The Koala of Death

by Betty Webb

“Me? I’m a zookeeper, not a cop. Sheriff Rejas is working the case.”

  “Yeah, and went and arrested the wrong man. I heard about that thing you did last year, finding out who murdered that rich guy down at the zoo. My girl was worth ten of him, so why don’t you get her some justice like you did that other creep.”

  I was growing increasingly uncomfortable, whether because of the catty air or Heck’s suggestion that I become Kate Nido’s avenger, so I put my hairy coffee mug down on the ugly green table and gathered up the file folders. “It’s been nice visiting with you, Heck,” I said, standing up. “But if I don’t get going, I’ll be late to the zoo.”

  “You pay attention to what I said, hear?”

  Before I could stop myself, I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  ***

  Once at the zoo, I visited the Administration Building to tell Zorah what I’d discovered about Kate’s father. By the time I left her office, she was already on the phone with the Oakland Police Department.

  The day was a beautiful one and fairly uneventful. Nothing escaped and no one fell into the bear pit. As a result, I was able to put Kate’s murder out of my mind while I visited with the animals in Down Under. In fact, I was having such a pleasant time cuddling Wanchu that I almost forgot to attend the monthly lunch meeting of CAZK, the California Association of Zookeepers. After putting Wanchu back in her tree, I headed for the auditorium, stopping only to grab a couple of tacos.

  Due to my late arrival, most of the keepers had already finished eating and had moved on to finalizing plans for the upcoming Bowling for Rhinos, CAZK’s yearly fundraiser. Rhino keeper Buster Daltry was telling them that the Grimaldis were giving us a 50 percent discount on alley rental at Lucky Lanes plus another 25-percent discount on food.

  “That’ll boost our donation even more,” he said. “We’re hoping to double last year’s contribution.”

  “We’ll get ’er done!” yelled Jack Spence, to a flurry of applause.

  In the past ten years, this national bowl-a-thon hosted by zookeepers across the U.S. had raised almost three million dollars for various rhino sanctuaries, including Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Ujung Kulon National Park, Bukit Barisan Selatan, Way Kambas and others across Africa, Java and Indonesia. With rhinos on the endangered list, we keepers knew how much our help was needed. As Buster kept reminding us, “Endangered means there’s still time. Extinction is forever.”

  But Bowling for Rhinos was fun, too. It was a great excuse for us to make fools of ourselves in front of our friends, bowling gutter balls, and eating our way through mounds of nachos and chili dogs. Participation wasn’t limited to zoo employees. Anyone who liked animals, or bowling or both was invited to pay the registration fee and lace up a pair of bowling shoes. KTSS-TV and KRSS-AM gave the event free airtime, and the week before the bowl-a-thon, the San Sebastian CinePlex always ran a rhino documentary showing the animals’ plight and donating the take to the sanctuaries.

  Taking a seat as far away from Myra and Robin as possible, I gobbled my tacos and joined in the discussion only when necessary. Not being particularly organized, I left the heavy lifting to others. I just helped raise money, which in my case, was fairly easy because all I did was hit up Caro’s friends. And Caro herself, of course. Although my mother wouldn’t be caught dead in a bowling alley, she liked animals as long as I wasn’t being trampled, pecked, or bitten by one.

  As if reading my mind, Buster called over, “Teddy, can we count on you for, well, you know?”

  “I’m sure Mother will donate her standard five thousand. Roarke Gunn, Aster Edwina’s nephew, is kicking in ten, Sheridan Parker’s giving six, and Lorena Haskell Anders popped for fifteen. She wants to bowl with us, too.”

  Everyone chuckled, because Lorena, one of the Gunn Zoo’s major donors, was pushing eighty. She was, however, in great condition, probably a result of lugging around all those heavy diamonds.

  “You think we can lure Aster Edwina down to Lucky Lanes this year?” Jack Spence asked. “We’d let her give a speech.”

  “Don’t hold your breath on that one. But I have an appointment to see her Tuesday, and I’ll wring whatever I can out of her. I’m hoping for upwards of fifteen thou this year. She’s pretty happy with the amount of publicity our rhinos have received.”

  The room fell silent. Too late I remembered that Kate had engendered all those press releases and made the follow-up calls. Embarrassed, I lowered my head and pretended to be busy with a taco. After a brief moment of discomfort, the keepers continued discussing their plans for Bowling for Rhinos. Once that topic had been had been exhausted, they began talking about the upcoming television marathon to raise funds for the San Sebastian No-Kill Animal Shelter, which would take place three days after the rhino funder-raiser. Bad timing, perhaps, but what you gonna do?

  I volunteered my services for the marathon, then resumed worrying about Kate’s death.

  ***

  Early that evening, after taking care of Miss Priss and DJ Bonz, I climbed back into my truck and drove inland along Bentley Road toward San Sebastian.

  A winding, fifteen-mile stretch of narrow, two-lane blacktop, the north side of Bentley Road paralleled the remains of the old Bentley cattle ranch. Formerly twenty thousand acres, three generations worth of bad investments had reduced it to a narrow strip of pasturage that did little more than serve as a barrier to the encroachment of Bentley Heights, a ticky-tacky housing development situated high atop a ridge a mile back from the road. This ugly development was the bane of the Gunn family, whose estate bordered the south side of the road. Things could have been worse. No connecting road ran down from the Heights, and the Gunn’s eucalyptus forest kept the offending houses out of sight.

  Ordinarily I liked driving along Bentley Road because it held a bucolic charm, but never in the evening or late at night. Other than a thin rush hour in the morning and late afternoon when zoo workers and visitors traveled this relatively unknown hookup to Gunn Road, few drivers chose this isolated byway. The road boasted no gas stations, no call boxes, and no other motorists to hitch a ride with in case of a breakdown.

  But my Nissan pickup was mechanically sound, if a bit raggedy, and twenty minutes later, I arrived at the San Sebastian County Jail.

  It being Sunday, the jail’s lobby was crowded with visitors anxious to see their loved ones. Women wept, men cursed, babies shrieked. Some, like myself, stood in sad silence while awaiting our turn to pass through the metal detector. The crowd didn’t bother me because it meant that there was a chance Joe wouldn’t catch sight of me among the herd.

  Alas, he did.

  As I signed in, a big hand gripped my forearm. “What are you doing here, Teddy? And what happened to your ear?”

  I gave Joe a weak smile. He looked so exhausted that it was all I could do not to reach up and caress his tired face. “Flamingo bit me.”

  His face softened with concern for a moment, then hardened again. “And the answer to my other question?”

  “Visiting a friend.”

  Without giving my bandaged ear another thought, he said, “Oh, golly, gee. Could that ‘friend’ possibly be Bill McQueen, the man who’s just been indicted in the murder of one Katherine Nido?”

  “How’d you guess?” If there’s one thing I hate, it’s an argument with the man I love, but that doesn’t mean I back away from one. Meeting sarcasm with sarcasm, I said, “Get that big paw off my arm and let me get patted down. It’s always such a thrill.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep your nose out of this?”

  “Tellin’ and gettin’ aren’t the same.” As the line shuffled forward, me with them, Joe’s hand remained on my arm. I nodded toward his gun belt. “You go through that metal detector with me and you’ll set off the alarm.”

  “Mr. McQueen’s guilty, Teddy.”

  “Like the last Gunn Zookeeper you arrested for murder?” The erroneous arrest of a zookeeper several months earlier had cast a shadow over Joe’s career.


  “This is different.”

  “Not to me. Look, I visited a friend then and I’m visiting a friend now. Hey, it looks like I’m up next for the metal detector. Please don’t make a scene.”

  He dropped his hand. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure we will,” I said, miserably.

  “You remember our date, do you?”

  “Of course. And you’ll have all day to lay down the law.” I tried to make it sound witty, but from the look on his face, I failed.

  Without another word, he stalked off.

  Unlike some others in the visitors’ line, I made it through the metal detector without setting off any alarms. Instead of being shown into the large visitors’ area with the rest, I was escorted by one of Joe’s deputies to a more secure room, which contained a small table and two chairs. I sat down. The deputy left, closing the door behind him. Before long, he and another deputy led in a shackled prisoner.

  Jail isn’t good for people. Within days, the color fades from their faces and the whites of their eyes turn yellow. But jail is great for losing weight. Bill looked like he’d already lost ten pounds.

  “Hi, Teddy. Nice to see a mate. What ’appended to yer ear?”

  “Flamingo.”

  “Coo-er. Them’s vicious birds!”

  “No kidding. But I’m here to see about you. Are they treating you right?” I tried to smile but don’t think I had too much success at it.

  A sneer. “Everything’s just corker.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “Money for chewies would be bonzer. And a case of Foster’s if you can smuggle it through.”

  Behind me, one of the deputies guffawed. This made me even more depressed because their continued presence proved that they believed Bill was too dangerous to be left alone with me. Bill, a man who’d never hurt a hair on a koala’s head.

  I ignored the lump in my throat and asked, “What did they set your bail at?” Maybe I could do something about that.

  “No bail, cuz I’m, like, one a them ‘resident aliens.’ Bastards took me passport, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Bill.”

  “Not ’alf as sorry as me, little sheila.”

  In an attempt to make him feel better, I caught him up on Wanchu, Abim, and the rest of the animals he loved. From the dampness in his eyes, which he manfully tried to hide from me, I’d just made him miss them all the more. To change the subject, I asked, “Bill, do you know what nursing home Kate’s father lives in?”

  He shook his head. “She never talked about him. Bloke coulda lived on the moon, for all’s I know.”

  For a moment, I wanted to curse the woman for not having any foresight, but who among us realizes they’re about to die? I bit back my disappointment and continued on. “Have they given you a public defender yet?”

  “Yeh. She seems fair dimkum. Bit young, though.”

  “You didn’t kill Kate, did you?” Not that he’d admit it with those deputies two standing there.

  “That’s what I been shoutin’ about, not that anybody’s listening. Not even me brief believes me.”

  Attorneys always want to believe their clients are innocent so that they can mount a righteous defense. If an attorney—especially a young, possibly idealistic one—had doubts about her client’s innocence, there could be a problem. Still, I tried to paint a rosy picture.

  “It seems to me there’s a pretty good case for your innocence. You don’t have a key card to the electronic harbor gate, and you live in Castroville, twelve miles from the harbor. You don’t even own a car, just that old bike.”

  He shuffled in his seat, another bad sign. “Weeeel, that’s a bit of a balls-up, in’t it? Seems some bloke saw me peddlin’ down Highway One toward the harbor a couple hours before they say Kate carked it. He ID’d me in, whatyoucallit, a line-up.”

  Ominous, but not necessarily critical. “It was dark, so I don’t see how that’s possible, Bill. Who is this guy, anyway, somebody driving home from a bar?”

  His already long face grew longer. “Some preacher tailin’ it back home after visiting a dyin’ parishioner. Wasn’t all that inky where he saw me, either. I’d stopped to tighten me bike’s chain underneath that streetlight by the harbor turnoff.” He sighed. “I’ve come a crapper, haven’t I, Teddy?”

  “It could be worse.” But I didn’t know how. “Does the sheriff say how you could get into the harbor without a key card?”

  “No prob there. Them Grimaldis had it propped open with a rock the size of a wombat’s arse.”

  With the two deputies listening right behind me, I knew I shouldn’t ask him my next question, but I had to know. Bill would either answer me or not. “What the hell were you doing at Gunn Landing Harbor?”

  “Kinda needed to talk to Kate,” he mumbled.

  “Why not call her?”

  “Called five or six times, but daft sheila wasn’t answerin’ her phone, was she, so what else was I ’sposed to do, send up smoke signals? See, I knew she spent Sunday nights down at the harbor, but when I got there the damned hatch to her boat was locked from the outside. I hung around until I heard Kate’s voice coming from the Gutterball, but there was all kinds of other people talkin’ round her, so…Well, what I needed to see her ’bout was private, so I hung back, waitin’ for her to come over to the Nomad. When she never showed, I gave up and legged it. I told that wanker sheriff she was alive and shootin’ her mouth off when I left, but he didn’t believe me.”

  Talk about an absolute wreck of an alibi. “What did Joe say your motive was?”

  “That I killed her ’cause she dumped me for that dumb park ranger.”

  “Lex isn’t dumb.”

  “Wallabies is smarter. Besides, Kate didn’t dump me. It worked the other way round. Women don’t leave Outback Bill—he leaves them.”

  I ignored his heartless arrogance. “What was so important that you couldn’t wait until Monday to talk to Kate? Especially since you live only a couple of blocks from her apartment. You could have talked to her then, before she left for the zoo.”

  Foolishly open until now, Bill sat back and folded his arms across his chest. In formal, non-Aussie he said, “On advice of counsel, I will not answer that question.”

  And that was the end of that. With Bill refusing to say another word, I saw no reason to prolong our visit, so after bidding him a polite goodby, I let a deputy escort me back out. As I forked over the last of my cash into Bill’s canteen account, I heard a woman tell the desk sergeant that she was here to see Mr. McQueen. Like so many other women in the jail that night, she was crying. I forced myself not to turn around because I recognized her voice.

  It was Robin Chase, the big cat keeper.

  Why hadn’t I realized she was in love with him?

  CHAPTER TEN

  On my day off, Joe arrived at the harbor early enough for us to spend some quality time together on the boat, then wander over to Fred’s Fish Market for an après-love-making breakfast. It being a Monday, the restaurant wasn’t overly crowded, but I did see a few Harbor regulars. Among them was Ford Bronson, dressed in yachting clothes, and preening slightly as he talked to a similarly-clad blonde who looked enough like Madonna to actually be her. Was she? After taking note of a booth filled to overflowing with bodyguard types, I realized she was. Not wanting to be a bore, I resisted the urge to walk over and request an a capella version of “Like A Virgin.”

  At a table across the room sat Melanie Gideon, owner of the Captain’s Inn, the nautical-themed bed and breakfast that had won so many awards. Melanie was deep in discussion with Fred himself, probably trying to cadge his recipe for bouillabaisse.

  When my eyes drifted back to Bronson, I waved.

  As he always did when he was seen with someone famous, Bronson smiled and waved back.

  Joe scowled. “That guy sure lives up there where the air is rare, doesn’t he?”

  “No kidding. Last week he was in here with the Secretary of Defense; the
week before that, Oprah. A month ago, it was Clint Eastwood and Brad Pitt. At the same time! He takes them cruising on his yacht, the Lady B Good.”

  Joe’s scowl grew deeper. “Don’t those people have their own boats?”

  Did I detect a hint of jealousy? Excellent! “Just birds of a feather, flocking together,” I murmured, nuzzling his neck. “Anyway, you’re cuter than Brad and more masculine than Clint.”

  With that, we returned to murmuring sweet nothings over our eggs ranchero, but as soon as the waitress took our plates away, our idyllic morning almost fell apart.

  Joe waited until she’d disappeared behind the swinging door to the kitchen, then leaned over the table and said, “I’ll ask again. What were you doing at the jail last night?”

  We hadn’t let the waitress take our coffee cups away, so I was able to stall for time by taking another sip of hazelnut decaf. “I told you, just visiting a friend.”

  “Just ‘visiting’?” As he mimicked my voice, he made a face. “Teddy, I don’t want you mixed up in the Kate Nido case.”

  Not liking being told what to do—I’d had enough of that from Caro over the years—I said, “I’m not ‘mixed up’ in anything, Joe. And I wasn’t the only zookeeper visiting poor old Bill, by the way. Robin Chase was there, too.”

  “You understand that visitors’ conversations are videotaped?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you know what your questions sounded like.”

  Another sip of hazelnut decaf. I sloshed the liquid around in my mouth for a few seconds, then swallowed and took a deep breath. With as much time killed as possible, I answered, “I was curious, that’s all.”

  “Since I never insult your intelligence, please don’t insult mine. Remember what happened last time you involved yourself in a murder investigation?”

  “I found the right murderer is what happened.”

  Joe sighed and ran his hand through his thick black hair. The disarray made him look sexier than ever. “I love the way you summarily dismiss three attempts on your life.”

  “There were only two real attempts. The other one was faked.”