Night Kill (26 page)

“Hap?” I called, walking toward his voice. Fluorescent lights overhead threw white splashes of light contrasting with dark shadows. The familiar space felt spooky and alien.

I stopped and put one hand in my pocket, reassuring myself with my new pepper spray. I took a good look at the maze of shelves full of vitamins, marmoset diet, canned peaches, and a thousand other items. Nearby, ceiling-high metal shelving held paper products, bags of monkey chow, and duck food. I didn’t see anybody lurking, but this was a great place to skulk unseen. My shoulder blades started to prickle.

I stood rooted, about to flee, when Hap laughed, still talking with someone from inside the freezer, probably Diego, the night keeper.

“Hap?” I bellowed.

I heard Hap laugh again, relaxed and ordinary. It was possible they couldn’t hear me. I was about a dozen feet from the open freezer door, and I was not going one inch closer. If Hap or Diego didn’t stick his head out in two seconds, I was out of there. I pulled out the pepper spray and checked that I had it oriented so that I wouldn’t spray myself.

The blow landed squarely between my shoulders and slammed me flat on my face and chest. The pepper spray went flying. A foot shoved my butt, skidding me across smooth cement into the freezer. The lights went out and the door pushed against the bottoms of my feet as it closed.

I scrambled to my feet, staggering back to hands and knees as I lost my balance, ruled by the primitive imperative to face my attacker on my feet. I fumbled for the light switch and lurched against the door as soon as they came on. The door held, the outside latch in place. The big concrete door was designed with a safety release. I grabbed the bar that ran through the door and pushed hard. Instead of engaging and disconnecting the latch, it moved forward without resistance, as if the latch weren’t in place. I shoved the door again. It didn’t open.

The door wasn’t latched, it was jammed shut.

I hurled my shoulder against it, took a running start and did it again. And again. I panted from fear and exertion, but the door was not budging. I took hold of the safety release again and pulled instead of pushing, alternating pulling on it and shoving on the door with my aching shoulder. The door gave a tiny bit and moved a little more with each push or pull. Whatever held it shut was working loose. I was sweating from exertion and panic, yanking and slamming my shoulder.

The door stopped moving that little bit forward and back. I pulled and pushed harder, not believing it. After a dozen more attempts, I figured it out. Whoever had trapped me was still there. Whatever was jamming the door had been adjusted. This wasn’t going to work.

Hap laughed, inside the freezer with me.

I looked around. I was alone with my pounding heart and fear-sweat, but Hap talked on. The voice was coming from fish boxes, herring in two stacks six feet high. A cordless speaker was perched on top. A recording. Even as I finally noticed the tinny sound of the voice, the freezer fell silent. The killer had shut off the tape player outside the freezer. Hap? Would Hap do this to me? My doubts flooded back.

It was bitter cold, probably close to the zero degrees Fahrenheit it was supposed to be.

Panic shuts down the brain. I tried two deep, chilly breaths, then spotted a hand truck with three fish boxes ready for Diego to wheel out. I threw the boxes off and tried to push the hand truck platform under the door to use as a pry. The door fit far too tightly. Quality construction.

My hands were cold and shaking. I tried the release bar a dozen more times, a dozen variations. This was my second lesson that a cell phone was more important to my health than medical insurance. I paused and tried the deep breathing again, taking a moment to thank the paranoid electrician who had put the light switch on the inside instead of the outside. Being trapped in the dark would be a thousand times worse. Better to die with a good view of boxes of ground meat, packaged in plastic tubes; donated berries; clear bags of white lab rats; boxed Popsicles for the monkeys. Six or seven whole salmon stared frostily at me from a work counter. Everything was rock-hard, hostile.

The lights brightened briefly and another jolt of panic went through me. If my assailant disabled the lights, I would become sincerely hysterical. But it was just the cooling apparatus kicking off. The open door had let warm air in and the equipment had brought the temperature back to its set point and shut itself off.

What among all this would keep me alive? Lots of cardboard boxes. I could start a fire. With what match? And the fire would use up all the oxygen and I’d suffocate. Breathing deliberately, I looked around the room really carefully. Nope, no other doors I’d failed to notice. I found the pepper spray and put it back in my pocket.

The lights flickered and dimmed as the motor hummed on again. A breeze I hadn’t noticed before kicked up. I headed to the back of the freezer and started tossing boxes out of the way, examining each for a polar bear hide or a space heater, until I got down to the machinery. I found the power switch and slapped it off. It quit humming. The breeze died and the lights brightened. Not that this would do me any good. The room would probably stay below freezing for a good two weeks with the door closed, even with the cooler off.

I could stack up boxes and climb to the ceiling, but there wasn’t any exit up there either. I tried waving my arms and jumping up and down to warm up. It was soon clear that I was only going to freeze tired.

I was out of ideas, desperate and despairing. Composing myself as an attractive corpse-sicle seemed like my last option. I wasn’t shivering anymore—I was shuddering violently. I remembered reading that freezing to death was a pleasant way to go—you simply fell asleep. I had to disagree, based on experience so far. Being cold is loathsome. The cold saturated my jacket and pants, claiming arms and thighs. Numb fingers, icy feet.

Inactivity was still impossible. I staggered over to the freezer unit and began flipping the switch on and off. The lights dimmed each time it went on, then brightened again. Cold air pulsed briefly each time. Dully I thought that maybe the lights would flicker throughout the zoo. Maybe George or the night keeper would notice. Fat chance. I flicked the switch and tried to remember how Morse code for SOS went. Three shorts, three longs, three shorts? Or was it three longs, three shorts, three longs? Did it matter?

This was a great opportunity to reflect on how stupid I’d been, once again thoroughly outfoxed. Despair and frustration and cold put me in tears. “I figured out why, Rick,” I said aloud, “and I tried to find out who did it to you, but I can’t pull it off. Your killer is going to get away with it.” And I was going to die alone. “I wish I could believe you told me the truth and just love you and miss you.” The lie about quitting drinking ached—Billie Holiday’s voice was breathy in my mind’s ear.

Or was I asking the wrong question? Maybe all along I should have been asking how it could be that he told the truth and still died with a belly full of liquor.

Cold was congealing my brain. The lions knew who; no one else ever would. I flicked the switch faithfully, but I was drowsy and discouraged. On, off, on, off. The lights dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened. My hands weren’t working well. I’d finally figured something out and forgotten it again, too tired and sleepy. Trusting Rick’s word had something to do with the sick penguin getting dehydrated. Spice going down to the bottom of the moat—when and why did she do that?

I’d nap a little while, then maybe it would make sense. Nothing but sleep mattered very much anymore.

Chapter Twenty-two

After some indefinable time, a voice assaulted me, close by and too loud—disturbing. Slowly meaning penetrated: “Hey, you’re going to wreck that unit!”

The voice emerged from George, the security guard, standing at the open freezer door. His broad, open face was baffled and concerned, blue uniform tight across his belly, belt lost under its slope. “What the heck are you doing? The lights keep blinking; you gotta stop that. Hap doesn’t like anybody messing around in here.”

I mumbled something and staggered from a hunched crouch to my feet. My legs weren’t working right. George held my arm, protesting mildly and steadily, as I weaved to the laundry room. I found the thermostat and turned it up. The big heater hanging from the ceiling kicked on, and I stood shaking, facing the blast of warm air, inhaling it deep into my lungs. He shoved a chair under my rear and I sat back.

“Why’d you stay in there if you were so cold? I gotta put this in my report, you know.”

“Do what you need to do.” Muzzy intuition kept me from telling him the truth.

George dithered uneasily while my strength slowly returned. After several minutes, I was able to walk back to the freezer door, now closed—blank, inoffensive, normal. A door I saw and ignored every workday.

I found where a thin, tapered object might be inserted between the door and its frame to jam it. Hap’s heavy wooden-handled cleaver sat on the stainless steel work counter ten feet from the door.

At the sound of George’s electric cart, someone had pulled the cleaver out and vanished. George had saved my life simply by showing up. “George, did you see anybody when you came in here?” I looked around at the shadowy aisles.

“No. I didn’t see nobody. I went to get my Popsicle. Hap says I can have one a night. What were you doing in there, anyway?” His voice was querulous. George was best at dealing with the ordinary.

If I told him the truth, tomorrow Wallace would boot me out of the zoo, one accident too many, with Marcie’s and my parents’ full support. My plan was to resolve this situation later tonight, but I might need more time. And keeping this secret was the unexpected thing to do—I’d reported the previous accidents. Maybe it would give me some advantage over my opponent. “I lost something. I was looking for it. Thanks for…Nice to see you, George.” I turned the thermostat back down and started to walk, still shivering, out of the building. Craven and exhausted, I turned back. “George, will you run me to the parking lot?”

He was pleased to be helpful. “Sure. I guess I got time.”

I climbed in and we rode through the twilight to the employee parking lot. We saw no one.

The truck heater roaring, I drove around Vancouver in circles until I was sure no one was following me. I felt terrible, in many dimensions. Shoulders, breasts, arms, and butt all ached from physical abuse. A headache was drumming its way to life. My bones were immune to warmth, permafrost below the surface. I was so tired I could hardly drive. Panic crouched icy and intractable at my core. Only basic survival instincts were functioning. They said that refueling was mandatory.

At the back booth of a little café I’d never noticed before, I sat facing the door, adrenaline spiking each time it opened. The waitress brought a charred steak glazed with grease, a damp baked potato wrapped in aluminum foil with a glob of sour cream and another of butter, and overcooked green beans. I ate it all, plus the stale dinner roll, and asked for more coffee. The waitress failed on chocolate cake, but delivered an acceptable blackberry cobbler.

Now what?

I had Rick’s life insurance, a sizeable stake. My parents would help me pack the truck. I’d call the landlord and leave a check for the last month. Forget the cleaning deposit. What about Bessie Smith? Denny. She could go to Denny. I’d spend the night at the folks’, leave town tomorrow. Tell them I wanted to see some of the country. No permanent address for a while. Give it a couple of months, then settle down in some little town far away. Maybe find a job in landscape work or at an animal shelter.

I couldn’t bring Rick back, and there was no point in getting killed trying. I could still be sleeping in the freezer, beyond fear or obligation or responsibility.

The waitress orbited by with more coffee. I ordered the peach pie. Skip the à la mode. She removed the berry cobbler remnants—a fragment of crust and a smear of juice. The headache was gone and I seemed to be approaching 98.6 degrees throughout.

I could be safe again. No more looking over my shoulder, wondering what deadfall I was about to trigger. Just me and the dogs. I’d talk to Marcie and my parents by phone every week. Maybe Linda too. I could change my name, no law against it if I wasn’t defrauding anyone.

I yearned for this like a seedling straining toward a sunny window.

The peach pie vanished. Not in the same league as my mother’s, but not bad. Apple pie didn’t sound good. I sipped the last of the coffee and sighed. My waistband was tight, a comfy feel.

Turkey vultures circled over my new Eden, drawn by the smell of decay at the foundation. This new plan offered tenuous safety based on hiding, hiding from myself as well as any pursuer. Living with failure; betraying Rick’s love. A rotting base for a new life.

The problem was, I knew who had killed Rick and had come so close to killing me. I’d reconstructed my insights from the freezer. As soon as I asked the right question and believed what Spice showed me, the answer emerged again, like a trick image resolving out of a chaotic background. Once I knew who, then I knew where the tooth came from and why Rick died.

If I fled instead of sticking with my original plan for the evening, the killer was going to get away with two murders.

Chapter Twenty-three

The cougars were up and about. Their pale shapes rose and fell in the cool, moist night as they romped. They chirped like birds, one of their many un-catlike sounds, and thumped solidly as they landed. My stomach was still tight against my jeans, but now it felt stuffed and heavy. I’d rested for a few minutes in the parking lot and weary muscles had stiffened up. Fear crouched in its den, waiting. I stood in front of the exhibit and watched longer than I should have.

I wasn’t going to get any smarter or stronger standing in the dark. A dull, iron resolve finally pulled me away from the cougars and around the building toward the staff door. Bagheera, the black leopard, stalked me from behind the wire as I walked. He was invisible but for dim light glinting off his satin coat, a deeper black sliding in and out of shadow.