Whales and a Watery Grave

by Ruby Loren

  “You didn’t see who it was?” she was doing her best to look bored now. I knew she was covering the fact she knew me, but I privately thought she was overcooking it.

  “No, I had my back turned to… her,” I finished, and then wondered why I’d decided on that gender. Was it because the threatening note had given away a love interest in Ben Ravenwood, one that I suspected came from a woman? “I felt nails digging into my back,” I said, realising what it was. Few men had deliberately long nails.

  Katya noted it down. “No CCTV in the staff areas. I doubt any of it is on camera. We’ll see if anything turns up.”

  “Thanks,” I said, bemused by how this was panning out.

  I was still feeling pretty peeved when I walked out of the police’s commandeered office and nearly crashed into Ben in the foyer.

  “I heard you got attacked,” the zoologist said, his eyes moving from my cut knees to my presumably bruised head. I bet I looked a state.

  “I’m fine,” I said, projecting some of my annoyance over the police onto him. “Sorry,” I said a second later, realising I’d sounded vicious. “First there was the threat this morning telling me to stay away from you and just now someone tried to push me into the shark tank.”

  “The walk-through one? They’re not dangerous at all.”

  “I know that!” I snapped and then took another calming breath. “I don’t think whoever pushed me knew it.”

  “Someone who doesn’t know a lot about marine life? I can’t think of anyone on the documentary team who wouldn’t at least know that much…” He trailed off in such a way that made me think he’d just had a sudden realisation.

  “You know who it is, don’t you?”

  Ben looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “I might have an idea. The woman who works at the food truck, Aimee, she’s sort of a super-fan of mine. I found out when I met her on the first day, but since then, she’s been pretty full-on. I don’t know if you remember when we were on the beach, she dragged me away to talk to her? Honestly, I thought she was harmless. It’s just something you have to put up with, you know?”

  I wasn’t sure how understanding I was - especially after he hadn't thought to warn me that someone I’d thought was an okay person was actually a psycho who’d clearly seen the pictures of Ben and me together and made a wrong assumption… and then sought to make me pay for it.

  “I really didn’t think she’d do anything crazy like this. I mean - I’m not completely sure it is her,” Ben said, and then pulled another pained face. “I, uh… suppose if you’d been clearer about what the note was about, I might have thought about it.”

  I crossed my arms. He surely wasn’t serious about passing the blame for this onto me?

  “My relationship with Leona wasn’t actually as over as I may have been making out. We weren’t doing too great, but it wasn’t technically finished either. I found a note in my caravan the first thing the next morning after the dinner. It said that Leona was cheating on me. That’s why I reacted so angrily when I found out it was true and who she’d cheated with.” His lip curled in disgust.

  “And you didn’t pass it on to the police?”

  “It was just a stupid note! Of course I’m going to tell the police that I found out Leona was cheating on me right before she was found murdered. That makes me look so innocent, doesn’t it? It’s better just to forget about it.”

  I shot him a sceptical look.

  “I didn’t do it,” Ben said. I wanted to believe him, but he’d already proved he was pretty good at withholding the truth. I wasn’t sure I was willing to trust anyone around here.

  “I think it must be her, Aimee,” Ben continued. “I honestly thought she was harmless.”

  I thought back, trying to remember if her nails had been long, or not. Although she worked with food, I thought it likely. I remembered her wearing gloves a lot of the time and also how well turned out her appearance was. Someone like that wouldn’t miss a manicure. Or a chance to murder someone who got too close to the man they were obsessed with! I silently added.

  “Ben, I understand why you were afraid to share the note, but you need to tell the police about it. You were told Leona was cheating on you, probably by Aimee. The next morning, the woman you were in a relationship with gets murdered. It’s not terribly hard to join the dots especially when you add in what’s happened to me today. It looks like I’m on her hit list, too.” I looked out through the doors across the plaza, glad that the usual crowd of people were blocking my view of the food truck, and presumably Aimee’s view of us.

  Ben sighed. “I threw the note away. It’s long gone by now. Anyway, there’s no proof that she sent that note, or even the one you received.”

  Even though I knew he was trying to wriggle out of getting involved with the police, he did have a point. There was actually no evidence linking Aimee to any of this beyond a suspicion that she had a manicure and the knowledge that she had a thing for Ben. The police were hardly going to make an arrest because a starstruck catering assistant had a crush on a high profile documentary presenter.

  “I guess I’ll just have to watch my back,” I said, making a mental note to tip off Katya later on when she was out of her police mode and back to being my sort-of friend. “Until something turns up… I think you’d be doing me a favour if you stayed away from me,” I told him.

  Ben opened his mouth to protest, but he seemed to realise I was right. Whatever Ben had decided he felt for me, it was never going to happen. I was happily engaged. Surely he understood that by now?

  Unless he’s the killer, my mind whispered, throwing doubts my way even as I shot Ben an apologetic smile goodbye. If that were the case, his motives might have zero grounding in logic.

  Danger seemed to be lurking around every corner. If I didn’t watch my step, I had a feeling I might end up as fish food.

  12

  An Obsession with Fame

  It was nice spending time with Auryn at the marine park the next morning. We’d hung out in the evening, but our short time schedule and lofty targets meant we were both pretty wiped. I still felt that abandoning the idea of having a normal holiday when the police were still insisting that I hang around on site, while they painstakingly cross-referenced and questioned the many, many witnesses, was the right choice, and I’d missed my consulting work. However, it was great to be close to my fiancé on what was supposed to be time spent in each other’s company.

  “There are a couple of things to discuss today,” Nile said, pulling out some notes from a folder. “Firstly, I’m amazed at how much work you’ve both done. Especially you, Auryn. I don’t mean any disrespect, Madi, but when I was on that course with your guy here, he spent most of the time staring into space!”

  Auryn shot me a guilty look. From that, I was able to assume it had been a business related zoo course. He’d never been interested before it had fallen to him so suddenly.

  “So, today, I wanted to get into our conservation efforts. As you know, it’s that area we’re so concerned about being damaged by the pack of vultures out the front.”

  I blinked, unsure whether he was referring to the protesters or the documentary team. I decided it covered all bases.

  “We are dedicated to supporting the marine wildlife around the Balearic islands and work in conjunction with many local wildlife charities. When they are alerted to injured animals, or animal emergencies, they do what is within their capabilities but often pass things along to us. We consult for them, we look after and rehabilitate when possible… you get the idea.” Nile sighed. “We try to do the right thing. Our sea pen is as large as we can make it both within the realms of a safely observable area, and the sea we have rights to. I won’t bore you with the details of that. It would take all day.” He waved a hand. “In the sea pen, we mostly house larger aquatic animals who do poorly in captivity. You’ll have seen it in and out of the news as various marine institutions have their animals grow depressed, attack their trainers, and often die well befo
re their life expectancy. That is exactly what we want to avoid here.”

  Auryn and I both nodded our approval. A lot of marine parks had terrible reputations when it came to animal death rates. It was reassuring that Nile clearly cared about the effect captivity had on animals.

  “Although we get visitors who question it, the only dolphins or whales we ever have at the park are always out in the sea pen. Unless they can’t be returned to the wild, they are always released when healthy. Furthermore, the aquatic animals in the sea pen are always from local waters. You won’t find any killer whales here,” he said with a slight smile. “You’d be amazed by how many people expect to see animals like that here. Even the gift shop has a ton of whale-themed stuff. You would not believe the amount of trouble they have over that! It’s the same with the seals and sea lions… we do our best to give them stimulating activities, but we would never put on shows. For some reason, tourists think that’s what a marine park should be all about. I’m sure you’ve also seen we only ever take from the wild when an animal won’t survive, either from injury or separation from a mother at too young an age. That’s our ethos. It’s too bad that both our visitors and our condemners don’t seem to understand that.”

  Nile’s expression clouded and he suddenly looked a lot less sure of himself. “I need your opinion on something. That’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you both today. It’s Blanca the great white. She hasn’t eaten for a day now, and one of our keepers spotted her bumping into the glass. It’s not looking good.”

  “Things are starting to go the way they always do for great whites in captivity,” I observed.

  Nile nodded. “The question is, what do we do? She has healed a lot, but it’s still uncertain if she’ll survive in the wild. But now she’s not eating and has been observed bumping, it’s only a matter of time before her condition deteriorates anyway and she causes herself an injury.”

  “Then I think the choice has already been made for you,” I told him. “If you keep her in captivity, she will die. If you release her, there’s a chance that she will live. If you want to keep your conscience clean and save later scrutiny, let her go,” I advised the head keeper, sharpening my gaze on him when I did so. As I’d expected, he looked a little shamefaced.

  “The shareholders have a way of clouding judgement,” he confessed. “You’re right, of course. There’s no other answer.”

  “No, there isn’t,” I confirmed.

  “Then we’ll release her this evening after the park closes and the protesters are gone. I don’t want them interfering.”

  “What about the documentary group?” Auryn asked.

  Nile looked tired. “Hopefully they won’t stay late.”

  It was only later when I was watching the sea lions bark at each other and noting down ideas for stimuli, like waves and currents being added to the water and my old favourite - blocks of ice with fish in and rubber balls that dispensed fish when moved - that I remembered something Nile had said. It was about the whale items they had for sale in their gift shop. A quick trip over there proved my theory to be correct. Hideous glass ornaments - exact replicas of the one that had been in Leona’s caravan - were lined up on the shelves in the shop. I wondered if the police had checked to see if there was CCTV to find out who had bought one. Of course, Leona could have bought it, but I couldn’t see anyone wanting to buy something so ugly for themselves. It had to be a gift, and if I was right… not a well-meant one.

  I thought there was no harm in asking, so I went up to the counter, greeted the checkout girl, who I remembered from the comic signing I’d done when I first arrived, and casually asked if the police had looked at the CCTV. She replied that they had, but that the only person they thought suspicious was one who’d been wearing a giant hat and sunglasses when she’d made the purchase. I’d queried that and had been told that yes, it had definitely been a woman. The checkout girl had then confided, unsurprisingly, that they didn’t sell too many of the killer whale glass monstrosities. They were too big and too ugly to contemplate taking back to another country.

  I thanked her and left, believing I had all that I needed. While the police hadn’t been able to say who the woman in the hat was, I was leaning pretty heavily towards it being Aimee… and I was also willing to entertain the thought of her bashing in Leona Richards’ head.

  I’d contacted Katya with my suspicions about Aimee last night and she’d promised that today the catering assistant would be brought in for questioning. I’d deliberately stayed as far away from the food truck area as I could, so I had no idea of the outcome.

  That was probably why I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone tapped me on the shoulder outside of the shop and I saw red hair. A second later, I realised it was just the way the light had caught the strawberry blonde style belonging to Skye.

  “How’s it going? I haven’t seen you around for a few days,” the actress said. I noticed she was looking a lot more chipper than when I’d seen her last, but come to think of it, that had been right after Leona had been found dead.

  “Things are good. I’m working here now,” I explained.

  “That’s cool…” Skye did a lot of nodding and I sensed she was gearing herself up to asking something. “Look… I just want you to know, I never did anything to Leona.”

  I blinked. The thought had actually never crossed my mind, although considering it now, I wasn’t sure why not. Immediately after Leona was found dead, Skye had been thinking of her own career, but… I’d still never seen her as a suspect. I thought it was because she had been working so hard to get close to Leona by being her friend/slave. She’d wondered if she might be picked when Leona was found murdered, but I doubted it had ever been her plan for her to die. It ruined everything she’d been working on, which was forging a friendship that could lift her own career.

  “I saw you look in on her a while before she was found,” I recollected.

  Skye nodded emphatically. “Yeah! I told the police that. I opened the door a little, but I never looked inside. Leona liked her privacy and it was all dark in there anyway,” she confessed. “I called out to let her know Travis needed her in ten minutes, but she never replied.” Skye looked at me with wide eyes. “Do you think she was already dead? I didn’t even know!”

  “There’s nothing you could have done,” I reassured her, wondering if it was right to assume that Leona had been dead when she hadn’t answered. It had only been when Darius had opened the caravan door and the light had gone on that the terrible truth had been revealed.

  “I just hope they find whoever did that to poor Leona. It gives me the heebie-jeebies that they’re just out there, walking around,” Skye said, rubbing her shoulders.

  I nodded. After what had happened to me yesterday, I had a case of the heebie-jeebies myself. Someone wanted to make me into shark bait, and I had a strong feeling that my attempted murder wasn’t their killer debut…

  My motivation died in the early afternoon. I’d grabbed another depressing lunch of pot noodle (nothing in the world would possess me to go anywhere near the food truck in case Aimee hadn’t been dealt with) and I was now sitting in the main office area, using one of the park’s computers to look up some of their animal records. It was while I was examining the rather unsuccessful seal breeding programme that my major case of the blues struck.

  We only had a week left of our holiday, and we’d hardly spent any quality time together. I’d thought working at the park would help that, but Auryn was currently spending all of his time discussing marketing and event management with the shareholders, while I was working with the animals and the related staff. It felt like we were further apart than ever. Both of us were working late, aware of the time pressures we had, so the evenings weren’t great either. I’d even fallen behind in my comic, which was starting to stress me out. It had definitely occurred to me that, ironically, I would have more free time when we returned from our holiday.

  “We haven’t even discussed the new zoo’
s name!” I muttered, my eyes glazing over when I tried and failed to focus on the screen. I took my glasses off and gave them a polish, but it was me who needed to see more clearly. I was stuck in the depths of gloom where even the job I loved most in the world couldn’t cheer me up.

  To make matters worse, Travis walked into the office and lit up when he saw me. I hoped he wasn’t here to try to persuade me to take on the presenter role after Patrick had failed.

  “Glad to see you’re up here! It’s bedlam on set at the moment. The police have been in questioning Aimee, of all people. She got pretty angry about what they were saying. It must have been nothing after all though because she was back at the truck afterwards.”

  “She’s still there?” I asked, hoping I sounded curious rather than alarmed - which I really, really was.

  “I doubt it. She flung her apron at Marco and stormed off. I got the impression she wasn’t planning to come back anytime soon.” He shrugged. “Maybe she was caught stealing… although, no one pays cash for the food. Perhaps she had a secret doughnut racket going, selling the best ones to the highest bidder. She should be locked up!” he joked.

  I did my best to smile along, privately wondering what the heck had happened. Ben had surely told them what he knew about Aimee, as I’d included him in my tip off for Katya. But if they knew all that, how come they’d let her go again?

  I suddenly realised Travis had been speaking. “Sorry, could you say that again?”

  He lifted the heavy file he’d been carrying. “I was just saying, there’s no one around in here. Do you know where this might go? The caravan was cleared by the police today. I was clearing it out with that ginger girl…” he snapped his fingers, trying to remember her name, “Scarlett?”

  “Skye,” I corrected, privately thinking that as far as names went, Travis could do with taking a few tips from Ben Ravenwood.