The Koala of Death (33 page)

Barrymore laughed delightedly, although she did step out of koala-reach. “I didn’t know koalas were attracted by diamonds. Jackdaws, maybe, but not koalas.”

“Animals surprise us all the time, don’t they, Drew?”

A blinding Hollywood smile. “Tell me about it! I remember when Flossie, my adopted yellow Lab-Chow, brought home a bird in her mouth. I almost had a heart attack before I realized it hadn’t been hurt, just wet.”

I returned her smile. “Flossie was giving her favorite human a gift. Tell me, did you let the bird go? Or did you decide to keep it?”

When she said that she’d walked the bird into the woods and released it, I turned to the camera and delivered a short sermon on how to deal with “found” wild animals. During this, Wanchu grew bored and reached for Barrymore’s earring again. The star retaliated by scratching Wanchu’s head, something the koala had always enjoyed.

“Her fur isn’t as soft as it looks,” she said, once my spiel wound down. “It’s bristly.”

Donation phones ringing behind me, I took this as a cue to trot out another short spiel, this time about koalas and their rapidly vanishing habitats. Once I had finished, Van Patten handed me a coffee mug with a picture of a dog and cat on it, bearing the legend,
ADOPT A FRIEND TODAY.
As I left the set, another well-known actress stepped to the mike, accompanied by two small white dogs.

“And now let’s talk to Glenn Close,” Barrymore bubbled, “and her friends Jake and Bill! Glenn, tell us about your website,
FetchDog.com.”

With a great feeling of relief, I settled Wanchu in her eucalyptus leaf-filled carrier and headed down the hall toward the exit. Before I reached the door, my cell phone rang. It was Helen, calling from the zoo.

Helen said, “Sorry I couldn’t get to you earlier, but I’ve been so busy helping Zorah coordinate our volunteer roster at the marathon…Oh, well, you don’t need to hear about my problems. Now that everyone’s down there and taking care of business, I want you to know that I spent the night looking at those discs and printouts you gave me.”

“And?” I started to open the door.

“You were right, Teddy. About everything.”

I set the koala down to give me time to collect myself. “So it
was
piracy then!”

“Technically, no, but not being an attorney, I’m not sure how criminal courts would have handled the actual crime at the time it occurred, if it even was a crime. Civil court, that’s a different story entirely. Remember O.J. Simpson. Found innocent in his state trial, guilty in the civil one. Millions of dollars in damages levied against him. In this particular case, we might be talking billions.”

Although she couldn’t see me, I shook my head. “Killing Kate and Heck probably wasn’t so much about the money, Helen, as it was about loss of face. Now that I’ve got the proof to take to the sheriff, I think…” Over the sounds of Wanchu’s leaf-munching, I thought I heard something behind me. A door closing? When I turned around and looked down the long hallway, I saw nothing. But better safe than sorry. “Look, Helen, I’m still at the television station. I need to get Wanchu back to the zoo before…”

“Call the sheriff first, Teddy.”

“As soon as I’m in the van.” With that I hauled Wanchu up again and hurried out the exit to the parking lot.

It was almost dark, but the parking lot still bustled with volunteers leaving and arriving for the marathon. I’d left the zoo’s van parked under a light stanchion, so it was easy to secure the koala carrier in the back. Once that had been accomplished, I climbed into the driver’s seat and speed-dialed Joe’s cell, but found myself turned over to voice mail. Instead of leaving a message, I disconnected and dialed his office, where the harried-sounding receptionist transferred me to an old middle school friend, now-Deputy Ralph Lazlo, who told me Joe would be back as soon as the mess was cleared up.

“What mess?” I saw a limo pull into the parking lot next to me, and a woman who looked like Alicia Silverstone emerge with two dogs of indeterminate breed and a carrier containing—from the yowls that emerged—an unhappy cat.

“Apparently you haven’t been listening to the news, Teddy,” Ralph grumped, bringing my attention back. “There was a big chemical spill at that industrial plant on the east side. Half the department’s there with a hazmat team. He accompanied them because it’s the company’s second spill of the year, and now the Feds are getting involved. Want to leave a message?”

Deciding that Joe would check his phone before returning to the office, I said no and dialed Joe’s cell again, this time telling him who had killed Kate Nido, why, and how I’d found out. Before I could add that I was on my way back to the zoo with Wanchu, voice mail cut me off. There’s technology for you.

“Okay, Wanchu, we’re headed home,” I called as I cinched my seat belt. Hearing an answering “Eeep,” I pulled out of the parking lot.

Rush hour being well over I made it through town to the Gunn Landing turnoff with little trouble, and we were soon cruising along Bentley Road toward the zoo. The road was deserted by now and, since the gentle dusk of evening had segued into full dark, I flipped on the van’s brights. My surroundings were invisible beyond the headlights’ arc, but to my right lay the remnants of the old Bentley cattle ranch, now reduced to a strip of pastureland. A mile further back from the pasture was Bentley Heights, the ticky-tacky housing development that so offended the Gunns. On the other side of the road stood the tall blue gum eucalyptus forest that bordered the Gunn family vineyards. Not only did the trees provide meal after meal for Wanchu and her mate, but it created a refuge for wildlife, too.

My headlights suddenly illuminated a doe and her fawn standing in the middle of the road. I stood on the brakes, and the van’s tires screeched for several teeth-clenching yards before stopping mere inches from the doe’s shining eyes. Oblivious to their near-death experience, the two deer bounded across the blacktop and into the trees.

“You okay back there?” I called to Wanchu.

No answer. Just more gnawing of koala teeth on eucalyptus leaves.

As I pressed the accelerator, I said, “Glad to hear you’re fine, Wanchu. Just stay settled down, and we’ll reach the zoo in about fifteen minutes. After you’re tucked into your night house, I’ll…”

Headlights behind me, approaching fast. Someone was in a hurry.

Slowing my speed, I edged over to the right to give the driver room to pass. Not wanting to blind him, I dimmed my lights. He, not so courteous, flipped on his brights. He didn’t even slow down. When the car closed the distance between us much too quickly, I began to worry. Drunk driver?

I edged even further to the side, so much so that the tires on the passenger’s side crunched on gravel. This maneuver should have given the other driver room to pass.

It didn’t.

Before I could grasp what was happening, the car slammed into the van’s bumper.

My hands clenched around the steering wheel while I fought to keep the van on the road. Out of the rear-view mirror, I saw the car back off several yards, then speed up again as if aiming purposely for the van.

Attempts at evasion having failed, I floored the accelerator to get as much speed out of the van as possible, but it wasn’t enough. The car’s bumper made contact again, this time even harder. The van lurched forward, and I was thrown against the seat.

“Eeeeeeep!”
Wanchu shrieked.

“Hang on, girl!” I shouted.

As I prepared for another rear-end assault, the driver changed tactics. Instead of aiming for my bumper, he dropped back several feet, then sped up and pulled alongside me. It was a Mercedes almost twice the size of my mother’s, and although I couldn’t see its driver, I knew who it was.

Ford Bronson.

The man who had killed Kate and Heck.

The man who only a few nights ago had tried to kill me.

For a few seconds we sped neck-and-neck along the narrow blacktop, then he dropped back again, but this time, not all the way. Before I could even gasp, the Mercedes swerved sharply to the right and hit the van’s rear left fender so hard that the van began to spin. The steering wheel wrenched itself out of my grasp, and I lost all control. Seemingly in slo-mo, the van toppled over and slid on its roof straight along the pavement, lighting up the night in a shower of sparks.

During the roll, the van’s rear doors popped open. Still suspended upside down by my seatbelt, I could only watch, horrified, as Wanchu’s carrier tumbled end over end, out the door, and onto the blacktop.

“Oh, Wanchu!” I grieved, briefly distracted from my own perilous situation.

My grief was short-lived. The van continued to slide, but by the time it came to rest facing back in the direction of San Sebastian, its still-working headlights illuminated a terrified koala scampering across the road toward the eucalyptus forest.

At least one of us would make it, then. But I’d try for two.

With shaking fingers, I unlocked the seat belt, dropped to the roof of the van, and staggered across the road in Wanchu’s wake. No point in waiting for help. None of the keepers working the marathon lived in this direction, nor did any of the guest stars. The keepers who’d needed to return animals to the zoo had already done so, then taken the zoo’s rear exit toward their apartments in Castroville. At this time of night, chances were good that no other cars would come this way.

No help would come from Gunn Castle, either. It was still at least three miles away, atop the crest of a steep hill.

I was on my own.

To a certain extent, luck was with me. Other than a few scrapes and sore spots, I hadn’t sustained major injuries in the crash. Also, as Bronson’s car had hurtled forward, its speed had sent it a hundred yards further down the road. By the time he got turned around, I’d almost reached the trees.

Almost.

Brakes squealed and a bullet buzzed past me as I fled in a zigzag pattern across the grass verge. Another shot. The gunshots sounded deafening, giving me hope that a Bentley Heights homeowner wouldn’t mistake them for a car’s backfire and decide to call the police. Then again, those houses were more than a mile away…For the first time in my life, I wished that Bentley Heights was closer to Bentley Road and that—pasturage be damned—the houses marched right down to the blacktop.

That heretic thought disappeared the moment I entered the protective gloom of the forest. It had been dark on the road, but the darkness intensified a hundredfold under the blue gums’ broad canopies. Plunging deeper into the forest, I soon realized that the darkness alone wasn’t enough to protect me. Blue gums are big shedders; their bark peels off in long, narrow strips, littering the ground. A thick carpet of the things snapped under my feet, providing an easy sound track for Bronson to follow. At least my cell phone was set to vibrate—not that my “Born Free” ringtone would be noisier than this crackling forest floor.

As I ran deeper into the woods, all the time angling up a rise in the vague direction of Gunn Castle, concern for my own safety blurred with concern for Wanchu. The koala had never lived in the wild, and thus never learned how to survive on her own. Yes, given the thick eucalyptus forest she wouldn’t go hungry. Water presented no problem, either. But Central California nights were cold and damp, which is why we had placed a heating lamp in her night house.

And then there was the traffic problem.

For a while Wanchu would be content to stay in one tree, but at some point she would decide to move, perhaps even to check out strange scents on the other side of the blacktop. Bentley Road might be deserted most of the night, but come morning it would be a different story. If the koala decided to cross the road at the same time as a car sped along…

No, I couldn’t think about that, just what was happening now, that a murderer was intent upon making me his third victim.

Because of my labor-intensive job I was in good shape, but Bronson had run the Boston Marathon in little more than three hours, his endurance matched by considerable speed. My chances of making it to the safety of Gunn Castle weren’t good, but I saw no other option. I certainly couldn’t hide. Since so little sunlight had managed to reach the forest floor, there was not much undergrowth to be found. I saw no friendly thickets, no stands of low-branched pines, nothing but eucalyptus. So I ran on, each gasping breath rivaling my footsteps for noise.

“Hey, Teddy, I just want to talk!” Bronson called, his voice full of cheer. “Those were just warning shots. We can work this out.”

Said the cat to the mouse.

I didn’t bother answering, just picked up the pace.

A new difficulty presented itself. Despite my resolve to head toward Gunn Castle, I realized there was no such thing as running in a straight line. Men had planted the blue gums in even rows a century ago, but over the years the trees had seeded themselves in random patterns; my surroundings resembled a maze more than an orderly orchard. While dodging around this tree trunk and that, I caught myself in the act of making too many right turns. If the incline toward the castle had been steady, all that dodging around wouldn’t matter; I could keep my bearings by continuously heading uphill. But nature stymied me there, too. I was on rolling terrain, with rising and lowering elevations sometimes subtle enough to be near-undetectable. After my last right turn, I belatedly realized I was headed down, not up. Was I running back to the highway, where I would present an easy target for a killer?

My labored breaths began to sound like sobs.

Bronson didn’t sound at all winded. Only a few yards behind me, he called, “Give it up, Teddy! You know you can’t outrun me!”

I turned to the left and felt some satisfaction when the ground began to slope upwards, ushering me into a thick stand of newer blue gums. The trees loomed like massive charcoal pillars against the night’s black velvet, as close together as lovers, so close that I…

Ran straight into one.

As I fell, a shriek escaped my lips.

It was answered by a laugh. “Hurt yourself? Here, let me kiss it and make it well.”