Foxes and Fatal Attraction: Mystery (Madigan Amos Zoo Mysteries Book 9)

by Ruby Loren

  As one, the peacocks struck. Their pecks were sudden and true and the vet squawked as loudly as any bird when he was struck in more than one sensitive area. In that moment, he forgot he was a vet and turned to swat away the nearest bird, before he remembered and reined himself in. If I hadn't known firsthand what a painful situation he was in, it would have been comical to watch.

  “As I was saying, there’s more than meets the eye with peacocks,” Dylan said, dancing out of reach for a moment and trying to keep the smile on his face. “Ah, I see we have one bird who’s under the weather.” He pointed out the drabber-looking peacock for the camera. “I don’t like to judge to conclusions, dear viewers, but I’d say it’s likely to be something the bird ate.”

  “Well, duh!” Auryn muttered. I nodded, echoing his own sentiments.

  “I’ll have to get a closer look to be able to see for sure, and then it will be a case of administering correct treatment. The bird doesn’t appear to be in too much distress…”

  He stretched a hand out.

  He pulled it straight back when his fingers were bitten.

  With a final effort, he returned his attention to the camera. “Definitely not serious.” It was his final mistake. The birds sensed this madman’s lack of focus and renewed their attack. Then, with a gleeful squawk, Bernard arrived.

  “A turkey?” the vet muttered, whilst trying to shoo the peacocks, who would not be shooed. The vet didn’t know it, and I could hardly tell him in front of an animal welfare officer, but they needed a good boot to get them to quit. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the drab-looking peacock’s ailment had been caused by swallowing a good deal of rubber shoe-sole.

  With Bernard present, the peacocks fluffed their feathers out. Then the usual frenzy began, with the vet at the epicentre. The poor man was pecked by peacocks and turkey alike as the big birds bickered and snapped at one another.

  After these initial teething issues between the birds at Avery Zoo, Auryn and I had fast realised that, whilst a few feathers were pulled, these birds seemed to actively enjoy their fights. After all - why seek out your adversary when you had an entire zoo to patrol around in? The real clincher had been the way they behaved after the fights. Once all of their inter-bird aggression was gone, they were quite friendly with one another and would even go after members of the public together. It was the worst love story ever.

  “Have they fought before?” Taylor asked, more alarmed by the animals fighting than the abuse the vet was getting.

  “Yes,” Auryn said, realising we had to come clean. “Just wait. Once they settle down, you’ll see they’re friends really. And before you think I’m just saying that, look at them… they don’t look like they’ve done damage, do they? And they’re at it every single day.”

  Taylor opened his mouth and then shut it again. “I suppose you’re right,” he confessed. Feathers were flying as usual, but then - much like humans shed hair on a daily basis, birds shed their feathers. I didn’t believe they were losing any more than they would naturally anyway. There were no bald birds here.

  “Right, well! I think we’ve ascertained that although this peacock looks a little unwell, it’s still feeling pretty perky. The rest look great, and I’m sure this one will clear up in no time at all. That’s another checkup completed for Dylan the vet!” He tried to point at the camera in some kind of embarrassing sign-off, but his finger became just another target. The vet swore and looked like he might be about to murder the very animals he was supposed to be checking. “Should have brought a blooming tranquilliser gun!” he muttered. “Or just a gun,” he added when Bernard sunk his beak into his backside when he was watching a peacock instead. Dylan the vet had lost his sense of humour.

  He dodged free of the crowd of birds, throwing a rueful glance behind him. “I think that concludes…” he started to say.

  “Look out!” Auryn shouted, apparently feeling guilty enough to actually intervene.

  The vet turned and realised he’d yet again turned his back on the birds and they were now giving chase. He took a couple of running steps… and then he took a few more.

  “Oh no, he’s running,” I observed as the vet started to jog and then moved a lot faster.

  We all watched as the birds gave chase. His young assistant gave a shout and ran, too, when he steamed past her and she got a taste of the birds’ wrath.

  “Some checkup that was,” Auryn muttered.

  A little half-smile slipped onto my face. “I hope they weren’t live streaming that video. That man wanted something neat to share on his Instagram, but he’s probably just nailed a viral YouTube video. I’m not sure if he’ll be pleased or furious.”

  “Either way, I’m betting that next checkup time, we’ll have to look even further afield for a vet,” Auryn observed.

  We both turned to Taylor, who had a clipboard and was writing something down. He looked up at us. “I’m not writing anything bad,” he said, looking defensive.

  “If you were, I would be forced to set the peacocks and Bernard on you,” I told him seriously.

  He laughed nervously. “I really don’t think you have anything to worry about here.”

  Auryn’s phone rang and he turned away to answer it. I was left alone with Taylor.

  “Do you mean it?” I asked, made anxious by everything that had gone wrong this morning. I probably couldn't have asked for worse.

  He nodded. “It’s like I told you on the phone, your zoo is new, and we do our best to check on all new zoos. But I’ve read the kind of reviews you get here, and they’re brilliant. Heck - even other zoos I’ve been to are talking about what you’re doing here. Unless you’re hiding some dark and terrible secret, you’ve got nothing to be concerned about.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh a trifle nervously.

  “Madi, a word?” Auryn was back off the phone.

  I followed him just beyond earshot of Taylor, who pretended to be studiously examining the price list by the coffee stand.

  “I just had a call from Sophia Blanky. She’s been trying to persuade me to sell my house with her company ever since dad…” Auryn cleared his throat. “Anyway, she wanted to ask if she could come with me to the business night this week. I, uh, might have neglected to mention, but although non-members of the club can go, women must be accompanied by a man. Sorry,” Auryn added when my face puckered with annoyance.

  “I hate your club!” I said, finding myself hardly able to bear it much longer. This kind of rampant sexism was supposed to be left in the past. Women had just as much right to be successful business owners as men did, and that meant they should have just as much right to be at a stupid business night - without having to find themselves a chaperone.

  “I said no to her of course, as you and I are going together - something which I’d thought she’d realise,” Auryn carried on, clearly wanting to avoid a full-blown fight in front of the animal welfare officer - who’d seen more than enough today as it was.

  “She’s left it quite late,” I observed, realising there was only a couple of days to go before the special night.

  Auryn nodded. “I think that’s why she decided to try me. She must be getting desperate. I wonder who cancelled on her?”

  “Why couldn’t she just go with Drew?” I mused, thinking about her second in command, and then doing my best to not think about him.

  “He probably got snapped up right away, and anyway, I know Sophia well enough from our riding days to know that she’s not the kind of woman who’d want to be seen that way with her staff. She wants respect - not to be gossiped about.”

  I nodded, I’d got that impression from her, too. “I’m surprised anyone would say no to her, if they weren’t already taken, that is.”

  Auryn shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll find someone. I’m more worried about how we’ll fare on the night.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, my mind already moving elsewhere. I was so done with worrying about what a bunch of wealthy men thought about our businesse
s and our views. “Did you ever consider selling the house?” I tentatively asked.

  “It’s the family home,” Auryn immediately said, the way he always did. But this time, he bit his lip after saying it. “It is rather large,” he allowed. “And it’s not as if I have a lot of family left. Well - not family that I speak to.”

  I nodded a little sadly. “It’s a lovely house, even better now that we’ve fixed up the gardens and tidying the outside, but do you really feel that it’s a home when we don’t even use half the rooms?”

  “The upkeep does cost a bomb,” Auryn confessed. “It does seem a bit silly… but who would buy it? I know an estate agent would jump at the chance to sell it and land themselves a nice fat commission cheque, but there’s no reason to think anyone would actually want to purchase the place. It’s not in bad nick, but even so, it’s a bit of a heap.”

  “Instead of wondering, maybe we should see? At the very least, we could look round a few houses to see if any appealed to us.”

  “Got the taste for house-hunting have you?” Auryn asked with a small smile.

  “Well… I wouldn’t say that it’s all been sunshine and lollipops,” I said, thinking of the two bodies I’d stumbled upon, “but Tiff managed to find her dream house, and I don’t know, it got me thinking that there might be somewhere nice for us.”

  Auryn was silent for a moment.

  “Okay, why don’t you ask around and see what you think? I’ve moved the zoo forward beyond my family, but for some reason, I’m still stuck living in their past.” He shook his head. “It probably is time for a change.”

  I nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll have a look around and let you know. Hey, Auryn…”

  My fiancé lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

  “…do you think we could take the foxes with us?”

  I gritted my teeth before I made the call. Part of me couldn’t believe I was really opting to go with Herriot’s Houses, after everything that had happened, but despite all of the horror and the way the company’s owner got up my nose in a big way… they had managed to find Tiff her dream home, and it hadn’t even really taken them that long.

  “Herriot’s Houses, Yolanda speaking. How may I help you?” I silently noted that Yolanda sounded pretty worn out. I assumed it was because with Josh gone, she and Ashley were doing the work of one and a half people each.

  “It’s Madi Amos here. I might be in the market for a new house and I was wondering if you could help me to do that?”

  “Sure!” Yolanda said, immediately perking up. “Will you be looking to sell the house you currently reside in?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe,” I said, figuring that honesty was the best policy. “I think we’d like to look around and see what’s on offer before considering that.”

  The truth was that whether or not Auryn and I actually sold his family home, I probably had enough disposable income to summon up a decent deposit for a new place. Auryn wouldn’t like it - I knew that - but I had a new book coming out soon, and with the final version sent and approved, I knew a six figure advance would be popping up in my account any day now.

  Actually, when that money arrived, I could probably just buy a house and forget about a deposit. It was a dizzying thought.

  “How are you doing?” I asked once I’d given Yolanda a few of my details and we’d discussed some things I wanted potential houses to have, or not have.

  “I’m okay. Tristan wanted me to take some time off, but it’s better being busy. Also, with Josh gone…” She sighed and then cleared her throat, loudly. “We’re all doing our best to get through this bad period.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, for want of something more eloquent to say. “It must be awful for Josh’s family, too.”

  “His parents came in. They’re devastated of course.”

  “Did he have a significant other?” I was thinking back to the time I’d seen him with Felicity in the restaurant, but they’d seemed far from signifiant to each other.

  “I’m not actually sure. Josh was fairly popular with women. He had that sensitive thing that some girls go for.” Yolanda sniffed to show what her opinion of that particular trait was.

  “Did he ever date Esme?” I asked, still wondering about her involvement and her whereabouts during both crimes.

  “Not that I knew of! She’s far beyond his calibre,” she said with a fair amount of respect. “Or at least… she would never have made that information public.”

  “No,” I said, wondering if that made her any more likely to be Josh’s killer. What if they had been together and he’d wanted to go public, but she’d feared the loss of her reputation? Would that be enough to kill for? I didn’t think so. But what if there was something else that Esme was hiding… something I was missing?

  “Did you hear that our dedicated house-hunter got called in for questioning again? I heard that Felicity Farley put the police onto her. You remember she had all that grass on her knees? I think she was sneaking around at Rachel Masters’ place, checking her out! She must have been missing from her house. Or perhaps Felicity saw something that made her think that Rachel was the one who killed Harry.”

  “But she had an alibi!” I protested, thoroughly confused by the new development.

  “She had an alibi for Harry’s murder. But if she doesn’t have one for Josh’s…” Yolanda left the implication hanging. There might be two killers, not one. “Also, you saw Felicity with Josh right before he was killed. What if Josh told her that he suspected the house-hunter and gave her a good reason why? She might even have been the one he was dating! He could have been protecting her all along.”

  “But she still has an alibi for the first murder.”

  “Well… people lie,” was Yolanda’s only response to that.

  Yolanda promised she’d get back to me with news of house viewings and we hung up. I was left feeling both baffled and bemused by the turn our conversation and the murder case had taken. I’d thought that telling the police about the restaurant meeting I’d witnessed was the right thing to do, but going by what Yolanda had said, I may have only succeeded in fanning the flames of hysteria.

  I’d just returned to some zoo paperwork when my phone rang. To my surprise, it was Derek Hurst - the journalist I’d approached when I’d been trying to find out what had happened to the Abraham family who’d gone missing from the very barn I currently sat in.

  “I was wondering if you knew anything about the Harry Farley and Josh Finnigan cases? The word on the grapevine is that you found both bodies. It would be brilliant if you could come for a chat over coffee and we could swap notes…” He meant that I should go over there and spill my guts to give him an exclusive, which he would then add his own thoughts and opinions to before going to print. I knew the way that Derek worked. The last time I’d given him an exclusive interview, it had been fine - but only because he’d promised to give me final approval before it went out. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe the same rules would apply this time around.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything that the police haven’t already released,” I lied. “I only saw the scenes for a second. They were just so horrible, you understand.” There, I could play the delicate flower card and he would have to go away.

  “That’s a shame. I’m only calling because I heard the police just lost their main suspect. Apparently there’s no evidence at all…”

  “Really?” I said and then reined myself in. “Who might that be?” I wasn’t going to give him anything. I didn’t have a problem with Derek, but he was a journalist, and a good one at that. In my opinion, he was largely wasted on the local rag, but he seemed to enjoy being a big fish in a small pond.

  “I believe her name was Rachel Masters. She’s an American, isn’t she? Anyway, apparently there’s not a shred of evidence against her. Well - beyond her connection to the most recent victim.”

  “Oh?” I said, wondering if it was what I’d half-guessed at.

  Derek sighed, but he s
ounded amused. “Here I am trying to get information out of you and I swear you’re doing a better job of getting it out of me. Ah well. I suppose I should have known better. You’re well-versed in dodging the media these days, I suppose?”

  I made a non-committal noise.

  “They were together, apparently. Or at least dating - Josh Finnigan and Rachel Masters. I guess that’s why she was the first to be brought in, given the personal nature of the crime I hear?” He waited, but I still wasn’t going to be dragged into this.

  Derek decided to give up on that tack. “Do you have any idea who it might have been? You were at both scenes. You know the people involved, don’t you?”

  I immediately bristled at that little accusation. It wasn’t only my personal pride at stake. If people were beginning to associate me with a group who counted bloodsports amongst their preferred pastimes, I could end up in a lot of trouble. Fame was a fickle friend. If the press turned against me, my very life could be at risk.

  “I really don’t know anything. It’s like you said… the police have just lost their main suspect. I’m afraid I don’t know any better. I just hope that the murderer is found before they strike again.” I bit my tongue as soon as I said it, knowing I’d slipped up.

  Derek was quick to seize upon it. “You think it’s a real serial killer?”

  “No,” I said on instinct and then frowned. “I don’t know. If you murder more than one person, does that automatically make you one?” I wasn’t quite sure on the definition. I gathered my thoughts, knowing I’d have to say something convincing to get him off the topic. “I’m still not sure why Harry was murdered, but I believe Josh may have had an idea of who was responsible for his death. For some reason, he kept it to himself. I think he paid for it with his life.”

  “If the killer has already cleaned up their mess, why would they kill again?”

  “I don’t think Josh told anyone,” I amended, “but… I could be wrong, or someone might have worked it out.” I clammed up. That was all I would say on the matter.