Big Game (26 page)

I lowered my voice as much as I could. “He asked me to help investigate.”

“Why didn't you tell us?” Dad asked.

“He told me not to. He didn't think you'd let me.”

“And you didn't tell us anyhow?” Mom asked angrily.

“He . . . uh . . . ,” I stammered. “He kind of . . . threatened me not to tell you.”

Rage flashed in Mom's eyes. She spun on her crutches and started hobbling toward J.J.

Dad blocked her path. “Whoa, Charlene. Where are you going?”

“To punch J.J. McCracken's face in,” Mom replied, then tried to go around him.

Dad blocked her again. “Let's not do anything we're going to regret.”

“Oh, I won't regret this at all,” Mom said. “In fact, I'm going to enjoy it. Anyone who coerces a kid into doing his dirty work deserves a punch in the face.” She slipped away from Dad with amazing agility, given her crutches, then bore down on J.J.

Dad and I ran after her. Chief Hoenekker seemed to recognize Mom's intent, because he placed himself in her way. “What's going on, Charlene?”

“I'll tell you what.” Mom aimed a crutch toward J.J. and yelled, “That little weasel forced my son into investigating this case!”

J.J. and the entire crowd around him turned to face her. J.J. gave Mom a puzzled stare and lied to her face. “I don't know what you're talking about, Charlene.”

“Don't give me that garbage!” Mom shouted. “You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

J.J. kept up the confused act. “Did Teddy
tell
you I forced him into this?”

Before Mom could answer, Marge popped out from behind a planter, where she'd apparently been eavesdropping on us. “He sure did!” she crowed. “Instead of taking the blame for his actions, he blamed everything on you!”

Mom wheeled on her. “Marjorie, if you don't stop sticking your nose in our business, so help me, I will rip it off your face and feed it to the crocodiles!”

Marge recoiled from Mom in surprise, stumbled over the edge of the planter, and toppled into it.

Mom turned back to J.J. “Teddy didn't tell me anything. He tried to keep your secret, exactly like you told him to do. But I'm not as dumb as you think I am.”

“Now, now, Charlene,” J.J. said calmly. “I think there's been a misunderstanding here. I
did
ask Teddy for his thoughts on the case. But I certainly didn't encourage him to help investigate. I would never do anything that would put his life in danger. However, it seems that he and my daughter got a bit overzealous.”

He spun the lie so well that I almost believed it myself. And my mother seemed to buy it too. J.J. had chosen his words well; sadly, I
had
been overzealous before. I looked to Chief Hoenekker, hoping he'd back me up and tell Mom the truth—after all, he'd been annoyed by the whole thing—but to my surprise, he avoided my gaze and kept quiet.

Instead, it was Athmani who spoke up. “Charlene, your son is being honest. J.J. requested that he help us with the investigation.”

J.J. glared at Athmani, angry at being betrayed—but his anger was nothing compared to Mom's. Before J.J. could say a word, she cut him off. “You deceitful little rat! It's not enough that you strong-arm a twelve-year-old boy into risking his life? Then you have the gall to lie about it?”

Athmani raced to Mom's side, signaling her to calm down. “Please!” he cried. “I understand you are angry. And J.J. certainly has much to answer for. But for the moment, we have a very serious issue at hand that must be dealt with immediately. Our rhinos are in grave danger, so I beg of you all, let us put these other issues aside and figure out what to do.”

Everyone nodded agreement and turned to Mom expectantly.

Mom looked to all of them, then took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She was obviously still livid, but she seemed to realize Athmani was right. “All right,” she said. “But this isn't over, J.J.”

J.J. didn't reply to her. For once, it appeared that he didn't know what to say.

Athmani turned back to him. “It must be obvious to you by now that the situation is critical. The hunter can get inside the park, she is relentless, and we have no clue who she is.”

“That's not exactly true,” J.J. told him. “We have a few leads. Hoenekker, have you followed up on the names I gave you this evening?”

I figured he meant the names Summer and I had found. If he'd admitted they'd come from us, Mom probably would have flipped out again.

“I was starting to,” Hoenekker replied. “But I didn't have much time before this came up.”

“It doesn't matter if we have leads or not,” Athmani said. “This hunter knows we're looking for her, and she has continued to infiltrate the park. What's to say that she will not do so again?”

“Is anything left of the rifle?” Dad suggested. “Something we could get a fingerprint off of?”

Hoenekker shouted across the room to where Deirdre Garcia, a female security guard, was perched on some rocks on the edge of the crocodile tank with Jon Mattingly, FunJungle's crocodile specialist. “Garcia, what's the situation with the gun?”

“Not good,” Garcia reported back. “The crocs ate most of it—and what's left is trashed. The barrel's too mangled to do a ballistics test, the stock is too messed up to get a fingerprint, and the plate with the registration number for the weapon seems to be, er . . . inside one of the crocs.”

“Any chance it'll get pooped out anytime soon?” Hoenekker asked.

Garcia looked to Mattingly, unsure.

“Could be a few days,” Mattingly said. “If it comes out at all. And chances are, it won't be much use. Our crocs all use gizzard stones.”

“What are those?” Hoenekker demanded.

“They're rocks,” Mattingly replied. “The crocs swallow them to help with their digestion. They stay in the stomach and help pulverize anything that comes in there. It's quite common. Ostriches use them. So do chickens.”

“I don't need a biology lecture right now,” Hoenekker said curtly. “I need evidence. What's the final analysis here?”

Mattingly said, “Anything those crocs consume, even inorganic matter, is going to take a real beating inside their digestive tract.”

Hoenekker grimaced, then ordered, “Well, do what you can to get that tank swept anyhow. Maybe there's something we can use down in the drain somewhere.”

“We're working on it, sir!” Garcia saluted, then returned her attention to the tank.

“No gun, no evidence,” Athmani told J.J. “We're not any closer to catching this hunter than we were two days ago.”

Hoenekker bristled at this, as though it were an attack on his competence. “That's not true. We've already caught the hunter on camera once. I have my men combing through the security footage from this building as we speak. The hunter might show up on one of the cameras.”

“
Might
,” J.J. repeated, sounding doubtful. “Or they might not, either. Your men have spent the whole day going over last night's security footage and they've found one grainy still. That ain't much.”

Athmani added, “I don't think we have time to sort through all the footage from this building. That could take hours—and even if you do find the hunter again, she had a mask on. Meanwhile, she could still be on the property right now. For all we know, while we're all sitting here, she could be going after the rhinos.”

I found this idea disturbing, and I could see that many other people—including my parents and J.J.—did too.

“She lost her gun,” Hoenekker said weakly.

“She could have another,” Athmani replied. “In my experience, poachers usually bring more than one weapon.” He turned to me. “Did she have only the one rifle with her when you saw her, Teddy? Might she have had another slung across her back?”

I thought back to my confrontation with the poacher. Sadly, even though it had taken place only a short while before, everything about it seemed as hazy as though it had been years earlier. I'd never had more than a quick glimpse of the hunter, and she had always been in darkness or shadow. Plus, there had been so much else going on—dangling over the crocodiles, dealing with the sloth, getting kissed by Summer—that I hadn't focused on the hunter as much as I should have. “I don't know,” I said sadly. “She might have.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about her?” J.J. asked.

“No,” I replied. “Everything happened so fast.”

J.J. pursed his lips, looking displeased. “Do you have any other thoughts on who this woman might be? As long as the cat's out of the bag that you're helping on this, you might as well put your two cents in.”

Everyone looked toward me expectantly. Even Mom and Dad, despite their anger at J.J. for pressing me into investigating, seemed hopeful that I'd figured everything out.

But I hadn't. To my frustration, I wasn't even close. Instead, everything I'd learned had muddied the picture even more. Nothing made sense. Why had the poacher shot from the top of World of Reptiles one morning, then tried to cross SafariLand at night, then returned to World of Reptiles for the third attempt? Why had she not used the silencer the first time, then brought it afterward? Was she really trying to get the rhino's horns, and if so, how did she plan on getting them out of the park? And if she didn't want the horns, why was she trying to kill Rhonda, rather than any of the other rhinos? Why had she gone through so much trouble to figure out how to break into SafariLand, but then climbed over the fence so close to one of the few security cameras? All those questions seemed linked somehow, like the explanation for any one of them would explain all the rest as well, but for the life of me, I couldn't imagine what it was. My head felt empty inside, and having everyone staring at me, hoping I'd figure it all out, only made the situation worse.

I lowered my eyes and shook my head. “No,” I said again. “I'm sorry.”

Everyone looked very disappointed. Especially J.J. “Great,” he muttered under his breath. “That's just great.”

Dad slipped an arm around my shoulders, trying to comfort me. “There's nothing to be sorry about,” he said.

Mom kneeled beside me. She tried her best to be sympathetic, although it was obvious she was still angry at J.J. “You're only a boy,” she told me. “This isn't your job. It's theirs.” She pointed toward where J.J. and all the others were clustered together.

I nodded understanding, but I still felt terrible. Maybe J.J. had sought my help in the wrong way, but it was still a show of faith—and I'd failed him. I'd failed the rhinos, too. In fact, I'd failed everyone.

“We have to take action,” Athmani was telling J.J. “This poacher is running circles around us. If we don't act soon, we are going to have a dead rhino on our hands. Or possibly several dead rhinos.”

J.J. shook his head, looking defeated, then glanced around the rain forest. “Where the heck is Doc?” he demanded.

“I'm here,” Doc replied, entering the room behind us. He was dressed in surgical scrubs, though he'd pulled a winter coat on over them.

“I called you more than half an hour ago,” J.J. said pointedly.

“First of all, I'm not your butler,” Doc growled. “I don't have to come running the moment you decide you need me. Second, I was in surgery, taking care of one of your baboons, which I figured you wouldn't want me running out in the middle of.”

J.J. looked annoyed—he wasn't used to people speaking to him the way Doc did—but he let it slide.

“How is Bababoonie's tooth?” Mom asked as Doc passed us.

“As good as new.” Doc gave Mom one of his rare smiles. “The surgery went well. Give him a day to sleep it off and we'll get him back on exhibit.” He continued on to join J.J. and the others. “What's the story here?”

“The poacher made another attempt and got away again,” J.J. informed him. “I want you to take the horns off the rhinos. Tonight.”

A stunned silence filled the room. It seemed as though even the birds stopped making noise for a moment.

“You know how I feel about doing that,” Doc said.

“I do,” J.J. replied. “I wouldn't ask you to do it if there were any other option. But at this moment, it doesn't appear there is.”

“Of course there is,” Doc snapped. “Find the dang poacher!”

“I'm trying my best,” Hoenekker said defensively. “My men are working around the clock on this.”

“Doc,” Athmani said pleadingly, “the rhinos are in grave danger. The poacher knows how to get in and out of FunJungle at will. She made another attempt tonight—and might have been successful if not for Teddy and Summer. She could easily strike again. I know there is some risk in sedating the rhinos while we remove the horns, but not doing anything will be even riskier. You are the very best at what you do. The rhinos will be fine under your care.”

“I'm not any happier about it than you are,” J.J. told Doc. “I don't want a whole mess of hornless rhinos. But at least it ain't permanent. Once we
do
catch this poacher and put her behind bars, those horns will grow back.” He looked to Pete Thwacker. “You can soft sell this to the public, right?”

“Sure,” Pete said. “We'll issue a press release saying we're doing it to make a statement about rhino poaching in the wild. We're asking the public if they're ready for a world where every wild rhino looks like this.”

We could call it ‘Rhinoplasty for Rhino Awareness,' ” Kristi suggested.

“That's good!” J.J. exclaimed. “I like it.”

Doc ignored them and spoke to Athmani. “You really think it has to be done
tonight
?”

“The sooner, the better,” Athmani said. “For all we know, the poacher is still inside the park.” He turned to Hoenekker. “For the time being, each rhino we have here ought to be given armed protection.”