A while later, Brody, whom I hadn’t seen much of during the day, said it was also time for him to go. “I’ve got a meeting early tomorrow on our next Animal Auditions season, so I need to get some sleep tonight.”
I said goodbye to him, then looked idly around for Dante. Didn’t see him, but I did note that Wagner was leashed beneath a shady tree in an area of the sanctuary distant from the wild animals. Where had Dante gone without his best friend?
A couple of questions had come to me about the mama wolf’s disappearance, but when I dropped into Megan’s office to ask them, she wasn’t there.
The day was drawing to a close. We would probably hurry back to Dante’s cabin, pick up our stuff, and return to L.A. within the next hour, before the sun set.
I just might have one more opportunity to hug, and feed, a wolf pup. I wasn’t sure when we’d be back—especially without additional clues to mama wolf’s whereabouts. Maybe not till after the babies were weaned—and they’d be more active then, with eyes open and looking around for regurgitated prey.
The crowd of visitors had thinned. Not many around now. I took the opportunity to slip into the infirmary to see if I could beg anyone to let me feed the babies.
And noticed Jon Doe in the area behind the nesting place once more. Good. I’d ask him.
As I glanced beyond the enclosure where the pups slept, I saw that Jon was sitting on the floor. That seemed a bit strange, but maybe he was getting his second wind after all his work that day.
I went to the entrance of the back room and opened the door. Walked inside.
And gasped.
Jon Doe wasn’t simply resting on the floor. He was covered in blood. Unmoving. At an odd angle.
“Damn it,” I muttered to myself as I approached and said aloud, “Jon? Jon, can you hear me?”
When I touched his neck, searching for a pulse, there was none.
Jon Doe appeared to be dead.
Chapter Five
I’VE OFTEN SAID I’m a murder magnet, and it’s true. As a result, I know what to do besides scream when I stumble upon a dead body.
Of course I screamed, as I stepped back on the hard concrete floor, stopped touching things that could possibly be evidence, and extracted my cell phone from my pocket to call 911.
Then I called Dante, in case he was too far away to hear my screams.
Megan must have been closer, since the sanctuary’s director was the first to run into the infirmary. Strange, all the stuff I noticed. Her hair was still clipped into the same barrette, but she had changed clothes, and was again wearing her beige vest with multiple pockets. What was she doing that evening—giving a lecture on wildlife somewhere?
And was that the reason she had changed clothes, or had she gotten Jon Doe’s blood on her earlier duds?
Okay, I had no particular reason to suspect her, except that she was here and had known Jon Doe.
“What’s the matter, Kendra?” she immediately demanded, then followed my line of sight along the back room’s floor, and gasped.
She hurried toward the body. “Jon? Jon, are you okay?”
I grabbed her as she started to kneel. “Don’t touch anything,” I said in a quivering voice. “We don’t want to destroy any evidence.”
“Evidence?” She stood up again and looked at me with shocked, enormous eyes. “Is he—did someone—?”
I finished it for her. “Yes, it looks like someone stabbed him, and I think … he’s gone.”
No, my initial reaction hadn’t been to believe that a wild animal, in this sanctuary for feral creatures, was the killer.
Not with a bloody knife lying on the floor beside Jon. And I had to assume that the suspect watched at least some of the same crime shows on TV that I did. I’d have bet a week’s worth of pet-sitting proceeds that there were no fingerprints on the weapon.
I heard sounds from inside the infirmary, including the shrill cries of the wolf pups. Oh, heavens, were they okay? I hadn’t noticed anything wrong with them as I’d dashed in. They’d seemed to be sleeping. But had anything happened to them, too? Although I heard multiple yaps, I couldn’t really tell if there were two or three yappers. As people started streaming in from outside, I hurried to the viewing area and checked our little charges.
Yes! All three stood on wobbly legs, eyes still closed, most likely shrieking from being awakened by my screams—and, oh, by the way, if we happened to want to feed them now, they’d be pleased.
No, I don’t know wolf-pup-speak any more than I can speak Barklish with Lexie, Wagner, or my pet-sitting doggy charges, but I’m often intuitive in discerning what animals attempt to communicate. Or at least I think I am.
I moved back the way I’d come, to block the hordes from heading into the back area. Not everyone would try it, of course, but among the crowd were Krissy, Anthony, caretakers and other employees, and volunteers. I took a deep breath and said, “There’s been an accident, folks. I need for you to step outside and hang around until the authorities arrive.”
Which was when Dante plowed in. I’d bawled enough into my cell phone to convey what I’d discovered, and he gallantly started backing up my orders.
Only later did I wonder where he’d been from the time I’d called until the time he arrived.
THE EMTS ARRIVED only a few minutes before the cops. I wasn’t sure what was communicated to the volunteer staffing the front gate, but presumably she knew better than to keep the authorities out. In any event, I was herded outside by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department to join the milling crowd I had commanded to wait there.
It was hot as the sun beat down. I longed to stroll the paths of the sanctuary, peek into the carefully constructed habitats, and spy on the cheetahs and coyotes and mountain lions. Predators all, they wouldn’t blink at the presence of a dead body. But they used teeth and claws, not a human-manufactured blade, to bring down their prey. They hadn’t had anything to do with Jon Doe’s demise.
I would rather have departed HotWildlife, but I knew the drill. No one could leave until the authorities had released them. And that wouldn’t occur until we’d all been interrogated.
I looked around in the crowd for Dante, wondering why he hadn’t joined me. Surprisingly, he seemed deeply engaged in a conversation—with Brody! I thought Brody had left a long while ago to head back to L.A. Why was he here?
Wagner sat at their feet. Krissy hovered nearby in the mass of people, as if she, too, was hanging on every word of Dante’s. Anthony was at her side.
I stood in a group of strangers. Maybe that was a good thing, for now. I used the opportunity to make a call.
“Hi, Ned,” I said when Detective Ned Noralles of the Los Angeles Police Department answered his cell. “Guess what?”
“I know that tone,” my former nemesis and now buddy—since I’d helped clear his sister and him from being murder suspects recently—said to me. “Don’t tell me you’re involved in another murder.”
“I can’t not tell you,” I grumbled as quietly as I could so those around me couldn’t easily eavesdrop. “I need your advice.”
“Where are you?” he asked in apparent resignation. Or so it sounded, as best as I could hear amid the hubbub in the parking lot and the static in our connection. “Do you want me to join you?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I’m at HotWildlife.”
“If it’s where I think it is, that’s the jurisdiction of the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, right?”
Looking toward the nearest uniformed cop who was engaged in crowd control, I studied the official green and yellow patch on the sleeve of her khaki-colored cotton shirt that was tucked into deep green slacks. “Seems so,” I agreed.
“That could be a good thing. I’ve got a couple of buddies there. Tell me what happened.”
I eased my way to the perimeter of the crowd, earning a glare from the same exasperated cop. I smiled as disarmingly as I could, then told Ned what had occurred.
“So this
Jon Doe was an employee there?”
I confirmed it.
“Do you know anyone who had anything against him?”
“Not unless he’d located the missing mama wolf and whoever took her was peeved about it.” I’d filled Ned in on that angle of what was going on, too. And I purposely didn’t mention how I’d sensed an undercurrent that seemed generated by Dante and Brody. And my wondering why Brody so conveniently was here just now. Or had he ever left?
“Okay, I’ll call one of my buddies there. I’ll ask him to keep an eye on whoever questions you. Just be as candid as you were with me, and you should be released fairly soon.”
Which I knew, in cop time, could be anywhere from an hour to a few days, but I hoped for the former.
As I hung up my cell, I started meandering through the crowd toward Dante and Brody. Brody spotted me first and lifted his hand in a wave. When I reached them, I basked for an instant under Dante’s warm smile, then said to Brody, “What are you doing here?”
“Dante called when he heard what had happened. I hadn’t gotten far, so I came back to see what was going on.”
And help Dante with whatever investigation he intended to conduct, I suspected. One of these days, I really had to get a grip on their mutual background.
I immediately recalled what I’d seen on the computer after Brody’s search last night. Stuff I didn’t understand.
And stuff about Jon Doe.
Very convenient that Brody hadn’t gotten too close to L.A., and was able to return here at Dante’s call.
Unless he hadn’t gotten far at all for some other reason. Like something to do with Jon Doe’s death?
Damn! I absolutely hoped not. I liked Brody. And if he’d been involved in killing Jon Doe, that undoubtedly meant Dante was an aider and abettor … or worse.
WITH THE LARGE crowd at HotWildlife, the local authorities had to make do with the available facilities. I watched as most people were sorted into groups in the warm September air. Sanctuary visitors were herded to several areas, and those with presumably closer ties to HotWildlife were shown to others.
As a person who was present mainly because of close acquaintanceship with the place’s chief money source, I didn’t fit neatly into any characterization. Then again, I had a credential more exciting than most: the person who’d discovered the body. Lucky me.
I mentally kicked my behind for my silent sarcasm. I, in fact, was lucky—compared with poor Jon Doe.
I was soon debriefed by a professional and particularly curt woman in a suit. She said she was a detective with the Homicide Detail. But before I’d related the entire story—excluding my concerns and suspicions about Dante and Brody, of course—we were joined by a large guy, also in a suit, whose dark complexion and features suggested Hawaiian extraction.
“I’m Sergeant Frank Hura, Kendra,” he said, holding out his beefy hand to me. His smile suggested I should know him, but I didn’t.
“Hi,” I said tentatively as we shook.
His round face folded into a hint of a frown. Not a good sign, since this cop just might be in charge. “Didn’t Ned Noralles tell you about me?”
I hid my sigh of relief. “No, but I called him to ask his advice a little while ago. He said he had some friends in San Bernardino. You’re one of them?”
“Sure am. I know some of your background with Ned, too, and how irritated he used to be with you—till you helped him out of an ugly situation.” He glanced at the lady detective from the Homicide Detail. “Thanks, Liz. I’ll take over now.”
She seemed to work at erasing an even more annoyed expression and said, “Of course, sir,” before moving off.
“Let’s take a walk,” Frank Hura said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, and I like to look at the animals.”
“Me, too.” And the idea of strolling made me happy; much more relaxed than standing, or sitting, face-to-face during an interrogation.
We skirted some pockets of people and headed down the main HotWildlife path, staying on the slightly shadier side, although there were few trees in the sanctuary. We stopped outside the liger enclosure and stared over the moat at the mostly striped feline that was a cross between a lion and tiger.
“So tell me what happened,” Frank said.
I did so, repeating what I’d told the Homicide Detail woman, and then some. I described the disappearance of mama wolf, our worried attempts to find her, and more—up through my entering the infirmary and finding Jon Doe’s crumpled, bloody body.
“So you’re here with Dante DeFrancisco and Brody Avilla?” For a Sheriff’s Department sergeant, he sounded rather star-struck.
“Yes. I’m sure they’re being questioned by someone from your department, but I’d be glad to introduce you to them.”
“Let’s go!” But then he stopped and looked down at me. “They’re potential murder suspects as much as everyone else around here, at least till they’re cleared. But Dante DeFrancisco and Brody Avilla—a megabillionaire and a movie star—how likely is it that either would come here and kill a guy who cleaned animal enclosures for a living?”
“Not likely,” I agreed, hoping it was true.
“Do you know if they knew Jon Doe?” I could tell from his tone that he was hoping I’d say no.
“Well, they talked to him here, of course,” I dissembled. “Jon was helping to nurture the baby wolves and teach everyone how to care for them.”
“I mean other than here,” Frank said.
“Not that I’m aware of,” I said. I crossed my fingers behind my back, just in case. I wasn’t exactly lying. I didn’t really know why Brody had been Googling strange stuff on the Internet and also looking up Jon Doe. And the fact that Dante and Brody exchanged unreadable looks didn’t mean they knew him. Did it?
I intended to assume all things positive. I had no reason to believe Dante or Brody could have harmed the senior citizen who cared for HotWildlife animals.
And even if my murder-magnet mind made me wonder if, there was no reason to mention that to this deputy sheriff. Not yet, at least.
I had some checking to do.
Chapter Six
BUT THE CHECKING would have to wait till later, when I could follow up on it.
In a while, Sergeant Hura conducted his own informal follow-up interview of Dante and Brody. I don’t know what the official session was like, but this one was uneventful for the two interviewees, who were absolutely polite and cooperative like the good citizens they were. All their answers supported the position that they were both appalled at Jon Doe’s untimely death, and that they had nothing to do with it.
We all stood in the shade beside a coyote compound at the far end of the sanctuary as the three of them talked and commiserated. Wagner lay down on some grass-covered earth and panted as he watched each of us in turn.
Frank Hura acted utterly star-struck while questioning the two men deferentially, his tone apologetic, as if he had to do this to fulfill his duty while knowing full well they were absolutely innocent. He had spent only a few minutes alone with the detectives who’d done the formal sessions, so for all I knew, this could be a Columbo kind of intended trap. But I didn’t think so.
And me? It was all I could do not to roll my eyes in exasperation at this whole absurd exchange. I certainly didn’t want Dante or Brody to have had anything to do with the ending of Jon Doe’s life, but my suspicions remained that they out-and-out lied about not knowing him.
Or maybe it was simply a matter of semantics. Maybe they didn’t actually know him, but I believed they knew something about him. Especially since Brody had looked him up on the Internet.
But, okay, even if they were absolutely guilty, I didn’t want them arrested right then and there. I needed to conduct my own inquiry. Hopefully, it would exonerate them as fully as their own proclaimed innocence. If it didn’t? What then? I’d really come to like Brody a lot, especially as an Animal Auditions judge with a star’s appearance and a droll and delightful sense of humor
.
And Dante? Well, I was an attorney, an officer of the court, and I might owe it to the world to turn over any evidence I found of his guilt. But I was also a woman in deep infatuation, one who lusted after this gorgeous, rich, and powerful pet-supply magnate. And—
“Kendra?”
My name spoken by that very same magnate kicked me out of my reverie. I’d been staring at some pacing coyotes as I’d stood there thinking and listening to the guys chatter near me. But now I turned back toward Dante.
“Those coyotes,” I said. “They seem so grumpy, don’t you think, the way they’re acting?”
“I think you’re projecting ‘grumpy,’ lady,” he said in a tone so sweet that I couldn’t completely focus on his insult. “Anyway, Frank is done with us, at least for now.”
I aimed a glance at the deputy, who still smiled broadly, as if basking in having had the honor of interrogating Dante and Brody as potential murder suspects.
“With me, too, I assume.” I attempted to keep the aforesaid grumpiness out of my voice, although I wasn’t too successful.
“Of course, Kendra,” Frank effused. “I’ll want your contact information, all of you, as a formality and in case any further questions come up during our investigation, but you’re free to go. I assume you’ll head back to L.A., but be sure to get in touch with me next time you’re around here.” Something quizzical and perhaps defensive must have shown on my face, since as he watched me, his expression grew apologetic. “I mean, just so I can say hi. Show you around. Answer any questions you may have—as long as they’re not confidential because of our inquiries. That kind of thing.”
“Of course,” Dante said smoothly. “Let’s definitely stay in touch, Frank. We want to do all we can to make sure that whoever did this to Jon is captured and punished.” He pulled his wallet from his jeans pocket and extracted a business card, which he handed to the sergeant.
As long as whoever did it isn’t you, I thought. To Frank, I said, “Thanks for your discretion and understanding.” I, too, handed him a card after waffling for an instant whether it should be my card as a partner of the law firm of Yurick & Associates or as the managing member of Critter TLC, LLC. I decided on the first, not that my playing the lawyer card would necessarily remove me from the suspect list. It was easier to field calls directed to my official place of legal employment.
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