Night Kill (18 page)

My ears started to roar and I felt hot blood flushing my face. “Denny, you are such a jerk. I…I…” I stammered. I couldn’t talk. I tried to open the door to get out and away, away from him and his vile notions, but parts are always falling off with that van and the door handle came off in my hand. I dug around on the floor for it so I could jam it back on to get the door opened and flee. I could hardly breathe from shock and rage and hurt.

Denny turned his head to look at me, chin shoved out, truculent. “I don’t believe he just fell in any damned lion moat. Something by God happened that night and I want to know what the hell it was.”

I had the handle back on the door and pried it open. “You are a flaming asshole,” I enunciated clearly. “You are insane. And how could you even think that I would murder Rick?” Braining Denny with the door handle crossed my mind, but even in a rage, I could see that would tie in too well with his theory.

“I want to know what happened. You two were smokin’ hot for each other, but you kicked him out like you kicked me out, then it looked like you were getting together again. Then he dies. So what happened?”

“So maybe you killed him? Did you ever think of that?” I snarled.

That caught him by surprise; he started to laugh, but went serious. “Now why would I do that?” he said, but his face showed he knew where I was going.

“You said it yourself. I kicked you out and married him. Maybe you were jealous and glad when we broke up. Maybe you lost it when we started working through it. Maybe you’re the one who got mad and bashed him.”

“Nah.”

“Nah? What kind of declaration of innocence is that? I’m starting to think you did push him in the moat.”

“He was my best friend. I was even down with the marriage thing. I know I got commitment issues, and it wasn’t going to work out between you and me.”

“Commitment issues? You been reading magazine articles at the dentist’s office?” I sneered.

“Yeah, you weren’t exactly clear why you dumped me. I’ve been thinking about it. Chicks always dump me sooner or later. Sometimes I’m just as glad, sometimes not. Anyway, I never held it against Rick. We were friends before and we stayed friends. Well, after a while.”

“I didn’t know you two were all that tight. He had all those people he met at bars and listened to music with. I never saw you there.” Rain blew in through the open passenger door.

Denny shifted in his seat. “I didn’t exactly feel welcome around you. But where did he go when you threw him out? He came to my place and I put him up.”

“True.” We sat in silence for a minute.

It was cold and wet with the door open, so I closed it. “I didn’t throw him out. I left.”

“Whatever.” Denny was looking at me, frustrated, hands tight around the steering wheel.

“Where’d he get drunk that night?” I asked. “And who with?”

“I honest-to-god don’t know. I thought you knew and weren’t telling.”

“Nope. Not a clue. I left him sober at about midnight.” My head was clearing. I felt an odd pang of tenderness for Denny, that he was still being Rick’s friend, in his unpredictable, quirky way—Rick’s friend, but not mine. “You seem to have forgotten I’m the one who keeps asking what happened.”

“Yeah. I figured maybe that was to smoke out who had suspicions or to mislead us.”

I blew out a breath. Denny could incorporate contrary evidence into his theories with startling ease.

He turned toward me. “It was the money at first, then the L.A. job. I thought you’d found somebody else, but I don’t see any sign of a new man.”

“You are psycho, wrong, and plain mean. I am going home.” I pried the door open again and got out. “I’d forgotten the money until it came,” I said, slamming the door shut.

Denny started the van moving, but I had time to kick another dent in the side panel.

I was never going to get any useful information out of him.

Driving home to feed the dogs before dinner with Marcie, I thought about what Denny believed. Denny believed that the world was run by a black-hearted conspiracy of billionaire capitalists who would lose their fortunes if hemp were ever legalized, that marijuana brought him closer to the spiritual center of the cosmos, that spirulina algae would keep him healthy regardless of what else he ate or drank or smoked. He’d been wrong about computer viruses destroying civilization, wrong about women not caring how often a guy bathed, wrong about water boiling faster if you left the lid off the pot.

He agreed with me that something was fishy about Rick’s death. That troubled me considerably.

Chapter Sixteen

Dinner with Marcie was a mess, both of us anxious and off balance. Thanks to the state I was in after talking to Denny, I’d forgotten to deposit the insurance check. I could almost feel it in my wallet, vibrating from unidentifiable emotions. The food at the Thai restaurant was good, as always, and the conversation went a little better after we’d eaten our ginger beef and green curry. Never again would I discuss anything important on an empty stomach.

When I suggested that Rick might have been murdered, Marcie didn’t laugh or try to pack me off to a therapist. Instead, she went quiet.

“Marcie, there’s something else.”

“What?” Her hands were fists on the table.

“Denny has the same suspicions about Rick’s death. Denny’s theories are always cracked. Plus, his working hypothesis is that I did it. It’s too confusing.”

She relaxed a little. “I can assure you, his theories are not your biggest problem. Nobody takes them seriously, not even him. It’s a hobby. It’s the way he processes.”

“He takes this one seriously. No one can tell me why Rick came up to the zoo. I need to talk to him—he’s got to know something about Rick’s last few days because Rick was staying at his place. He sincerely believes I might be a killer and I want to strangle him every time I see him. So I want you to be there.” Marcie was the only candidate: Denny and I both knew and trusted her, she was calmer than either of us, and she was good at clarifying emotional situations.

Marcie picked at her food and seemed to be thinking it over. Finally she said, “I set you up. At the dog show. I talked you out of blaming Rick for all your problems. You started asking questions at the zoo and the bad stuff started happening. You better not get killed because I’ll never forgive myself.”

Her conclusion was that I had to quit the zoo immediately. Dodging with a vague promise to resign soon and take the L.A. job if it was offered, I got back to Denny. Would she mediate?

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll invite him to dinner and we can all talk.”

That’s when I realized I was probably putting her in harm’s way, and the conversation deteriorated again into self-recrimination and ultimatums. We reluctantly agreed there was no point in going to the police without more information. Over fortune cookies that contained quips but neither valuable advice nor useful predictions, we decided to go ahead with inviting Denny to dinner. That settled, we limped our separate ways, exhausted. Still, it felt like progress.

I called the people who wanted to buy the truck and put them off until the next weekend. I had enough on my plate, and I didn’t need the money anymore.

Tuesday morning, I deposited the check on my way to work. At the Commissary, I found the note I’d left for Diego folded over my time card, with the answer to my question added at the bottom in his careful printing, the name of the keeper who had the night shift the night Rick died. No surprise—I’d been told before, but had forgotten, as I’d failed to remember so much since Rick died.

I walked into the Penguinarium and forgot all about it again.

Calvin was in a near-tizzy. He was too deliberate to achieve a genuine tizzy, but he was as close as he was ever likely to be. “Gol-durned raccoon got in the aviary. Lousy cheap fencing. Killed one of the nene babies. It’s still in there; can’t find its way out. I’d like to shoot the son of a B,” he ranted while ransacking the storage closet. So much for taciturn.

The three hatchlings weren’t exactly babies anymore. They were full-sized, nice looking geese in gray and buff with black heads and bills.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Where in Sam Hill is my catch pole?” He gazed around the kitchen, flushed and agitated. “I need to noose that forking varmint and haul him out before he kills every bird in there. Then I’d like to throw him in the river with a brick tied to him. Or kick his little behind out on the freeway at rush hour.”

My, my.

I stood in front of Calvin to get his attention. “Do you have a catch pole? I can go get one at Felines if you want.”

He focused on me briefly. “I used to have one, then Arnie or somebody borrowed it and never put it back. Maybe it’s at Bears. I’m going to get a lock for that closet and never loan anything again as long as I live. Beans-and-rice-on-Friday. I got to fix that mesh or we’ll have every raccoon in the state in there.” He started toward the door, presumably to head for Bears.

I was still working on the beans and rice as I stepped in front of him again.

“Calvin, Felines has a catch pole. I’ll go get it. You pretend you aren’t swearing and meet me at the aviary.”

He flinched.

I loped off to Felines and found Linda outside picking up the cougar yard. She didn’t protest at my brief explanation, which I took as permission. The pole was in the kitchen, mixed in with the nets; I trotted back.

Calvin was standing inside World of Birds near one corner, glaring upwards. I looked up at the trunk of the artificial tree he indicated. A little masked face peered at us from about ten feet up, mostly hidden by the trunk and a branch. “It’s a youngster,” I told him.

“Get it out, or it’s not getting a day older.”

I’d never actually used a catch pole, aside from a brief practice session on a fat old possum during my early training. The possum hadn’t minded, since he was quite tame and eating dinner at the time. The little raccoon was smaller but a lot more agile than Pa Possum and she was clearly contemplating climbing higher. If she made it all the way up the trunk, I’d never be able to reach her.

Superb starlings—that’s their name—swooped down to perch near me, flashes of iridescent blue and chestnut. They had food on their mind and weren’t worried about the intruder. The nene parents, on the other hand, rushed me, hissing with their heads held low in threat posture, pecking at my boots. “Hey, I’m the good guy,” I told them. “Calvin, I need a ladder.” The other birds were hidden in foliage or crammed into far corners, except for the little Hottentot teals, who paddled about in the stream unconcerned. They should have been worried; a raccoon that could handle a young nene could munch them right up.

Calvin went off obediently. I moved away from the perpetrator to take the pressure off, in hopes she wouldn’t climb any higher. The nenes followed, hissing like teakettles. “Back off. I know what I’m doing,” I lied.

Calvin brought a stepladder, still muttering, and we set it up. He seemed willing to let me handle the varmint side of bird keeping, so I shooed him out of the way, and climbed up. I was careful not to look at the raccoon, although I didn’t fool her any. She knew I was after her. I teetered on the top step, the one labeled Do Not Stand Here, and adjusted the loop of lightweight cable at the business end of the pole. The cable ran through the pole and out the other end. I knew the theory—stick out the pole and loop the cable over the critter’s head and one foreleg, then tighten by pulling on the cable at the far end. At my end of the pole, the cable had a loop with a plastic handle for me to pull on. The catch pole was supposed to allow controlling the animal without choking or injuring it.

I got my balance and took a quick pass at the raccoon. She scooted around the trunk, evading the loop, and climbed up another few feet. I climbed down, moved the ladder, and tried again. Same result. The culprit looked like she was planning a jump to the next tree over, which would put her into dense foliage.

“Calvin, you stand here,” I ordered, placing him so that the raccoon couldn’t move away from me without moving toward Calvin.

I climbed back up the little ladder and positioned myself, hoping that the third time was the charm. Calvin surprised us all by winding up and hurling half an orange from a food tray, beaning the kid between the ears. The raccoon nearly lost her grip and I swooped in and got the cable around her neck and one—no—two forelegs. The cable was around her middle, behind the front legs. It wasn’t what I had in mind, but it didn’t look dangerous for her. I snugged it tight, but not too tight, and hauled her down the trunk, her claws scrabbling frantically as I teetered on the ladder. She fell the last couple of feet and whipped around to bite anything nearby. I clambered down, knocking over the ladder and further inciting the parent geese. I towed the littlest outlaw out of the aviary as she screeched raccoon death threats at me.

“Get a box or something,” I said. Calvin grabbed an empty garbage can and dumped it on its side. Together, we wrestled the kid inside and stood the can upright. Then I let some slack into the cable and eventually we got it disentangled from the raccoon. The youngster was hissing and growling savagely, but she didn’t look any the worse for wear. Calvin rounded up a hand truck, clapped a lid on the can, and hauled it off, promising to release the raccoon in some scrub forest on his way home. I went back into the aviary and collected limp fragments of goose, blocking the hostile parents with a feed bucket.

Calvin came back and we set to work fixing the hole in the mesh fence, kneeling on damp ground in the drizzle. A vivid Mexican green jay supervised from a nearby branch. The other small birds weren’t coming out of hiding, not yet. “Millions of dollars for the zoo and it all goes to new animals. Nobody gives a goldurn about the animals we already have,” he muttered, pounding a metal stake viciously.

“You could bring it up at the next staff meeting,” I suggested. “Put a little heat on Mr. Crandall.”

“I have talked myself blue in the face. This happens every blessed year—we lose something to rats or raccoons or possums. They’ve got all kinds of holes under the perimeter fence. This aviary needs replacing, but we got to have fancy exhibits for brand new stuff like clouded leopards.”