The Koala of Death

by Betty Webb

  Diplomacy, thy name is Heck. “I’ll convey your compliments.”

  His rheumy eyes lit up. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. She’s dating somebody else.” Prospective Husband Number Five owned a national chain of upscale women’s shoe stores. “Anyway, back to Kate. Did she ever say anything about my mother—or my father—to you?”

  “Never talked about your father, and the only thing I remember her ever sayin’ anything about your mom was when she saw that big car of hers, that big silver Mercedes. Kate thought the gas-guzzling thing was eating up the rain forest and driving out the monkeys, or something like that. Hell, even when she was a kid, she was like a lot of us at Canaan Harbor, didn’t care for the hoity-toity types, thought the power should be with the people, and damned right, too! But comes the revolution, I’m willin’ to let your mother keep that Mercedes. She looks awful foxy drivin’ it.”

  Beauty, the great class leveler.

  “Heck, are you sure there’s nothing more you can tell me about Kate that might help me finger her killer? Given that the killer isn’t Bill, of course.”

  “Bill ain’t who done it, you can make book on that. He was crazy about that girl, maybe too crazy. But nah, I can’t think of anything else, exceptin’ lots ’people around here didn’t like her because she tended to say what she thought. Kate was honest, she was. The thing she hated most was people who acted like they was one kind of person when they was really something else. Couldn’t stand hypocrites, Kate couldn’t.”

  Too bad she hadn’t named them in The Tasmanian Devil. Out of a fear of legal action, perhaps? Setting the murder case aside for a moment, I decided to take a stab at something that had been bothering me for the past couple of hours. “Say, this might not have anything to do with Kate’s death, but do you by chance…” I gestured at the cats occupying every seat, shelf, and otherwise flat surface in the houseboat. “…know anything about that animal psychic who’s set up shop in San Sebastian?”

  “Animal psychic? What the hell’s that?”

  Deciding not to get into an explanation about the Great Animal Spirit, I just said, “A kind of animal psychologist. Helps them out with their problems.”

  “This damn world’s getting crazier and crazier, innit? But nah, I never heard of anybody like that. My cats have problems, I fix them myself.”

  From the aft bedroom I heard a feline sneeze. Then another. It probably had asthma from all that loose hair floating around. “I’m sure you take great care of your cats, Heck.” Then I sneezed, myself.

  “Got a cold, Teddy?”

  “Might be coming down with one. You know, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you let me come over tomorrow night after work and help you clean up this place? I’ve got a special vacuum that’s terrific with pet hair.” If I was having trouble breathing, I knew he was. “What do you say?”

  He flashed those brown teeth of his. “Why, that’s damned neighborly of you, Teddy!”

  “Tomorrow, then.” Good deed planned, I returned to the issue at hand. “Heck, search your memory. Are you certain Kate didn’t say or do anything strange, even if it didn’t seem so at the time?”

  “Hell, Teddy, whenever my girl came over she mainly talked about the zoo and the animals. That koala, Wanchu, was her favorite. Couldn’t say enough about the ragged-ass thing. Just about the only time she mentioned humans was when she was gripin’ about Bill. Oh, yeah, and your mom’s car. Come to think of it, she did talk about her dad a lot, was worried half to death about him. Have you found him yet? Poor guy needs to be told she’s dead, not that he’ll understand or anything, what with his Alzheimer’s, but still…”

  “The zoo director’s working on it. We’ll track him down, don’t you worry. Well, it’s been nice visiting with you, Heck, but I need to get back to the Merilee and take care of my own menagerie.” I stood up, dislodging the cat that had taken up residence on my lap.

  Heck, who retained some tiny semblance of manners, rose too. “Maybe you could bring your mother by some time?”

  What a lech. “Caro’s pretty busy these days, but I’ll extend the invitation.”

  With that, I sneezed and left.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I picked up the animals next morning to take over to the television station, I discovered that not only would Bernice be accompanying me but Robin Chase, too. The big cat keeper looked thunderous as she toted Rusty, a young Capuchin monkey, to the van. Loyal Bernice followed with Dolores, a white-frosted marmoset, while I carried Marcus Arelius, a ring-tailed lemur.

  On the drive to the station, I asked Bernice if she’d read Kate’s blog.

  “Which one do you mean, Outback Telegraph or Tasmanian Devil?”

  I blinked in surprise. “You knew there were two?”

  Bernice laughed. “Everybody did except you, Teddy. And maybe Zorah and Aster Edwina. The Devil was one of the main topics of discussion in the volunteer’s break room.” She turned and said to Robin, “You guys read it, didn’t you?”

  The string of cursing that issued forth from Robin’s mouth was enough to convince me that she was well acquainted with Kate’s second blog.

  “How did you two find out about it?” I asked.

  Bernice shrugged. “One of the other volunteers told me, I think. It sure wouldn’t have been a keeper, because none of them are happy about it, and for good reason. Right, Robin?”

  More cursing.

  “Well, no one ever told me,” I complained.

  Robin stopped cursing long enough to snap, “They would have if you’d spent more time in the employees’ lounge!”

  For the rest of the drive, I wondered what else everyone knew that I didn’t.

  ***

  Compared to last week’s disaster, today’s program went smoothly. Before we stepped on set, I warned anchorwoman AnnaLee not to touch the animals so we wouldn’t have a repeat of the Abim incident. After telling me crossly that she knew how to handle a live TV program and I didn’t, she obeyed for a while. The monkeys behaved well, which allowed me to deliver educational information without a hitch. The only problem arose when Marcus Aurelius climbed on top of my head and wouldn’t get off. He only weighed around five pounds, but that’s a pretty heavy hat, and I struggled to keep my head up.

  Pushing his two-foot-long, black-and-white-ringed tail aside—he’d draped it down over my face—I continued my spiel, “As you can see, lemurs are agile animals, both on the ground and in the trees, although they do prefer the arboreal habitat. This, plus their high intelligence, leads many people to think that they’re monkeys, but they’re actually a monkey’s cousin. Or a monkey’s uncle, as the saying goes.”

  A glance at the monitor showed that Marcus Aurelius had settled in nicely, his snout turned toward the camera, his black-banded eyes lively. He was enjoying this.

  His happiness gave me an idea. I said to one of the stage hands, “If you could get one of those mikes? Ah, thank you, sir.” I held the proffered mike up to Marcus Aurelius’ throat. “Lemurs have something in common with yet another species. House cats! Hear our boy purr?”

  “Why, that’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard!” AnnaLee said, after the stagehand took the mike away.

  “Those purrs mean he’s happy, as well he should be. He’s been fed a full-fruit breakfast, given clean water, and now he’s sitting on my head under these warm studio lights, everything a lemur could wish for. Except a girlfriend, of course. By the way, did you know that during mating…”

  “Better not go there!” the alarmed anchorwoman interjected.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get clinical. But when male lemurs fight for mating rights, my, my, you’d pay top dollar to watch that! They have these powerful, almost skunk-like scent glands, and during mating season the males rub their scent all over their tails and wave them in the air to out-stink each other. But back to more mundane topics. As I was saying earlier, lemurs live in trees on the island of Madagascar—p
erhaps you’ve seen the Disney movie of the same name, which I highly recommend—but as in so many other places around the Earth, the forests of Madagascar are being decimated by agricultural development. Lemurs are giving way to cows and crops, and as a result, all lemur species, especially the red-ruffed lemur, are endangered. That’s why breeding programs…”

  As if afraid I’d start yammering about mating rituals again, AnnaLee interrupted. “Say, Teddy, what kind of name is ‘Marcus Aurelius’?”

  Didn’t they teach history in school any more? To maintain Gunn Zoo/KTSS-TV harmony, I merely said, “Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor/philosopher considered so intelligent that he was nicknamed ‘The Wise.’ Since this particular lemur is so smart, and because his keeper is a fiend for the classics—try reading Aurelius’ Meditations some time, you’ll simply adore it—he named the lemur after him.”

  “Oh.”

  A line running underneath the monitor revealed there were three minutes left for the segment, so to kill time, AnnaLee leaned forward and took a sniff of Marcus Aurelius. The lemur, that is.

  “Wow. I see what you mean about those scent glands, Teddy. He is rather, ah, highly-scented.”

  “No kidding. I’ll have to shower when I get back to the zoo or I’ll be unpopular all day. Big difference from the eucalyptus-scented koala, right? Uh, AnnaLee? Remember what we discussed earlier. Don’t touch him!”

  She shot me an irritated look. It was her show, her body language said, and I and my animals were just guests. Remembering her high-handed treatment of the elderly author last week, I gave in and let her do her thing.

  “I just want to feel his fur,” she said, smiling at the camera. “It looks so soft.” Ignoring the lemur’s stench, AnnaLee raised her hand toward him, which was a mistake.

  Interpreting the raised hand as an invitation, Marcus Aurelius grabbed onto her arm and swung himself up on her head, where he assumed the same position he’d taken on mine: nose toward the camera, black-and-white-ringed tail drooping down across AnnaLee’s face. He looked cute and he knew it.

  To AnnaLee’s credit, she didn’t shriek. But from the expression on her face, I knew if she’d had a gun she would have shot him. I realized then that the anchorwoman didn’t like people or animals. To her, we were all just props.

  “He won’t bite me, will he?” she asked, her face tense.

  “Any animal can bite,” I told her. “Even birds, as you can see by the bandage on my ear. That came courtesy of a flamingo. But in Marcus Aurelius’ case, he seldom bites humans. Not enough that they bleed, anyway. Like so many of the animals I’ll be bringing on this show, his mother rejected him at birth, so he was hand-raised by his classics-loving keeper. As a result he likes people. I mean really likes them. He’d hang with them all day if allowed to. But you bring up a good point, AnnaLee. It’s never a good idea to attempt to make friends with wild animals. When a wild animal loses its fear of man, it can turn dangerous, which is why the rangers in Yellowstone National Park don’t want you feeding the bears. The bear that looks so adorable while he’s begging for a slice of peanut-buttered bread might be the same bear that bites a toddler’s hand off ten minutes later. As for Marcus Aurelius here, he confines his acting-out to climbing on people’s heads and swishing his tail in front of their faces, as you can plainly see. Is he still purring?”

  Her fears allayed, she smiled at the camera again. “Oh, yes.”

  “He’s got a crush on you, AnnaLee. Good thing there aren’t any other male lemurs around or we’d have us a big ol’ stink-fest, wouldn’t we?”

  “Not at KTSS-TV, we wouldn’t!” She seemed to take a lemur’s natural behavior as a personal affront. I wondered if she had any pets. None, I guessed. Probably the only animals in her house were fashioned into fur coats.

  Another twenty-two seconds left.

  “Back to the subject of names, AnnaLee. I’ll bet you don’t know what the word ‘lemur’ means.”

  AnnaLee’s eyes crossed as she stared at Marcus Aurelius’ long tail dangling less than an inch from her nose. When the tail started to swing back and forth, so did her eyes. She looked like she was watching a too-long tennis match and itched to retire to the bar. “No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.” She didn’t smile.

  In a Zen-like moment I decided that whatever was going to happen would happen, and as long as the lemur wasn’t hurt, the universe would remain in its proper place. “Well, AnnaLee, ‘lemur’ means ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost.’ That’s because when a lemur calls out in the forest, it makes this awful ghost-like shriek. Like this.”

  I imitated a lemur’s cry.

  My faux lemur language must have sounded authentic, because Marcus Aurelius immediately flicked his tail up and shrieked back.

  AnnaLee winced.

  Six seconds left.

  The timing was perfect, so I called out again.

  So did Marcus Aurelius.

  Three seconds left. The camera’s red light was about to go out.

  C’mon, Marcus, baby. Do your thing.

  At the end of his third warning cry, Marcus Aurelius hunched over and took a massive, odiferous dump on AnnaLee’s head.

  Mission accomplished, I smiled and waved goodby to the red light.

  ***

  A few minutes later, when Bernice, Robin, and I were leaving the studio with our charges tucked safely into their carrying cages, we ran into Ford Bronson. He was accompanied by my mother, who for once, didn’t have a dog stuffed into her handbag. Bronson smiled. Caro frowned.

  “Hello, Mr. Bronson,” I said, hoping he’d had the monitor on in his office. “How’s tricks?”

  Caro’s frown deepened, but Bronson’s smile widened, making him look more handsome than ever. Lucky Izzy VanStoeller! “I’ll always be Ford to you, Teddy. Thanks to your segments, viewership for Good Morning, San Sebastian has risen sharply.”

  Increased viewership not being part of my game plan, I said nothing.

  Caro grabbed my arm. “Theodora, Ford and I happened to be watching the monitor when you pulled that trick on poor AnnaLee Harris. How dare you!”

  “Then you heard me warn her. Besides, that was nothing a little shampoo can’t take care of.” After four or five washings, anyway.

  Bronson’s blue eyes danced; he was enjoying this. “We have a hairdresser on the premises, so no harm done. She’ll be camera-ready again in a half-hour. Until then, George Hendershot, the weatherman, will work the program alone. He did it before, when Ronnie Simms, the seven-year-old chess Grand Master, threw up on her.”

  Remembering that program, I had to laugh. Since joining the early morning lineup three years earlier, AnnaLee had turned into a regular poop-and-vomit magnet. Karma, perhaps? All of a sudden I was struck by the oddity of running into my mother at the television station. “Mother, what are you doing here?”

  Sensing a possibly long conversation in the offing, Bernice and Robin left me standing there and hustled the animals out to the semi-fresh air.

  Mother sniffed. “It’s Caro, Theodora. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “Well, then, Caro, what, I ask, are you doing here? Surely you’re not looking for your own fifteen minutes of fame. Haven’t you had enough?”

  My mother had suffered through considerably more than fifteen minutes of fame in years past. Her television exposure began in her beauty pageant days, then re-emerged in earnest when Dad embezzled his firm’s fortune and every reporter west of the Mississippi camped out on her doorstep. Yearly, on the anniversary of his escape to Costa Rica, a gaggle of reporters reassembled in her yard for fresh quotes. They’d have done the same to me if it hadn’t been for the electronic gate leading to the harbor. Many times I’d offered the Merilee to Caro as refuge, but she always turned me down, claiming that she wouldn’t let the jackals drive her out of her own home.

  Bronson saved her from answering my question. “Your mother dropped by to give me a programming idea.”

  At her smug expression, I tensed
. “It better not have anything to do with me.” I was trying to get out of one program, not onto another.

  “Don’t be so self-centered, Theodora,” she snapped. “You can’t be the star of everything. I simply recounted my experience with Speaks-to-Souls and suggested to Ford here that a program on animal psychics might do well in this area.”

  “I promised to give it some thought,” Bronson said.

  Seeing my possible liberation in the offing, I said, with as much enthusiasm as possible, “It would be a hit! Emmy material! And Mother should be one of her first guests! Put it in my time slot! Well, gotta go!”

  As I headed out the exit, I heard Bronson laugh.

  Bernice and Robin were waiting for me by the van, into which they’d already loaded the animals. During the ride back to the zoo, the atmosphere felt more relaxed than earlier. All three of us were smiling, pleased that the Good Morning, San Sebastian segment had gone well.

  “You’re a bad, bad girl, Teddy,” Bernice said, trying hard to wipe the smile off her face. “Granted, AnnaLee refused to follow your instructions, but did the punishment fit the crime? When you mimicked the lemur call, you knew what would happen.”

  “I can’t predict when an animal’s going to take a dump.”

  From the back seat, Robin snickered. “I’ve never seen a keeper who couldn’t.” Then, as if remembering she hated me, she forced a growl. “But I agree with Bernice in that you behaved unprofessionally.”

  Pleased, because Robin would no doubt lodge a complaint about my behavior with the zoo director, I said, “You’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a television camera. God knows what might happen next time. I might even be crazy enough to make AnnaLee perform a dental inspection on a full-grown Bengal tiger.”

  “Not Maharaja, you won’t! The silly bitch might hurt his jaw.”