The leader strode over to my car and inspected us with narrowed eyes. Spike, who had been growling softly since we arrived at the zoo, took an instant and arguably quite rational dislike to him and began barking and lunging toward him, even climbing into my lap to get closer to his prey. I made sure Eric had a tight hold on the leash and rolled down my window.
“How would you feel if someone put a heavy collar around your neck and dragged you around at the end of a rope?” the chief SOB asked. He had to shout over the racket Spike was making.
“If I were in the habit of picking fights with dogs ten times my size and running out into traffic, I hope I’d be smart enough to realize that the leash was for my own protection,” I said. “And I should point out that I haven’t inflicted a muzzle on him, even though he's in the habit of biting passersby with no apparent provocation.”
The leader jerked back the hand he’d been extending in Spike's direction. Disappointed, Spike subsided into soft but menacing growls.
“Vicious animals are usually made that way through systematic abuse by humans,” the leader announced with a scornful look. Well, two could play at that game.
“I’ve never understood the narrow-minded tendency most people have to judge animals by completely inappropriate, an-thropocentric standards,” I said. “Calling a dog vicious, for example, merely because he acts in accordance with his own predator instincts, instead of behaving in a way we find convenient.”
The leader opened his mouth as if to retaliate and then thought better of it. Possibly because the film student had changed his mind about leaving and came over to eavesdrop.
“So did you just come out to mock our demonstration, or was there a good reason you came out here?”
Under the circumstances, I thought mocking their demonstration seemed pretty reasonable, but I stifled the impulse to say so.
“We were just passing by on our way to somewhere else and stumbled on your demonstration by accident,” I lied. “I confess, I was a little surprised at finding a demonstration outside an empty zoo. You did know it was empty, right?”
“Yes, but the evil it represents continues unchecked!”
“Besides,” the film student put in, “they’d already arranged for me to come and film them today.”
The leader shot an exasperated glance at him, but the film student just stood there, calmly observing us. He wasn’t filming, but he gave the impression that he’d be happy to if we provided more pyrotechnics.
“Since your group is here, I have a question for you,” I said. “Are any of you qualified and willing to help take care of some of the animals recently liberated from their vile imprisonment in the Caerphilly Zoo?”
“You’re asking us to become their new jailers!” the leader shouted. His followers looked up at his voice, but they didn’t interrupt their picnic to join us.
“No,” I said. “I’m asking if any of you could take temporary responsibility for the welfare and happiness of even one of the beasts you’re trying to save. After all, if the zoo closes permanently, you’ll probably be at least partly responsible—”
“What do you mean, responsible?” the leader shouted. “Are you accusing us of killing Lanahan?”
“I’m not accusing anyone,” I said—though I was definitely keeping him high on the people who might deserve the accusation. “But someone killed him, and can you be absolutely sure your campaign against the zoo had nothing to do with it?”
“That's ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “You can expect to hear from my attorney; that's absolute libel!”
“Slander, not libel,” I said. “It's not libel unless I write it down. But I’m sure your attorney can explain that to you.”
The leader stormed off, still sputtering. One of his followers tried to placate him with a sandwich, which he rudely refused.
Mother would have assumed his guilt immediately. Of course, Mother would probably find it easier to forgive a well-bred murderer than a rude saint. Still, I had the feeling that if Chief Burke wasn’t already investigating the leader of the SOBs, he should do so immediately.
“Who is that guy?” I asked the film student.
Chapter 21
“Shea? He's the president of Save Our Beasts,” the student said. “You think he’ll try to sue you?”
“He might,” I said. “Then again, he might just be a law student, going through that difficult litigious phase. I remember it hit my brother around the middle of his first semester.”
“Sounds like Shea,” the student said. “Got an amazing talent for ticking off the people who already agree with him, so it's no wonder he's having trouble winning converts. SOB used to be a much bigger group before he took over.”
“Are they just opposed to zoos in principle or was Patrick Lanahan doing something particularly bad?”
The student shifted uneasily.
“There have been rumors that he wasn’t feeding the animals properly,” he said. “And skimping on their medical care. Given how broke he was, sounds plausible. I can’t prove it, though, and he's certainly run up pretty huge bills with the vet and the feed store. And I certainly can’t prove the rumor about canned hunts.”
“Canned what?”
“Canned hunts—you haven’t heard of them?”
I remembered Blake saying something about them when he was talking to the reporters, but I didn’t remember what he’d said, so I shook my head.
“It's barbarous,” he said, his voice becoming heated. “You take a bunch of animals and pen them up someplace—they usually call them game ranches or hunting preserves—and charge people a stiff fee to come in and shoot where they can hardly help killing something. Some of them guarantee a kill.”
“What kind of animals?” I asked.
“Depends on the operation,” he said. “Sometimes it's native species—deer, elk, even bear. Virginia outlawed it years ago, except for a couple of places that were already in operation, and they’re only allowed to use various kinds of pigs, goats, and sheep. But in some states, they bring in exotic animals to shoot at. Some of them bought from overpopulated zoos.”
“So is that why the SOBs are picketing—they think Patrick was selling off unwanted animals to be killed?”
The student nodded.
“Shea even accused Lanahan of running the hunts on his land—which would be totally illegal in Virginia, of course, and I’m not sure anyone takes that seriously. But even selling the animals to a game ranch—that wouldn’t be illegal, but it would still be pretty awful. I mean, these are animals that are used to being around humans—they don’t have the same fear of humans real wild animals have, so they’re a lot more vulnerable, and when you pen them in and let the hunters set up right where the animals have to come to eat or drink—”
“I get the picture. If Lanahan was doing that—well, I can’t imagine my father getting involved with him.”
“Unless he was trying to investigate him,” the student said. “That's what I was thinking of doing—work my way into his confidence to get the real scoop.”
“Yeah, that sounds like something Dad would do,” I said with a sigh. But was it something he’d do without trying to enlist me? I’d worry about that later.
“So where are the animals, anyway?” he asked. “I was hoping to film them while I was out here, but they all seem to be gone.”
“Out at our house,” I said. “At least some of them are, and every time I turn around, someone dumps another batch off with us. If we can’t figure out something else to do with them, in a day or so we should have the whole zoo reunited.”
“Cool,” the student said. “Hey, I could go there and film them. I mean, if you and Professor Waterston don’t mind....”
“Film away,” I said. “And make it as much of a tearjerker as possible—the poor helpless animals, orphaned by the savage murder of their protector, abandoned to the mercies of anyone generous enough to volunteer to care for them.”
“Sounds much more interesting than the
protest,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just use the SOBs as local color in a report on the plight of the animals. I think I’ll head over there now.”
“You’re not staying to lunch with the protesters?” I asked.
“I’m not much on tofu and bean sprouts,” he said, grimacing. “And Shea gets on my nerves after a while. A really short while. See you later.”
“Oh, one more thing,” I called after him. “Is Shea his first name or his last name.”
“First,” the film student said. “Or maybe middle. He goes by Shea Bailey. Sounds more like a fancy restaurant than a name to me. You checking up on him?”
“Why, you know any dirt on him?”
“No,” he said, handing me a card. “But if you find any...” “I’ll keep you in mind,” I said.
He returned to his car and drove off a minute later. I glanced over at Shea and the other protesters. Most of them seemed to have eaten, but now they were lying about, sipping their water and enjoying the sunshine. Perhaps they were waiting for an other news crew, or another, more sympathetic passerby, to renew their demonstration.
“Are we going into the zoo now?” Eric asked.
“I think we should come back when they’re not here,” I said, indicating the protesters. “We don’t want them following us in and spoiling our visit, do we?”
Eric shook his head. I started the engine, managed a tight three-point turn without squashing any demonstrators, and headed home.
I was tempted to try sneaking into the zoo by a back way. There were a couple of dirt roads that looked promising, but since I had no idea where the zoo property began, I decided not to wander off into the woods yet. Better to find a map.
“You want to go to the library for story hour?” I asked Eric. The Caerphilly Library had a nice collection of county maps.
“That's for little kids,” Eric said, wrinkling his nose. “I’d rather go back and see what new animals we’ve got.”
So I went by the house to drop off Eric. Call me an uncaring aunt, but I hoped he’d be disappointed. However, a lot more cars had arrived during our unsuccessful scouting expedition to the zoo. Most of them probably belonged to relatives, showing up much earlier than expected, but there might be a few disgruntled animal foster parents in the lot.
As Eric ran off to inventory the livestock, I spotted Mother through the living-room window. From her gestures, I deduced that she was still giving orders to her volunteer movers. I decided to sneak in the back door for a cold drink before setting out again.
As I strolled around the side of the house, I found myself wondering if the relatives held a solution to the animal problem. Surely given the hosts of family members who’d be showing up today, tomorrow, and Monday, we could find a few willing to foster the various animals until the future of the Caerphilly Zoo was assured. Especially if I got Mother to talk them into it. For that matter, knowing my family, odds were I could find permanent homes for many of the animals if I just— “Mwah-ha-ha!”
I jumped as a sinister black-cloaked figure leaped out from behind a hydrangea, baring long, bloodstained fangs and flexing fingers armed with impressive clawlike fingernails.
“I vant to drrink your blood!” he intoned in a deep, guttural voice.
“Oh, very impressive, Dr. Smoot,” I said. “I see you and Rose Noire are working hard at overcoming your phobia. How's it going?”
“Very well, thank you,” he said, in a more normal voice. He grinned, which looked peculiar in a face painted fish-belly white, except for a few streaks of flesh color where he’d rubbed the makeup off scratching his nose. And he had trouble talking through the fangs without lisping. “I confeth,” he went on, “I thought it wath a crathy idea at firtht, but I’m really thtarting to get into it. It’th—very empowering.”
“That's good,” I said. He not only lisped—he drooled slightly. I started to sidle away, hoping to avoid hearing much more. It always made me nervous when people in therapy wanted to tell me about their psychological problems. Wasn’t that one of the main reasons for doing therapy—being able to talk over your problems confidentially with a trained mental health professional? Someone whose first reaction wouldn’t be, “Whoa, he's a few ants short of a picnic”—or at least someone with a vested interest in not blurting it out loud. If just talking to any old passerby would help, why do therapy?
Of course, the fact that I was thinking of Rose Noire's bizarre plan as therapy made me even more nervous than did Dr.
Smoot—who was babbling on about how it had felt, leaping out of bushes to scare people all morning. No wonder he hadn’t gone home yet. Odds were most of my family hadn’t minded a bit, and with them around, he probably fit in better here than he had anywhere in his life.
“That's great,” I said. I began backing up in earnest. “Just keep it up and I’m sure you—”
The ground under my feet disappeared.
Chapter 22
“Are you all right?”
I don’t think I lost consciousness, but I was too stunned to speak for a few seconds. Then I looked around. I was in a grave. A hole three feet wide, six feet deep, and—
Okay, maybe not a grave. It was about fifteen feet long. So either it was a grave for, say, two professional basketball players who insisted on going head-to-head in the afterlife, or it was more like a trench.
Still, not someplace I wanted to be lying, gazing up at an anxious, drooling faux vampire hovering solicitously over me.
“Can you give me a hand out?”
He frowned for a moment.
“No,” he said. “I’m not that far along yet. I’ll get thomeone.”
His face disappeared. I stood up and tested all my limbs. Nothing seemed broken, despite the six-foot fall.
So why was there a trench in our side yard? Some utility problem? The gas came in the front, and the septic field was out back, so neither of them was apt to be involved. And the phone and electrical wires weren’t buried. And, last I’d heard, cable didn’t come out this far. What was going on? I began pacing up and down the trench out of sheer impatience.
Dad's head popped over the side of the trench.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Stay where you are.”
As if I could go anywhere. I was about to start pacing again when the end of a ladder thumped down at the far end of the trench. I ran over and scrambled up and out of the trench.
“There you are,” Dad said, beaming at me. “Randall Shiffley's gone off to fetch some of that yellow caution tape they use around construction sites, which should help a lot, but in the meantime, you’ve got to watch out for the trenches.”
“Trenches? There are more than one of them?”
Evidently there were. Looking out over the side yard I counted ten of them, all neatly parallel, all three feet wide and spaced three feet apart. The area between the house and the barn was more than half filled. In a couple of places, boards had been placed across the trenches to make paths. I noticed that the last four trenches were only half as long as the rest, although they were visibly growing toward regulation size even as I watched.
“What is going on?” I said. “Are we digging in to resist an invasion? Or perhaps we’ve already had the invasion—someone dropped off a batch of giant moles?”
“It's the Sprockets,” Dad said.
“The Sprockets?”
As if on cue, Rutherford Sprocket's head appeared in one of the trenches, gradually rising until I could see that he was pushing a wheelbarrow.
“It's quite ingenious,” Dad said. “They figured out that if they leave a dirt ramp, it eliminates the need for a ladder, and makes it much easier to haul the dirt off.”
Rutherford trundled his wheelbarrow load of dirt across the remaining undisturbed part of the side yard, emptied it onto a giant dirt mound there, and then vanished back into the hole again.
“Who the hell told the Sprockets they could ruin our yard?” I exclaimed.
&n
bsp; “They said you did.” “They what?”
“It's for a good cause,” Dad said quickly. “They only want to find their great-uncle Plantagenet's body. They said they told you all about it.”
I strode over to the edge of the first trench, put my hands on my hips, and took a deep breath.
“Stop digging immediately!” I bellowed.
Heads popped up out of the trenches all over the yard, like startled prairie dogs. Several dozen heads, most of them belonging to members of my family. I assumed the few unfamiliar faces were auxiliary Sprockets recruited by Rutherford and Barch-ester, though for all I knew they could be my own relatives— distant ones lured by the promise of a larger-than-usual party this weekend, or perhaps newly acquired relatives by marriage. I noticed at least two Shiffleys, and made a note to triple-check the next few invoices from the Shiffley Construction Company, to make sure we didn’t get billed for their digging services.
“Everybody out of the trenches!” I shouted at the sea of heads. “No more digging!”
Most of the diggers obediently began climbing out of the holes and scuttling away. The two Sprockets didn’t move. I made my way over to the hole they were crouching in, leaping over each of the intervening trenches far more easily than I could have if I weren’t so riled up.
“Out!” I said, pointing toward the road.
“But we’re looking for Great-uncle Plantagenet,” Barchester whined.
“I don’t care—get out!”
“We only want to—,” Rutherford began.
“Out! Now! Or I’ll start filling those holes with you still in them!”
The two grudgingly dropped their shovels on their wheelbarrows and trundled them up the ramps. I dogged their heels until they’d loaded their tools in their car, and every so often, if they seemed to be slowing down, I bellowed “Out!” again. Quite cathartic, and I felt infinitely better as I stood by the side of the road, arms crossed, face still arranged in a severe frown, and watched them drive away.
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much Page 10