sighed. I hoped Rose Noire wasn’t accidentally recruiting Dr. Smoot to her legion of suitors. It was bad enough with Sammy, Horace, and Seth Early infatuated with her.
As I watched, Mr. Early stood up, walked over to a small clump of sheep, and began pummeling one of them, frowning savagely. I opened my mouth to protest, and then realized that he wasn’t just relieving his anger—he was giving the sheep a back massage. And the sheep was happy. It had closed its eyes and was leaning toward him, while the other sheep shuffled about nudging and shoving it as if impatient for their turn.
Yes, definitely a good idea to leave before the animal-massage class began.
Nearby, Montgomery Blake was sitting at the head of another picnic table, with something on his shoulder—a small gray animal, halfway between a cat and a monkey, with a long black-and-white striped tail. Another of the somethings was sitting on the table, holding a slice of apple in its slender paws and nibbling at it.
“Let me guess—lemurs?” I murmured to Michael.
“Got it in one. Ring-tailed lemurs, to be precise.”
One of the lemurs turned my way, revealing enormous yellow eyes with black rings around them, like a raccoon's. In a zoo, I’d have found them unremittingly cute, but this was our backyard, and the lemurs seemed to be consuming an impressive amount of fruit. Odds were they’d be producing an impressive amount of raw material for Sheila Flugleman, and didn’t lemurs live in trees?
“Uh... Meg?” Rob sidled up with an apologetic look on his face.
“What's wrong?” I asked. “There are some reporters here.” “Tell them to go away and stop bothering us.” “Oh, it's okay—they don’t want to bother us,” he said. “They want to bother the chief.”
“Great,” I said. “Go tell him.”
“Couldn’t you tell him?” Rob said. “He always yells so when he thinks someone is interrupting his investigation.”
“What makes you think he won’t yell at me just as much as at you?” I said. “In fact, he’d probably yell even more at me.”
“Yeah, but you’re used to it.”
I sighed with exasperation. Rob was probably right. I was more used to getting yelled at, and it bothered me less than it would him, but that didn’t mean I liked it. I headed over to the chief's table. But before I got there, I spotted something that let me off the hook.
“Too late,” I said, to no one in particular. “Here they come.”
A pack of reporters was just rounding the corner of the house.
In the lead was the bubbly blonde who, rumor had it, would be deserting the local TV station any day now for a job at one of the Richmond stations. Close on her heels was a far more polished-looking blonde who already worked for one of the Richmond TV stations. A chic African American woman from the Caer-philly radio station followed at a more stately pace, as if to suggest that the real excitement couldn’t possibly begin until she arrived anyway. The two TV cameramen trotted along next, each following his designated reporter, while bringing up the rear was a disheveled young man from the student newspaper, who seemed to be paying more attention to his distinguished colleagues than to the event that had lured them here. The chief looked up and scowled.
“As if we didn’t have enough damned hyenas already,” he muttered. Then he put on his bland, no-comment face and stood up to meet the press. The cameramen deployed their cameras, and
all three women thrust microphones in the chief's face.
“Chief Burke, can you confirm—,” the local blonde began.
“When will you release the identity—,” the Richmond blonde said at the same time.
The radio reporter just made sure her microphone was in the thick of the pack, while the journalism student began scribbling wildly with one hand while trying to aim his digital camera at the chief with the other.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” the chief said in his rich, mellow baritone. “I see you’ve saved me the trouble of calling a press conference. We’re here to investigate the discovery of a dead body. The deceased was Dr. J. Patrick Lanahan, thirty-seven, the founder of our beloved Caerphilly Zoo. Dr. Lanahan's next of kin have been notified, and for the time being, we’re treating the death as a homicide.”
“For the time being?” I heard Dad mutter beside me.
“If he finds a suicide note I, for one, am not buying it,” I whispered back.
“I regret to say that's all the information I can give you at this time,” the chief said. The reporters started shouting more questions, but the chief raised his voice and talked through them. “However, I’m sure you’ll all be excited to learn that Dr. Montgomery Blake, the world-famous naturalist and a friend of the deceased, is here today, and would like to say a few words about the sad plight of the animals from the Caerphilly Zoo.”
I wondered if Blake and the chief had planned this for when the reporters showed up or if Blake was just normally quick on his feet. He strode over with the lemur still perched on his shoulder, shook the chief's hand as if they were old school chums, and then turned to the cameras with that familiar benevolent smile. The fact that the lemur had grabbed a double fistful of his white mane and was holding on for dear life somehow looked charming rather than silly.
I wasn’t in the mood to listen to speeches. I saw Mother going into the kitchen, and I decided to join her. So I heard Blake's short but glowing tribute to the fine work Lanahan had done at the zoo, followed by a few noncommittal words about his hope that some way could be found for this fine work to continue. Blake was well launched on an impassioned description of the plight of endangered species by the time I ducked through the kitchen door.
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much Page 6