Tailed (2 page)

On the third hand, assuming I had one, I had never owned a dog. Not that my brother, Nicholas, and I hadn't begged our mother for one. But my mother wouldn't have it. “Animals,” Gabby would say, “are meant to be free.” There was a goose and a duck that lived out back, but they were hardly pets.

Well, there was one pet, once. At the tender age of seven I found a puppy—of sorts—by the railroad tracks and hid it in my tree house for a week or two. Let's just say it ended badly.

With a sigh, I began to flip through the info on mid-sized to small terriers. Jack Russell, wire fox, miniature schnauzer…but it was hard to stay focused.

I couldn't imagine Sprunty hadn't heard me enter. Surely when he was finished slipping the wood to that cheerleader he'd come looking for me. He wouldn't want to keep his appraiser waiting long. I might get testy.

After half an hour of looking for the least objectionable mutt, I was getting impatient. If I had a cell phone, I would have called somebody. The bear arm was beginning to worry me, too. Why would Sprunty cut the arm off his own bear mount, and right before an appraisal? Was it possible he'd cut it off somebody else's trophy on a wager or something?

Weary of the delay, I determined to barge in on the couple. Half an hour was long enough for Sprunty to have done what he needed to do. Now they were probably just in there having cosmos and cheese curls or something.

I pushed through the door at the far end of the pantry. When the door swung closed behind me, I was submerged in darkness, awash in ripples of aqua-marine, in the depths of the hushed silence of wall-to-wall carpeting. Across a sizable room and beyond a gargantuan sectional sofa was a large array of sliding glass doors leading to a patio and lighted pool. Ah—they must be out by the pool.

But moments later I was standing next to the turquoise glow and somnolent hum of the pool. No Sprunty. No cheerleader. No panties. Just the frogs and crickets chirping away.

I walked back through the sliding doors and felt along the wall for a light switch. Suddenly, Sprunty's trophy room blazed all around me. I could see that it extended almost the full width of the house, with dark paneled walls, white cathedral ceilings, white wall-to-wall shag, and white upholstered furniture.

Fulmore certainly had bragging rights. The pieces on the wall were mostly exotic, many full-bodied, and few of them small. A brooding black Cape buffalo the size of a Mini Cooper was parked in one corner, a gnu at full gallop charged out from another. Along one wall, three rows of gazelle heads were arranged by size like some taxonomic display. There were mountain goats standing on fake rocks in the room's center, a lion jumping a Grant's gazelle beyond that. Elk, moose, and rhino heads up there, a five-hundred-pound black marlin up over there. A snarling polar bear clawed the air to the left of the stone fireplace, a cougar jumped a pronghorn by the bar, and a wolf gnashed its teeth over the door. It was like one of those sporting goods megastores. Taxidermy overkill. Or just plain overkill.

My eyes finally locked onto the black bear, which was standing in the corner to my right, his elbows stirring the air. Both forearms were missing, and I held only one of them in my hand. What kind of nut mutilates one of his trophies?

Even from across the room I could see the bear was out of place. All the other animals here were modern taxidermy. It's not unusual for collections to include a number of older pieces, but it's less common to contain only one. Big-game hunting is a passion often passed from one generation to the next, right along with the old money, and many of the collections I appraised contained older pieces passed down from father to son. Whether that was the case with Sprunty I had no idea. It was certainly true for me: my love of “wildlife art” began at a tender age in a home filled with my grandfather's trophies, even though my father didn't hunt, and neither do I.

The black bear was helping the polar bear flank the fireplace on the far side of the large sectional couch, and to get there I sauntered behind the sectional, around the mountain goats, and in front of the bar. Ahead I saw something red.

The panties. I reached down to pick them up.

But what I encountered was wet. It was two dimensional. It was a stain.

My eyes swam—it must be red paint, cranberry juice, grenadine, Campari, raspberry syrup…but then the metallic bite of blood stung my nose.

I found my back pressed against the front of the bar, my hand reaching for the phone next to the beer taps. Fumble: Carson knocks the phone off the bar and onto the floor behind it.

“Nine one one, nine one one…” I was afraid I might forget the number as I stumbled behind the bar in search of the phone.

I stumbled, all right.

Onto Sprunty.

He'd been mauled by a bear. How'd I know? Sure, those gashes in his chest could have been made by a knife. But Fulmore's intestines were wrapped around the bear's missing arm and paw.

There was blood everywhere, and I almost slipped in it as I reached next to his head for the phone. I was averting my eyes from the gore, my breath coming fast, grunting with disgust, when I grabbed Sprunty by the nose by accident. His eyes, thankfully, were mostly closed. But his mouth was open. Something white was sticking out of it. A lizard? No, a gecko, probably a common house gecko. Dead, too? I didn't know, I didn't care.

I grasped the phone and wheeled back around to the other side of the bar, falling to my knees on the clean white carpet. I misdialed three times before I got it right.

That was the day Sprunty's problems became mine.

chapter 2

I
didn't like my new job much in the days after Sprunty's death. Being interviewed by the police was one thing, but being hounded by the press was another. At first they camped in the hallway outside my hotel room. When the hotel kicked them out, they hid in vans outside the hotel. When I tried to make my getaway toward New York, they followed and jumped me at a gas station. Meanwhile, back at my New York homestead, they'd beset Angie looking for details. I even saw Otto on the evening news, microphones shoved toward his smiling steel dental work as he tried to flirt with one of the lady reporters. They kept asking what he meant by “not lookink.”

Media frenzy? I'd call it media ape shit. They were desperate for details, and the police weren't letting them have any. I was keeping my lip buttoned, too. Stella Lombardo, my handler at Wilberforce/Peete, had reminded me of their policy against discussing any matter pertaining to policyholders with third parties outside the firm. I got so used to saying “no comment,” that I reflexively said it to a Bob Evans waitress trying to take my order. Let's be honest: a waitress holding a pen and pad does look kind of like a reporter.

Thankfully, someone in the police department finally cracked and leaked a dribble of details that splashed across the headlines coast to coast.

FULMORE HACKED
SPORTS STAR SLASHED
BEAR MAULS BEAR

Mind you, I was avoiding newspapers. Having had the fun of discovering the body and living with the image of Fulmore's intestines wrapped around a bear paw, I had no interest in following the case. But what little I absorbed by the time I got to Cleveland five days after the murder suggested that the police were being ridiculed. No leads, no suspects. The case was getting cold.

Safely ensconced in the basement of Griswold's Funeral Home, I felt more at ease than I had in days.

Griswold's had nothing to do with Sprunty's end run through the mortal veil of tears. His funeral had played out the day before in Florida, his home state.

But Griswold's had everything to do with white squirrels. Lots and lots of them.

Don't ask me why, but there are a number of collectors who are fascinated by animal albinism. There's a historical society in Lima, Ohio, that displays perhaps the world's most extensive collection of albino taxidermy: porcupines, flying squirrels, hawks, owls, badgers, and any other domestic critter you might care to imagine. Or not.

Mr. Griswold, the funeral director, was one such fellow, and he flooded the basement of his mortuary with white
Sciurus caroliniensis.
I've seen my share of black squirrels among New York's legions of nut eaters, but never a white one. Though I understand there are towns across the land that stake their claim to fame as “Home of the White Squirrel.”

But what made this collection unique was that the squirrels were all anthropomorphically arranged. That is, Griswold had seen fit to pose the white squirrels in the pursuit of human activities. Driving pink convertibles. Playing cards. Riding a Ferris wheel that actually turned to the hum of a motor. Drinking at a bar. Fishing. Golfing. Surfing. Each elaborate diorama was in a lighted display case built into the wall, like fish tanks at an aquarium.

A lot of white squirrels? I'd counted ninety-seven in all. It was a darn sight easier estimating the value of garden-variety trophies. Unless you count the stuffed-frog mariachi bands up for sale on eBay, you don't see a slew of anthropomorphic taxidermy for sale. Then again, Griswold's collection wasn't in the running for the big-game hunter sweepstakes, so I didn't anticipate that a lower-than-expected valuation would elicit the kind of thunderous, scotch-soaked indignation I'd get from some Lord Blastaway.

“Mr. Carson?” Devon, a pretty blond employee in funerary garb, was halfway down the basement steps. “There's someone here for you. From Wilberforce/ Peete.”

“Here?” I put down my pad and pen. Hmm. Had I screwed up somehow?

Descending past the blonde on the stairs was another blonde. Or should I say white. White shoulder-length hair, dark sunglasses, skin the color of pizza dough.

Stella Lombardo. My boss.

She was in a peach-colored pantsuit, aqua scarf around her neck, aqua pumps. Unlike most people entering a basement in sunglasses, the low light hadn't fazed her as she scanned her surroundings. She put a hand on her slender hip.

“Disgusting.”

I looked around behind me at the squirrels, then back at her. This was kind of awkward. Someone with oculocutaneous albinism confronted by a room full of white, pink-eyed squirrels. An albino in a room full of albinos collected as oddities.

“Pretty unusual, I'll say that.” I displayed a frown that I thought would please my boss. But I stopped short of asking her why she was there. No need. I was sure she'd tell me when she was ready.

Like a captain inspecting fresh recruits, Stella slowly scanned the display cases, eventually coming back to me. I couldn't see her eyes, only their motion behind the dark glass. Nystagmus, a common side symptom of albinism, meant her eyes quivered uncontrollably, and her head wobbled slightly to counteract the effect so she could see straight.

“I'd say low estimate, wouldn't you, Garth?”

I glanced at my pad reflexively. “Not much resale value.”

“Resale value? This stuff should be burned. Griswold is a freak, and this…gruesome display is a sick vendetta against albinism. Christ. What's the matter with people?”

I was beginning to feel implicated. “I've never understood the fascination with albino mounts myself.”

“What's to understand? You don't see people collecting only yellow animals, do you? Or only red?”

I was tempted to point out that those weren't color variegations of any species I'd seen taxidermied. But I didn't. I'd learned a long time ago, in the trenches at Dairy Twist one summer, not to comment to the boss on the quality of the food.

“Are you almost done down here, Garth?”

“Yes.” I almost said
Yes, sir.

“I'll be in the lobby.”

“Roger. Fifteen minutes.” Wasn't I just the model staff sergeant?

After finishing my appraisal, I went upstairs and found Stella in the potpourri-and nicotine-laden “Comfort Lounge.” An ultra-slim brown cigarette wisped between two fingers, like a smoldering pretzel stick held high and to the side. She sat uneasily in a wing chair as though the cushions were lumpy. But I knew it was just nervous energy. Stella never looked comfortable.

“Sit.” She puffed, her head jiggling slightly. “We've got a situation.”

This didn't sound good. I sat down in an over-stuffed chair opposite her, and almost sank to the floor in its soft cushions.

“By ‘situation,' I mean”—she puffed again—“I mean Sprunty isn't the first.”

“First?” I squinted with confusion. “First what?”

“First victim.”

“Ah…” What was she on about? First rule of being a toady is to pretend to understand your boss's most obtuse musings.

She nodded, waving her burning pretzel. “The police have determined there's a pattern developing.”

I lapsed into the sycophant's patented cerebral pose, hand to my chin, head nodding gently, eyes skyward—like I understood. But I didn't.

“Titan, remember him?”

“Titan Harris? Sure. I appraised his trophy collection, in Texas, about a month ago, I guess.” The clouds of obfuscation suddenly parted. I tried to sit forward with alarm, but sank deeper into the quicksand of my chair's cushions instead. “You don't mean…”

She stabbed her cigarette in my direction. “Dead. At first, it appeared that his ram's head just fell off the wall onto his head. That the wall anchor gave way.”

I knit my brow. Gads. A ram's head was hefty enough to put quite a dent in one's noggin. “I hadn't heard. So now…”

“Now…” She took a deep drag, then loosed a long, thin stream of smoke. “Now it appears that someone dropped it on Titan's head intentionally.”

“How do they know?”

Stella stood, looking around suspiciously as she dropped her pretzel in the ashtray. “Outside.”

My briefcase and I struggled from the grasp of the armchair and followed.

Out in the sun, Stella's white hair and skin fairly glowed, and she ducked her head against the glare as she climbed into the driver's side of her rental car. I got in the passenger side.

“This is strictly confidential. Nobody must know this detail. The police are already struggling with a media frenzy, and only the real killer will know this detail. Say ‘hush-hush.'”

Making me repeat things was Stella's way of subjugating me. All bosses have some sort of dominance routine. If they only knew it made their employees suspect them of being nuttier than Mr. Peanut.

“Hush-hush.”

“Good. It's hush-hush, so don't even tell your wife. The FBI didn't even want to tell me.”

Angie wasn't my wife, but my urge to correct her was subordinate to my growing curiosity.

“I tell nobody. Hush-hush. So, how do they know Titan was murdered with the ram's head? And why do they think it was the same person who killed Fulmore?”

“A gecko.”

I shuddered. My mental TV buzzed with the image of Sprunty's half-closed eyes and the lizard in his mouth. “There was a lizard in Texas, too?”

“Not just any lizard, Garth. A gecko. A white gecko.”

White squirrels, white boss, white geckos? They say bad things come in threes. But this was creeping me out a little, making me feel like I was being sucked into the dank realm of the Morlocks, a dominion devoid of melatonin. I had a sudden itch to lather up with cocoa butter, crawl out from under my rock, and work up a golden brown tan.

“Didn't the cops, you know, think that was unusual?”

“They tell me geckos are relatively common in Texas. The local police just thought it had wandered into his house and somehow died in his hand. God, what I wouldn't do for an overcast day.”

Stella surveyed the sunshine outside with contempt. Given how much I enjoy driving with the top down, soaking up the rays, I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. Albinism had rendered her eyes and skin at odds with glorious solar radiation. I was actually surprised she was able to drive, as many albinos' vision is too poor. But I'd sensed from our first meeting that Stella was the type who'd insist on doing jumping jacks if she had palsy. Sure, she was thin, pink and blue and white, but under the surface you could see she was constantly fighting, simmering. I'd never had a dustup with her. And I hoped to keep it that way.

“So, what's this have to do with Wilberforce/ Peete?”

Stella looked at me incredulously, and I caught a glint of blue and pink from behind the shades. Albino humans don't have pink eyes, usually just pale blue ones. But sometimes in just the right light there was a flash of pink from the retina.

“Two of our clients have cashed in their life insurance policies. Big ones. We don't want a third.”

“So they think there's a killer targeting big game hunters?”

“Not just a killer, Garth. Because of the commonality of the victims as big-game hunters, the mutilation of Sprunty, and the ritualism of placing a white gecko on the victim, the FBI thinks there's a serial killer at work. You have to help catch him.”

If there had been an ejection seat in that car, I would have thrown the lever.

“Me? Why me?”

“I will not whine. Say it.”

“I'm not whining! I'm just surprised.”

“Say it.”

I groaned. “I will not whine.”

“Better. But no groaning, either. I'd think you'd be a little more resilient, like your brother, Nicholas.”

I closed my eyes, composing myself. Nobody likes to be chastised, much less to have their cut-rate Simon Templar of a brother held up as some sort of paradigm.

I opened my eyes and spoke with the calm, inter-stellar decorum of Spock addressing Vulcan high priestess T'Lar. “Stella, my brother is a professional investigator who, through the benefit of experience, is resilient in the face of things like murder. I, on the other hand, am not a professional investigator. I am an appraiser. I have no professional experience with murderers. Why have I been chosen to help find this serial killer?”

“Not to help
find,
just to help. You were one of the last people to see Titan Harris alive, and you had an appointment with Sprunty Fulmore right around the time he was murdered. Do you think you might have some idea who would want to kill these big-game hunters?”

I bowed my head, trying to remain calm. “Anybody at U.S. Fish and Wildlife would have the same guesses as mine. First suspect would probably be animal rightists.”

“The FBI has discounted that. Doesn't fit the profile. They would have claimed responsibility, and they wouldn't have killed two geckos.”

“OK, fine. That's all I've got. Unless you're willing to entertain the notion that the trophies themselves are taking revenge on the hunters.”

“Why don't you want this assignment, Garth? All you have to do is sit around and play expert, be our eyes and ears with the FBI and see if there's anything we can do to keep our other clients from collecting their life insurance prematurely.”

“Stella, why not just put armed guards at all our clients' homes until this is solved?”

“Do you realize how many trophy-hunter clients we have? Besides, the FBI wants this kept under wraps.”

“At the expense of Wilberforce/Peete's clients? Essentially, the FBI wants to use them as bait, am I right?”

“And we're none too happy about it.”

“So I'm supposed to go in there and try to keep our clients from getting killed even as the FBI is hoping they
will
get killed.”

Stella handed me a white folder.