The Anteater of Death (34 page)

Authors: Betty Webb

BOOK: The Anteater of Death

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I heard no answering voice. Just the wind rushing though the trees, an owl’s hoot above, an annoyed lion’s roar from Africa Trail. The ranger was probably down there, making certain no mischievous teenagers had snuck into the zoo.

Wondering if my cell phone would work after all the abuse it had taken, I fished it out of my pocket. As I started to punch in 9-1-1, it rang.

More out of reflex than anything else, I answered.

Joe’s warm voice came over the line. “Hi, there, Teddy. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

Two days later Joe and I stood hand in hand on the tarmac of the San Jose International Airport, watching as a large crate stamped GUNN VINEYARDS: THE BEST OF THE WEST was loaded onto the Gunn family’s Lear jet.

“Come kiss us goodbye,” my mother said to me, smiling. She was clad in cream-colored linen, her hair freshly tinted. She’d gained back a whole half-pound since my father talked her into quitting the Strawberry/Carrot Diet.

“What, kiss you and Aster Edwina?”

“No, silly.” She winked.

“Oh.” I snuck a sidelong look at the serene countenance of the Gunn family doyenne, who didn’t seem at all disturbed that her grand-niece—who was fine, except for a few scratches on her hand and a superficial shoulder wound—now lay handcuffed to a bed in the San Sebastian County Hospital, facing double homicide charges. But why should Aster Edwina be bothered? The fleet of attorneys she’d hired had all but guaranteed that if convicted, Jeanette would spend her time in a mental hospital, not in prison doing someone else’s laundry. After all, Jeanette was a
Gunn.

“You understand that I can’t know anything about this,” Joe said, as my mother started for the plane.

I smiled as I leaned closer to him, inhaling his cologne. I would never let anything separate us again.

With my mother’s back to us, he snuck me a quick kiss, then whispered, “Hurry up and say goodbye. Just the thought of who’s on board makes my handcuffs twitch.”

I left him behind on the pavement and followed my mother and her unlikely co-conspirator up the plane’s stairs.

While Aster Edwina settled herself in one of the leather club chairs with her well-thumbed copy of Machiavelli’s
The Prince
and began to underline various passages, Caro led me toward the seating banquettes in the rear of the plane.

“It’s hard to believe she’s doing this for you, what with Jeanette under arrest and all,” I said. “You two don’t even get along.”

A dismissive wave. “She said something about us old families having to stick together. Besides, she always had a thing for your father.”

Crusty old Aster Edwina and Dad? Well, he always could charm birds out of the trees. Even the harpies.

Lifting the seat cushion off a banquette, Caro said, “Say goodbye to your father.”

Dad lay in the storage compartment underneath the banquette, dressed in a golf shirt and broadcloth slacks. Not Iceland, then. From his prone position, he waggled his fingers at me. “Your mother ordered me to order you to quit your job. Oh, and also to break up with that nice boyfriend of yours.” Then he smiled his wonderful smile. “I told her you never listen to me.”

“You’re right.” I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

“Kiss Al goodbye, too.”

I frowned. “Al Mazer? He’s going to wherever you’re going?”

Dad shrugged, not an easy thing to do when you’re lying in the bottom of a hollowed-out banquette. “Since he purposely flubbed that hit on me, he has to get out of town, too.”

My mouth flew open. “
Hit
? Do you mean to tell me Al works for
Chuckles
?”

My father had the decency to look abashed. “Not any more. Not after he was assigned to my, um,
case.
Talk about an ethical problem! It’s a sad day when duty to your employer dictates you do one thing, but friendship dictates you do another. Al told me he’d always liked working for Chuckles, who—money laundering and rubouts aside—is an excellent employer. He even gives freelancers like Al complete insurance coverage, which in this day and age, counts for something. Now go give Al that kiss.”

Caro lifted up the cushion on the facing banquette. Al Mazer lay beneath.

I didn’t kiss him. “You shot at my father, you creep.”

He looked contrite. “I made certain I missed. Believe me, I’m a much better shot than that. Your father was never in any danger and neither were you. Not from me, anyway.”

“You scared me!”

“Sorry about that. I did what I could to make up for it, though.”

It was all I could do not to grab Aster Edwina’s copy of
The Prince
and bash him over the head with it. “Are you
nuts
? How can you ever make up for shooting at someone?” I could still remember the whine of those bullets before they splashed into the water by the
Merilee
, so much like the sound other bullets had made as they flew by me as I swam for my life in Lucy’s moat. I never wanted to hear anything like that again.

He reached up and grasped my hand before I could snatch it away. “Remember how worried you’ve been about the
Merilee
not being able to make that trip to Dolphin Island?”

“Don’t you dare offer me blood money!” I yelled.

From the interior of the other banquette, my father called, “Pipe down, Teddy. Al understands that you have this silly thing about ethics.” The way he pronounced the word raised my ire even further.

Al gave me a sheepish grin. “You know Maxwell Jarvis? The guy who registered the complaint about the liveaboarders? When you get back to the harbor, you’ll find the complaint’s been withdrawn.”

“You
threatened
Maxwell?” I didn’t have to feign my outrage. “What, you left a dead horse’s head on his pillow?”

“That’s unnecessarily harsh.” Dad again. “Al merely suggested to Mr. Jarvis, who by the way is deeply invested in some questionable holdings himself, that he find another harbor for his own yacht since Gunn Landing so offends his sensibilities. He also pointed out that if Mr. Jarvis didn’t withdraw his complaint, the Securities and Exchange Commission would soon receive a letter, attached to photocopies and notarized statements.”

So the bane of Gunn Landing Harbor was a criminal, too. It made for a certain kind of justice, one crook blackmailing another. At least I didn’t have anything to do with the situation. Now the
Merilee
could remain in her slip, along with the
Tea 4 Two
, the
Running Wild
, and all the other floating homes.

“I still think it’s shoddy,” I grumbled.

A chuckle from my father. “Much of life is, Teddy. We just muddle along the best we can.”

He was right. So I gave Al a kiss, after all.

Then I kissed Caro.

As I walked toward the plane’s exit and approached Aster Edwina, I was in such a kissing mood that I even thought about bending over and giving her a peck on the cheek, too.

Common sense reasserted itself and I kept moving.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

The past few nights had been odd, Lucy reflected, as she prowled her enclosure in the early morning sunshine. First, the soft-voiced human thing had attempted to share her enclosure, promising bananas. Lucy had given her welcome, but no bananas had been forthcoming. Then that other human-thing, her voice shrill and squawky, had fallen in.

Maddening!

But this morning…

First came the belly-pain, which was terrible. To ease it, she had reared up on her hind legs and propped herself against her strong tail. The belly-pain didn’t go away, just kept up. She grunted and hissed, hoping the soft-voiced human-thing might hear her and bring a banana—that might help the belly-pain—but her friend was nowhere around.

After a forever, something big and wet slid from between her legs. Exhausted, she slumped to all fours and found a wiggling creature snuffling along the ground toward her, its long nose so much like her own.

What’s this?

Then she remembered. The soppy-wet thing was a
baby!
Long ago she’d had one of these and oh, how she’d loved it! The baby had suckled at her teats, ridden on her back, played Wrestle with her, sometimes even Chase! When it grew as big as Lucy, it had wandered away, never to return. But sometimes in her dreams, she remembered the feel of its tiny, soft snout.

With a joyous squeak, she trundled over to the baby. Carefully, talons tucked under her leathery pads so not to cause harm, she drew it to the nipple underneath her armpit.

Here, baby, here
!

While it suckled, she licked it clean with her long, blue tongue. Soon the baby, its belly full of milk, crawled up on her back, dug in with its tiny talons, and went to sleep.

Proud and happy, her baby safe and warm, Lucy looked down the trail, where she heard the hum of a nearing zoo cart. A screech of brakes, feet running through the brush on the back path, the clank of metal locks being opened, the squeal of gate hinges.

That familiar voice whispering, “Oh, my sweet Lucy!”

Lucy leaned against the holding pen where her friend, the human female with hair the color of flowers, stood laughing and weeping.

Feeling magnanimous in her own joy, Lucy flicked her blue tongue through the metal fence links and kissed her friend’s hand.

Wait. Was that…?

Oh, yes, it was.

Banana!

M
ORE FROM THIS
A
UTHOR

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