Monkey See, Monkey Die

by Cynthia Baxter

  “Would Erin have known that?” I asked. “I guess what I mean is, is it possible this was an accident?”

  “Unlikely,” Walter replied. “Erin never had any reason to work with scorpions directly, but the few times she came over to my house, she knew enough to keep away from the one I have. She saw me use forceps every time I handled the death stalker. She was too smart and too familiar with the dangers of a scorpion—any scorpion—to take any chances.”

  Aha, I thought. So Walter and Erin’s relationship did extend beyond the office. I wondered if the police had uncovered that interesting little fact—and whether they, too, considered the lizard-loving Lothario a suspect.

  I glanced around, trying to imagine how Walter’s living room would look if it was lit by candlelight. Somehow, I just couldn’t picture it as a love nest. Maybe it had something to do with the spiders. The grandmotherly knickknacks didn’t help either.

  “Besides,” Walter went on, “despite their reputation as vicious aggressors, scorpions don’t just run up and attack people. They don’t sting unless they’ve been provoked. Which means Erin had to have surprised the one that stung her.”

  “I see.” And I did see, with sickening clarity. Somehow the murderer had arranged for a yellow fat tail scorpion to come into close enough contact with Erin’s arm so that it stung her over and over again. As a result, she’d been in excruciating pain. She had undoubtedly been hideously frightened, too, since she would have quickly figured out what was happening—and what was likely to happen from that point on. Between those two reactions, Erin had probably started to scream—which might have prompted her attacker to finish the job by strangling her.

  Yet if this really was the way the scenario had played out, it could also mean that whoever had arranged for the scorpion to sting Erin hadn’t been particularly familiar with them. Otherwise, the person would have known that death wouldn’t have come instantly.

  Or maybe that was part of the plan, I thought grimly. Maybe the murderer had wanted Erin to suffer.

  Walter shrugged. “I don’t know what else I could possibly tell you that would make a difference at this point.”

  “This information was very helpful,” I assured him.

  “I guess all that really matters is that Erin is dead,” he said, the expression on his face reflecting his sorrow.

  The vulnerable look on his face told me it was time to ask the $64,000 question.

  “Walter,” I began, choosing my words carefully, “from the way you talk about Erin, I can’t help feeling that you really cared about her.”

  “Of course I did,” he answered quickly. “We were . . . friends. Close friends.”

  Here goes.

  “I get the sense that you two were much more than friends,” I said gently. “That the two of you were bonded by something much stronger.”

  He blinked as if he was startled by my frankness. Then a look of alarm crossed his face.

  I braced myself for a string of protests. Instead, he replied defensively, “It wasn’t just some squalid affair, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was in love with her.”

  I was still trying to come up with an appropriate response to his unexpected confession when he let out a deep sigh. “I guess there’s no reason to try to keep it a secret anymore. It’s bound to come out through the cops’ investigation.”

  “How long had you been seeing each other?” I asked in the same soft voice.

  “A few months,” he replied. “Not long after I started consulting for Dr. Zacarias at the zoo, Erin and I started hanging out together as much as we could. We just clicked, you know? We had so much in common. We both loved animals and we shared a fascination for exotics. . . .

  “But there was something else too. Almost from the beginning, I sensed a sadness in her. A loneliness, in a way, but something that went even deeper. She seemed . . . disappointed.”

  “Disappointed in what?” I probed.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Not her work, that’s for sure. She loved what she was doing, especially her research at the zoo. It was more like she was disappointed in her personal life.”

  Ben, I thought automatically.

  Walter took a deep breath, as if he was trying to get past a flood of emotion so he could go on. “Anyway, it tapped into the way I’ve been feeling too. It was as if the two of us were kindred spirits. And the more time we spent together—at work, I mean—the stronger the feeling became.

  “I began to sense that she felt it too. We started spending time together that had nothing to do with our jobs. Like at the end of the day, instead of packing up and going home, she’d come to my office. We’d sit and talk for a long time. At first, she made excuses about wanting to avoid rush-hour traffic. But after a while she stopped pretending there was any reason for her to put off going home aside from the fact that we really liked each other. Being together just felt so good. It felt so . . . so right.”

  His eyes took on a faraway look, almost as if he was gazing into the past. In a soft, almost reverent voice, he added, “And then we became lovers. It happened at work, on one of those nights when she clearly didn’t want to go home. We were talking, and it kept getting later and later . . . and by that point just about everybody had left for the day. We had the office to ourselves.”

  With a little smile, he added, “Maybe an office doesn’t seem like the most romantic place in the world, but there was something in the air that night. Something special. An electricity, kind of, as if we both knew what was going to happen. It was dark by that point, and it felt as if we were the only two people in the world. That probably sounds crazy. . . .”

  It didn’t sound crazy at all. Not to me. I knew the exact feeling he was talking about. And the dreamy way he was speaking made me experience it as if it was actually happening.

  “It was a magical night,” he said wistfully. “And like I said, it wasn’t about the sex. It was about the two of us acknowledging the connection between us and finally deciding not to hold back anymore.”

  “And her husband?” I asked softly, trying not to sound judgmental. “Did Erin ever talk about leaving him?”

  Walter shook his head. “She was much too loyal. At least that was what I assumed. The fact is, she was reluctant to talk to me about him at all.” His voice hardening, he added, “Even though I suspected from the start that he was the root of whatever unhappiness she was experiencing.”

  Suddenly his expression changed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be dumping all this on you. You didn’t come here to listen to the pathetic details of my personal life.”

  On the contrary, I thought.

  “I appreciate you being so open with me, Walter,” I told him sincerely. I wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t had anything to do with Erin’s murder, but his openness motivated me to take a chance by being open with him too. As I reached into my purse, I said, “This is something I haven’t shown to anyone, but I’d like to know if it means anything to you.”

  I handed him the Xerox copy of the cocktail napkin I’d been carrying around.

  “What is this?” he asked, frowning.

  I hesitated. I still wasn’t positive that Walter was someone I could trust. But I had to come up with some sort of answer.

  I decided to go with the truth. Or at least an abbreviated version of it.

  “They’re notes Erin made,” I said. “Can you make sense of any of it?”

  I held my breath as he studied the sheet of paper. He remained silent for such a long time that I assumed the odd assortment of letters meant as little to him as it did to me.

  Until he said, “Sure I can. At least if you split them up.”

  “What do you mean ‘split them up’?” I asked, aware that my heart had begun hammering in my chest.

  He leaned forward to show me the page. “See, these letters here that look like ‘NGIPPL’? I’d bet anything it’s supposed to be ‘NG’ and ‘IPPL.’ ”

  “But what does that mean?”

 
“Well, it could mean a lot of things,” he continued. “But NG could stand for National Geographic and IPPL most likely stands for the International Primate Protection League. As for these other letters—IFAW and CI—they probably refer to the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Conservation International.” Nodding, he added, “Yeah, that would make sense. After all, they’re all organizations that share a common goal. Erin told me all about them.”

  “What goal do they share?” I asked, even though the answer was fairly obvious. By this point, my heart was pounding so loud I was afraid he could hear it.

  “Animal conservation,” he replied soberly. “They’re all dedicated to fighting the illegal animal trade.”

  A chill went through me.

  Was it conceivable that whatever happened that night, as well as what happened to Erin a few weeks later, was related to something as huge and as horrific as the worldwide smuggling of animals? The very idea was too devastating to contemplate.

  At least, at first. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it began to make. True, this was an area I didn’t know much about. But it was entirely possible that on the night of the fund-raiser, Erin discovered that someone she knew was involved in it.

  After all, when she started working at the zoo, she began moving in a sphere in which people dealt with exotic animals as a matter of course. Then again, these were individuals who spent their entire lives caring for them and studying them and preserving them. It was hard to believe that anyone that dedicated would be capable of using their knowledge and connections for such evil purposes.

  I also had to consider Erin’s husband and his business partner. They, too, were in the animal business.

  Still, peddling dog collars and cat food was light years away from engaging in illegal smuggling. The malignant practice grossly endangered both the animals and the buyers, not to mention the fragile balance of the entire planet. And it was done out of nothing but sheer greed.

  I swallowed hard as the image of Ben’s ostentatious house flashed through my mind. It was followed by a mental picture of Donald Drayton’s mansion, complete with all his expensive boy toys. I also thought about what Nicole had told me about those trips her dad and Darla had been taking, to the most unlikely places. Asia, Africa, South America . . . the very places most exotic animals came from.

  Yes, it was possible. Extremely possible. Especially since the very source of my suspicion was handwritten notes made by Erin herself.

  I realized that having deciphered at least part of Erin’s scribblings from that night hadn’t put me any closer to figuring out who had murdered her. But my sense was that I’d just traveled light years in terms of figuring out why.

  Chapter 12

  “An example from the monkey: The higher it climbs, the more you see of its behind.”

  —German proverb

  As I drove home at the end of the day, I was still brooding about the possibility that Erin’s murder had been in some way related to the illegal animal trade. This new twist was so unexpected that I found myself wavering between being convinced that I’d finally stumbled upon some solid evidence and thinking that her paramour’s interpretation of what she’d written had to have been dead wrong.

  But one thing was certain: My top priority was finding out whatever I could about this despicable practice.

  Reaching home was a great relief. As I let myself into Betty and Winston’s house, I braced myself for the enthusiastic welcome I always got from my animals. I wasn’t disappointed. In turn, I made sure they knew that I’d missed each and every one of them too.

  I would have given Nick an enthusiastic greeting, too, but the absence of his car told me he hadn’t made it home yet. Even though he was just an intern at the law firm, he was already working insane hours. Still, I didn’t mind having the mansion all to myself. There was definitely something to be said for living in the lap of luxury.

  Even my animals were getting used to the good life. Max had already staked out Betty’s couch as his favorite place to hang. Despite his tough terrier demeanor, he loved resting his head on her lavender satin pillow. Lou liked to park himself in front of the fireplace. Since it was June, he hadn’t seen us light a fire in it, but he still seemed to find it cozy. In fact, both dogs looked kind of annoyed that I’d showed up, forcing them to leave such comfortable spots to come over and greet me. Lou kept yawning in my face, as if he wanted me to know that I’d disturbed his afternoon repose.

  My cats had also made themselves at home. Since Cat wasn’t able to leap up onto the furniture without assistance anymore, she followed the same strategy as at the cottage: She napped on a chenille rug in front of Betty’s refrigerator. This soft rug happened to be a lot bigger than mine, since Betty’s restaurant-size Sub-Zero refrigerator was a lot wider than the one squeezed inside my tiny kitchen at the cottage. Tinkerbell preferred circulating around the entire house, trying out beds, chairs, window seats, assorted cushions, and any garment that may have accidentally fallen to the ground.

  It’ll be tough going back to real life, I thought with a sigh, yanking off my chukka boots and socks so I could feel the soft fibers of Betty’s carpets against my toes. I poured myself a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream from a crystal decanter, sank onto the soft couch next to my luxury-loving Westie, and opened my laptop.

  As soon as I logged on to check my e-mail, I saw that I’d gotten another message from Betty. I clicked on to that one first, eager to know if her Tuscan honeymoon was still as glorious as her first e-mail had made it sound.

  HELP!!!!

  I can finally write the truth, now that that meddlesome daughter of Winston’s has FINALLY left the room. Honestly, she treats me as if I’m her second daughter. Worse yet, she treats me the way she treats her poor husband!

  Not that Rupert deserves better. I found out there’s a good reason he’s so successful in the cutthroat world of investment banking. Jessica, the man is crazed. He’s up at five every morning, jogging. Jogging—in Italy, a country where the most popular sport is eating pasta! Over breakfast, he insists on holding the newspaper in front of his face. Then he reads the day’s stock prices—aloud! He’s always planning, planning, planning. As he’s drinking his third cup of espresso, he’ll say, “Let’s visit some of the local wineries this morning. We’ll leave at ten. I’ll drive. On our way, we can practice conjugating Italian verbs. We’ll stop for lunch in that charming town we drove through a few days ago on our way back from touring the olive groves. We’ll be home by three, take a swim, shower, then gather for cocktails at five. Are you all with me?”

  Of course, Chloe is someone who does NOT want to be told what to do. So her response is invariably to argue with him. She’ll start listing reasons why his ideas are bad—too hot, too far, too crowded, too unwholesome (that’s the wineries). Poor little Fiona just sits there, looking as if she wishes she could jump into the huge bowl of oatmeal her mother insists that she eat for breakfast every single morning. (If I hear “Plenty of yummy-yummy and oh-so-healthy oat bran, Fiona, dear” one more time, I may throw the entire bowl out the window!). Every chance I get, I sneak that poor girl into town and buy her the biggest dish of gelato I can find.

  James and his French model aren’t getting along very well either. It seems his idea of a vacation in the Italian countryside is going on all-day bike trips. Fabienne’s idea is lying by the pool, perfecting her tan. They spend so much time arguing that neither of them gets to do much of either.

  Winston and I have hardly had a moment alone. Each one of them—Chloe and Rupert, James and Fabienne—keeps coming to us to complain about the other. I feel like a marriage counselor, not a newlywed!

  I miss you all terribly. I wish we’d simply stayed home!

  Poor Betty! I thought.

  I was suddenly aware of an uncomfortable tightening in my stomach. But I knew the reaction in my guts was only partly because of Betty’s difficulties as a brand-new bride. It was more because I saw it as a sign of what mi
ght lay ahead of me.

  True, Nick didn’t have any intrusive children. But he had a mother who was more aggravating than the entire cast of Cheaper by the Dozen.

  Yet that was only one reason that even now, with my wedding just weeks away, I still had trouble picturing myself actually walking down the aisle.

  And the prospect of appearing in public dressed like an oversized cupcake smothered in white butter-cream frosting wasn’t the problem either. As scary as playing the starring role in a wedding ceremony seemed, I knew that in the grand scheme of things, that would turn out to be the easy part.

  It was the business of intertwining my life with someone else’s that gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  Not that I didn’t love Nick. I did. I loved him to pieces. But there was another side of me that I couldn’t ignore. That was the side that couldn’t wear turtlenecks for fear that the soft, innocent-looking fabric would somehow grow tighter and tighter around my neck until I suddenly found myself unable to breathe. The side that had chosen to work out of a clinic-on-wheels instead of staying inside a cluster of rooms all day as if I was under house arrest—or at least office arrest.

  The side that had done everything possible to avoid saying yes to Nick’s marriage proposals until I realized that I wanted him in my life so badly that the idea of him giving up on me was simply too painful to bear.

  And that was the side that, at the moment, was making me feel as if I’d just sipped cleaning fluid instead of sherry.

  When my cell phone rang and the familiar number on the screen warned me that Suzanne was calling, I groaned. If there was anyone on the planet who was a poster child for the devastating effects of following one’s heart, it was Suzanne Fox.

  “Hi, Suzanne,” I said, hoping my wariness wasn’t reflected in my voice. “What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on?” she repeated crossly. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. I’m thinking of breaking up with Kieran.”