Did Not Survive (4 page)

Linda had replaced me as Feline keeper about five months ago. The rough transition was not her fault—I trusted her competence utterly. She was grounded and sensible, although she'd developed a bluntness that was at times unsettling. The Linda I first knew was a little shy, a little cautious about speaking her mind. Maybe it was hanging out with the big cats. Her hair had grown out a couple of inches from the last time she'd whacked it off. The tips were blond and the roots were her natural dark red. She kept adding metal rings to her ear rims, something a cat keeper could afford to do. Anyone who worked Primates was likely to have them yanked off. Linda was average height, a few inches shorter than I, and square shouldered. No one worried about Linda injuring herself picking up a bag of feed.

Denny joined us, and, after hesitating, Ian pulled up a chair as well. We formed a loose circle, with Ian and me facing toward the zoo's entrance.

Denny and Ian shared a lean body type, and that was about it. Denny was blond and lithe with intense gray eyes, radiating energy and—I hated to admit it—a sexuality that I could never quite ignore. That last characteristic had led us to a brief period as a couple, before I met and married Rick Douglas, now deceased. Given a choice, I might have fled permanently from Denny's restless delight in all ideas bizarre, conspiratorial, or both. But we worked together and he was dating, as in “with benefits,” my best non-zoo friend, Marcie Altman. Denny had his virtues, but this was a doomed relationship. I regretted introducing them, but neither had any interest in my blessing.

“You know they had the veggie burgers today,” Denny said. “That red meat is setting up the kid for obesity and heart disease.”

Hang me for eating a burrito. “Denny, zoo burritos have about a teaspoon of real meat. It's 98% beans.”

“Here's some goji berries. They'll balance out that stuff. Awesome antioxidants. Are you using the whole salt I got you?”

I stuffed the packet of dried fruit into a pocket and wondered if three more months of Denny's helpfulness would lead to the headline “Woman In Labor Slays Co-Worker With Fetal Monitor.”

Ian's was a different style of odd. He was built like a runner or mountain climber, all sinew and bone, strength without bulk. His face was narrow, with a long thin nose that looked as though it had been broken and left to heal at an angle. Murky brown eyes, ordinary brown hair. The peculiar feature was his ears. They were small and round and stuck out from his head at right angles, cupped forward like those of a panda or a baby rhesus monkey. Maybe he could hear better than those of us with flat ears. He was not a talker, and no one had learned much about him in his few months at Finley Memorial. He had thwarted our highly functional gossip machine, and I found that intriguing.

“What do you think happened to Wallace? Why did Damrey go nuts?” Denny asked him.

Ian shook his head. “No idea.”

“You must have a theory. You know those animals. You know Wallace,” Denny persisted, not yet wound up, asking nicely.

Ian shook his head and kept his eyes on his burger. “Nope.”

“Did you know elephants used to be executioners? They called it ‘crushing'. Rulers in Asia would train them to kill prisoners. They would—”

“Denny!” “Stop it!” Linda and I spoke on top of one another.

“I'd think you'd want to know,” Denny muttered, subsiding. “I also found out that—“

Arnie pulled up a chair, and we all scooted over to make a space. He leaned toward me, beaming. “Hey, Fertile Myrtle. How's your parasite doing? Need any more pickles or ice cream?”

This ragged give-and-take was the reason Linda and I often ate in the Feline kitchen in bygone days. The Feline building was forbidden territory for pregnant people, so we lunched with our co-workers, like it or not. Maybe “annoyed” was a good state of mind. It beat “panic stricken,” also “irrationally guilty and anxious.”

Arnie was short, even with Western boots adding a couple of inches. His cheap cowboy hat was dark red with a ring of tarnished silver conchos around the brim. His smile was toothy and clueless through a brushy mustache.

“I'm fine.” I short-circuited his grilling on the state of my womb by asking Linda about Rajah.

She shrugged. “Some days he eats, some days he doesn't. He's drinking a lot of water. Doesn't move around much.”

“That old tiger has a lot of miles on him,” Arnie chimed in. “He's what—twenty-five or six?—about at the end of the road.”

Linda and I exchanged a look. Raj was a favorite with both of us. It was going to be hard when his time came.

“Losa's in some kind of holding pattern,” Linda said, not waiting for my next query. “Nothing happening that I can see. Maybe she reabsorbed all the cubs, and we'll watch and wait for months until we catch on. She's toying with us.” She picked at her potato chips.

I'd already inhaled most of my burrito. “Nah, you have to
earn
cubs by suffering. We haven't suffered enough night shifts yet. Who's on watch tonight?” My own belly transmitted a tiny squirm.

“Me. And I am going to be pissed if she doesn't pop.”

“I'll let Losa know.” I headed back to the cafe for another burrito. I said “hi” to Olivia, the Children's Zoo keeper, settled at another table with her crew of four volunteers. They had their own slice of the zoo and it didn't overlap much with the rest of us.

When I returned, Arnie was expounding on how unreliable elephants could be, interspersed with a lecture from Denny on musth. Since musth applied to male elephants, a condition in which they suffer from self-generated testosterone poisoning and become aggressive, I didn't see the relevance. Ian kept his mouth shut.

“Anyhoo,” Arnie said, “I'm sure glad I don't have to work with that Damrey. Once they go rogue, there's no going back.”

“She's not a rogue,” Ian said softly.

We pricked up our ears, but that seemed to be all he had to contribute.

“Here's what I think happened,” Denny said.

“Fasten your seatbelt,” I muttered.

Denny didn't notice. He learned forward, jabbing a finger toward the rest of us, all enthusiasm and energy. “Damrey and Nakri have some sort of issue going on, and Wallace tries to break it up. Damrey aims for Nakri, he gets clobbered by mistake. That's one possibility. Another is that those animal rights people broke into the barn and planned to turn both elephants loose. Have them roaming all over the zoo to get a lot of press coverage. Wallace tried to stop them, they hit him and ran away. But it could be that Wallace was involved in some sort of corruption with the bond measure money and got wiped out for a double-cross. The hit man dumped him in with the elephant so that she'd take the blame. I think that's the most likely.” Denny paused to lick catsup off his fingers. He'd managed to consume a mushroom burger while free-wheeling. “And,” he added pointedly, “I hope he wakes up soon and tells us.”

Hearing Wallace's injury processed through Denny's mental cyclone somehow made the accident less the stuff of nightmares, closer to everyday reality. Denny's fantasies aside, wild animals were always dangerous. Accidents happened. I shivered anyway, seeing that hand twitch as Damrey's trunk tip plucked at his jacket.

Ian, by contrast, looked at Denny about the way he might look at a goldfish in a hay bale, but he didn't say anything. Kayla, the veterinary technician, tugged a chair over from another table and perched on the edge of our circle next to him. A lacey lavender shirt contrasted with her lab coat and our dull uniforms. Today's jewelry—her signature—was a necklace of big silver links. “Do you guys know yet what happened with Kevin Wallace and that elephant?” she asked.

“No!” said several voices.

Kayla recoiled. “Just askin'! Good grief! What's up with you guys?”

Denny sat back, already changing channels. “Did you know that humans and elephants can transmit antibiotic-resistant bacteria between each other? That's the kind of superbug that gives you boils and abscesses.”

“Still eating,” Linda warned.

“What does that have to do with Wallace?” Kayla asked him.

“Nothing,” I assured her. “Denny is speed-hypothesizing. Try not to get any on you.”

“I want to know,” she insisted. “Mr. Crandall won't let me in the barn anymore, keepers only. We need to finish the elephant project. Jean—Dr. Reynolds—is upset about it.”

We turned to Ian for elaboration.

“Only keepers in the barn.”

“I got that,” I said. “Are you and Sam safe? With the new rules?”

Ian chewed the last of his burger, stalling. “Manage behind barriers.” He paused, apparently to let a trickle of words refill his verbal well. “I worked places that manage elephants that way. Train them with treats instead. Takes longer at first, but it works. Fewer accidents.” He considered for a moment while we waited. “Better to transition gradually. Not in one day.” I thought he was done, but he added, “Wallace took chances.”

“You mean routinely?” I asked. “He didn't follow his own rules?”

Ian nodded.

Sam's voice startled us. He'd come up behind me, where Ian wouldn't see him either. “Wallace knew elephants. He didn't take chances. Something strange happened the other night, and we'd better figure it out quick. Damrey is getting railroaded. Crandall is riled up and making up rules about stuff he knows nothing about.”

I swiveled around. The tall elephant keeper looked tense and miserable. “Pull up a chair. Isn't this your day off?”

Sam shrugged. “Needed to come in.” He didn't pull up a chair.

A young man with long dark hair, a visitor, sat down near us. He didn't have any food, just sat facing away from us, close enough to overhear.

“What do you think happened?” I asked Sam, my voice quieter.

“I have no idea. Damrey would never hurt him, but now Mr. Crandall is treating her like a crazy killer.”

I spoke as gently as I could. “Sam, it really looked like she was mauling him. If you keep trusting her, you could be next.”

He looked grim. “Working Elephants could be a lot more dangerous than it used to be. I'm thinking about carrying my .38 until this is settled. I've got a concealed permit.”

In the silence that followed, Arnie said, “A .38 isn't any use against an elephant.” We let him figure it out on his own.

Linda said, “The city won't allow it. Not even the security guards have guns. You really think a person hurt Wallace and not Damrey? ”

Sam's shoulders twitched, shrugging her off. “The investigation should clear this up, but Crandall's not waiting. He's shoving dolphin training down our throats for elephants. Thousands of years of elephant expertise, all of it full contact. A cow that's been totally reliable for decades. But he's tossing all that out and buying into the latest hippy-dippy theories about love and positive thinking. How am I supposed to manage them when I can't go in with them?” His fierce glance at Ian made it clear who he thought was influencing the director.

Ian evaded his gaze. He took out a pack of Camels and lit one. Linda leaned away from the smoke.

Sam scanned us all. “I would appreciate it if none of you went around blaming Damrey.” His gaze lingered on me. “She gets a reputation as a killer, she's going to get shipped off somewhere. That leaves Nakri alone, after almost twenty years together. You can figure out what that'll do to both of them. And it would put the last nail in the coffin of a new exhibit.” He looked each of us in the face again, as if searching for the weak link, and walked off toward Elephants. The dark haired visitor got up and walked in the same direction.

Ian looked at his watch and made no move to follow Sam. Probably he had a few minutes left of his half hour lunch period, but it made me realize that the two elephant keepers didn't move as a team.

“
Dolphin
training?” Denny asked.

“Operant conditioning,” Linda said. “You've heard of it?”

This was a sneer. The zoo had brought in a consultant to provide a workshop on modern animal training for all the keepers. The method began in psychology labs and was refined in aquariums and sea parks. Most zoos were using the techniques, which turned formerly stressful events such as veterinary examinations and even injections into opportunities for the animals to earn special goodies. It was amazing what animals would volunteer for if they had the right training and the right reward. Wallace said it was revolutionizing animal management in zoos. Finley Zoo had come late to this, but now we were all expected to incorporate “husbandry training” into our daily routine. I'd started with the lions before I left Felines, and now Linda had them opening their mouths for dental inspections, and she could position them wherever she wanted in the den to inspect all body parts. Calvin and I had the penguins trained to step onto a scale one at a time, rather than grabbing them to weigh them.

“Yeah,” Denny said, “I have heard of training, believe it or not. It just surprised me to hear him go all traditional and rejective. Sam needs to let go of that negativity and of this gun thing, or he's going to hurt his back again.”

I wasn't sure whether this was a non sequitur or actually made sense, aside from “rejective.” Sam
was
prone to back trouble. The idea of him packing a pistol was alarming. In our little zoo, full of visitors, most of them children? It was also troubling to hear Sam speak so disparagingly of alternative methods, on top of denying what had happened to Wallace.

“This is all very interesting, but it does not help a bit,” Kayla said. “I can't go into the elephant barn anymore, and Dr. Reynolds wants the project completed. How's that going to happen?”

“She'll figure it out,” Linda said, getting up to go.

Kayla folded her arms under her breasts. “Yeah, maybe. She's not dealing at all well with this. You'll call me when the kittens come? Please?”