Did Not Survive (25 page)

I flipped open my cell phone—bright in the darkness—turned to shield it with my body, and dialed Linda as fast as I could. It cut to voice mail immediately. Turned off. I dialed Denny. After way too many rings, voice messaging answered. “Come to Elephants right now,” I whispered, and clapped it closed. He had the volume turned off. Why, oh why, didn't we all have our radios? Because radios were part of our work uniform, and we weren't in uniform.

Whoever was in there had a choice of three doors to exit: through the viewing room where I stood, the back door in the work room, and the back door at the far end of the barn beyond the hay. No way could I cover them all.

I couldn't take risks. I was in no shape to protect myself or my baby. But if I didn't identify this person, someone was going to get away with murder and attempted murder. I knew the barn pretty well. I could get close enough to see who it was and then hide until they were gone. It felt reasonable.

I put the key into the door at the end of the visitor window and stepped into a warm fog of elephant smells, closing the door softly behind me. Next, the door to the work room. I eased that door shut and felt my way slowly through the narrow room toward the hay storage, toward the light bulb and the backside of the second stall.

“Hold still,” snapped a voice, and I juddered to a stop, adrenaline spiking. “Good girl,” said the voice. “That's better.” Not talking to me.

I took a breath and eased around the corner, the same corner I'd dashed around with a bucket of produce when I was trying to rescue Wallace. There was the bank of levers for operating the doors. And there was Nakri's butt pressed against the bars, shifting uneasily.

And Kayla.

I sighed, disappointed but not surprised, and eased back to where I could barely see. I would watch a few more seconds to confirm what she was doing, then tiptoe back the way I'd come. But Nakri whirled—Kayla snapping at her—and oriented toward me, ears out, trunk reaching through the bars, searching for my scent. Kayla turned and looked, then stepped swiftly toward me. I crouched and scuttled back, aiming for cover under the work table. She was on me like a serval on a mouse, yanking my sling. I stifled a scream and lunged toward her, staggering to my feet. She'd hooked the sling with an ankus. She disentangled it while I was standing up and grabbed the back of my neck, her hand sliding below the brace to grip my skin, the ankus half-raised in her other hand.

“Damn you, Iris,” she hissed. “Why do you always have to screw things up? Why the hell can't you mind your own
business
.” She shoved me toward Nakri, toward the bars. “Why do you make me do these things?”

I stumbled forward, propelled by her iron hand, knowing she would hit me with the ankus, knees failing me, my neck muscles spasming. Damrey trumpeted out of sight and then crowded into the back stall with Nakri. Nakri roared. They circled within the stall, big bodies brushing each other and the walls, big feet pacing fast, ears and trunks shifting and waving in the dim light.

Kayla pushed me half-upright to the bars and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her raise the ankus. “Don't kill my baby,” I gasped. “Don't.”

Her face was frozen in rage and determination. “You'll tell Jean.”

She would kill me with no more thought than she'd killed Wallace. I had no strength to fight, no place to escape to. An elephant collided with the bars and I felt them hum against my body. We were away from the narrowly spaced bars, away from safety, standing by bars spaced wide enough for keepers to slip through, bars where trunks could reach people. I lunged into them, jamming my thick body through, into the stall with the two elephants. Kayla shrieked and swung at me. The heavy stick came down on my shoulder, and I fell forward, into the melee of elephant feet. A leg brushed me and shoved me sideways. I caught myself with my good hand and was shoved again, pushed sprawling against the bars, my arm a searing agony. I twisted, desperate to get out of Kayla's reach, blank with terror and pain, the elephants or my own mind roaring. I looked up to see the ankus rising up again, aimed toward my face, no way to evade it.

A thick gray leg crammed me against the bars. A blur of elephant. Trunk reaching over me, circling Kayla's upraised arms, crushing her against the bars, then letting go and stepping back. Nakri, it was Nakri, with Damrey flapping her ears and trumpeting behind her.

Kayla crumpled next to me on the other side of the bars, her face two feet from mine, her eyes open and sightless, the ankus alongside her.

I lay paralyzed as the two elephants milled around, feet scuffling on the floor, squeaks and rumbles, Damrey's trunk fumbling at my legs and then my chest. After a minute or two, they hadn't stepped on me or grabbed me. I pulled myself up and squeezed out, dizzy and nauseated, half-tripping over Kayla.

I limped away and stopped to lean against the wall by the levers. Light switches. I turned them on. It made no difference. Still two elephants in the second stall. Still Kayla lying on the floor, her head at an impossible angle. I thought, I should pull her away from where the elephants can reach her. I couldn't do it. I made it to the work room and sat shuddering on one of the metal folding chairs, my hand trembling on my belly, until Denny and Linda found me.

Chapter Twenty-nine

My friends needed only a few words to understand what had happened. Denny checked Kayla. There were no surprises. The elephants had moved to the front stall and left her body alone. They were quiet. Linda made phone calls, then she found acetaminophen in the first aid box, a drug I was actually permitted to take, and gave me two with a mug of water. She handed me damp paper towels to clean my face and hands and pulled bits of straw out of my hair. My mind began to clear.

“Baby okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “Moving around a little. Seems good.” Denny relaxed his hovering. “What happened at Reptiles?” I asked him.

“You gave me the idea, about those elephant collars texting the rangers. I bought a motion detector that does the same thing. Fifty dollars. I set it up at the door to Reptiles, and it texted me.”

“I got that,” I said. “Did she take the turtles? Where are they?”

Linda said, “They're fine. We didn't see a soul. I think Kayla assumed Denny was somewhere on the grounds and set off the motion detector to find out. Once we showed up, she knew we would be occupied at Reptiles and felt safe to come here. Probably never occurred to her that anyone else would be around, especially you.”

“How did she know about the gizmo?”

Denny said, “I had trouble setting it up, and she helped me. She was really into it.”

Of course. I sighed and said, “She wasn't all that reassured—she used a back door to the barn, and she was on me in a flash when Nakri noticed me.”

I stood up shakily and rummaged in the work room until I found the bag of dried mango slices. I walked to the front stall, where the cows were hanging out, and said, “Nakri.” She came right over and seemed unclear whether she should turn around or not. I held out a mango slice, and she reached for it with her trunk tip, breath going in and out of the two air holes, the moist little finger on the end grasping the treat and ferrying it to her mouth. Her dark little eye gleamed. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.” For saving me. For not killing me. For being who and what she was, even though I could never really know her. I fed her slice after slice, one at a time, until the bag was empty, then I walked back to the work room and sat down again.

The pain had subsided into a collection of sullen aches by the time the EMTs arrived. Ian walked in a minute later, eyes wide. I checked my watch and was surprised to find it was almost seven-thirty. Linda gave him the short version. Ian looked at me in deep dismay. “You shouldn't go in with them. Not safe. You were lucky.” His tone implied that I should know better.

Detective Quintana arrived next. Neal showed up excited, spewing questions and orders, but Quintana got there first and was in charge. Neal caught on and sputtered to silence before the detective had to yank his chain. Quintana told us all to keep quiet, checked in with the EMTs, then said to a woman officer in uniform, “Office Kurtch, keep these people separate and silent.”

Ian said, “I got work to do.”

Quintana wasn't impressed. “Stay here with the others. Oakley, we'll start with you.” He herded me out of the work room and into the keeper area by the front stall. Neal followed us. I leaned my back against the viewing window, the two men glowering at me. Quintana said, “What happened here?”

Neal said, “She looks like a train wreck.” He stuck his head in the work room. “Denny, get her a damn chair.”

I said, “I need to eat.”

Neal said, “And a carrot or something.”

Denny delivered. I sat down and handed back the carrot. “Wash it and peel it.” Who knew whether it had elephant slobber on it?

“What's with all the bandages?” Quintana asked with no hint of sympathy.

“Car crash,” Neal said. Quintana looked at him from under his eyebrows.

“Car crash a few days ago,” I said.

Denny came back with a properly prepared carrot and a fossilized doughnut. “Coffee soon,” he said, and retreated. The officer stuck her head out and pulled the door closed after him. Quintana and Neal turned to me.

Quintana said, “So. A woman is dead. And it better not be because you didn't mind your own business like I told you to. Start at the beginning.”

Did Kayla die because I'd set this trap? All that impulsive vitality ended forever in one horrific instant. I searched for reflex guilt and didn't find any. She'd killed Wallace and was happy to let Damrey take the blame. She'd desecrated Rajah and abandoned Calvin behind bars. She'd done her best to kill me. “Sorry, what was the question?”

Quintana scowled. “What happened?”

I tried to pull myself together. “Kayla was selling zoo animals for traditional medicine, probably to people here in the U.S. She had connections in the Asian community from a previous job. I caught her in the act here at the barn, and she tried to kill me with the ankus. Nakri saw Kayla do that to Wallace. She stepped in and saved my life.” Ian and Cheyenne worked within range of that deadly trunk every day, no matter what Mr. Crandall dictated. “I don't think Nakri meant to hurt her, just to stop her, so I wouldn't die like Wallace did.” I had no idea what Nakri's intentions were, but I owed her big time. I would cut her all the slack I could.

Denny brought me coffee, black, and some packets of white powder. “Nothing real in the fridge,” he said before I could ask for milk or cream, and left me to my suffering.

I took a sip for courage and said, “Kayla had expensive jewelry, with a story about how she got each piece for free since her pay wasn't much. She probably started with the elephant hair, clipping their tails. The elephants are trained to back up to the bars, so it was easy and safe. That's what she was doing when Wallace caught her and that's what she was doing this morning. Cambodians believe that an elephant-hair bracelet will protect their babies.” There was some kind of irony in that, but I couldn't grasp it at the moment.

“And you knew she'd be here doing that?” Quintana looked at me in a way that made me wonder whether he could put handcuffs on a person with one arm in a sling.

“This week I told everyone that Ian was feeding the elephants red palm oil as a dietary supplement and that their tails had grown out again.”

“Is this true?” Neal asked.

“Quiet,” Quintana said.

“Yeah, it's true. Dr. Reynolds approved it. Then I told everyone that you were going to secretly ship out the elephants on Monday morning.”

“Is this true?” Quintana asked.

“No,” Neal said. He looked at me sidelong. “How did you manage all this communication from home?”

I chewed on the carrot stub. “Phone.”

He and Quintana looked at each other.

I said, “The idea was to get word to the thief so he or she would come to clip the tails one last time before the elephants left. And she did. I wanted some back up—” I moved my sling in explanation “—so I made Linda and Denny help. We hid and waited to see who showed up. I thought she'd come over the back fence, but she probably didn't this time.”

“Back fence?” Neal asked. “You can get in that way?”

I nodded, which made me wince. I looked toward Quintana. “He found it, too.”

“Did you plan to tell me about this someday?” Neal's eyes did the laser beam thing, only with sparks.

“I was going to call you once we saw who it was. Both of you. This was all my plan, and Denny and Linda didn't want to do it, but I talked them into it.” I tried dunking the ancient doughnut in the coffee. “We hid and watched, but Kayla set up a diversion at Reptiles. Linda and Denny went to check that out, and I stayed here.”

“And you saw…?” Quintana said.

“Like I said, Kayla clipping Nakri's tail. You'll find scissors and the cut hairs by the back stall. Nakri scented me, and Kayla caught on in an instant. She was
so
fast. She pulled me out from where I was hiding. I went in with the elephants to get away from her and fell down. She was going to kill me with the ankus, but Nakri grabbed her and pulled her against the bars. It was so quick…” I slipped back into that moment and felt my head go light.

Quintana's deep voice brought me back. “This time you're trying to convince me that the elephant really did do it?”

I nodded and gnawed on the doughnut to ground myself. “Yeah, this time she did.”

Neal said, “The missing tiger?”

I nodded. “Rajah's probably at her house in the freezer. Some of him, anyway. She knows, knew, how to dress out game. She took the dead cub and the turtles, too. All of them are used in traditional medicine. The real money was probably the tiger.”

Quintana, as usual, looked disappointed by humanity, me in particular.

“Search her house,” I said. “You can't dismember a tiger and not leave evidence. And look for that other turtle. Denny really, really wants it back. And please turn Calvin loose.”

Quintana said, “Did that last night. His daughter showed up. She was in Seattle with her kids seeing some doc who says he can cure autism with a special pill. Then she went touristing with a friend. She says didn't know about her father.”

Good news. “Calvin withdrew his confession.”

“His daughter told him she was at a church retreat the night Wallace died.”

She'd never mentioned that. Maybe she liked people thinking that she was a person who could settle a score for good. Maybe her alibi was totally phony. It didn't matter.

“More importantly,” Quintana said, “Lorenz's neighbor finally noticed that he was gone, and his cat was hungry. Somebody gave him the story. He came in to tell us his emus got out the morning Wallace was attacked, and Lorenz helped him round them up. Couldn't have been at the zoo at the same time.” He made a face. “
Emus.
What has happened to the American farm?”

Calvin was back home and in the clear. I felt a huge relief. Calvin behind bars was not the way the universe should operate.

Quintana said to me, “You go back there and wait with the others. Send out that other woman.”

“Wait,” I said. “I'm sure Kayla sent those letters to Dr. Reynolds to implicate Ian. Can you tell by looking at her printer? I read about that once…”

Quintana said, “Go back there and wait.”

When Quintana was done with us, he issued various warnings and let us go. Denny said the detective needed to pay more attention to his spiritual side—he had way too much yang and not enough yin.

Neal followed us outside and told Denny and Linda to get to work. “You”—pointing to me—“come with me.” He commandeered the security guard's electric cart, and we drove to the Administration building. While I was grateful for the ride, my body had forgotten the carrot and that doughnut. My neck and shoulders hurt, not to mention the arm, and I was filthy from sprawling in elephant dung. Neal said, “We need to talk, but it can wait until tomorrow if necessary.”

“Might as well get it over with. Are you going to fire me?” I hoped that was a joke.

“Can't. Not while you're pregnant and disabled. You could sue the socks off the zoo.”

“Nice to know.” The implication about the future, after I healed up and gave birth and thereby lost my free pass, was not lost on me.

Somehow it was after eight o'clock. Jackie's eyes were huge as I slogged past her and into Neal's office. It still didn't seem right for him to settle into Wallace's chair behind Wallace's desk. I dropped into the guest chair. Neal looked at me and walked to the door. “Jackie, go get a sandwich or something and bring it here. Carton of milk and two cups of coffee.”

“
Senior
Administrative Assistants do not go out for snacks,” she said. “And the cafe doesn't open until eleven anyway.”

Neal leaned his forehead against the door frame. “Jackie, a
Senior
Administrative Assistant knows how to make things happen.
Make it happen.
”

A sullen “yessir” came from the reception area.

I waited, mind going blank, while he messed with his fine new computer. “Where are those temps?” he muttered. “People think they can come in any time they want around here.”

“They're on the bus,” I said. “I stole their car.”

He didn't lean his forehead on the monitor. He merely closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Right.”

“You can tell when people clock in? From here?” That was a level of surveillance I hadn't expected.

“Only if you load the software that came with the time clocks.”

My inhabitant woke up and did his own messing around inside me. Jackie came back with food much sooner than a trip to the nearest convenience store would require. She put an aromatic takeout bag and two mugs on Neal's desk without a word and returned to her desk. I heard the intern's voice outside as she closed the door. “Now what am I going to eat? You can't just take—”

I unearthed a breakfast sandwich—fried egg and sausage patty. “You want half?” I asked. He shook his head, and I consumed it all with excellent manners. Rapidly but delicately.

He said, “I used to have a wife with a metabolism like that. Reminds me of short-tailed weasels.”

I sipped a little coffee. I'd barely touched the cup in the elephant barn, so I was still within my quota. “One of us has to tell Dr. Reynolds that her best friend killed Wallace and is dead now. And about the missing animals so no one else is blamed.”

Neal said, “I'll take care of it.”

“She'll take it hard, even if she doesn't show it.” That was all I could think of to say, in hopes he would do it gently. As if there were any way to soften this. “Tell her those stalker letters came from Kayla and not Ian. She must have found out he had a crush on Dr. Reynolds and tried to implicate him.”

He said, “If the police confirm the letters, I'll tell her. That will not let him entirely off the hook, however. I will deal with Ian later. You, I will deal with now. What, exactly, made you think setting up this scheme in secret was okay? One person's dead, and it's pure luck you aren't, too. This is
beyond
loose cannon. I'll be starting disciplinary action, and I am definitely putting you on office duty for as long as you work here.”