Penguins and Mortal Peril: Mystery (Madigan Amos Zoo Mysteries Book 1)

by Ruby Loren

  “Oh no,” I breathed. I observed the way her belly hung a little low as she trotted between the bales of hay and managed to jump, relatively spryly, over one of the bales at the rear of the barn. From the brief glance I’d seen, I suspected she probably still a had a good few days to go before she popped, but I’d have to keep an eye on her in case the vet needed to be called out. I sighed. The vet would have to be called anyway. After momma cat had had her kittens and they were grown enough to be weaned, they’d all need to be caught and brought in to be neutered. Otherwise we’d have an epidemic of kittens on our hands in no time.

  I frowned, not recognising the slight black cat with her distinctive white socks. New additions to the barn weren’t uncommon. I wondered if this cat was an ex-pet who’d run off and got pregnant and was now about to pay for her little taste of freedom. I felt like the parent of a reckless teenager.

  “Now you’re going to have to accept the consequences of your actions little missy,” I said to her, in mock bossy tone. I would have to keep a close watch on the other cats too, to make sure there wasn’t an un-neutered tom around who might threaten her kittens. The others were usually okay with little ones. This wasn’t the first rogue momma cat I’d seen crawl into the barn. I suspected they came because they knew there was food and shelter to be had here.

  I placed the bowls down and turned to go, knowing it would be bedlam the moment I left the barn. Around thirteen pairs of eyes watched as I turned the corner, ready to strike the moment they knew I was really, definitely gone.

  How’s that for gratitude? I thought with a smile.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Comics and Creepers

  Two days later, the police returned and the zoo rumour mill practically exploded.

  While I was one of the police’s first ports of call, I was not a contributor to gossip, but that didn’t stop everyone from finding out why the police were back at the zoo. Detective Treesden caught me when I was finishing up cleaning out the porcupines’ enclosure. It was another sunny day and the work was hot, so I wasn’t at my most charming.

  “Good morning, Ms Amos. We have a few more questions we need to ask in order to further our enquiries,” the salt and pepper detective said from the visitors’ pathway.

  I stepped out of the porcupine enclosure and came round to meet him, horribly aware that I smelt like manure and dirt. “What can I do to help you?” I asked, summoning up my public persona. I wondered if the seasoned detective could tell at a glance how fake it was.

  Probably.

  “As you are aware, we are looking into the unfortunate death of Mr Ray Myers. We have decided to treat this as a suspicious death, which is why I need to clarify a few things,” the detective said.

  I nodded numbly, taking in what he’d just said. I’d known deep down that Ray hadn’t just slipped and dropped that hammer on his head, despite someone perhaps wanting the police to think that. The light switch being turned off and the sheer amount of damage that had been inflicted on Ray’s skull with that killing blow…

  I looked up, suddenly realising that the detective had been speaking and I’d missed every word.

  “Sorry, could you say that again?”

  The detective sighed, but obliged. “How well did you know Mr Myers?”

  I half-shrugged. “Everyone knows each other here at the zoo. Although, because of the different animals we work with, the other keepers can actually be the people we see the least of. All of us get together and have meetings every week, but I mean on a day-to-day basis,” I carefully explained and then realised I hadn’t really addressed the question. “Ray was a good guy. I know he was popular with a lot of the ladies here at the zoo and even dated a couple of them for a while.” I watched as the detective started to scribble in his note book. “He was always nice to me and whenever we met in the food or supply store we’d have a friendly chat, usually about how things were going with our animals. He had a real thing about anything aquatic and was always lobbying for the zoo to get seals.” I suppressed a grin. “I think he’d have asked for killer whales and dolphins too, if he thought he’d be in with a shot, but we’re just a small zoo and some animals simply don’t do well in captivity,” I added, thinking about the recent horrors that had been publicised on the TV.

  At times it was difficult working as a zookeeper. You loved the animals you worked with, but you also knew that you were taking away from their natural environment and there would always be something missing for them. For some it was worse than others. That was why I liked the smallness of Avery zoo. The animals we had here had some really great habitats and weren’t cramped by any means. On the flip side, it was sometimes necessary to keep animals in zoos, both for education and to protect them from the destruction that other humans were currently wreaking on natural habitats and native populations.

  “…Ms Amos?” The detective said, and I realised I’d zoned out again. I shook my head and he repeated himself. “Where were you on Friday evening, the night the deceased died?”

  “I went home after work, cooked dinner, and stayed in to draw… some stuff.” I cleared my throat, not wanting to share too much with the detective, who almost certainly wouldn’t care anyway.

  “Is there anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts?”

  I blinked. “Hang on, am I a suspect?” I asked, first feeling annoyed and then incredulous.

  “We’re just exploring all of the possible avenues,” the policeman said in a toneless voice, presumably intended to placate.

  I raised a brown eyebrow and folded my arms. “I suppose I should be flattered that you think a five foot zero woman could batter a man the size of Ray to death with a hammer.” I paused and thought about it some more. “Or that I’d have been able to get close enough to him to do it without him suspecting anything. If there is a killer, they were probably there to help Ray out, so he wouldn’t have expected the attack and fought back.” It was an interesting idea, I thought to myself. I hadn’t noticed any signs of a struggle when I’d had the unfortunate experience of coming face to face with Ray’s corpse.

  The detective made a tiny note in his book. “We’re just exploring…”

  “…all of the possible avenues,” I parroted back. Maybe it was the heat, but my public persona was well past its use by date.

  The detective raised his eyes from his notebook just long enough to look me up and down, but I could tell he was just internally concluding I was probably not the killer. My lack of bulging biceps (and motive) were hopefully more than enough to convince him of that.

  I wasn’t about to share it, but I was actually pretty strong, despite being on the small side. As a zookeeper, you were pretty much on your own when it came to dealing with what needed to be done for the animals. Heavy lifting was a big part of that, no matter what the zoo’s health and safety officer liked to believe.

  “I believe I’ve asked all my questions at this time, unless there are any amendments you’d like to make to your original statement?” He asked, one dark eyebrow, not yet grey streaked, raised in query. I shook my head. Everything I’d told them had been the truth. Nothing else had come to mind in the days that had passed since I’d found Ray in the penguin pool.

  “Someone will be in touch if we have any further questions. Thank you for your time,” he added and I privately noted that his public persona was about as genuine as mine was today.

  I returned to the porcupine enclosure to finish off the sweeping. I hadn’t been back at it long when someone called good morning to me.

  Lucy Bond, the keeper in charge of the zoo’s few larger cats, and some of the other mixed bag of mammals, waved her fingers energetically at me. She had blonde hair trimmed in a pixie cut and clear blue eyes she liked to emphasise with black kohl so thick, it almost looked ancient Egyptian inspired. Her zookeeper’s green polo shirt still looked as though she’d got it new from the packet yesterday and I’d been meaning to ask her how she kept it looking so fresh.

  I smiled and rais
ed my own hand to wave back, feeling I should really make the effort for Lucy. She was one of the friendlier, less weird, keepers, but there was another reason why I was putting on my best face for her.

  While the feral cats I’d taken to looking after did keep the worst of the rat problem at bay, the board had deemed one month ago that it wasn’t enough. Visitors had begun to report seeing rats running through enclosures and even on the visitor walkways. With customer approval ratings down, the board made the unpopular decision to poison the rats. I’d spoken against this measure to the board, being seriously worried that one of the feral cats would find and eat a poisoned rat.

  As far as the zoo was concerned, what actually happened was much, much worse.

  Eventually the board had conceded that the poison would have to be very fast acting and would only be placed in areas that the cats weren’t able to access. This stipulation had been unpopular with certain board members, but it had been the unhappy compromise most agreed was both effective and safe. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

  The poison was placed and various members of staff collected a few dead rodents in the days that followed. I monitored the cats in the barn and was relieved to find they were all fine. The directors were just about to chalk the operation up as a success, and most likely start pushing to have the poison in the areas I’d asked them to avoid.

  Then the serval died.

  It happened so quickly, there was only one report of the animal being unwell. A visitor said they thought they’d seen the spotted cat vomiting but by the time Lucy had arrived to investigate, Kiota the serval was already dead.

  An autopsy performed by the vet had uncovered half-digested rat and confirmed the presence of poison in the serval’s system. No one had a clue as to how the rat could have gotten into the serval’s enclosure, but that was the problem with rats, they could get in absolutely anywhere.

  After the serval had died, the zoo had acted quickly, cordoning off the area from the public and then waiting with bated breath for the next few days after the incident. Nothing was reported to the papers or written online. The board assumed that they’d acted fast enough and that no one outside of the zoo knew about the accident. But secrets are hard to keep, even in a small zoo.

  One week later, the protesters turned up in full force. Somehow they knew every single detail about what had happened to the hapless serval. The group condemned the zoo for poisoning the rats and demanded that visitors boycott Avery and call for punishment to be dealt to the zoo.

  If anything, the publicity the protesters generated reminded people that the zoo existed and visitor numbers went up, but it wasn’t all good news. Every visitor had to run the gauntlet past the anti-social protesters and no public attraction wants a group of people hanging around outside, yelling about something you’d rather was swept under the rug.

  It had been five days since the activists had turned up and the board had launched a full investigation. Actually, they’d launched two full investigations. One was into the circumstances surrounding the demise of the serval. That was the one pushed to the public and the protesters. The other investigation was internal, as the board went in search for the source of the leak.

  Neither investigation had turned up much actual evidence yet, but the latter was turning sour. The zoo relied on volunteers to help with the day-to-day running of the zoo. They did jobs like guiding the public through the insect house, or monitoring our interactive lemur walk. Some of them did it in order to boost their chances of being employed in an animal related job, but others performed their roles, simply because they loved animals. Unfortunately, this was the group of people that the board of directors suspected were the source of the leak. Whilst knowledge of the serval’s death was supposed to be restricted to employees only, staff often didn’t discern between paid members and volunteers, so everyone that was involved with the zoo had heard about the tragedy.

  The volunteers had their own Facebook group and a group chat. It was this chat that the board were insisting upon being given access to. This demand had not gone down well with the majority of the volunteers. The board seemed to think it was because they were protecting the source of the leak. I thought it was far more likely that some of the volunteers’ managers, and even members of the board, were discussed in the group chat and I was betting not everything was polite.

  The ghost of a smile crossed my lips while I finished up the last of the sweeping. It was lucky that the zookeepers weren’t prone to conversing on social media. I thought about the number of real life conversations I’d had, filled with disparaging remarks about whichever manager was being pigheaded. If the volunteers shared the same opinions as the zoo’s staff, I’d be pretty reluctant to let the directors pick apart what was supposed to be a private conversation.

  I returned the broom I’d been using to the supplies store and ditched the wheelbarrow full of dirty bedding onto the vast compost heap, on the edge of the fields. If the board carried on treating the volunteers with suspicion, it wouldn’t be long before the zoo didn’t have any volunteers left. Despite directors often overlooking the volunteers, they were actually essential to keep the basically understaffed zoo ticking along. If they wanted to get rid of the volunteers, they’d have to employ some more people.

  I imagined the expressions on the directors’ faces if they were told they needed to spend more money and rolled my eyes. They could do with treading lightly in their investigation.

  While I worked, theories popped in and out of my head. I wondered if Ray’s death was somehow tied up with the poisoning incident. Had one of the activists caught the keeper alone, only for the confrontation to turn violent? Alternatively, what if someone had suspected that Ray himself was responsible for the leak and had taken their loyalty to the zoo a little too far? He’d had a reputation for being a chatterbox. I rubbed my slightly freckled chin, not able to piece together anything more than multiple hypotheses. I shrugged my shoulders and mentally moved on to the next task. It was the police’s job to do the figuring out.

  My next stop of the day was to check in on a couple of the larger animals at the zoo, the capybaras. Currently, they weren’t the happiest bunch. In a rare, money-spending move, instigated by me, the board had concluded that the capybaras’ enclosure needed updating. What exactly those updates entailed, I wasn’t yet sure. Despite offering to design it myself, outside experts had been hired to create the concepts. I was curious to see what it would look like when finished. Unfortunately for the short term, I had a group of capybaras squashed into a non-public enclosure, only ever intended to hold otter adolescents. It had a tiny pool and not much vegetation was left, due to a lack of upkeep and the surprisingly spontaneous decision to update.

  Melancholy was written all over the faces of Doris and Louis when I arrived by the inadequate enclosure.

  “Come on guys, it won’t be long before your new place is all done and I’m sure it’s going to be great,” I told them, when I walked in with a bowl of snacks. The capybaras didn’t even look up.

  The pair had been placed together a couple of years ago. Since then, they’d disappointingly never managed to reproduce, although I had a sneaking suspicion that this was one of the reasons why the board had agreed to make changes. Baby animals attracted visitors, especially if those babes were cute, furry, and relatively uncommon. They were hoping for a rerun of the echidnas’ success.

  I placed the bowl of snacks down and looked at the remains of their virtually untouched breakfast. Concern lined my face as I gave the pair the once over. They were definitely looking a little on the skinny side. I shook my head. They’d better get a move on with the enclosure, or there’d be another animal crisis to deal with. I bit my lip, sorry to have even had the thought. If these animals were really in trouble, it was my job to do something to help them.

  “Don’t worry guys, I’ll have a word with the builders and see if I can’t kick their butts a little harder and get you back where you belong in no time,
” I promised, smiling as I saw Doris take a tentative sniff at the fruit snack I’d brought and then eat a piece.

  It was a start.

  The builders had started work on the capybara enclosure last week, right before all of the drama had kicked off. Despite the constantly cited budget limitations, the group of builders were often at the zoo, whether it was to overhaul enclosures, build new exhibits, or extend the ever-growing adventure play area. Over the years, I’d learnt the names of all of the regulars.

  When I arrived at the building site, the first change I noticed was the enlargement. A small outside pathway, that had once led to a now obsolete viewing window for the macaws’ sleeping area, had been flattened, along with the old boundary fence. The capybaras’ pool had also been smashed up. At the moment, there wasn’t much to see but rubble, and I hoped it was closer to completion than it looked. Otherwise the unhappy intended recipients might start to waste away.

  “Hi,” I said, approaching one of the builders named Gary, who had stopped to crack open a bottle of coke. He turned his incredibly tanned face and then looked away again, giving me a view of his hairy neck. His brown, wavy hair was kept close to his head and his watery eyes seemed unfocused to me. Perhaps that was just because I wasn’t Tiff, I thought in a rare moment of jealousy.

  “I was just wondering if I could see the plans for this enclosure? I’m a zookeeper here,” I felt I had to clarify, as he wasn’t exactly giving me major recognition signs.

  Gary turned back once he realised I was talking to him and half shrugged. “Yeah, sure, they’re right over there.” He nodded towards a collection of gear that had been dumped and I caught a glimpse of some dirt streaked pieces of paper.

  “Thanks,” I said, as enthusiastically as he deserved. I walked over and picked up the pieces of paper. Being the zookeeper tasked with looking after the capybaras, the original concepts had actually been run by me, but I knew there was always a big difference between what was conceptualised and what actually happened. I looked down at the sheets and noted that the plans for the enlarged, capybara-friendly plant filled pool and the feeding stream had stayed much the same. However, some key elements had been altered, or perhaps they’d not even been confirmed when I’d been shown the ideas. I frowned at the sparse, clearly trendy, landscaped area that made up most of the enclosure.