by Betty Webb
The Otter of Death
A Gunn Zoo Mystery
Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press
THE OTTER OF DEATH
The Fifth Gunn Zoo Mystery
“While examining some timely social issues, Webb also delivers lots of edifying information on the animal kingdom in an entry sure to please fans and newcomers alike.”
—Publishers Weekly
“...the best part here is watching Bentley’s investigative juices start to flow (Webb’s background as a reporter really comes to the fore here)...This one will satisfy multiple audiences.”
—Don Crinklaw, Booklist
THE PUFFIN OF DEATH
The Fourth Gunn Zoo Mystery
“Iceland’s rugged and sometimes dangerous landscape provides atmosphere, while Magnus, the polar bear cub, appears just often enough to remind us why Teddy’s in Iceland. Webb skillfully keeps the reader guessing right to the dramatic conclusion.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The exotic locale, the animal lore, and a nice overlay of Icelandic culture and tradition provide an enticing frame story for this solid mystery.”
—Barbara Bibel, Booklist
“California zookeeper Theodora Bentley travels to Iceland to pick up animals for a new exhibit but must put her investigative skills to use when two American birdwatchers are killed. The fourth book in this charming series doesn’t fail to please. Teddy is delightful as she copes with the Icelandic penchant for partying hard.”
—Library Journal
“I finished The Puffin of Death with a feeling of regret that I have not been to Iceland...This book is the next best thing to a trip there. A good Christmas present for those friends who still suffer from itchy feet.”
—BookLoons
THE LLAMA OF DEATH
The Third Gunn Zoo Mystery
“Animal lore and human foibles spiced with a hint of evil test Teddy’s patience and crime solving in this appealing cozy.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Webb’s third zoo series entry winningly melds a strong animal story with an engaging cozy amateur sleuth tale. Set at a relaxed pace with abundant zoo filler, the title never strays into too-cute territory, instead presenting the real deal.”
—Library Journal
“A Renaissance Faire provides both the setting and the weapon for a murder...Webb’s zoo-based series is informative about the habits of the zoo denizens and often amusing...”
—Kirkus Reviews
THE KOALA OF DEATH
The Second Gunn Zoo Mystery
“Teddy’s second adventure will appeal to animal lovers who enjoy a bit of social satire with their mystery. Pair this series with Ann Littlewood’s Iris Oakley novels, also starring a zookeeper.”
—Booklist
“The author of the edgy Lena Jones mysteries softens her touch in this second zoo mystery featuring an amateur sleuth with a wealthy background and a great deal of zoological knowledge and brain power...Teddy’s adventures will appeal to fans of animal-themed cozies.”
—Library Journal
Teddy’s second case showcases an engaging array of quirky characters, human and animal.”
—Kirkus Reviews
THE ANTEATER OF DEATH
The First Gunn Zoo Mystery
2009 Winner of the Arizona Book Award for Mystery/Suspense
“I’ve been impressed with Betty Webb’s edgy mysteries about the Southwest, so I was surprised to find she has a softer side and a wicked sense of humor in a book that can only be described as ‘High Society meets Zoo Quest.’ I’ve always been a sucker for zoos, so I also relished the animal details in this highly enjoyable read.”
—Rhys Bowen, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness mysteries
“Webb’s new series combines a good puzzle with animal lore, a behind-the-scenes look at zoo operations, and plenty of humor.”
—Booklist
“Webb, author of the well-written Lena Jones PI series, not only presents a clear picture of what it is like to work in a zoo but also introduces an engaging new protagonist who will appeal to mystery buffs who enjoy light animal mysteries.”
—Library Journal
“Webb kicks off her new series with a bright heroine and an appealingly offbeat setting: a firm foundation later episodes can build on.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Betty Webb
First Edition 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017954240
ISBN: 9781464209901 Hardcover
ISBN: 9781464209925 Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9781464209932 Ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Poisoned Pen Press
4014 N. Goldwater Blvd., #201
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
www.poisonedpenpress.com
[email protected]
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
The Otter of Death
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Colleen's Cranberry-Apricot Scones Recipe
Contact
Acknowledgments
The Arizona State Library’s Writer-in-Residence program helped considerably in the writing of this book. On the personal front, of particular service were Marge Purcell, Debra McCarthy, Delpha Wright, Judy Par, the ever-faithful Sheridan Street Irregulars, Poisoned Pen Press’ brilliant Barbara Peters, and Melanie Gideon of Moss Landing’s wonderful Captain’s Inn, who told me about the wild otter with the video camera. Any errors in this book are my fault, not theirs.
Dedication
For today’s unsung heroes—our nation’s librarians,
who tirelessly work to keep the wolf of ignorance from our doors.
And a special shout-out to the dedicated librarians
at the Avondale (Arizona) Public Library,
where most of this book was written.
Chapter One
Other than a few remaining wisps of fog, the morning was your standard California morning: perfect. The warm Pacific nuzzled at the Gunn Landing breakwater, while overhead snowy gulls swooped through a soft westerly breeze like noisy angels. Even better, it was a Monday, and my day off. Knowing me, though, after I finished my walk around the Gunn Landing Slough, I would probably drive down to the zoo to say hello to my charges. With my new hours, I had too much to do, and too little time to do it in.
My overcrowded schedule meant poor old DJ Bonz had come up on the short end today. After giving my three-legged terrier a short walk through Gunn Landing Park, I’d returned him to my boat, the Mer
ilee, and ordered him to keep Miss Priss company. Bonz never behaved well at the Slough and snarl-barked at any otter as if it were a marauding Viking intent upon carrying off every liveaboarder in the harbor. I sighed an “I’m sorry” sigh, not that the little terrier could hear me from here. This end of the Slough—a fifteen-hundred-acre marsh near Gunn Landing Harbor—was a good mile from my boat as the crow flies, not that I’m a crow. My slog around the Slough’s many inlets added another mile to my hike, but today I was supposed to turn in my portion of the local otter count to the Otter Conservancy, the marine life rescue organization.
With my count up to fifteen, I rounded the southern edge of the Slough, another reedy area where sea otters sometimes gathered. They didn’t disappoint me today. I stopped to watch several females floating on their backs while their pups snoozed on their mama’s bellies. Nineteen. Two pupless otters paddled by mere feet away, not bothering to give me a second look. Twenty-one. With their dog-like black eyes and noses, and golden brown coats, they appeared healthy. So far, I’d seen no sign of toxoplasma gondii, the disease that had felled too many of their kind in the past few years.
Approximately fifty yards further, I discovered that my earlier optimism had been in error. Two otter carcasses lay half-hidden among the reeds. Growing closer, I found no blood, no signs of attack. Possibly toxo. Not having anything to bag and tag the animals with right now, I took several photos and e-mailed them to Darleene Bauer, president of the Otter Conservancy. We would pick them up later and take them into Monterey for autopsy.
Troubled, I headed toward the northern edge of the Slough, where my sector of the grid ended. There I spotted a single otter, perhaps a male. That brought my count to twenty-two live, two dead. This otter had a rock the size of a softball tucked under his arm. Unlike other mammals—primates excepted—otters use tools. Their usual prey was the shellfish that proliferate near the shore; oysters, abalone, and whatnot. Somewhere during their evolution, the animals had learned to use rocks or other hard objects to crack open shells to get at the soft meat inside. Cunningly, they held onto their favorite tools, and it wasn’t unusual to see them swimming by clutching metal ship fittings, belt buckles, or pliers. Once I had even seen a large male attempting to open an oyster by using an old glass Coke bottle.
My own territory covered and notations duly made, I was about to return to the Merilee when I saw a familiar face lurking in the reeds. Maureen. Number twenty-three. Her thick coat, a prize sought by hunters for generations because of its water-repellent properties, was a brighter gold than most otters, making her easy to spot. Today she was busy opening the hard shell of a clam. As a zookeeper I knew the dangers of treating wild creatures like domesticated pets, but long ago she had stolen my heart with her nightly scratchings and chirpings at the hull of my boat, begging for treats.
Maureen loved herring.
After gulping down whatever it was she’d killed, Maureen spotted me. Perhaps thinking I carried a herring in my pocket, she tucked her tool under her arm and swam toward me, and in her rush, nudged aside a fat male—twenty-four—who had floated into her lane. Upon reaching me she looked up with hopeful eyes.
“No herring today,” I whispered, to avoid disturbing the nearby otter mommies.
Maureen can be stubborn. She waggled her head and chirped.
“Maybe tonight.”
She chirped again, this time louder. Waved a webbed paw. When she did that, I could see the tool tucked under her other arm. It was black. Shiny. No rock.
“What’s that you’ve got, Maureen?”
Another chirp. Another paw wave. She did this dance every night at the Merilee. It had always worked there, and she didn’t understand why it wasn’t working now. One more paw wave dislodged the object so that I could see it better.
A cell phone. Wrapped in kelp.
“Oh, Maureen, you didn’t!”
Those of us who lived in the harbor were alert to such thievery, and Maureen wouldn’t be the first otter to make off with some poor tourist’s dropped cell phone. Whenever possible we rescued the phones and traced them back to their owners, careful not to injure the thief in the process.
I reached out my hand. “Give me that.”
Maureen sniffed. Where is my herring? Her following chirp sounded more like a warning ack-ack than a plea.
“You’re threatening me now? I’ll have you know I’ve handled bigger bullies than you. Rhinos. Tigers. Even a mean cockatoo.”
Chirp?
Another thing about Maureen; she’s entranced by the human voice. That’s down to me and my nightly conversations with her, but hey, words sometimes work. Maureen was so intent on translating my words into “otter-ese” that she was unprepared for the quick grab that snatched the cell phone out from under her arm.
“Aka-aka-aka!!!” she shrieked, and with teeth bared, made a dive for my hiking boot.
No dummy me, I fled, leaving her behind.
Once on higher, drier ground, I turned my attention to the kelp-wrapped phone, an expensive, water-resistant Zeno-7. To my surprise, it was still on and in camera mode, which meant it had only recently been dropped. Scanning the horizon, I saw no one. I carefully brushed the kelp away to better see the picture on its mud-spattered screen. At first the image made me smile, because the owner—Stuart Booth, whose otter count area included the northern dogleg of the Slough—appeared to have dropped his phone in the act of taking a selfie. It was an odd selfie, though. A dark spot marred his temple, and splatters of reddish-mud half-covered his face. The image was blurry, too, as if he had forgotten to hold the phone still. And there was something…something about the look on Booth’s face that made me uneasy. Was it surprise? I pulled my tee-shirt out of my cargo pants and wiped at the screen again. Squinted. Tried to read his expression through green smears of kelp and red mud.
No, that expression wasn’t surprise.
It was horror.
And the red drops splattered all over his face?
Blood.
I was looking at a murder.
Chapter Two
The San Sebastian County Sheriff and two deputies arrived twenty minutes after my call, and were now wading through the Slough. I stood well back on the dry bank, watching as they poked at the murky water with long sticks. The phone thief was long gone, as were her twenty-three cohorts, but some of the liveaboarders from the harbor had wandered over to join me. We liveaboarders are a nosy lot.
“You sure it’s not some dumb kid’s idea of a joke, Teddy?” asked Darleene Bauer, just returning from completing her own otter count at the eastern sector of the grid. Darleene lived on the Fleet Foot, a Union 36 cutter berthed near my Merilee. “That’s the kind of thing a teenager would think was funny.”
Although the mother of three and the grandmother of six was superior to me in her knowledge of child goofiness, she had not seen the image. The horror on Booth’s face had appeared all too real. “No teen would sacrifice a Zeno-7 just for a joke,” I told her. “Too expensive.”
“Stolen, maybe, or—”
She was cut off by a shout from one of the deputies. “Over here!”
Joe—that’s Sheriff Joseph Rejas, the San Sebastian County Sheriff, who just happens to be my fiancé—slogged his way through the marsh to join the deputy. He studied something in the water, then motioned for the other man to step back along with him. As the two retraced their footsteps, Joe grabbed his radio and barked out orders. Then he took his personal cell out of his back pocket and made a call. He spoke for a few minutes, then shoved the phone back into his pocket and made his way over to me, leaving the deputy standing sentinel over whatever it was they’d found.
After chasing Darleene off, he took out a pen and notepad. “When’s the last time you saw Professor Booth?”
“Did…did you find him?”
“Please answer the question, Teddy.”
Usually the most patient of men, Joe was all business when it came to his job, so I wasn’t offended by his testiness
. “Last week sometime.”
“How well did you know Professor Booth?”
Did. Past tense. “I’ve always tried to avoid him.”
“You didn’t see him earlier this morning? Before finding this?” He held up the bagged and tagged Zeno 7.
“Like I told the 9-1-1 dispatcher, I was the only person around when I got out here, so no, I didn’t see him or anyone else. Six a.m. is too early for tourists. It’d be too early for me to be out here, too, but I was doing the otter count when I found the…” I motioned to the phone, “…uh, and I…”
“You’ve been a member of the Otter Conservancy for how long now?”
“Is that relevant?”
“It might turn out to be important later on.”
I had to count on my fingers. “Four years, I think. Maybe five. But this is only my second year helping with the count.”
A worry line appeared between his eyebrows. “When and where did you last see him?”
“You found his body, didn’t you?”
Joe didn’t say anything for a moment, then sighed. “He’ll have to be formally ID’d, but yeah, it looks like him. As soon as the techs get here, I’ll drive up to the Betancourt compound and give the bad news to his wife, which I’m not looking forward to. Now help me. When did you see Booth last? And this time, please be specific.”