How To Tail a Cat (21 page)

Chapter 52

INTO THE SWAMP

OSCAR’S NIECE STOOD
in the Green Vase showroom, watching the evening fog drift across Jackson Square as she waited for her ride to arrive.

Sam was returning to the Academy that night for a second unauthorized visit—to take care of some “unfinished frog business,” as he put it—and he had agreed to bring her along with him so that she could search the Swamp Exhibit for whatever Steinhart treasure or valuable memorabilia might be hidden there.

The woman nervously tapped her fingers against the cashier counter as she thought about the task that lay ahead. In the hours since she’d left the flower shop and started preparing for her upcoming trip, the realization that she might have to explore the area in the bottom of the tank’s exhibit had begun to sink in.

“Water,” she muttered anxiously. “Why did it have to be water?”

Twice in the past year and a half, she had been exposed to a rare spider-venom toxin that her uncle had unearthed during his Gold Rush research. The toxin caused intense delusions of drowning, eventually followed, if the antidote was not rapidly administered, by paralysis.

The experiences had left the niece with a strong aversion to any body of water. Swimming in an unoccupied alligator tank was not an activity for which she would have otherwise volunteered.

She glanced down at the tote bag near her feet, where she’d stuffed a pair of goggles, a towel, and her flashlight. It was a rudimentary collection of tools, but there was no piece of equipment that could have quashed the tension building in her stomach. She was feeling rather ill-equipped for this challenge.

• • •

AS THE BURLY
Frog Whisperer drove up in the white cargo van, Isabella circled the tote bag with one last certifying sniff. She had given her person as much help as was felinely possible. It was up to the woman to put together the last pieces of the puzzle on her own.

Isabella looked up and waved an instructive paw in the air. With a warbling “
Mraw-wow
,” she issued her last piece of advice.

“I’ll try to remember that,” the woman replied as she swung the tote up to her shoulder and pulled open the door.

Rupert gazed hopefully out the window as the woman circled the van and climbed into its front passenger seat.

Don’t forget to bring back some chicken, he thought as he propped his front feet against the glass.

• • •

THE NIECE HAD
little time to worry about the potential perils of the Swamp Exhibit during the drive through the city to Golden Gate Park. Drowning was soon the least of her safety concerns.

Sam was a well-intentioned but easily distracted driver. Eager to get to the Academy to check on his frog conspirators, his attention was now dangerously diverted.

“My guys played their part perfectly,” Sam said as he drove down Jackson Street to the first corner past the Green Vase. He glanced over at his passenger.

“I slipped a little something in their water before they got to the Academy,” he explained as he motored through the stop sign without the slightest decrease in speed. “That’s what turned their skin a different color.”

“Sam,” the woman sputtered, clenching the armrest. “Did you see that . . .”

“Poor Dr. Kline was totally fooled,” Sam continued, grinning at the success of his covert operation.

The van squealed through two more heart-stopping turns.

“Uh, Sam,” the niece tried again as they approached the busy thoroughfare of Columbus Avenue.

“Don’t get me wrong—I like Dr. Kline,” Sam added, oblivious to the looming cross traffic. “She’s a nice lady, all right.”

The woman paled as the van careened into the wide intersection, drawing the ire of multiple car horns.

“She just doesn’t know much about frogs.”

Gulping, the niece nodded at a bobblehead figure of the Current Mayor stuck onto the van’s dashboard.

“Does Monty know you’ve been borrowing his vehicle?”

Sam winked mischievously.

“He thinks it’s parked in the alley behind the chicken restaurant.”

Gripping the handle above her window, the woman double-checked her seat belt.

“He really should be more careful about where he leaves his keys.”

• • •

AFTER SEVERAL NEAR
misses that the niece wasn’t sure how the van managed to escape unscathed, she and Sam finally arrived at Golden Gate Park’s east entrance. With few traffic impediments to avoid within the park’s boundaries, Sam guided the van without incident down a curving road and parked near a forested area a couple hundred yards behind the Academy of Sciences complex.

A streetlamp wrapped in fog dripped a small puddle of light onto the pavement. Otherwise, the area was completely dark.

Grabbing her tote, the woman climbed gratefully out of the front passenger seat. She met Sam at the van’s rear doors and waited as he leaned into the cargo area.

He pulled out a ventilated glass carrier with a handle on its lid.

“I’ll be laying low for a while after tonight’s caper,” he said, gesturing with the carrier as he locked the van. His tone and expression suggested he was looking forward to his banishment.

“Where will you go?” the niece asked as they turned and walked through the trees toward the Academy’s rear entrance.

“Oh, someplace deep in the woods,” Sam replied vaguely. He pointed at the green logo sewn onto his vest. “Someplace good for frogs.”

• • •

A FEW MINUTES
later, Sam clomped up to the Academy’s back door and removed a set of keys from a pocket in his vest.

“What about the guards?” the woman whispered as he held the set up to a security light mounted over the door, selected a key, and fed it into the lock.

“We’ve got about twenty minutes until the security team passes back this way,” Sam replied, glancing at his watch.

He pulled open the door and stealthily stepped inside. Gripping her flashlight, the niece slipped through after him.

Sam paused before heading for the stairwell entrance marked “Steinhart Aquarium.” Bending toward her ear, he whispered, “I’ll meet up with you in a few.”

He nodded toward the Swamp Exhibit. “Good luck.”

• • •

THE NIECE SET
her flashlight to its dimmest setting and took a quick glance around the Swamp Exhibit’s darkened perimeter, circling the beam of her flashlight over the artificial banyan tree, the moss dangling from its branches, and then down to the brass seahorse balcony.

The seahorses had been depicted in sharp detail on the picture embedded in the brass lamp’s ceramic shade. Maybe, she thought hopefully, she could avoid a dip in the tank after all.

The woman bent to her knees and began working her way around the exhibit’s upper rim, testing each brass seahorse, searching for some slit or crack in the casting. They were remarkably well crafted, and each one was stamped with the date of the Steinhart’s original opening: 1923. But she reached the end of the circuit without finding anything of note.

The seahorses, the niece had to concede, were far too exposed to the visiting public to contain whatever Steinhart treasure had been hidden in the Swamp. Besides, there would have been no need for her uncle and his team to remove Clive from the exhibit if the treasure were that easy to access.

“If it’s not up here,” she mused, pushing her hair back from her eyes, “it has to be . . .”

She aimed the flashlight’s beam down into the tank. The turtles’ dark, boulderlike shadows moved through the water, swimming slow circles around the heated rock. Several large catfish snaked along the bottom.

She gulped, hesitating. Then she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

If the treasure was hidden down inside the Swamp Exhibit, there was only one way to find out.

She whipped off her eyeglasses, quickly exchanging them for a pair of goggles from her tote bag.

She had to move fast. She was running out of time.

• • •

THE NIECE WRAPPED
her hands around the balcony’s top railing and swung a leg over the bar. As she teetered back and forth, trying to regain her balance, she glanced down at the tank. It suddenly seemed like a much farther drop than she had envisioned while studying the image on the lamp.

“Starting to wish I’d thought to ask Sam how he got in there to remove Clive,” she muttered. Pursing her lips, she slid her second leg over the railing. It was too late now for regrets.

Carefully, she rotated her body so that she faced the balcony. Then she slowly dropped her feet down until they met the tank’s upper wall. Easing herself off the top railing, she shifted her hands to the brass seahorse brackets.

After swinging from this halfway point for a long moment, she dropped her grip a little farther, adjusting her hold so that she was hanging from the balcony’s bottom railing. The row of decorative tile ringing the tank’s upper rim ran directly in front of her face; her legs dangled about ten feet above the water.

Just as she was about to release the bar, she tilted her head to make one last check of the area directly beneath.

“Oh, come on, buddy,” she moaned as a turtle meandered into her drop zone.

Despite the niece’s urgent hissing sounds, the turtle took his time wading toward his next destination.

“Okay,” she said when at last the space below had cleared. She took in a deep breath. “This is it.”

She kicked back from the wall and fell into the tank.

• • •

“HERE YOU GO,
little fellas,” Sam cooed as he leaned through the rear opening of the terrarium holding the special-exhibit frogs from South America. Cupping his hands, he gently lifted the pale-looking trio into the ventilated glass carrier.

“You’re going to love the place where I’m taking you next,” he said as replaced the exhibit’s back cover. “Best frog accommodations
ever
,” he assured the carrier’s occupants. “I promise.”

After tiptoeing down the long corridor behind the exhibits, Sam peeked out the black-painted doorway at its end. Hunched down, he crept into the aquarium’s main foyer. He was about to head for the stairwell leading up to the Academy’s main floor when he heard a loud splash.

He turned toward the glass-ceilinged tunnel and squinted through to the opposite end.

In the lower-level view window for the Swamp Exhibit, he spied Oscar’s niece, her hands and feet treading through the water, her long hair swirling around her face—accompanied by a large turtle, who was curiously inspecting the tank’s new specimen.

Chapter 53

THE OBSERVERS

A GROUP OF
four gathered in the trees near the Academy of Sciences’ rear entrance, watching the goings-on at the Swamp Exhibit through the building’s back wall of windows. All eyes focused on the building’s interior as, after a moment’s hesitation, the niece began crawling around the seahorse balcony on her hands and knees.

At one end of the line, Mr. Wang sat in his wheelchair, thoughtfully stroking his chin. Dilla stood behind him, nervously gripping the chair’s handles.

When the woman slung her legs over the balcony’s top railing and began easing herself down toward the tank, Dilla pulled off her flowered hat and used it to cover her face.

“Oh, I’m afraid to watch,” she said with a shudder.

Beside her, Harold Wombler let out a disapproving snort as the niece’s body dropped from the balcony and splashed into the water. “Why didn’t she just use the service door at the bottom of the tank?”

The fourth member of the group silently rubbed the scruff of his chin.

“I think we’re done here,” James Lick said, a smile creasing his worn face as he turned and walked toward the road, pleased at the evening’s result.

Chapter 54

THE MARCHING HORSES

THE NIECE PLUNGED
into the water, sinking several feet into the tank. The Swamp Exhibit was far deeper than she had expected, and her feet floundered, searching for the bottom.

Trying not to panic, she pushed her body upward. Unlike her previous drowning delusions with the spider toxin, this time the water did little to resist her efforts. With a great deal of relief, her head broke the surface, and she gasped in a deep breath of the swamp’s moist, fishy-smelling air.

Treading water, the woman tilted her goggles away from her face to clear their interior compartments. Then she slowly spun herself in a circle, studying her surroundings.

“See now this isn’t so bad . . .” she assured herself—before stifling a scream as a turtle bumped his head against her knees.

• • •

PUSHING HERSELF AWAY
from the turtle, the niece tried to think back to the image on the lamp and the glowing white alligator lying on its rock.

But then she stopped and reconsidered.

Was the glow from the alligator or the rock underneath?

Quickly, she paddled toward the center of the tank. Taking in another deep breath, she ducked her head beneath the water and scanned the heated rock’s lower support structure. Other than a half-eaten post, she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

Resurfacing, the woman hoisted herself up onto the rock. She paused for a moment, appreciating the radiant heat, as she pulled off the goggles and wrung some of the water from her shirt. Then, she bent to inspect the surface.

At first glance, the rock appeared to be solid, but as she felt her hands around the base, she realized there was a small cache located just beneath. She leaned over the edge, trying to see into the hole, but darkness and water blocked her view.

“There’s something in here,” the niece said, straining to reach her arm into the space.

The service door at the far edge of the tank grated open, and Sam leaned out into the Swamp Exhibit.

“Psst. Are you about done?” he whispered.

Before she could reply, a piercing siren blasted through the air.

“Time to go,” he yelled over the noise. He waved his hand, motioning for her to swim toward the service door.

The woman looked back at the rock. Grimacing, she thrust her hand through the water and into the crevice. Her fingers wrapped around a small cloth-wrapped package, and with a slight tug, she yanked it out.

There wasn’t time to inspect the package. She hopped back into the tank, crossed to the service door, and followed Sam through an interior stairwell to the first floor.

• • •

FORTY-FIVE SECONDS LATER,
the niece scooped up her flashlight and tote bag from the floor beside the seahorse balcony. Leaving a trail of wet footsteps, she chased after Sam, who had tucked the glass carrier under his arm like a football as he chugged out the Academy’s rear door.

The woman looked over her shoulder at the Swamp Exhibit as she sprinted away.

A cloud shifted in the sky above the exhibit’s translucent ceiling, sending a dim glow down onto the artificial banyan tree with its clinging strings of moss. The brass seahorses glinted in the dim moonlight as they marched across the balcony.

But as the niece squinted at the water below, it seemed to her that the flat surface of the heated rock had lost a little bit of its glow.