The Otter of Death

by Betty Webb

  “Disgraceful. And what about that Lila girl, the one your boyfriend arrested?”

  “Lila has been released from custody.” I left out the part about the electronic monitoring device she was wearing on her ankle.

  Those eagle eyes burrowed into mine. “You think she did it?”

  “Not really. She was the first student to accuse him of sexual harassment, but that was years ago. If she was going to kill him, she’d have done it then.” I also left out the part about Lila vandalizing Booth’s boat in the aftermath. Maybe Aster Edwina had forgotten about the incident.

  “Hmm. If you…”

  The library door opened and Eunice came in bearing a tray laden with a teapot and a sole teacup. She gave me a guilty look and shook her head.

  “Thank you, Eunice,” Aster Edwina said. “That will be all.”

  Eunice looked at the solitary teacup and hesitantly began, “Uh, don’t you think Teddy…?”

  “I said, that will be all!”

  Eunice scampered.

  “Now where were we?” Aster Edwina said, lifting her teacup. From its smoky scent and dark color, I gathered it was Lapsang Souchong, a tea I’ve always been partial to. My mouth watered.

  “I was telling you Lila Conyers had nothing to do with Booth’s murder. Or Amberlyn’s.”

  “Too bad. That would have tied everything up neatly. The faster this thing is solved, the better for all of us.”

  “You don’t think getting to the truth is more important than neatness?”

  She sniffed. “There asks one who doesn’t understand the complexities of life.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m pretty sure you can relax about the murder being tied to Blue Seas Marine Laboratory, so your connection to the case is in the clear.”

  She slammed her teacup down so hard I was surprised it didn’t break. “My connection? What the hell do you mean, my connection?!”

  I had been about to remind her that she was the one who had advised Blue Seas to hire Booth in the first place, but I’d already angered her so much I held my tongue. Still, the fact that she had given the licentious creep a glowing reference gave rise to an interesting question: why had she done it in the first place? A possible explanation occurred to me. Despite Booth’s preference for young female students, he had also been slick with elderly women, especially when there might be the prospect of financial gain for one of his many marine projects. I did some quick math in my head. Booth was something like twenty years younger than Aster Edwina, and when she had referred him to Blue Seas, he would have been in his thirties as opposed to her fifties. Not that uncommon a coupling when money and/or power were involved.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean what you obviously thought I meant,” I backtracked. “Just that you did send him over to Blue Seas, so maybe your name was on some of the paperwork.”

  “All the Human Resources paperwork is sealed. I made certain of that.”

  But easily accessed by a search warrant. “Well, that’s a relief. Can I go now?”

  “Nothing would make me happier.”

  Although I had wanted to discuss the problem with Kabuki, this wasn’t the time, so I left Aster Edwina to her Lapsang Souchong. And it was just as well. When I arrived at the macaque’s enclosure, I found him winding up with the dexterity of a major league pitcher, if not the grace.

  “Kabuki, no!” I yelled. “Bad monkey!”

  Startled, Kabuki stopped his windup, but the naughty little boy who had been chosen as the recipient of his latest slimy projectile didn’t appreciate the save. Seeing my approach, the boy hid the rock he’d been about to throw in his jeans pocket.

  “We was just playin’!” he whined. He looked to be around eight, and his mother—who was old enough to have known better than allow her son to pitch rocks at an animal—looked unhappy at my interruption.

  “That monkey doesn’t play nice,” I said, stretching out my hand. “Give me the rock.”

  With a surly expression, the boy complied.

  “Thank you. Now why don’t you head for California Trail and visit the river otters?” On my way from Gunn Castle I’d seen Frank Owens cleaning out their pond. He wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from the two. “The otters are much more polite. But before you go, I’d like to inform you that California Penal Code 597 calls for an up to twenty-thousand-dollar fine and a year in jail for molesting wildlife.”

  “Those monkeys aren’t wildlife, they’re tame,” the mother said, jutting her chin forward. She was overly madeup, and the thin black line she’d drawn to serve as eyebrows gave her a clownish look, but I didn’t find her casual cruelty amusing.

  “PC 597 doesn’t differentiate. Please move away from this enclosure.”

  In the classic stance of defiance, the mother placed her clenched fists on her broad hips. “We paid our admission and we’ll see what we want to see. I’m not going to let you push me and my kid around.”

  Emboldened by his mother, her son picked up another rock.

  No otters for them.

  Matching her aggression, I said, “You need to leave the zoo now. Do it peacefully or I’ll call the park ranger and have you escorted out.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she huffed.

  “Try me.” I held out my hand to the boy. “Rock.”

  Displaying more sense than his mother, the boy gave me the rock. Like the first one, it was almost the size of Aster Edwina’s teacup and could have hurt Kabuki badly if it had landed on him.

  I pointed down the hill. “The exit’s that way.”

  The witless mother was still miffed. “You told us we could go see the otters!”

  “I changed my mind.”

  With a stream of invectives that would have made a gangsta rapper blush, the woman grabbed her son by the arm and headed toward the exit. I stayed where I was until they rounded a clump of coffeeberry bushes and drifted out of sight. At that point, I unhooked my radio and opened the channel to whatever park ranger was nearest.

  “Rock-thrower boy, around eight years old, red-and-white-striped tee-shirt and jeans, heading south on Tropics Trail from macaque enclosure. Accompanied by mother, blond, late twenties, pink-flowered dress. If the mom refuses to attend our seminar on safe animal/human interaction, take photograph for REFUSE ADMISSION bulletin board. Keeper Four, out.”

  During all this, Kabuki had watched quietly. I leaned over the rail and called out, “See the trouble you caused?”

  He smacked his lips and cooed, macaque for “Oh, you sweet thing, you.”

  Although he was a handsomer-than-usual macaque, I answered, “Sorry, guy, I’m engaged to a human.” Then, given the events of the past couple of days, I added, “At least I hope I still am.”

  By now, Myra had moved onto the Great Apes enclosure, where I found her cleaning out the mountain gorillas’ night house. After warning her about the rock-thrower, I shared my idea about a way to resolve the Kabuki situation.

  “I heard through the grapevine that the National Zoo has a grieving female macaque who lost her mate and won’t socialize with the new alpha male. There’ve been a couple of nasty fights between them and her keepers have had to isolate her.”

  Myra looked up from the pile of dung she had been transferring to a trash can on rollers. Her Hollywood starlet face, so unhappy earlier, now looked hopeful. “Are you talking about Clarabelle? They say she was pretty attached to old Shinzu, more so than the rest of the troop. Unusual, isn’t it?”

  Yes, it was unusual in that female macaques weren’t known for their fidelity. The females were known to mate with as many as four males during mating season and seldom showed favorites. But there are always exceptions to a rule, and Clarabelle appeared to be one of those exceptions. Not good. Because of the destruction of their native environment, the population of Japanese macaques was in freefall. The species hadn’t yet reached “threatened” status, but was verging on it, so a fertile young female who disliked a new alpha male was a problem.

  “I’ll talk to Aster
Edwina about calling the National to see if it’s possible to bring Clarabelle out here,” I said. “Maybe a new environment will help her. And you know Kabuki. There’s never been a female macaque who didn’t find him irresistible.”

  Myra actually smiled. “Yeah, he’s a stud.”

  Finally. Here was my opening. “Speaking of studs, how well did you know Stuart Booth?”

  The smile faded.

  “Mind your own business, Teddy.”

  With that, she resumed sweeping.

  As I drove my zebra cart toward Friendly Farm, I thought about Aster Edwina and our uncomfortable conversation. Looking back, I realized she had always been touchy on the subject of Stuart Booth. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that her touchiness did not stem from her unwise reference letter on his behalf to Blue Seas. It hinted at something more personal.

  In a painting over one of the Gunn Castle’s massive fireplaces, the artist had portrayed the then fifty-year-old Aster Edwina was still a beauty, although a severe one. Her gray eyes, now flinty, were large and direct; her cheekbones high, her jawline as magnificent as a young Katharine Hepburn’s. And her hair! Masses of deep black curls only partially held in check by a diamond-encrusted tiara. The woman looked like a queen, and in some ways, still did. When the portrait had been painted, decades before she had written the Blue Seas letter, she’d been beautiful enough to attract numerous suitors.

  I put Aster Edwina out of my mind as I drove onto Friendly Farm, where Alejandro’s hippity-hop display in the paddock proved how happy he was to see me. Hardly camera-shy, the llama had enjoyed his stint under the hot lights of Anteaters to Zebras because it meant he would get to spend extra time with me. We had once gone through hard times together at the local Renaissance Faire, making our already close bond even stronger. The llama’s only disappointment was that no child sat in the zebra cart with me when I drove up. He was a sucker for kids.

  “Things going well with you, Alejandro?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “That’s nice. Any kiddies stop by to see you today?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Good! Now how would you like some alfalfa pellets?”

  “Mmmm!”

  Llamas being tidy animals—they preferred to defecate in the same spot every time—it didn’t take long to clean his enclosure. Afterwards, I spent a few extra minutes with him, nuzzling and ear-scratching, until he dozed off.

  While I was driving by the Sumatran tiger enclosure, I spied Janet Hewitt leaving the keepers’ area with Robin Chase. I’d been meaning to talk to the keeper trainee ever since she’d had her weeping spell over Stuart Booth, but somehow she always managed to evade me. Determined not to miss this opportunity, I braked the zebra cart.

  “Hey, Janet!” I called. “I need to talk to you!”

  “Can’t!” Her face was rosy from the hard work big cats required. “Robin and I are on our way to clean out the ocelot’s night house.”

  The excuse didn’t work. Turning to her, Robin said, “Naw, we’re fine. I’ll meet you there in ten.” Off she went down the trail, her animal tattoos striding along with her.

  There was no point in being subtle, so after climbing down from the cart, I said to the trainee, “You realize, don’t you, that there’s been another shooting death?”

  At first she seemed reluctant to answer, but then muttered, “That thing in Santa Cruz, right?”

  “That ‘thing’s’ name was Amberlyn, and she was only a couple of years younger than you. She was a…” I searched for the right word. “…a friend of Booth’s.”

  Janet’s eyes widened, and for a moment she looked much younger than she was. “That’s…that’s sad. But what’s it got to do with me? All I did was take a couple of classes with him, and despite all the junk that’s being whispered about him, Professor Booth was a great teacher.”

  “Do you know what a Sugar Baby is, Janet?”

  Her rose-cheeked face grew pale. “No.” Talk about a bad liar.

  “Are you familiar with the website SeekingSugarDaddy.com?”

  Her face grew paler until she was almost the color of the zoo’s albino tamarin monkey. “Never heard of it.”

  “Well, I think…”

  “Gotta go!” Without another word she pushed past me and trotted down the trail after Robin.

  There being nothing else I could do, I let her go.

  An hour later I clocked out. My working day—as frustrating as it had been—was over.

  My planned return to the Merilee was cut short when I was detained by the police in the zoo’s parking lot.

  “Who was that man and why was he kissing you?” Joe grumped.

  Wearing those awful mirrored sunglasses civilians like myself hate, he leaned against his blue and white SAN SEBASTIAN SHERIFF cruiser with his arms crossed. He couldn’t have looked more intimidating.

  But time had taught me Joe was more bark than bite.

  “His name is Frasier Morgan and he’s an old school chum. As for why he was kissing me—on my hand, I’d like to remind you—he just got divorced and he’s lonely. Not that I’m going to do anything about it. For your information, I jerked my hand away immediately, but you and your mom had already taken off, so you didn’t see that.” I took a breath. “By the way, I have a couple of questions for you, too.”

  “Uh, Teddy, I can’t…”

  “What in the world were you and my mother doing, leaving me notes on the Merilee?”

  “We’d both tried to call you and didn’t get an answer. So we were worried.”

  “‘We’? Since when are you and my mother in cahoots?”

  The mirrored sunglasses couldn’t hide his flinch. “She came by my office in a panic, convinced that you were in immediate danger. Frankly, I’d been worried about the same thing. Anyway, she begged me to help convince you to move up to her house, so I went along with it. If I overreacted, I’m sorry. My only excuse is that case is...is…” He stuttered to a halt.

  “One more question. Could you please take off those awful sunglasses? I don’t like talking to mirrors.”

  When he complied, his eyes were the same sweet blue I’d always known, but today they were crinkled with worry. “Honey, has it occurred to you how much danger you may be in? Two people are dead and you knew both of them.”

  “I didn’t know Amberlyn Lofland.”

  “Her phone says you did. You called her the day before she was killed.”

  There was no point in denying the obvious truth. “Sounds like you’ve been in touch with the Santa Cruz Police Department.”

  “They reached out to me, yes. Why were you at Ms. Lofland’s apartment shortly after that phone call?”

  Maybe I had some wiggle room here. “Who says I was there?”

  “The lady in 4A said she saw a woman with fuzzy red hair wearing, and I quote ‘one of those all-purpose little black dresses’ visit Ms. Lofland the afternoon before the murder.”

  “Every redhead has one of those things.”

  “She also described the bump on your nose. Haven’t I warned you about getting mixed up in serious cases? It’s bad enough that you visited one of the suspects in jail, but now you’ve actually been seen with the killer’s other victim.”

  “Other victim? So ballistics has tied the same firearm to both murders?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Not in so many words.”

  Joe stepped away from the cruiser and stood so close to me that I could smell fresh aftershave. Aha! He’d primped before stopping by. “You know what, Teddy? I think your mother is right. Why don’t you move in with her until this case clears? That way neither of us will have to worry about you.”

  I closed the few inches left between us. “I’ll take it under consideration, Sheriff. In the meantime, why don’t you follow me home in that great big cruiser of yours?”

  He caught his breath. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

  “Yeah, and you love it.”

  Chapt
er Twelve

  Despite the wonderful night we had shared on the Merilee, the next morning Joe refused to give up any information about the investigation.

  I nibbled at his earlobe, which he’d always enjoyed. “Did the same gun kill Booth and Amberlyn?”

  “No comment.” He kissed me on the neck for the hundredth time.

  “Rifle or handgun?”

  “No comment.”

  “Any suspects? Besides Lila, I mean.”

  “No comment.”

  “Besides the nude pictures of Amberlyn on Booth’s phone, were there pictures of any other naked females?”

  “No comment.”

  “You’re the one who’s impossible!”

  “Said the pot to the kettle.”

  “Oh, Joe, please!”

  ‘“Oh, Joe, please,’ what?” he asked.

  “Oh, please, do that again.”

  He complied.

  An hour later, while leaving the Merilee, Joe said over his shoulder, “Phone your mother.”

  I did, but waited until my lunch break at the zoo. Then I hit speed dial on my cell and steeled myself to eat a generous helping of crow.

  Caro answered immediately. “It’s about time you called.” Her voice was so loud it could be heard several tables away.

  “Look, Mother, I…”

  “Caro!”

  “Sorry, Caro. I know you’ve been worried about me, but it’s not necessary. I’ve promised Joe I won’t involve myself in the Booth investigation.”

  “Do you have your fingers crossed behind your back, Theodora?”

  “No,” I lied.

  Several snickers from nearby zookeepers who could see my crossed fingers.

  “You realize you could get killed,” Caro continued. “After all, you were almost killed the last time. And the time before that.”

  “People exaggerate.”

  “The sheriff person doesn’t!”

  The lunchroom fell ominously silent.

  I lowered my voice and hissed into the phone, “Could you please stop shouting?”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do!” she yelled.

  “I didn’t ‘tell’ you anything, I asked. Politely. I even said ‘please.’ And as for that ‘sheriff person,’ you mean Joe? The person you’ve been hanging around with all week?”