by Betty Webb
Following the disappearance of several key witnesses and two suspected instances of jury tampering, the murder trial collapsed into chaos, and Chuckles walked out of jail, free to decapitate again.
Dad leaned forward and tipped my mouth shut with an elegant finger. “Such a nice girl, so concerned about her wayward father.”
“Dad, this isn’t funny. That man’s a killer!”
He raised a too-black eyebrow. “Unlike the person who eased Grayson Harrill out of this vale of tears?”
“That’s different.”
“I doubt he would think so.”
“Don’t change the subject. Why in the world, with Chuckles Fitzgerald only ninety miles away, would you even consider coming back here?”
“Because it’s the last place he’d think to look.”
I didn’t buy it. Only fools returned to the scene of their crimes, and Dad was nobody’s fool. I was about to point that out when he interrupted me.
“If you’re worried about him taking out his pique on you and your mother, rest easy. Even Chuckles has his standards and would never hurt a woman. Now it’s my turn to criticize you. While I was staying at your mother’s, she gave me an earful about all the snooping you’ve been doing and, for once, I agree with her. Stop playing amateur detective and leave crime to the experts.”
“Experts like you?”
“Don’t be naughty.”
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”
“I mean it, Teddy. There are dangerous people in this world, I should know. You’re not equipped to deal with them.”
Dangerous.
Like the animals we keepers cared for at the zoo? They were dangerous, too, but as long as we took the proper safety precautions, we were fine.
Then I thought about Chuckles Fitzgerald and headless corpses and began to feel sick. But when I remembered that one of my best friends was facing trial for murder, I decided that safety was overrated.
With my most sincere smile, I said, “You’re right. I’ll stop snooping around. Now that we’ve got all that cleared up do you need me to take you back to Caro’s?”
He shook his head. “I’m driving Al’s Lexus.”
Of course he was. Fugitive or not, Dad always traveled first class.
***
The Cayman Islands transfer arrived at my bank Tuesday morning. After receiving the call from the bank manager, I found another zookeeper to sub for me and drove a cashier’s check over to the bail bondsman. By early afternoon, Zorah had been released from jail, courtesy of “an unknown benefactor.” Her gang-banger nephew drove her home in his low-rider. Gee, what a nice kid.
When she showed up for work the next day, joy reigned supreme in the staff lounge. Later that morning, her face drawn from her week in lockup, she approached while I was feeding the wolves. Without preamble, she said, “How are we going to get that poor anteater out of the holding pen and back into her enclosure?”
Remembering my upcoming date with the zoo director, I said, “I’m working on it.”
She gave me a puzzled look. “Care to share?”
“Not yet.”
With a grunt, she started to leave, then paused. “One more thing. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Bailing me out.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? Oh, yeah, I forgot. I have tons of friends ready and willing to pony up two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bail money.”
Before I could think, I blurted, “No, no. That’s wrong. When you front someone’s bail, you only have to pay ten percent of the stated amount, so it would have been no more than twenty-five thousand. Plus a small fee.” Seeing her “gotcha” expression, my face flamed. “I learned about that kind of thing when my father had his own, ah, legal troubles. But as to who paid your bail, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Her mouth twitched into a smile. “The tooth fairy?”
“Or a secret admirer.”
“Whatever.” She squeezed my shoulder. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. And you don’t have to worry about me skipping bail. You’ll get your money back.” With a final squeeze, she headed back down the keeper’s path toward Africa Trail.
Skipping bail? The thought had never occurred to me, but if she did flee and my money was forfeit, I didn’t care. The Caymans account was dirty money. At least my father’s thievery had finally accomplished something good.
Humming with satisfaction, I went back to feeding the wolves.
The rest of the day passed without a major crisis. The sun shone, the animals behaved themselves, and the zoo’s visitors did, too. A cloud of unpleasantness arrived, though, when Joe dropped by as I was feeding the capybaras. He told me my help was no longer needed in the Grayson case.
“But you asked me to find out what I could,” I reminded him, trying not to notice how handsome he looked in his uniform, and how unnerved his presence made me. I didn’t need more complications in my life.
“That was then, Teddy, and this is now. We’ve made an arrest. Too bad our suspect’s made bail. I wonder how that happened.”
Just the sound of his voice made my heart pound, though I didn’t like what he was saying. “You arrested the wrong person!”
“No, I didn’t. Stay out of it.”
I glared at him. “Or what? You’ll arrest me, too?”
His face grew grim. “Don’t think it can’t happen.”
“Is that a threat?”
“you want to take it that way, yes.”
How could I have ever loved such an immovable man? Unable to meet his eyes, I turned my attention to the capybaras, where Gladys and Myrtle had begun to fight over Gus. Both hungry for love, they nipped at each others’ shoulders while the male stood there and watched with what almost seemed like a smug expression.
Men.
“Stop it!” I yelled to the females.
They did.
“You, too!” I yelled at Joe.
He blinked. “What?”
“Stop threatening me! Now I’ve got work to do, and I imagine you do, too. Elsewhere.”
After he stomped off, I finished the rest of my chores wondering why I felt so unhappy.
I felt even worse when, during my late afternoon break, I placed a call to Tommy Prescott. “Zorah’s trial date is set for mid-October, right?”
“Yep. Listen, you know I always like to talk to you, but I’m going over a brief right now and I...”
I cut through his excuses. “Be truthful with me. What are her chances of acquittal?”
“Your friend’s got one of the best defense attorneys in the state, remember?”
“The sheriff put together a pretty good case, didn’t he?”
Sighing, he answered, “That’s what the D.A. informs me. The murder weapon may present a problem since Ms. Vega’s prints are all over it. Same for her perceived motive. She was pretty angry with the murder victim, remember, and she does have a history of violence. The prosecution will probably call as witness that man she roughed up at the zoo.”
I wondered how many animal-lovers would be on the jury. “Point taken. So, back to my original question. How would you rate her chances of acquittal? Eighty percent? Seventy?”
A long pause. Then, “More like sixty. Maybe less.”
“Please tell me you’re exaggerating.”
“Sixty-five percent at best. She’s in real trouble, Teddy.”
“Thanks for your honesty,” I whispered, ringing off. As I shoved the cell back into my pocket, I remembered Zorah’s many kindnesses to me, to other keepers, to her animals. For all her perceived toughness, she was as hypermaternal as my mother, only better at hiding it. When I had first been hired, she’d followed me from enclosure to enclosure, making certain I never came too close to snapping teeth or snatching talons. She had also acted as a buffer between me and the other zookeepers, who at first dismissed me as a spoiled little rich girl having a lark at the zoo and who
would cut and run the minute the party got rough. She’d wasted no time in setting them straight, and within weeks, they’d accepted me as an equal.
Leaving her fate to the caprices of the criminl justice system wasn’t acceptable.
I needed to find out who’d really murdered Grayson. Especially since that closed-minded sheriff wouldn’t do it.
***
The fateful day for my date with the zoo director dawned without any morning fog. As I fed a crushed banana to an unhappy Lucy, I pondered how far was I willing to go to get her released from the holding pen. First base? Second? Third? A home run? Definitely not a home run. Nor third base, either. Or second. But then what? More eyelash batting?
This quandary remained uppermost in my mind throughout the day, right up until I was back on board the Merilee, surveying wardrobe choices for the evening.
I owned a sum total of three dresses: my basic black, the lavender gauze, and the yellow-and-orange Donna Karan. Deciding that a dress might seem too eager, I briefly considered my beige pants suit, then changed my mind. Too “businessy.” And what about footwear? My one remaining pair of Jimmy Choo pumps? My Valentino flats? And hair—down or up? If I dressed too conservatively, my wiles might not work, and Lucy would remain in the zoo’s version of lockup. If I overdid the vamp thing, I might have trouble fending Barry off.
In the end I chose beige linen slacks (purity), a black cashmere sweater open to the third button (wickedness), the Valentino flats (Barry wasn’t tall), fluffed my red hair down around my shoulders (more wickedness), and slicked on a peach-toned lipstick (more purity).
Time for the pièce de résistance: Caro’s necklace.
The four-carat square-cut diamond sat in the center of a white gold pendant, with four smaller diamonds perched at each corner. While some might consider it vulgar, the thing could excite a dead man.
***
Barry, dressed in yet another expensive-looking sports coat and reeking of too much aftershave, was waiting at a secluded corner table when I arrived at Zone Nine. As he pulled out the chair for me, I murmured with as much sincerity as I could muster, “Such a gentleman.”
He gave me a carnivorous smile, but riveted his eyes on my necklace. “And you are the loveliest of ladies.” Smarm meets smarm.
We chit-chatted while waiting for our server, and I was again reminded why so many of San Sebastian County’s wealthy widows turned to putty in his hands. He knew exactly what to say and when to say it.
When our waiter arrived, I opted for a not-too-expensive Riesling and what turned out to be a tasteless ziti in an ersatz Romano sauce. Barry chose a steak so rare it dripped blood. With a few drinks, his thin veil of courtly manners began to slip. He’d started on a relatively harmless Pinot noir to go with the steak, but when we ordered dessert—a tarted-up peach strudel served “tall”—he switched to bourbon straight. As the alcohol built up in his system, his teeth seemed to grow longer and sharper at the same rate of speed that his brain diminished.
Then, as the tipsy are prone to do, he talked about his ex-wives, both—according to him—gold-digging, adulterous bitches.
“Sounds like you need a woman who appreciaes you,” I said.
With an exhale of bourbon, he leaned across the table and took my hand, all the while staring at Caro’s necklace. “You are so right. Let’s talk about you. Given your sophistication, why are you working at a dirty old zoo? It’s such an odd career choice for a pretty little socialite.”
I tried not to grind my teeth too obviously. “I’m not a socialite.” Nor pretty. Nor, at five-foot-five, particularly little. Concerned that my tone might sound sharp, I flashed a smile. “I’m like everyone else at the zoo, working for a living and happy to be doing it caring for animals.”
“But you don’t have to work, right?”
Ordinarily such blatant gigolo-ism infuriated me, but the memory of Lucy’s misery funneled my ire into a fib. “My family believes in hard work.” I delivered this whopper with a straight face.
He nodded so strenuously that a lock of tan hair fell over his tan forehead. “That’s what old families like yours are all about, the sterling qualities that made America great.” While I stifled my guffaws, he snapped his fingers at a passing waiter. “Garçon! Another Maker’s Mark for me and another Riesling Beblenheim for the lady.”
I leaned forward and tapped him playfully on the hand. “So decisive! No wonder Grayson hired you!” I almost gagged on the words.
He wriggled with pleasure. “Not everyone recognizes my leadership qualities.”
“That’s because you’re so subtle. Which reminds me. Now that the heat’s died down over the mur ... er, unfortunate event at the zoo, isn’t it time we put the anteater on exhibit again? The visitors have been asking about her, which means we can turn all this bad publicity to our advantage.” By calling our recent media coverage “bad publicity,” I’d grossly understated the problem, since several newspapers and one local TV station had started calling us, “The Zoo of Death.”
Before Barry objected, I added, “Kim could rework that puppet show she was planning to debut at the fund-raiser to take into account our problem. I’ve even come up with a new plot. When the curtain rises, Lucy has been accused of eating Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. Hood, who’s a private detective, discovers that the anteater is merely hiding Grandma to keep her safe from Mister Wolf. In the end, they chase Mister Wolf out of the forest and everyone lives happily ever after.”
I forestalled argument by fiddling with my mother’s diamond necklace until it caught the candlelight. Rainbow prisms danced across his face. See how much money I represent? Don’t you wish you could get your hands on it?
He stared at the necklace, his eyes almost as large as the steak he’d just finished. “That’s, wow, pretty.”
“This old thing?” I hunched my shoulders forward to make my modest bit of cleavage thrust the necklace closer to him. The ploy worked, and I could almost hear his hormones screaming, “Boobs! Diamonds!”
Sweat popped out on his forehead. “You’re so ... so...”
Confident that watipsy enough not to realize he was being played, I took his hand. “Now, about that anteater...”
“Put her back on exhibit!” He actually shook with excitement.
I almost wept with relief. Tomorrow I would drive to the zoo at dawn, spruce up Lucy’s exhibit, then free her from the holding pen. The evening’s objective secured, I made a great show of looking at my watch.
“My goodness, it’s ten o’clock already! If we want to get to work on time tomorrow, we’d better leave.”
He looked at my necklace again, flames of avarice burning in his eyes. “Let’s go to my place for a nightcap.”
Here came the most delicate part of the evening. Not only did I want to free Lucy, but I wanted to keep her free, too. If Barry ever saw through my act, he might lock her back up out of spite. Something told me he was a spiteful man.
“Let’s not move too fast, okay? This is only our first date.” To remind him what the stakes were, I flashed the necklace again.
Eyes glued to it, he fell silent and stayed that way until we reached the parking lot. There, fueled by diamonds, boobs, and bourbon, he lunged at me as I was about to open the door to my truck. Before I could dodge out of the way, he pinned me against the door and groped at my breasts, such as they were. Since the anteater’s fate hung in the balance, I pushed him away more gently than he deserved.
“Good night, Barry!”
“There’s this spark between us, can’t you feel it?” He grabbed at me again but this time I moved away quickly, and he came up with a handful of Nissan instead of a handful of Teddy.
I slid to the side and positioned the front fender between us. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow. For now, I have to get home because I want to be at the zoo by five.” To spring Lucy from anteater jail.
His next words would have been more convincing if he’d addressed them to my face instead of the n
ecklace. “If that’s the only problem, come in late. Hell, take the day off! I’ll tell everyone you’re working on a special project.”
He started toward me again.
