The Peacock's Poison

by Ruby Loren

  Oops! I was getting ahead of myself. Auryn and Tiff were not a done deal yet, but I thought that could be changing very soon.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked, remembering he hadn’t come for a catch up.

  “There’s not long to go until the zoo Christmas party. Jenna was the one in charge of planning it. I was wondering if the most up to date plans were still on her laptop. Do you think she might have left it in the office? I asked Tiff, and she couldn’t remember seeing it. If it’s at her house, I could probably arrange for us to go over there and look…” He sounded less certain though, and I knew why. If he had to ask Jenna’s parents for permission to go through her stuff, just to get some party plans, they were unlikely to see Auryn as the caring zoo owner he wanted to appear.

  “It’s okay, I actually have it,” I confessed. I’d completely forgotten about the laptop I’d taken from Jenna’s office. It was still in the tote bag in my staffroom locker. I quickly explained why I’d thought it would be a good idea to take it and check the contents before handing it all over to her parents. “I really do need to have a look, so thanks for the reminder. I’m sure I’ll be able to locate the plans,” I said.

  “Thanks, Madi. If you’re nearly done here, would you mind doing it afterwards? Grabbing the plans is a last minute thing. They sort of needed to be done yesterday.” He shot me a guilty grin.

  “I’m sure it will be fine.” I reassured him. “How’s the arts and crafts day coming along? You said they’ve already sold loads of tickets, right?”

  He nodded. “Hundreds! It’s going to be a really nice change of pace. I've already asked Tiff, but you don’t mind being a judge at the end of the day, do you? You’ve both got solid reputations, so I know you’ll be respected. Lawrence suggested his art appraiser as another judge and because I wasn’t so sure about that, I also contacted a well-known local artist and invited her along. She was over the moon to be asked, which was nice.” Something about the way he said it made me suspect that the art appraiser hadn’t been so enthusiastic.

  “I’ll find the party plans and send them to you,” I promised him, tossing the last of the straw in with the otters.

  “Thanks Madi, you’re the best,” he said, shooting me a happy-go-lucky grin. There’d been a period when I’d worried it would never come back, but things were different now. The Christmas event was going brilliantly, and everything was there to suggest that Avery Zoo was due a bumper year next year.

  Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the animal food store with Jenna’s laptop. It hadn’t felt right to be out in the open with it in the staffroom. People might have recognised it as hers and made the wrong assumption, and there was also the questionable content I was worried I’d find. It was better to do it somewhere where I wouldn’t be overlooked, although, the bitter cold made it so I was huddled against the fridges and freezers with their warm electrics.

  So far, I hadn’t found anything that might have needed removing before passing on the laptop. Perhaps Jenna had seen enough YouTube videos of laptop owners getting caught out when they put on PowerPoint presentations (which she had done) to know better than to have anything like that on her laptop, just waiting to pop up at the wrong click of a mouse.

  I’d looked, but so far there was no sign of the party plans. I couldn’t help but wonder if she'd decided to do it all at the last minute. Even so, I was sure it would have been a great event. It was a shame Jenna had never really pursued her creative talents. Thinking of it made me remember the crime novel she’d always claimed to be writing. I wondered if it was on this laptop somewhere. I started to click through various files, but was having no luck.

  Her most recent files were all TV show downloads. Jenna was a strict subscriber to a number of weekly shows and always liked to fill in her pool of listeners about who’d done what on a particular soap. I clicked on one of the folders, dated a few weeks ago, and glanced down the list. Part of my mind suggested that if she’d spent less time downloading and watching what I considered to be TV trash, she might have completed her crime novel. I smiled a little sadly at the Traffic Cops and CrimeWatch episode she had in her weekly folder. To write about real life crime had been Jenna’s supposed passion, although I was willing to bet she’d never expected to end up as the potential inspiration for a plot.

  I shivered a little and exited the folder. My eyes skimmed the folders again, and I happened to notice that the most recent folder was from two weeks before her death. Logically, there should have been another week of shows in a folder. It wasn’t in the trash, either.

  I shrugged. Perhaps she’d finally run out of disc space. It was pretty clear that Jenna didn’t keep her laptop tidy, beyond organising things into folders. Or maybe she hadn’t had time for the shows. Things had been pretty hectic right before her death, with the reception team planning their plan of action for the festive season.

  Then there was the Christmas party she’d theoretically been in charge of planning. Was having the party in poor taste? I didn’t think so. If Jenna had been here, and someone else had passed away, I could just imagine her demanding that we should plough on with the celebration whilst attempting to claim it was in ‘their honour’. I smirked. Jenna had loved parties. The additional alcohol made it even easier to persuade her targets to come home with her.

  Five minutes later, I shut the laptop and slid it back into my tote bag, ready to return to her office. After much searching, I’d finally located what must have been the crime novel. It was a few hundred words of a first chapter, and I wasn’t convinced Jenna had even written the words herself, as they didn’t feel like her. I shook my head, unsure how I knew that, but I did. She’d taken someone else’s words, perhaps to give herself a start. All the same, it hadn’t worked. Her novel, like the rest of her life, lay unfinished, never to be completed.

  After I’d returned the laptop, I called Officer Kelly. Auryn had said to report anything that was missing and although it was small, and probably nothing, I told her about that week’s shows being gone and the potential missing party plans, too.

  She’d thanked me, but I could tell she’d wondered why I’d even bothered to report it.

  I shrugged as I walked back through the zoo to help out with cleaning up some of the enclosures. Without knowing more about what exactly had happened to Jenna, I had no way of knowing what was useful or not. I knew it was important to their investigation, but it was still frustrating that the police were keeping their cards so close to their chest. I hoped it was because they were zeroing in on the killer, but I wasn't so sure…

  My phone buzzed and I glanced at the screen, pleased to see it was Jordan, my literary agent, calling. I answered and we spent the next ten minutes talking about the different publishers and the array of options each one potentially offered.

  After speaking to Auryn about the comic, I’d finally emailed Jordan to let him know I’d thought about it and wanted to meet with the publishers interested in commissioning further comics. We’d discussed a few of my concerns and needs and he’d assured me that he didn’t see any reason why they couldn't be accommodated.

  When I hung up the phone this time, Jordan had arranged meetings with all five. I wrote them down in the little ideas notebook I carried around with me at all times and wondered if Auryn would be quite so enthusiastic when I had to ask for time off on so many different days. I smiled and shrugged. It wasn’t as if I was really needed here. He could probably do with not having to pay me for every single day, too.

  Jordan had said something about a bidding war on the phone. I still wasn’t sure what that kind of thing meant, but he’d sounded pretty excited when he’d said it and had mentioned something about a lot of money. I had no idea what a literary agent classed as ‘a lot’ but extra money was always nice. I might be able to afford to buy my own house if it was enough for a decent deposit. It would be nice to have a permanent place and not have to endlessly spend money on rent. It would be nice to have a home that I actually owned.
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  I was still daydreaming about it when my phone rang. A number I didn’t recognise flashed up on the screen.

  To my horror, it turned out to be Officer Kelly calling to ask if I could come in to see Detective Treesden and answer a few more questions about what I’d seen the night before Jenna died, and the way I’d found her the next morning. I’d said that it would be my pleasure, whilst silently thinking that I’d rather roll in the freezing mud with the pigs than tolerate more time spent with the brusque Detective Treesden. Officer Kelly had sounded a little nervous when she’d asked if I would be happy to come in. Something about her tone clued me in that Treesden might have done a little background check on me… and what he’d found wouldn’t have been good.

  I shook my head. I didn’t have a criminal record, and technically shouldn’t be found anywhere on file, but I knew the truth was a bit different. People talked to each other when favours were called in and crimes were even solved that way. It was unorthodox, but behind closed doors, it worked. I had no doubt that Treesden may now have an inkling that I’d had some trouble up in Hull and had recently witnessed a horrific murder down in Cornwall. I hated to admit it, but there was every chance he thought I was a sightseeing psychopath.

  I sighed a little and walked out of the zoo to where my car sat across the car park. Every ounce of my being told me this was not going to be a fun outing, but unfortunately, being an adult, I couldn’t kick and scream and cause a fuss. I had to suck it up and endure the unenjoyable.

  “It’s Christmas soon!” I said to myself, trying to feel a little more cheery. It usually worked, but having spent some of my morning skimming through a dead woman’s laptop, I couldn’t help but feel less than festive.

  There were quite a few familiar faces down at the police station. I silently wondered if this loss of staff was affecting the zoo and if the police even cared. The only plus was that the men and a few women were from different departments within the zoo. There were caretakers, odd job staff, commercial, and I even recognised the new primate keeper, Adam, who blushed and looked a little shamefaced when I waved at him.

  Jenna had shared out her affections equally across the zoo.

  Treesden exited an interview room and held the door open. To my immense surprise, the woman who walked out was the lady who'd been screaming about being the illegitimate child of Charles Avery, the founder of the zoo.

  Treesden beckoned me with nothing friendly in his eyes. I walked into the room to begin what was probably more of an interrogation and less of an interview.

  “Would you like to tell me about where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing for the past few months?” Treesden began. I’d been correct to suspect that he’d done some digging.

  I considered answering ‘no’ but thought that this was probably one occasion where a truly honest answer wasn’t the right one.

  “I worked at Snidely Safari and Wildlife Park. Then my work took me to L’airelle Zoological Park, and finally, I worked at Pendalay Zoo in Cornwall. I’m an animal breeding and habitat consultant,” I explained.

  “What does that involve?” Detective Treesden asked, looking more interested than I’d thought he would.

  “I visit zoos and use my experience and knowledge of animal welfare and psychology to help zoos construct an environment for animals that encourages natural behaviour. It improves health, happiness, and, when given time, it’s likely that the zoo will have a successful breeding programme,” I told him.

  “What about the murders that were reported at the zoo, in one case, and in the same village as the zoo in the other. Did they happen while you were there?”

  I inwardly arched an eyebrow. So, Treesden hadn’t asked around after all. He’d probably questioned the other zoo staff he’d been interviewing about what I’d been up to. A few of them had asked, and I’d never tried to hide anything. The rest had been his logic.

  “I was close by when they happened. In both cases, I nearly ended up a victim,” I told him, figuring that I should probably skip any details about what had happened in France. Being present for two fatal crimes, not to mention what had happened at Avery before I’d landed the consulting gig, was not in my favour.

  “What was the woman who was in here before me doing here?” I asked.

  Treesden frowned at me. “That is confidential information.”

  “Has she told you she’s claiming to be the child of Charles Avery? Are you investigating her claims?” I asked.

  “No, we’re not… I’m the one asking the questions!” he exploded.

  The rest of the interview passed in a similarly less than civil fashion. By the end, I was wondering if Treesden was going to let me out of the police station, or lock me up for murders which had previously been solved. He had no evidence, but that didn’t mean he kept his thoughts to himself.

  “I’m going to be watching you very carefully,” he told me when he finally released me from the stuffy room.

  “It’s nice to know the police are there to look out for people,” I said, flippantly, in response.

  I walked away before he could drag me back.

  Sunshine had broken through the clouds when I strolled back to my car. The day had that crisp scent of winter. I wondered if it was true, what the weather forecasters were claiming about snow before Christmas. That almost never happened in South East England.

  Unfortunately, spending time at the station directed my thoughts straight back to darker matters. Despite my attempts to encourage Treesden to answer a few of my questions, the lead detective had clammed up. I still knew no more about Jenna’s death than I had when I’d arrived at the station.

  I frowned and pushed my gold-rimmed glasses higher up my nose. Was there something about her death that everyone, even the police, were missing? I might not know the lab results, but I had seen the whole thing, hadn’t I? The only advantage the police had over me was that info and any additional leads from their interviews with the zoo’s staff. I hoped they had a good idea of who might have stayed behind with Jenna, and were applying pressure, but their seemingly random selection of staff they currently had waiting at the station didn’t fill me with confidence that they’d even managed to establish that much. Or, perhaps it was more complicated than it looked. The person who'd stayed behind with Jenna wasn’t necessarily her killer. Some poisons took a longer time to act.

  I thought back to the crime scene and remembered the horrible foam coating her lips. There’d definitely been a blueish tinge to it. I couldn’t be completely sure, but I thought I remembered her drinking one of the Peacock’s Poison cocktails, which would certainly match that colour description.

  I shrugged to myself as I walked. I hadn’t seen anyone fetching a drink for Jenna, but that could have happened at any time during the night, for all I knew. There was also a chance that someone could have slipped something into her drink when she wasn’t looking.

  There were far too many suspects. I’d never thought of Jenna as someone with enemies, but the longer the investigation went on, the more I could see her potentially being a target. She’d had trouble with a man who hadn’t wanted to leave her alone after meeting him on Tinder, and there could have been others who’d been upset when she’d grown tired of them, too. Officer Ernesto had certainly seemed distraught when he’d arrived on the scene and had realised whose murder he was investigating. But what if he’d been upset even prior to that night?

  Then there were the female suspects to consider. Jenna had never, to my knowledge, deliberately gone after any man with a wife or girlfriend, but men didn’t always tell the truth. Jenna had definitely stepped on some toes in the past. Perhaps one of the female staff members blamed Jenna for their partner’s infidelity?

  I opened the door to my car and got in. The police probably had all of the same questions I did.

  Neither of us seemed very close to figuring out who Jenna’s killer was.

  10

  The Snow of Sussex

  It was the day befor
e Jenna’s rushed funeral. I was sitting in an equally rushed Christmas plan of action meeting in the late afternoon, called by Barnaby.

  The enthusiastic events manager had given us a presentation about the wonderland and the events that were coming up at the zoo, that we were all expected to be promoting. It had been cheesy, the way he’d done his best to make us feel that we were all in this together and that the zoo’s success was our success, but it had felt genuine, and I’d noticed a lot of people nodded along in agreement to his words.

  It hadn’t hurt that he’d brought along chocolates and had given them out to anyone who contributed ideas when he’d asked for any ways that the events could be improved.

  I’d surprised myself and Barnaby with the number of ideas I’d had, and the amount of chocolate I’d been able to put away.

  However, my ideas hadn’t gone unchallenged. When I’d suggested that the arts and crafts day remain more in-house and the promotion stay a little more separate, I’d been contradicted by Claudia. The financial advisor had explained, as if to a child, that everything in this period was being done through the events company, as they worked on a partial commission basis. I’d then had to explain I wasn’t necessarily talking about the taking of bookings, just the promotion side of things, but she’d then argued that it wasn’t our responsibility. I’d retaliated by quoting Barnaby saying that every one of us was responsible for the zoo's success and that every person could make a difference.

  All the time this had been going on, Barnaby had looked on bewildered, clutching his family-sized box of Roses chocolates.

  When the meeting had come to an end I was fuming and confused. Why had Claudia chosen to pick on me? I didn’t recall having done anything to directly offend her.

  I was putting on my work coat when Barnaby managed to extricate himself from a discussion with some of the more senior zoo board members and came over to me.