The Otter of Death

by Betty Webb

  A tsk-tsk came over the phone. “Either you’ve got a bad memory or you’re in denial. Don’t you remember that fracas in Monkey Mania last year? The guy who grabbed one of the squirrel monkey juveniles by the tail and swung it around? Lex broke his jaw.”

  “That was in defense of the monkey. The poor thing wound up needing surgery.”

  “So’d the guy. We’re just lucky there were witnesses or we’d be up to our eyeballs in lawsuits. Take my advice and stay away from Lex for a while.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes your mother is right?”

  With that, she hung up.

  I wasn’t going to let Zorah’s paranoia affect me, so when I rejoined the traffic I stayed on Highway 1 when it bypassed Gunn Landing and followed it southeast until it took me to Castroville. Then I turned onto SR-156, where I continued to the trailer park on the eastern end of town. During the drive my phone had signaled several new calls and texts, so I switched it off. Too distracting, especially since I needed to concentrate on how to deliver the bad news to Lex.

  California is blessed with many quality mobile home communities offering happy residents a plethora of community pools, saunas, and in some cases, even gyms. Babbling Brooks wasn’t one of them. The place where Amberlyn had been raised and Lex still lived sat on a crumbling asphalt street behind a construction equipment storage yard, and consisted mainly of rusting relics at least thirty years old. The park’s one communal offering was a gravel-covered oval which featured a swing set, several benches, two barbeques, and a red-and-yellow-striped trash barrel that didn’t appear to have been emptied lately.

  A favorite with local farmworkers, Babbling Brooks was pretty much deserted, with most of its inhabitants busy in the fields. The only voices I could hear came from a couple of elderly women overseeing three young children on the swings.

  “Not so high, Susan!”

  “Perdiste el zapato, José!”

  “Push harder, Bennett!”

  After parking, I sidestepped a few beat-up toys littering the walkway and made my way to Lex’s double-wide.

  Casa Yarnell faced the trailer park’s “park.” With square-footage almost as large as some tract homes, it was nonetheless in terrible shape. Paint-peeled on one side and blistered on the other, the metal trailer’s original color could only be guessed at. One of the windows was broken, and some enterprising soul had taped up a cut-to-fit piece of cardboard cannibalized from a box, which informed me that PAMPERS KEEP YOUR BABY DRY.

  After I knocked on Lex’s unscreened door, a muted voice from inside called that he would be with me in a moment. Seconds later the door opened, revealing Lex in a bathrobe. He clutched a wad of tissues in his hand.

  Giving me a puzzled look, he rasped, “I’d say thanks for stopping by, whatever the reason—Zorah’s big mouth, maybe?—but I might be contagious.” As if to prove his point, he sneezed.

  So Lex really was sick. Judging from the jovial note in his voice, he didn’t know about Amberlyn yet. But I felt it best to find out for certain.

  “I wanted to see how you were doing. It’s my day off, so I have the time. Uh, have you been watching TV, by any chance?”

  He shook his head. “Just sipping chamomile tea and reading Ian Fleming, you know, one of those James Bond things. Dated now, but still fun to read. Amberlyn likes them, too, and we used to trade them back and forth. Hey, you’re welcome to come in and share some tea—I just made a fresh pot—but you’d be taking a chance on getting what I’ve got, so I don’t recommend it.”

  I gave him a strained smile. “Where’s the family?” Meaning his mother, father, grandmother, and the three younger siblings he helped support.

  “Out in the fields, where else? You know how it is.”

  Yes, I did, and thank Heaven not from personal experience. “Think they’ll be back for lunch?”

  A double sneeze. “Nah, they’re brown-bagging. This week they’re over at Clemento’s, helping with the bok choy and carrots. Might even stay the night, save on gas, work there again tomorrow. And the next day. They took their sleeping bags.”

  The gigantic Clemento Farms, which raised practically everything edible, was located seventy miles away. And while the Yarnell family’s patched-together Volkswagen bus didn’t use much gas, to them a penny saved was very much a penny earned. Now I had a choice. Keep my mouth shut about Amberlyn and return to Gunn Landing, leaving Lex to find out the bad news on his own, or woman up and deliver the news while at least he had a friend to comfort him.

  I heaved a sigh and said, “Maybe I could use that tea, after all.”

  Three hours later I was on the Merilee, having spent one of the most miserable mornings of my life. Lex had proven the lie of the old saying Big boys don’t cry. He had cried so hard I worried he might harm himself, but he finally settled down to the point where I felt it safe to leave. Just to be safe, on my way to my pickup I alerted the toddler-watching grannies, who each promised to look in on him.

  Love. Who could fathom it? Tenderhearted Lex had loved avaricious Amberlyn, but although I had grudgingly liked the young woman, part of me wondered if she had deserved Lex’s depth of emotion. Then again, is love something that needs to be earned, or should it be freely given?

  “Who do you love?” I asked Bonz, since dogs have all the answers where love is concerned.

  Walkies, he thought at me. And you.

  So I took him for walkies.

  The stroll through Gunn Landing Park helped take my mind off Amberlyn. Bonz made a couple of new friends—identical teacup poodles wearing matching pink rhinestone collars—but after much tail-sniffing and tree-visiting, it was time to return to the Merilee.

  As we were walking by the High Life, Kenny Norgaard called out to me, “The cops were looking for you!” which made Ruth Donohue, sunbathing on the deck of the Clear Light look up in alarm.

  Knowing Kenny’s penchant for exaggeration, I asked, “When you say ‘cops,’ do you mean Joe?”

  “Who else, dear heart?”

  Maybe plenty of ‘elses,’ such as plainclothes detectives from Santa Cruz. They might be curious once they found my number on Amberlyn’s phone.

  “Did Joe say what he wanted?”

  “We didn’t talk, although methinks he looked a wee bit unhappy. And, ah, your mother was with him.”

  “What!?” The idea of Caro and Joe on a mission together stunned me.

  “Yes, and they were très buddy-buddy. Have they finally buried the peace pipe? I mean, smoked the peace pipe, since it’s hatchets we bury, isn’t it, and usually in someone’s back. I was wondering if you could have been doing something to annoy them both. Hmmm? As an aside, I must say that was a lovely dress your mother was wearing. A Missoni, if I am correct. And those strappy Francesco Russo heels were to die for. She looked like she’d just walked off a Paris runway. Say, want a drink? I have a pitcher-full here. Be thrilled to share.”

  He waved his Mai Tai at me. At least it looked like a Mai Tai, cute little umbrella and all. Grumping a no-thanks at him, Bonz and I continued on our way while I did some deep thinking. Earlier this morning, Caro had been wearing a lime green jumpsuit, but was now in a Missoni dress (Kenny was never wrong about these things). Could she possibly have changed into a more serious outfit in order to drive to San Sebastian and ask Joe for help in making me decamp to Old Town? All this while I was comforting Lex Yarnell? No, the idea of a Caro/Joe partnership was too bizarre even for my mother.

  But Kenny’s report made me so uncomfortable that it was only when Bonz and I were passing Lila Conyers’ Just In Time that something floating around in my unconscious finally swam to the surface.

  Graffiti.

  On a boat.

  After Lila’s harassment case against Stuart Booth was dismissed, she had spray-painted LIAR on his Azimut Motor Yacht.

  I didn’t want to believe that Lila would do such a thing to my beloved Merilee. After all, she had chosen Da
y-Glo Orange for her handiwork on Booth’s boat, whereas last night’s vandal had used red with goldish metal flakes.

  Still…

  Once I’d returned Bonz to the Merilee—no sign of either Joe or Caro, thank heaven—I made a beeline to Lila Conyers’ houseboat. She was home. No surprise there, since while in jail she had lost her part-time job at Tiny Tots. She looked fairly upbeat, considering. A healthy glow had returned to her cheeks, and her blue eyes were lively again.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, after being invited on board and settling myself onto a rickety deck chair.

  Lila pointed at her ankle monitor. “Can’t say this is a nice addition to my wardrobe, but thanks to you and Al, all I have to complain about right now is the County’s taste in accessories.”

  “Does it chafe?”

  “Just against my nerves.”

  I hated to take away her supposed good mood, but I had no choice. “Lila, someone spray-painted the Merilee’s deck last night. Did you hear anything around three a.m.?”

  She didn’t answer right away, just stared at me. Finally, she said, “And you came to see me because I have a history of vandalizing boats.”

  “Since you’re the only tagger I know, yeah. May I ask where you bought the paint? The stuff you used on Booth’s boat, I mean, not mine.”

  “Then you don’t suspect me?”

  “Of course not, but I’m thinking it might have been someone inspired by your own past exploits. Send me a warning, and at the same time, throw suspicion on you.”

  “Warning?”

  “In text-type spelling, it read, ‘Mind your own business.’ In bright red, with iridescent gold flecks.”

  Another pause, then, “Jake’s Hobby Shop in San Sebastian has the best color selection, but you can buy that stuff—it’s called Candy Apple Red—all over the place these days. Heck, they even sell it at Costco.”

  “So, again, did you hear anything weird around three a.m.?”

  “Weird how? This is a marina, for Pete’s sake. There’s all kinds of weirdness going down all the time. Kenny’s parties, for one. Did you know that a couple of weeks ago when you were up in San Francisco for that conference on otters, he hosted a birthday party for his cat Roger? Made everyone wear a cat costume. Darleene Bauer cheated and wore a dress she swore was manufactured in Thailand when it was still called Siam, as in Siamese cat. Kenny said that didn’t count and they got into a whopping big argument. Over a dress.”

  “Too bad I missed it. But I mean ‘weird’ like somebody running down the dock at three in the morning.”

  “Sorry, I was catching up on all the sleep I lost while I was in jail. It’s noisy as hell in there. All those clanging doors.” In a lower voice she added, “And the crying.”

  I leaned forward so that the freshening Pacific breeze didn’t carry away what I was about to say next. “Have you watched the news today?”

  “No, why?”

  “A friend of Booth’s was found shot to death on a jogging trail in Santa Cruz.”

  After Lila caught her breath, she said, “A female friend, by any chance? Like, a student?”

  “Right on both counts.”

  She turned her face away so I couldn’t see her expression. “So the bastard never stopped. Wonder if your boyfriend’s going to arrest me again?”

  That’s what I had been worrying about. “She wasn’t one of his own students. She goes to… uh, went to UC Santa Cruz. Amberlyn Lofland. Did you know her?”

  When Lila faced me again, I saw her earlier liveliness had disappeared. The pink was gone from her cheeks, replaced by a sickly pallor.

  “Never even heard the name.” Before I could react, she jumped out of her deck chair and rushed inside the houseboat. A few seconds later I heard her vomiting.

  For a moment I didn’t know which action to take: rush to her aid or stay where I was. Deciding that most people prefer to vomit in private, I chose a compromise between the two. I went into her galley kitchen, poured her a glass of water from the tap, and stood at the ready outside her miniscule bathroom. While I waited for her to empty her stomach, I couldn’t help but notice the disarray. Her unmade bed revealed dingy sheets, half-eaten food crusted the unmatched dishes piled in the sink, and cheap clothes lay strewn around what little floor space the houseboat offered. Depression? Or evidence of a seriously disordered mind?

  A few minutes later Lila emerged, smelling worse than I did after a shift at the zoo. I handed her the glass. “Gargle. Brush your teeth. And wash up.” I’d have put her in the shower if she had one, but she didn’t. Like most liveaboarders, she used the public showers next to the laundromat.

  When she disappeared into the bathroom, I picked the clothes off the floor and stripped the bed. I was scraping the dishes when she reemerged.

  “What are you doing, Teddy?”

  “Helping the woman who helped Bonz.”

  “He needed help. I don’t.”

  Sayeth the woman wearing an ankle bracelet courtesy of the San Sebastian County Sheriff’s Department. I ignored her and continued scraping a plate marred by a crack down the middle. It was a miracle the thing didn’t fall apart on me.

  “Teddy, please stop.”

  I put on my “stern” voice, the one I used whenever a zoo animal tried to get frisky with me. “Get some fresh air. I’ll come out and talk to you after I’ve finished up in here.”

  She opened her mouth as if to say something, then changed her mind and went on deck.

  Since the houseboat was so small, it didn’t take long to instill some semblance of order, but at the end I was left with a pile of dirty sheets and clothes that smelled faintly of mildew.

  Emerging into the sunlight I asked, “Where do you keep the clean sheets?”

  “I only have the one set.”

  How long had this been going on under my nose? I hauled two pillowcases full of dirty laundry onto the deck. “See you later,” I told Lila. “Unless you want to come with me.”

  “Look, you don’t have to do that.”

  “You’d do the same for me if I were in your shoes.”

  It was true. Lila’s compassion didn’t confine itself to injured dogs. Many was the time she had taken over a casserole to a fellow liveaboarder laid low with the flu, or babysat for free when someone needed to go on a job interview.

  “Lila?”

  A sigh. “Just let me sit here alone for a while, okay? And I’m…I’m sorry I snapped at you. You’re a good friend, Teddy.” She didn’t turn around, just kept staring at the Pacific, where the late afternoon sun had hidden behind a cloudbank. But I could tell she was crying.

  Shouldering the heavy pillowcases, I headed for the group laundromat.

  Two hours later I stopped off at the Merilee to pick up an extra set of sheets and pillowcases to give to Lila, but before going below I found a polite note from Joe taped on the hatch, asking me to call him. Caro had left a note, too, but hers was more strident. What in the world…? Then I remembered switching off my phone just before arriving at Lex’s trailer. Oh, well. First things first. With Bonz following my every step, I rummaged through my closet and pulled out everything I thought might fit Lila. Then I collected the bed linens and left.

  Since Bonz was so insistent, I allowed him to accompany me this time. A good dog can heal the heart, as Bonz had certainly healed mine after my divorce. When we arrived at Just In Time, I at first thought Lila had not moved from her deck chair since I’d left for the laundromat, but when I went inside to make up her bed, leaving Bonz curled up her lap, I saw that she had opened a couple of the houseboat’s windows, allowing enough fresh air in to chase away more unpleasant odors.

  I stowed the clean clothes and made up her bunk.

  “Feeling better?” I asked her, when I was done.

  She gave me a wan smile. “Who wouldn’t feel better with a dog in their lap?”

  Chapter Eleven

  The rest of the day passed without another major incident, partially because of the
rare mercies of voice mail. Once I’d turned on my phone and saw so many messages—mostly from Joe and my mother—I didn’t know where to start first. When I did, all I got was voice mail. Joe was “away from the phone but I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” Same with Caro, whose message said essentially the same thing, but snootier. Relieved, I spent the afternoon reorganizing the Merilee’s storage compartments, then rewarded myself by playing Capture the Devious Red Dot with Miss Priss. Bonz had long ago learned the Devious Red Dot was located in my laser pen, so he enjoyed watching Priss make a fluffy fool of herself.

  When Priss had tired herself out, I returned some calls, but I ignored the five phone messages Frasier had left. That fact-seeking dinner had landed me in enough trouble already, and I didn’t need more. Besides, there were enough single women in San Sebastian County that all he had to do was find one who didn’t mind listening to his tales of the Evils of Evelyn. As I deleted his messages, I wished him well.

  At six I visited the harbor’s community shower, then dressed in something more appropriate for an Otter Conservancy meeting than sweats and jeans.

  The group met at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Santa Cruz the first Monday of each month, so by seven I was sitting in the church’s basement listening to a talk by Dr. Isabell Morrison, a scientist from the veterinary school at UC Davis. She didn’t tell us much more than we already knew, that the problem toxoplasma gondii was getting worse, not better. Feral cat colonies, which shed the parasite in their feces, were suspected, but other sources of pollution were being studied as well. The popularity of flushable kitty litter meant that the parasite was winding up in the nearby sewage treatment plants, but so far the plants’ current treatment methods had failed to kill the flushed parasite. Dr. Morrison forecast that the numbers of sea otter deaths from toxoplasma gondii would continue to climb.

  “Well, that was cheerful,” said Darleene Bauer later as she, Frank Owens, and I put the chairs away and returned the church room to its normal setup.