by Betty Webb
After the performance I’d just seen, I wasn’t about to argue.
Before we left with a naked Chihuahua renamed Feroz Guerrero—who looked much happier now, by the way—I made certain that Caro wrote Speaks-to-Souls a large check. Surprisingly, the woman had her make it out to the building fund for the San Sebastian No-Kill Animal Shelter, explaining that she preferred not to profit from her work with the Great Animal Spirit. She did, however, talk Caro into purchasing several scented candles, and for those, had another check made out to her store.
As I slid into the Mercedes with a naked Aztec warrior tucked under my arm, I said to Caro, “Did Speaks-to-Souls look familiar to you?”
A bit stunned from her introduction to the spirit world, she shook her head and started the car. She remained silent as we drove back to Gunn Landing. Half an hour later, when Caro dropped me off at the harbor gate, I still couldn’t remember where I’d seen Speaks-to-Souls before. But then Caro couldn’t remember knowing Kate, either, so I guess we were even.
As I walked down the dock to the Merilee, I noticed that the Nomad had been taken away to the county’s evidence storage yard. The slip where Kate had berthed her boat now lay empty, except for a harbor seal swimming back and forth between the pilings. As much as I enjoyed wildlife, I found the scene depressing.
“Sad, isn’t it?” a voice said.
I turned to see Ford Bronson. He’d halted his evening run along the southern promenade and was jogging in place next to me.
“Very sad,” I replied.
“Life can be dangerous, Teddy. I’m surprised your mother lets you live down here all by yourself.”
“Let?” I shook my head. “Oh, please. I stopped asking for permission two decades ago.”
“Still…” He looked off toward the channel, where a whale-watching excursion was just returning. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
While it was flattering to know a handsome billionaire worried about me, it was also annoying. But to keep the peace, I nodded. “Will do.”
Satisfied, he jogged off.
Once back aboard the Merilee, I changed into my sweats and settled down with the first of Kate’s files to work on ZooNews. I’d done the bulk of the rewriting the evening before, so I had just finished when Joe called to make certain I’d arrived safely home. I assured him I had.
“It’s just as well you caught a ride with your mother, because I didn’t get away until a few minutes ago,” he said. “The deputy was right. That domestic was one of the hairiest I’ve ever experienced.”
“A fatal?” So many domestic disturbances turned tragic these days.
“Not at all. Just…complicated.”
“That’s what you said at the zoo.”
“That’s all I’m going to say, too. How’d things go with the dog?”
We both had a good laugh as I described the “séance.”
“Sounds like Speaks-to-Souls or whatever her real name is performed a public service,” he said, when I’d finished. “But she’d better watch her step. Our White Collar Crimes Division has started cracking down on fraudulent psychics.”
I smiled. “How can you tell if a psychic is fraudulent?”
“The amount of money they charge for a reading is a good tip-off.”
Remembering the large check Caro had written to the San Sebastian No-Kill Animal Shelter, I didn’t say anything. As far as I was concerned, any money donated to an animal shelter was clean money, even if procured in a liquor store holdup.
“So what’s your evening look like?” he asked.
I told him I’d almost finished rewriting the zoo’s newsletter, and after that, I would work on Kate’s blog. In a meeting between Zorah and Aster Edwina, the two had decided to change the online diary’s name from Koala Kate’s Outback Telegraph to Tiger Teddy’s Telegraph. Since I rarely worked with tigers, the name wasn’t all that appropriate but it would have to do.
“I’m not looking forward to it, because you know how I feel about more paperwork,” I said. “But at least I’ve found all of Kate’s files…” Oops. I’d found most of them during my break-in at the Nomad, but he didn’t need to know that. “…uh, at the zoo, so I’ll go over them and try to match her style. By the way, I noticed that the Nomad’s gone.”
“Yeah, they winched it out around noon. Not that I think we’re going to find anything helpful. Judging from where you found her and which way the tide was running, it’s probable that once she left the party she never made it back to her boat.” Then he abruptly changed the subject, and we talked about more personal things for a while.
When we rang off, I went back to work.
Once I opened the second of Kate’s manila files—the thickest one—I received a surprise. The printouts inside weren’t from Koala Kate’s Outback Telegraph after all; they were printouts of a blog I’d not seen before: The Tasmanian Devil. Curious, I began to read. Halfway through the first page, I began to understand the skeptical looks that had passed among the other zookeepers when I had talked so blithely about how much “fun” Kate’s blog was.
The Tasmanian Devil was just the opposite.
Koalas enjoyable as usual, B annoying as usual. What’s up with men, anyway? Considering their own non-monogamous natures, isn’t it rather hypocritical of them to demand fidelity from their girlfriends? Like male lions, men want mating rights with every female around, but woe betide a lioness who casts come-hither glances at the new stud on the block. You know what I have to say about that, Dear Readers? ROAARRR!!!
Stunned, I took out my laptop and signed on to the Internet. Typing in the URL for Koala Kate’s Outback Telegraph, I found it no different than I remembered: a field of warm beige headed by a picture of Wanchu at the top. Colorful Aboriginal designs trailed down the right side of the copy, which contained nothing but cute stories about some of the zoo’s most popular animals. I saw nothing even faintly derogatory, either of animals or humans. In short, the blog read nothing like the printouts I’d found in the folder.
Checking the folder more carefully, I found something I had missed earlier. Written under the URL for the blog I was looking at now was another URL. When I typed that one in, The Tasmanian Devil popped up.
This blog was not only darker in tone, but darker in design, too. At their best, Tasmanian devils, an Australian mammal about the size of a small dog, are rather unattractive, but the one gracing the site’s menacing gray background looked positively repulsive. Its fangs had been lengthened in PhotoShop, and blood dribbled down the side of its mouth.
The Tasmanian Devil’s posts were bloody, too.
After describing koalas’ mating ritual in blunt words—sometimes the females darn near rape the males—Kate segued onto the mating rituals of the human species.
Yes, Dear Readers, it’s mating time at the zoo and not just for koalas. Cat Girl has fallen hard for B, while Rhino Man has the hots for Our Glorious Leader. Nothing like a little unrequited mating to liven things up, is there?
After my experience at the jail the other night, I realized “Cat Girl” was Robin Chase, observed by Kate in Robin’s first swoonings over Bill. But if “Rhino Man” was Buster Daltry, surely Kate hadn’t been under the assumption that he’d fallen for Zorah! From what I’d been able to see, our zoo director’s love life was about as titillating as a nun’s.
In a post dated a week later, Kate indulged in more mischief making. After few paragraphs about sweet Tulang, the roly poly wombat, she started sniping at people again.
If there’s one thing you learn about working in zoos, Dear Readers, it’s that the world is growing smaller by the minute. No, I’m not talking about the shrinking Rainforest, sad as that may be, or other areas of our endangered eco-system. I’m talking about how we run into Familiar Faces in Unusual Places. Sometimes those FF’s aren’t happy to see you, and for good reason. There’s more to come about this, because I have a very special post planned to reveal the dastardly deeds of THIS particular FF. As they say on television, �
��Stay tuned for an important announcement.” I’m unsheathing my claws and am about to pounce. ROAARRR!!!
Biting back my distaste, I continued scrolling through more posts, noting a mixture of tender essays about Down Under animals—especially Wanchu—intermixed with increasingly harsh snipes at unnamed animal keepers, concession owners, volunteers, and even the denizens of an unnamed harbor.
Love can be blind, can’t it, Dear Readers? Especially when older women are married to younger men. A certain boat-owning woman I know is having trouble keeping Younger Hubby in check, which in her case, will be about as easy as picking up a 7-10 split. YH was recently seen boozing at a local watering hole and kanoodling with a girl who looked half his age. But as we all know, men are actually admired for that kind of behavior, aren’t they?
Given the 7-10 bowling reference, Kate had to be talking about the Grimaldis. Was Sam being unfaithful to Doris? Intrigued despite myself, I remembered the Post-it notes I’d found in one of Kate’s files. T Doris t at party. Could that have meant, Tell Doris the truth at party? This possible translation of Kate’s note brought about another question: had Kate died before she could tell Doris about Sam’s wanderings?
Shuddering, I read another post, this one dated only two weeks back. Kate spent several sweet-funny paragraphs on our new lion cub, then unleashed her claws on humans again.
If you ask me, Dear Readers, firefighters don’t belong on boats. They’re fine on calendars or when your stove catches fire, but that’s pretty much the end of their usefulness. Forget about sailing. Most of them couldn’t hoist a sail to save their lives, so they prefer gas-guzzling power boats. And a certain firefighter, who owns a boat named something like Berserker, is one of the worst of the species. Why, he’s so high on himself that he thinks “Hello” is an invitation to join you in the sack.
I ground my teeth. Walt MacAdams, the San Sebastian firefighter whose Running Wild was berthed near the Merilee, had once saved my life. And as far as being “high” on himself, as the old saying goes, “Point your finger at someone and you’ll find three fingers pointing back at YOU.” Maybe Kate had hit on him and he’d declined. Walt was pretty fussy about the company he kept.
With her snipe at Walt, I thought Kate had reached the epitome of her nastiness, but the last lines of the next post took my breath away.
Rich people are so boring, aren’t they, Dear Readers? The town where I’ve ended up is full of them. They try to act sooooo respectable, but when you dig into their backgrounds, you discover that almost all of them are the beneficiaries of past crimes. Typical of this pack of jackals is a certain multi-last-named ex-beauty queen who, not content to live off an embezzling ex-husband’s ill-gotten gains, is currently looking for a fifth husband to fleece. Parasites like her make you suspect old Karl Marx had it right.
Oh, the bitch!
I was so enraged that for a moment I forgot about the Post-it note that mentioned Caro, but it came back to me in a flash.
Tdy’s mom noz.
Could Kate have been considering writing a follow-up post, one that might suggest Caro knew where my on-the-lam father was hiding, and thus set her up for a round of questioning by the Feds?
I swallowed. Tdy’s mom noz. The answer to that question was a definite “Yes.” Caro knew which country Dad had fled to after his last sneaked visit to Gunn Landing because she had orchestrated his escape.
But “parasites”? We were talking about love here, and where love was concerned, morality went out the window, which Kate would have known if she had ever truly loved someone. As I sat there fuming over her treatment of my mother, more uneasiness crept into my mind. How far would Caro go to keep my father’s whereabouts a secret?
After studying the situation, I decided to pay a visit to Heck to see if Kate had ever discussed my mother, or the Tasmanian Devil’s other victims, with him. Stepping topside, I walked down the dock to My Fancy, where I found its owner daubing some sort of compound on the seal of an aft window.
“Damned rain blew in last night while I was sleeping,” he said.
I’d slept so deeply that I hadn’t noticed the rain. Also, the Merilee was a much tighter boat than My Fancy. Swallowing my anger at Kate, I asked Heck if he needed any help. “I’m pretty good with a putty knife.”
He straightened up with a groan. “All done. How ’bout some tea?”
Remembering all the cat hair I’d found in the last cuppa he’d served me, I started to decline, then changed my mind. However unpalatable, the tea would give me plenty of time to talk about Kate’s blog. “Sounds delicious, Heck.”
When his gnarly face creased into a relieved smile, I realized how lonely he was. Kate had been his only friend. Making a mental note to visit with him more often, I followed him into the cat-hair museum he called a houseboat. Within minutes I found myself sipping another questionable cup of tea while a catarrhal cat made phlegmy sounds in my lap. After a bit of chatter about the difficulties of harbor life, I steered the conversation around to the blog. Now that my anger had faded, I decided to leave her comments about my mother to the last.
“What the hell’s a blog?” he asked.
When I explained it was just an online diary, he grunted. “Don’t have a computer. Things are a big waste of time, if you ask me.”
I tried a different tack. “Yesterday when we talked, you mentioned that Kate and Bill both used to drop by and visit. How’d they get along?”
He shrugged. “Fine, I guess. For as long as it lasted, anyways, Kate being like she was.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged again. “You know, goin’ from man to man, just like her daddy always done with the ladies.”
Having known Kate for only two months, all I had seen was the end of her relationship with Bill; nothing ominous about that. Then again, endings could get rough, and given the Aussie’s size, well…I didn’t want to ask my next question, but did anyway. “What caused the breakup? I found something that makes me think she might have been, well, flirting with another man. Did Bill get rough with her over it?”
“Girl’s got a right to go after who she wants to, doesn’t she?”
Sure. If she was, as they say, unencumbered. And the other party was, too. “If she was dating Bill at the time, he wouldn’t think so.”
“Nah, she broke up with him before she started seeing that other guy.”
This was something new. “The way I heard it, Bill broke up with her.”
“Then you heard it wrong. One thing she complained about was he kept callin’ her all the time. Drove her nuts, that did.”
Joe had said something about Bill’s phone records. Is that what he’d meant, that Bill was harassing Kate? Or was it all just a ‘he said, she said’?
“Who was the other guy she’d started seeing?”
“Some good-lookin’ stud at the zoo. Forget his name.”
Other than Bill, the only other truly handsome man that popped into my mind was the park ranger. “Would his name have been Lex?”
“That sounds about right. Yeah. Lex something or other.”
I frowned. Lex Yarnell hadn’t seemed the slighted bit disturbed about Kate’s death. Either Kate had been lying to Heck, or…“Her blog also mentioned that Kate, let’s see, how did she put it? Oh, yeah, she ran into ‘familiar faces in unusual places.’ You know anything about that?”
He gave me a proud, snaggle-toothed smile. “What with the TV show my girl was on, she’d got kinda famous, ya know. She said folks was always coming up to her sayin’ did she remember them from grade school or high school or shit like that.”
I soldiered on. “How about Sam Grimaldi? Did she ever talk about him?”
“Young guy has the Gutterball? Married to that old bitch?”
One day I would give Heck a lecture on political correctness, but this wasn’t the time. “Right, the Gutterball guy with the older wife. Kate wrote a note saying that she was going to tell Doris the truth about something at their party the nig
ht she died.”
“Truth about what??”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
Heck shook his head. “Mostly she just yammered about them animals down at the zoo. But sometimes we talked about the old days back in Canaan Harbor. She missed them. Can’t say I did.”
I plucked another name from Kate’s blog. “How about Walt MacAdams? She have any trouble with him??”
“Firefighter guy lives on Running Wild?” At my nod, he continued. “She might a been sweet on him, him such a manly man and all. That’s the kind of guy she always went for. Big strong studs, like the Aussie and that other guy at the zoo. Come to think of it, couple weeks ago I did see her talking to that firefighter over at Chowder & Cappuccino. She looked all dithery.”
“How’d he look?”
“Not so dithery.”
Being rejected could have explained the wrath in the Tasmanian Devil. Rejection was something few people took well, except maybe poets, who used it as fodder for their work. The next time I saw Walt, I’d ask him about Kate, but it would probably turn up to be a dead end. Inwardly sighing, I realized it was time to bring up the subject of Kate’s last Post-it note, however much it pained me: Tdy’s mom nos.
“Do you know if Kate ever had a run-in with my mother?”
Heck’s old face morphed into an expression of pure lechery. “Wouldn’t be surprised if any woman had a run-in with your mother, but it’d be all about jealousy. Kate wasn’t bad-looking, but she wasn’t nowhere in your mother’s league. You don’t mind me saying so, that’s one hot broad, regardless of how old she hasta be. Too bad you don’t look anything like her.”
He must have seen me wince, because he immediately covered his slip. “Not that you’re not cute, Teddy, what with all that curly red hair and them freckles, but your mom was Miss San Sebastian County once and she doesn’t look much different now. Why, every time the paper runs an article about your dad and what he done, they run her old pageant photo, and Christ on a crutch, what I wouldn’t do for a piece of…” At my expression, he trailed off. “Well, any man who’s at least half alive would want a go at her.”
