Except for the few dissimilarities that bothered her.
First of all, in every instance where a whale had killed or nearly killed a trainer, the whale had been male. Yes, the females were capable of lunging, snapping, and other aggressive tactics, but no female whale had every caused a fatality, as far as she could find.
She scanned back down the document, sorting the medical mumbo jumbo into a neat list of words everyone could understand.
Bleeding head injury.
Teeth marks of whale on arms and legs.
No fatal bite wounds.
Breathed in water. Drowned.
She picked up the phone to call Rebecca.
“So, the official cause of death is drowning?”
Rebecca breathed out a huge sigh. “That’s what it says, yeah. And you’ll see it in all the newspapers today too.”
“They’re saying that’s evidence the whale killed her, I guess.”
“You bet. Here’s the St. Emeline Post. ‘Whale Drowns Young Trainer in Vicious Attack.’”
“Well, I’m no expert, but I’ve read the report. She had a serious head injury when she went into that tank. And I’m not convinced a whale could’ve given her that.”
Rebecca sighed.
“I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Jil. But I think maybe it’s time we pack it in. Official cause of death has been released, and now nobody’s going to want to get within ten yards of this whale.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What can I do? I can’t sell her. I can’t keep her. And I can’t release her. I’m going to have to euthanize her.”
When Jil arrived at the aquarium, she heard the chanting and yelling before she even saw the crowds. Hundreds of protestors had gathered with signs and megaphones, marching up and down the walkway in front of the entrance.
Free Willy.
Captivity = Cruelty
Empty the Tanks
No Death Penalty for Animals
Thinking better of trying to get through the front gates, Jil crossed the footbridge over the lagoon and ducked around the back.
Ramone was waiting for her.
“Heck of a racket, eh?” he said.
“Guess they heard the whale’s about to be put down.”
Inside the aquarium, Rebecca was, once again, in the observatory. She watched Tsunami slowly moving around and around.
“Leonard’s escaping this whole mess. He’s signed himself up for every dolphin open water exercise duty there is. Coward.” She allowed a tiny smile. “Can’t say I blame him. I’d be doing the same.”
“I thought he didn’t do animals or boats anymore.”
“Yeah, well, when your other choice is rabid protestors…”
“Rebecca, I’ve been doing some reading.”
She turned around.
“Of course. And of course you’re going to tell me that animals belong in the wild, right? That places like this shouldn’t exist.”
Jil waited. That had been what she was going to say, actually…
“Well, I can’t say I entirely disagree with you. If I were coming in on the same page you’re joining in on, I’d be on that side too. Unfortunately, when I bought this place over fifteen years ago, releasing captive animals into the wild wasn’t done. It was just assumed they’d die. That they wouldn’t be able to survive the transition. That they’d get diseases because their immune systems were suppressed and they’d never been exposed to the toxins or illnesses in the wild.”
“But now they’ve tried it,” Jil said.
“Exactly. And they’ve found that yes, actually, orcas can be released in certain circumstances. That they’re brilliant animals. That their families have long lives and long memories.”
“But?”
“Do you know that there have only ever been a handful of successful reintegrations of orcas into the wild? The resources that went into making it a success were phenomenal. There’s no guarantee it would be successful this time, and then I’ve just flushed my entire livelihood down the toilet. Not to mention that St. Emeline is a resort island, with this sea aquarium being one major draw. If I close it, do you know how many jobs will be lost? And I’ll have to sell the other animals. I can’t afford to just release them all. So they’ll go from one aquarium to another, and who knows how they’ll be treated in the next place? If it were up to me, I like their odds with Ramone as their keeper.”
Jil stayed silent. The option of “never having built this aquarium in the first place” didn’t exist.
But Rebecca was going on. “We’ll lose the therapy aspect. The animal education component. The money for research. There’s a lot wrapped up in this place.”
“What about just letting Tsunami go?”
Rebecca sighed.
“She’d die and I can’t responsibly do that. I have to euthanize her. And either way it’ll bankrupt me.”
Chapter Twenty
Jess shook some protein powder into her smoothie. She’d had enough of the hospital food and coffee. Her body couldn’t handle the grease or the caffeine anymore.
As she made her way to the nurses’ station, she watched the activity in and out and around the floor. So many people, so many routes. Unsuspecting patients, families, coming in and out, half asleep, stressed and worried, not even thinking about their handbags or valuables.
This was a thief’s paradise.
“Can you tell me where I can store this, please?”
An older nurse got up from the desk, a basket of medication in one hand and a chart in the other.
“Follow me, love.”
Jess went with her down the hall and arrived at a little alcove.
“Nurses’ fridge is here, but you’re welcome to use it if you need to.”
“Thanks.”
Jess stuck her smoothie in the door.
“It won’t get nicked?”
The nurse chuckled. “That, I can’t guarantee. Actually, I’d lock up your valuables if I were you. Don’t bring them with you.”
“Oh, really?” Jess smiled. “Do you think my sweatshirt and flip-flops would count?”
She winked. “You never know what our resident thief will try to take next. Those flip-flops do look comfy.”
Jess smiled.
“I lost a pair of sneakers last week. New ones, right out of my locker.”
“What?”
“Skechers, size nine.”
“Someone stole your shoes?”
“Yes, and I was kicking myself. You’d think I’d know better.”
“Yeah, but, wow.”
“She’s getting more brazen.”
“She?”
“The thief.”
“How do you know it’s a woman?”
The nurse shrugged. “We’ve guessed. A man in the women’s locker room would be noticed.”
Jess thought about that. Interesting. “What if he were meant to be there? Like a maintenance person or a repairman?”
“Repairmen around here are once in a blue moon.” The nurse pointed up to a light half-hanging from the ceiling. “Four months or more, that one.”
Jess made a face. “Nice.”
“You should see the state of the sinks. Two out of the five in the locker room are busted.”
“Well, that’s hygienic.”
The nurse’s face lit up. “I have an idea.”
She set down her chart and grabbed a pen and label from the shelf above the fridge. “Contains Medication,” she wrote in large letters, then peeled it off and stuck it on Jess’s bottle.
“That should keep it safe.”
Jess laughed. “Thank you.”
“How’s your husband getting on, love?”
Jess sighed. “Not very well. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a struggle.”
“In the family?”
“Yeah.”
The nurse patted her arm sympathetically. “That’s often the way. Hang in there. But if I can give you some advice?”
Jess looked
at her.
“Try to make peace with them. Whoever it is. When your husband is dead, you two will be the survivors together…”
Jess breathed out.
Pacing up and down the hall, Jess thought about the nurse’s words. She and Myra. An unlikely pair if there ever was one. But it hadn’t always been that way. In fact, it had been the opposite for a long time. Myra had looked after her when she’d lost the baby. She’d had Christmas morning with them every year and had helped Jess move into their new house. They’d been friendly, if not friends, right up until Mitch’s accident. Until the night the doctors had told them he would probably never wake up.
When she got home, she sat on the porch swing. Then she got up again, pacing around with the handheld phone before she finally worked up the nerve to dial.
Myra answered with a hesitant, “Hello?”
Jess steeled herself.
“I’ve been thinking that maybe we could meet for coffee.”
A pause on the other end. “Coffee?” A sigh. “All right. Why not? Where?”
“I’ll meet you at the hospital tomorrow. Around eleven? Then I can spend the afternoon.”
“That sounds fine. See you then.”
Jess slept better that night than she had since she got back, partly because the exhaustion was definitely catching up with her, but also because she’d finally been able to see her way past the hostility that had been bothering her more than she realized. She’d been unhappy with the situation with Myra for years but hadn’t had to face it until now. Alone. With Jil away and the decision to leave her job weighing her down even more. But somehow, even that short conversation with Myra had taken a strain off her mind, and she fell into bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
When the sun creaked over the horizon in the morning, she woke up, turned over, and went back to sleep.
After a few strong cups of coffee, a slow walk through the nature path behind her house, and a long, hot shower, she got dressed and headed to the hospital.
She wondered how many more days she would have to sit here, watching Mitch waste away. Wishing she had the courage to just take him off the machines and let God take him home. But Myra would probably decapitate her, or bar her from his funeral, or both.
And she wondered if she should be angry with Padraig for giving her something else to do or grateful to him for giving her something else to think about. Maybe both.
With half an hour to spare before she met Myra in the lobby, Jess took a tour around the bottom floor, into the gift shop and around the admissions desk.
“Is there a lost and found here?” she asked.
“Have you lost something? It won’t be here if it’s valuable. It won’t even be here if it’s not valuable,” the person at the desk informed her. What was it with career thieves, Jess wondered. She’d had one at her own school. He’d stolen her ring and pissed off a lot of people, but he’d never even bothered to sell the stuff. He’d just hidden it away like a peculiar little magpie.
The lost and found worker’s words needled her.
“Who has access to the lost and found?”
“Everyone. That’s why it’s out in the open. So people can find lost stuff. Or steal from it, whatever works.”
Jess thought about it. What if the thief wasn’t interested in selling the goods either? What if they just wanted to take things and grow their own personal hoard?
Chapter Twenty-one
The next morning, Jil arrived at the sea aquarium early. Protestors were still marching outside, but she noticed the crowd had thinned a little. She nodded to Ramone as she came in, and he gave her a little salute.
“Lie low this morning,” he muttered as she passed. “Something’s going on.”
Jil kept walking, carrying her briefcase to the office.
Leonard was just coming out.
“Morning,” she said.
He smiled. “Hi. Glad to see you didn’t get blocked by the picket line.”
“I came around the back.”
“Good choice.”
“You’re going out?”
“Sure am.”
“Good, before you go, can I get those insurance papers from you? I’m almost finished my report, but I need to make sure I’m not missing anything.”
His smile faded a little. “Rebecca checking up on me?” he asked.
Jil shook her head. “No, nothing like that. It’s part of the tax assessment.” She tried to sound professional and vague at the same time. “The…premiums are part of my calculations.”
He nodded, seeming to accept that. “Right. I’m going for the open water exercise. Why don’t you come with me, and we can talk about it on the boat? Have you ever been?”
Jil hesitated. She’d been trying to avoid a situation where she could be engaged in conversation about her nonexistent financial skills.
“It would be a good way to see the cost-benefit of proactive health measures,” Leonard said.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, the cost of extra trainers and the boat itself is definitely worth the long-term health of the animals. Putting them in the open water and allowing them long-distance swimming keeps them healthier in the long run.”
“I see.”
“You could see for yourself.”
Jil smiled. “Okay, on one condition.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“We’ll leave work behind and just enjoy the waves.”
Leonard smiled. “Sure. We can do that.”
“Let me just go check in with Rebecca. I’ll be right there.”
“Yep. We leave at nine.”
“Perfect.”
Leonard moved in the direction of the locker rooms, and Jil headed down to the observatory where, by now, she knew she could find Rebecca.
“Walk with me,” she said as soon as she saw Jil.
Jil fell into step beside her as she moved up the far side of the underwater observatory and outside, then progressed to the sea lion enclosure. She stopped at the gate to pull against the lock. “Just double-checking,” she muttered.
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear?”
“No, I just got here.”
“One of the cages was left open last night.”
“Did anything escape?”
“No, luckily. But it could have been bad news.”
Jil flashed to Ramone’s secret enterprise and privately hoped it hadn’t been him.
“I’m going on an open water exercise this morning.”
Rebecca smiled. “Good. I think you’ll enjoy it. Might give you a better idea of what this place is about.”
“And it might give me a little opportunity for sleuthing too. Leonard’s the only one whose whereabouts I haven’t been able to confirm. Except yours.”
She hadn’t meant to say that so directly, but Rebecca didn’t flinch.
“You think I might have murdered my own trainer, caused myself a PR disaster, then hired a PI to find me out?” she said with a sardonic look.
“Stranger things have happened,” Jil replied.
Rebecca put a hand on her shoulder. And there it was again, that strange electric jolt sparked by Rebecca’s intense gaze that travelled straight through her body, and ended somewhere a lot more sensitive…
“I was at home,” she said in a low voice. “Having a glass of red and taking a bath.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
Rebecca’s lips pulled upward in a small smirk. “I was…flying solo that night.”
Jil’s cheeks flushed hot. “I see.”
A beeping sound interrupted their conversation. Rebecca stopped and listened, then hurried back across the bridge and down into the whale enclosures.
Tait was rushing up the stairs as they headed down.
“Is that the water level alarm?” Rebecca asked tensely.
Tait turned back around and led them to the source of the noise.
Past the gates, the protestors were pricking up their ea
rs, trying to see over the wall.
“It’s Noki and Lulu’s tank.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Rebecca muttered.
Jil followed them aboveground and over to the tank that held the other two smaller orcas. They were chattering, their voices sounding distressed, even to Jil’s untrained ear. They swam in circles around their tank, the sunlight glinting off the water they splashed into the air.
“Are they just splashing too much water or is there a leak somewhere?”
Jil took in the soaked decks and moved back as one of the whales breeched onto her side, sending another tidal wave crashing over the side.
“What are they doing?”
“Whales are sensitive to noise. She’s just showing she doesn’t like it.”
At least the chanting in the background had been drowned out.
Ramone came rushing down the ramp from the main building.
“I got wind of a problem.”
“The water level’s low.” Jil could see for herself the exposed red segment of the warning yardstick on the side of the tank. The water level was sinking fast.
“Come quick!” Tait rushed back up. Jil hadn’t noticed him leave.
“Where?”
“Down below. It’s gushing pretty bad.”
Ramone got on his walkie-talkie—a scene that was becoming familiar to Jil.
“Repair crews to tank five. Vite, vite.”
“Where’s the leak?” Rebecca grabbed the young man by the arm.
“It’s not a leak. It’s the drainpipe. It’s wide open.”
Rebecca’s face blanched. “The drain pipe? Jesus.” She looked at Ramone, but he was already hurrying below.
Rebecca jogged behind him and Jil followed, rushing to keep pace with her long strides. All around the park, a loud alarm began firing, like a fire drill or an evacuation warning.
“Wait here,” Rebecca said. “I don’t want anyone hurt.”
She got halfway down the next steps before Ramone gave her a similar warning.
“The boys are getting it closed now. Why don’t you just get the water turned on and start filling it back up?”
Rebecca nodded and raced back topside.
“Get that alarm shut off, would you?” she yelled.
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