Zero at the Bone

by Mary Walker

  “Only two of the five members of the team were on the premises at the time. Danny Gillespie was in the office when Mr. Dieterlen’s call came in, so he was able to grab a rifle and get to the scene within four minutes. That’s an excellent response time. The head of the team, Victor Jamail, was there five minutes later with a twelve-gauge shotgun. When they saw Mr. Renfro lying face down in the outside exhibit and the tiger lying about fifteen feet away, they could tell it was too late. So they did not fire at the tiger. Instead, the two of them and Mr. Dieterlen used a fire extinguisher from the building to frighten the animal into its holding cage. They determined that Mr. Renfro was dead and called an ambulance and the police. And now you know just about all we know about the accident.”

  Reporters started to wave their arms and call out questions to him.

  The director held up a palm to stop the babble. “But let me say one last thing before you ask your questions. Mr. Renfro was working alone with the tigers even though we all know it is far better to work dangerous animals in pairs, the way we used to. But recent cutbacks in the city budget have forced us to reduce our staff and economize in this way. I can’t tell you how much we all regret this.”

  The zoo group in front of Katherine began to whisper again. The young woman reached up and patted the big man’s shoulder, as if to console him for something. Then she smiled around at the men. “See,” she whispered, “he’s a genius. He did get the fund-raising in. And he saved you from having to speak to these vultures, Vic.” The third man in the group remained silent, just shaking his head. He was a powerfully built man who had his short sleeves rolled up to reveal a string of tattoos on both arms, running from his bulging biceps down to his thick wrists.

  Every hand in the room was up now, with voices calling.

  “Mr. McElroy!”

  “Sam.”

  “Lieutenant Sharb, question!”

  “Please … over here.”

  McElroy raised a hand again. “Okay. Okay. Let’s do this in an orderly way. Mr. Samuels, from the American-Statesman, let’s start with you.”

  The bearded reporter shouted above the noise. “We don’t want to be macabre here, sir, and there’s no delicate way to ask this, but our readers will want to know whether the tiger ate some of Mr. Renfro.” The room was silent for about twenty seconds. Katherine felt her stomach turn over very slowly. Blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh.

  The director finally found his words: “Mr. Samuels. You understand that the autopsy report is not finished. I have said that there were multiple lacerations on Mr. Renfro’s body from the attack. It is difficult to determine whether those injuries were inflicted in the initial attack or, um, later on. Next question to Miss—”

  Samuels pushed his way to the front of the crowd and drowned out the director’s voice. “Wait. I haven’t finished my question. Lieutenant Sharb, let me ask you. Were there parts of the body missing? There are rumors flying that the tiger ate considerable portions of him. Is it true?”

  The director looked down at the short policeman, who sighed and stepped forward. “Mr. Samuels,” he said in a low, raspy voice, “it appears that the tiger may have ingested some flesh. Yes.”

  Flesh of my flesh.

  Every hand in the room was up now. The noise level rose and Katherine felt the heat in the room rise with it. She pulled a crumpled Kleenex out of her bag and swiped at her wet brow. Samuels was jumping up and down now yelling, “What body parts? Has the tiger’s excrement been analyzed?”

  McElroy had to shout over the noise. “Okay, Miss James from The Dallas Morning News. Your turn. Go ahead.”

  A shrill female voice rose above the background noise. “This animal has eaten human flesh. Aren’t you afraid that this tiger has become a man-eater? Shouldn’t it be destroyed?”

  The zoo workers in front of Katherine looked at one another and collectively rolled their eyes skyward. The tattooed man narrowed his eyes, stretched his arms out, and tensed his hands into a simulation of tiger paws. Then he pretended to creep up toward the woman who’d asked the question. The group around him had to stifle their laughter.

  Sam McElroy looked at the woman as if she were a heathen to be converted. “Miss James. Tigers are predators with one mission on earth. They are born to hunt and kill. It’s what they were created for. He was just being a tiger. No. We have no intention of destroying him.”

  “But isn’t it true that once a tiger has tasted human flesh, he becomes an incorrigible man-eater? Won’t that make him just too dangerous to have around?” the woman shouted back.

  The director bit off his words. “Tigers are very dangerous. This tiger was born here at the Austin zoo and we have always known he was particularly aggressive and dangerous. He is a real tiger. If we are looking for blame here, Miss James, we need to look to the engineer who determined that the glass in that window was thick enough to withstand a determined five-hundred-pound tiger. We ought to look at the city council members who voted to cut our budget by a fourth this year so that our keepers have to work alone. This is what we should be looking at, not blaming a tiger for doing what he was born to do.”

  Katherine was certain that he was right. She didn’t want the tiger destroyed either. But she wondered how she would feel about seeing him. It reminded her of an incident she hadn’t thought of in years. When she was in high school she’d had a part-time job with a trainer who worked mostly with guard dogs. He had two beautiful young Dobermans he was training. One day a group of boys climbed the fence and tormented the dogs, who attacked and mauled one of the boys almost to death. Before the ambulance had driven away with the injured boy, the trainer had ordered the dogs into a down-stay and, with tears running down his face, had shot them both in the head. Weeping, Katherine had asked him why. He had said because he wouldn’t be able to look at them with pleasure anymore. She wondered if she would ever be able to look at the tiger with pleasure.

  She sprang to attention. A reporter was asking if the zoo was worried about a lawsuit, if the safety procedures had been sufficient.

  “No,” the director boomed. “Our safety procedures are excellent, as good or better than any zoo in the world. There are more accidents in zoos than you are aware of. The work is dangerous. But the Austin Zoo has had only one other fatal accident in our fifty-six-year history and that was more than three decades ago, way before my time. We have an excellent safety record.”

  A woman in front yelled out, “Why were you withholding food from that tiger, Mr. McElroy? It sounds cruel. If the tiger hadn’t been starving, maybe this would never have happened.”

  The small zoo group had kept up a steady, whispered commentary on the questions. Now the thin older man hissed in a falsetto, “Poor, abused pussy cat. God, these bunny huggers piss me off. Maybe she’d like to go in the cage and comfort poor Brum. How do people get so ignorant?”

  “Two fast days a week is standard practice at all zoos,” the director said patiently. “The purpose is to replicate eating patterns in the wild so that our large cats do not become obese in captivity. It is not cruel in any way.” He pointed at a man in the front row. “Yes. Next question.”

  “This is a question for Mr. Dieterlen, since he was there when the shooting team arrived. Mr. Dieterlen, I understand and support the reasons for not destroying the tiger now, but why didn’t Mr. Gillespie or”—he glanced down at his notebook—“Mr. Jamail shoot the tiger when they first arrived on the scene? Mr. Renfro might still have been alive when they got there.”

  Hans Dieterlen took a step forward and looked hard at his questioner. When he began to speak, Katherine was surprised at the thick German accent. “Mr. Gillespie, who was first to arrive, is an excellent marksman. If there had been any reason to shoot, he would have shot.” He stopped speaking and stepped back, apparently a man of few words.

  “But, Mr. Dieterlen,” the reporter said, “why have a shooting team if they aren’t going to shoot in an emergency like this?”

  Hans Dieterlen st
epped forward again. “All zoos have shooting teams to respond in case of dangerous animals escaping and endangering the public. In cases of any threat to the public they are instructed to shoot without hesitation. But in this case there was no danger to the public and the harm had been done. It was clear Mr. Renfro could not possibly be still alive. You would have known it too if you had been there.” He stepped back and leaned over to whisper something into the director’s ear.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the director said, “we need to limit this to two more questions, please. Go ahead, Mr. Cannon. You’re next.”

  “What about the calls and public reactions you are getting here at the zoo, Mr. McElroy? What seems to be the consensus in terms of whether the tiger should be allowed to live?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. Cannon. We do not make decisions like this based on public reactions. Siberian tigers are an endangered species. It is against federal law to kill them. We couldn’t do it even if we wanted to. Of course, we are already getting a great many phone calls. The usual mix: some sensible, some crank, some downright scary. Certainly some say the animal should be destroyed. I’m sorry to say we have had some threats against the tiger’s life. That is why we have taken the precaution of removing all the large cats from exhibit for a while.

  “Last question. You there, in back.”

  A deep man’s voice said, “We’ve talked a great deal about the tiger. But how about Lester Renfro? What sort of person was he? Is the zoo planning some sort of memorial for him? Does he have a family?”

  Katherine felt her body clench up.

  The zoo group began whispering again. “Lester Renfro,” sighed the big man who had hit her elbow. “The only family that’s likely to miss him is Felidae.” The others nodded sadly. Katherine studied their faces. Were they sorry he was dead, or did they just regret the disruption of their schedules? She was torn between listening to them or the director.

  “A good question,” answered the director. “Mr. Renfro was an exemplary employee. Devoted to his work. It was his whole life. He had been going to night classes, working on a degree in biology at the University of Texas, so I think a good memorial would be a scholarship fund for keepers who want to pursue higher education. He could have done many more lucrative things, but he chose to be a zookeeper. He was at the Austin zoo for thirty-seven years. He worked with reptiles and small mammals before he became senior keeper of the Phase Two unit, large cats.” The director looked into space for a minute, seemingly in thought. Then he said with genuine conviction, “He really cared. He was an advocate for his animals. Uh, family? Well, he was a divorced man with no close family here, I believe. We were his family. The animals were his family. He died doing what he loved to do.”

  “And that’s the truth. Amen,” the thin man with the cratered skin whispered, speaking more to himself than to the others in his group.

  The press conference was over. The three men turned their backs and retreated to the director’s office.

  Katherine moved away from the door of the men’s room as men began to head in that direction. She tucked her shirt down in back and took a deep breath.

  Animals were his family, huh? Well, he does have some family. Right here and planning to inherit whatever it is he had in mind for me and anything else I can get. I came here for financial help and I intend to get it.

  Even over his dead body.

  5

  AS the room cleared out, Katherine tried to think ahead. She supposed she’d have to endure some sort of funereal folderol before she could get down to the money. That could take for bloody ever and she had only twenty-two days before the foreclosure. Was it possible for an estate to get settled in three weeks? Probably not. She’d heard it was a lengthy process.

  And, oh my God, what if he hadn’t written it down? What if there was no record of what he intended her to have? She had the letter, of course, but would that count as a legal document? And what about the key and the storage receipt? Should she wait, or go by herself and look?

  “Be calm. One thing at a time, Katherine,” she whispered to herself as she approached the secretary’s desk. Right now she needed to identify herself and get on with the process, whatever it was. She pushed her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat. A name plate on the desk said, “Kim Kelly, Assistant to the Director.”

  Kim Kelly was engrossed in conversation with the man who’d hit her elbow. Perched on the corner of the desk, he was saying, “But I went to all the trouble of clearing my schedule so I could go along. She may need sedating. I thought he’d want me to go.”

  “So would I, Vic, but he said—” She stopped mid-sentence when Katherine cleared her throat for the second time.

  “I need to talk to Mr. McElroy, please,” Katherine said.

  “You have an appointment?” Kim asked.

  “No.”

  “He’s in conference right now. I don’t think he’ll be available all day. Do you want to leave him a message?”

  “I really need to see him now. I’m Katherine Driscoll, Lester Renfro’s daughter. Would you please tell him that?”

  Kim’s round brown eyes got rounder and she shot up out of her chair. “Yes, ma’am, I certainly will.” She walked into the director’s office without knocking, closing the door behind her.

  The big man remained propped on the desk, looking steadily at Katherine. His face was dark with several day’s stubble of black beard and his coveralls were badly stained with stiff-looking spots that looked a lot like blood. She read the badge on the left side of his chest: “Vic Jamail, Head Veterinarian.” He looked more like one of the maintenance crew, Katherine thought.

  “Miss Driscoll,” he said, “I certainly am sorry about your father. And your elbow.”

  Katherine nodded and looked away.

  “You must think we’re a callous lot going about our business like this, but we find this kind of accident difficult to—”

  “No, I don’t find you callous at all. I’m going about my business, too, Mr.—”

  “Jamail, Vic Jamail.”

  The secretary, emerging from the office, interrupted him. “Please come right in, Miss Driscoll. So sorry about everything. I didn’t know who you were when you came in before. So sorry.” She stood aside to let Katherine pass through the door.

  Pausing a moment to smooth her shorts in back, Katherine glanced back at the big man, still sitting on the corner of the desk, watching her. Technically, he wasn’t smiling, but a knot in the muscles at the corners of his mouth and the glint in his black eyes made her certain he was laughing internally. She felt unaccountably irked by it as she entered the director’s office.

  The three men leapt to their feet from identical green leather club chairs. In the corner behind them on a wood perch, a large white bird raised a crest the color of apricots and squawked, “Hello. Hello.”

  No one paid any attention to it. Sam McElroy approached her with his right hand extended. “Miss Driscoll?”

  Katherine nodded, trying to assume a gravity proper to the situation.

  “I’m so sorry.” He took her hand as if to shake it and then covered it firmly with his other hand, squeezing it tenderly in a long nonverbal message of condolence. His wiry, tensed body bent close to her and his tanned forehead crinkled with solicitude. “When I said Lester had no close family, I had no idea you were here. I meant he had no family living in Austin. You should have told me you were here. That … circus out there couldn’t have been very nice for you. Forgive us.”

  He continued to grip her hand. His moist pale eyes, the hunching of his shoulders, and the way he cocked his head all conveyed sympathy. Katherine was convinced. She felt a sudden tightness in her throat. Real emotion from him was the last thing she had expected. It made her feel like an impostor.

  “I haven’t seen my father since I was five, Mr. McElroy, so you were right in saying that he had no close family.”

  He turned toward the other two men. “Miss Driscoll, this is Lieutenant Shar
b from the Austin police, and this is Hans Dieterlen, our head keeper.”

  The policeman stepped forward to shake her hand. The arm he extended toward her was so short and thick it appeared to be a deformity, but as she studied the rest of him, she decided it was in perfect proportion. She had the most inappropriate wish to see what he looked like naked.

  She tightened her lips and shook his stubby hand.

  Before he spoke, he pulled a wadded handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose into it. He looked down into the handkerchief with a frown as he spoke to her. “We’ve been trying to locate you, Miss Driscoll, but we just got your address about an hour ago from Mr. Hammond, your father’s attorney.” His voice was so hoarse and gravelly Katherine thought it must be painful for him to talk. “You must have been on your way from Boerne. We don’t like to have people learn these things before we tell them.”

  There was a long silence. Katherine felt they were waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know what.

  “How did you find out, Miss Driscoll?” Sharb asked finally.

  “Oh. Just now, when I came in the office and asked to see … my father, the secretary out there showed me the newspaper.”

  “What brings you today, Miss Driscoll?” the policeman croaked. “After not seeing your father all these years?”

  She was totally unprepared for the question. She felt she had blundered into an exam without even looking over her notes. Lester had asked for secrecy, but he was dead. “Oh, he wrote and asked me to come. So I came.”

  Without any warning Sharb emitted two rapid-fire sneezes, spraying a fine mist into the air. Without intending to, Katherine took a step back to get out of range.

  Sharb pulled out the handkerchief again and swabbed at his inflamed nostrils, shooting a dark scowl at the bird. “Was he expecting you today?”