by D R Lowrey
Stanley grinned while holding up a glass of Cam’s foot wine.
It dawned on Nigel that good fortune hadn’t changed Stanley all that much.
“He won’t say it, but I will,” said Cam. “It was a perfect match. He was a pipe fitter in the middle of a divorce. I was a country star in the middle of a divorce. Amazing, but true. If they put that in a romance novel, no one would buy it. The premise, I mean. They might buy the book. Shit, a romance novel with ‘pipe fitter’ in the title? I’d buy that.”
As dinner skidded toward dessert, conversation devolved into a round robin of personal status reports. After some robust prodding from Cam, Annie discussed her daily activities as a small-town private eye, warning as she went that it wasn’t as exciting as one might suppose. She was right. Upon finishing, Annie fell into a rare, sorrowful state, no doubt ruminating on her dull future as a small-town private eye.
Cam, seeing her guest go catatonic, looked to console with harrowing tales of fabulous celebrity-hood. All appearances to the contrary, she was being crushed to a pulp from the inside out by a deepening artistic crisis. The fickle radio-listening public had recently turned away from her brand of pop-country. Country-pop was now the rage, and she doubted her ability to manage the transition. She had heard of suffering for one’s art but was dismayed to learn it also applied to music. To make matters worse, she could not find good management advice. Her agent insisted she get a new accountant. Her accountant insisted she get a new agent. Her lawyer agreed with both of them. As if that weren’t enough, she also needed a new yoga instructor. The discourse gave her a headache, so she summoned the wait staff to summon the masseuse, a herculean chap who stood behind her rubbing her temples. She appeared to fall into a trance, interrupted occasionally by sips of her foot wine.
Stanley was next. He described his transition from pipe fitter to award-winning artisanal baker. One might assume that such a journey accomplished in the span of a few months by a senior citizen merited more than eighteen words. Stanley didn’t think so.
Finally, Nigel discussed his new job at the Sandoval place, describing himself as the estate administrator. “Little did I know,” he said, “that I’d be tasked to organize a wedding on my first day. Many thanks to Stanley here for providing the baked goods on short notice. I’m sure they’ll be fantastic.”
Stanley grinned, nodded, and held up his glass of foot wine. And then, running short of grins, he said, “I hear there was a death on the property out there.”
“Yes,” said Nigel. “Most unfortunate. Of course, that’s an assumption. I didn’t know the chap.”
“What do they say he died from?” asked Cam.
“A frog in his throat,” said Nigel.
“Fatal, is it? A frog in the throat?” said Stanley, his normally pink face having turned a darker shade of pink. He appeared flustered, as if he’d just had frog for dinner before realizing the ramifications.
Nigel had not seen Stanley that color since a deviled egg went down the wrong pipe. He replied, “So it appears. The police have mentioned murder.”
“Murder?” said Cam. “A little more toward the front,” she said to her temple-rubbing Adonis.
“The frog appears to have been of a poisonous variety. Not only that,” said Nigel, “he also had a toad in his mouth. If it was murder, it was by that rarest of fiends, the amphibian killer.”
“Do they have any clues—footprints, fingerprints, or such? Any suspects?” asked Stanley.
“No fingerprints,” said Annie. “Amphibian slime is not a good medium. They do have some footprints at the scene. Unfortunately, they belong to Nigel.”
“Of course, I’ve already told the police I didn’t do it, so I’m clear,” said Nigel. “Want to know my theory?”
“This should be interesting,” said Annie.
“A drifter, drifting as drifters do, drifts onto the Sandoval property. He’s a herpetologist.”
“A drifting herpetologist?” asked Cam.
“Not as rare as you might think,” said Nigel. While the others considered the statistics, Nigel continued. “Anyway, the herpetologist carries with him a poison dart frog, perhaps as a pet, perhaps for personal protection, who knows? He sacks out for the night on the Sandoval property. The poison dart frog is, of course, a tropical animal. It would seek out warm, humid conditions. The man, this drifting herpetologist, is also a snorer. You see where I’m going with this?”
“I do, I do,” said Cam, opening her eyes. “This drifting, snoring herpetologist was murdered by his own frog. That is a brilliant deduction.”
“You’re obviously an intelligent woman,” said Nigel. “For those who haven’t caught up, this poison dart frog seeking optimal tropical conditions in which to pass the night finds the open maw of the snoring herpetologist and makes himself at home. Need I say that having a poison dart frog cuddled against one’s tonsils might prove adverse to one’s health? In this case, yes.”
“What about the toad?” asked Annie.
“The toad crawled into the open mouth after the frog. Perhaps for the same reason, a comfy place to spend the night.”
“You seem to have solved the mystery,” said Stanley.
“Congratulations. Perhaps you should join your wife in the detective business,” said Cam.
Nigel had suggested this very thing some time back. Annie, after regaining her composure, had said this was why he made a good husband—because he made her laugh. Annie wasn’t laughing now, audibly at least, but her head was down and her shoulders were convulsing.
“Let me know when the police confirm your brilliant theory,” said Stanley.
“I’ll keep you posted,” said Nigel.
“Would you like to see the house?” asked Cam with the rejuvenated spirit of one coming off a good temple rub.
“Absolutely,” said Annie.
With that, the four walked the premises. The residence was impressive in a way that lavishly constructed and professionally maintained homes often are. It had a music studio, a theater, one of those pools that’s half indoors and half outdoors, and a shrine. The Cam Logan shrine room contained awards, photos, framed articles, and a life-sized wax figure of Cam herself, meeting a life-sized wax figure of Oprah. A meeting which, as Cam described it, “Should have been destined to happen.”
Clearly, Cam enjoyed playing the tour guide. Stanley followed along with the fish-eyed grin of a lottery winner who’d found his winning ticket while removing gum from his shoe.
“Next, I’ll show you my playroom,” said Cam, leading the group to an outbuilding through a long, narrow hallway. This was no simple corridor, however, as one wall was constructed of glass, behind which thrived an indoor forest. “To your left,” she said, “are enclosures for my tropical animal exhibit. If you look hard enough, you might see the ocelot, or you might not—she’s good at hiding. I wanted a leopard but was told I didn’t have the space. Some day.
“And here’s the bird enclosure, parrots and macaws mostly. Past that you have the South American creepies—beautiful snakes, mostly. A red pipe snake, emerald tree boa, and that neon-looking guy is the eyelash viper. Beautiful, but deadly.”
“It must be quite a chore to look after all these animals,” said Annie.
“It is, but not for me. I have a zookeeper who stops by, and I have staff do the day-to-day stuff. It’s an operation, but it was always my dream to have a zoo. I go to South America at least once a year to find new animals. And,” said tour guide Cam, “here is my lagoon. Fully stocked with fish from the upper Amazon.”
The corridor opened into a warehouse-sized space containing a lake bordered by lush tropical vegetation and spanned by a foot bridge.
Nigel wondered if she’d considered a crocodile. Why wouldn’t she?
“And now my playroom, where I keep my toys,” said Cam, opening a locked metal door.
Let loose inside the hanger/gymnasium, the visitors spun themselves in silly circles marveling at the vast expanse of adult playthi
ngs. Hard to believe that such a vast array of diversions could belong to just one person with just one lifespan.
“You have a large extended family?” asked Nigel.
“Not unless you count ex-husbands,” said Cam. “I know it seems a little overwhelming, but what can I say? I like to live.”
‘Consume’ might have been a better description. Nigel’s eyes were drawn to a pair of ultra-light aircraft parked behind a five-foot wall of board games.
“How many guns do you have?” asked Annie, staring at an impressively displayed armory in a wall of custom-built cabinets.
“I couldn’t say,” said Cam. “My first husband was a gun nut, and my third was pretty much a collector—”
“Let me guess,” said Annie, squinting at the outstretched muzzle of an enormous gun, which, following its length, led to an ugly, hulking form in drab olive. “He also collected tanks.”
“That would be husband number two, the military man. You’re looking at Pete, the PT-76, a Soviet construction from the ’50s. We had a chance to buy one cheap in Turkmenistan, so we picked it up.”
“Does it work?” asked Annie.
“It had better. We spent a hundred grand to make it battle-ready. Of course, I don’t have live ammunition, just some practice cartridges that came with it.”
“And what”—Nigel pointed to a giant cylindrical cage off to the left—“is that?”
“That is a vertical wind tunnel, you know, for skydiving without a plane. Husband number two—no, make that number three—was hot for me to try skydiving. I wasn’t about to get into some creaky-ass plane just to jump out of it, so he bought me this as a persuader. I hated it. Terrible for the hair, so skydiving was a no-go. Six months later, I told him to go jump from a plane, ’chute optional. He was gone with the wind, but I got stuck with damn tunnel. Like all this stuff, it was bought with my own money, so I’m stuck with it.”
One section of this vast army of misfit toys contained the accoutrements to all the world’s leisure sports. There were golf bags, tennis rackets, croquet sets, darts of various types, skis, snowboards, fishing gear, scuba tanks, watercraft, assorted skates, trampolines, bicycles, and, lording over it all, a full-sized skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
“Am I to assume the T rex provides security?” asked Nigel.
“Rex was a gift to the geologist, husband number four. He had a thing for fossils and liked puzzles, so I bought him this set of bones. When they delivered it with a big rig, he was like a boy on Christmas morning. He spent days connecting kneebone to thighbone. If he’d have thrown me a bone once in a while, he might still be around.”
In a far-off corner, Nigel noticed a collection of bizarrely shaped furniture hung with shiny chains and soft leather goods. When a grinning Stanley walked into his field of vision, Nigel looked away. After a moment to scrub his mind of disturbing visions, Nigel raised his eyes to see Stanley standing among the articles, smiling like the family cat under the canary cage holding in a mouthful of feathers.
Cam and Annie had gravitated toward the modern weaponry section. Nigel, spotting some Rock’em Sock’em Robots, challenged Stanley to a match.
After what seemed like minutes, Nigel heard Annie’s voice, “Ya’ll ready to go?”
“I suppose,” said Nigel. He was agreeable because a big early lead had dwindled to 46 rounds to 42.
Stanley said nothing, but his sagging lips communicated a reluctance to leave a game in which he’d seized the momentum.
The four returned as they had come, out the metal doors to the lagoon. As Cam bolted the door behind them, the others walked across the bridge. Between squawks of tropical birds, the trio heard a gentle plop from behind.
“Oh, shit,” shouted Cam. “My ring fell into the lagoon. This is terrible.”
The group backtracked to rally ’round the stricken girl.
“Which ring, dear?” said Stanley.
“The one you picked out. The ruby one. I don’t want to lose it. That’s our ring. You’ve got to get it back.”
“Shouldn’t be that difficult. Where’d it fall?”
“There,” she said, pointing.
“I see it,” said Nigel. “I can get it.”
“Let Stanley do it,” said Cam. “He’s got a trash grabber thingy.”
“A thingy?” said Stanley.
“You know, that thing with the claw. I know you’ve seen it. I used it yesterday to pick up your underwear. It’s in the side closet, outside the kitchen.”
“Should I get it?” Stanley asked.
“You should get it,” Cam replied.
“I’ll go get it.” Stanley exhaled a large gob of air, and off he went to get the thingy.
“Is it worth a lot?” asked Nigel.
“I don’t know. Thirty, forty-thousand, but it’s not the money,” said a tearful Cam.
“No, of course not,” said Nigel, rolling up his sleeve. “I’ll see if I can reach it.”
“No, don’t,” said Cam. “You’re our guest. Let Stanley do it.”
The more Nigel could do for Stanley, the more Stanley might be willing to do for Nigel. Stanley, despite his turtle-like tendencies, seemed the type to avoid moisture on his person. Physical assertion wasn’t his thing either, and if Nigel could save him the trouble, old Stanley might reward him with a deluxe treatment on the wedding sweets. Nigel needed all the help he could get.
“I’ll just stretch myself out and see if I can reach it,” said Nigel, lying down on the edge of the bridge and thrusting his arm into the water.
“Be careful,” said Annie half-heartedly.
Nigel understood her attitude. She was being the race car driver’s wife, showing appropriate concern while being helpless to stop her man-child husband. She’d been conditioned by dozens of similar scenarios from the past. This time, he was determined to succeed rather than embarrass.
Nigel thrust his arm downward and came up short of the bottom. He edged himself farther out over the bridge and pushed his arm in up to the shoulder. His fingers touched gravel, but no ring. Seeing how he was already soaked to the shoulder, it couldn’t hurt to go a bit deeper. He squiggled himself even farther out until half his head was underwater.
“Watch it. You’ll fall in if you’re not careful,” said Annie. She bent down and grabbed his pant leg as if that might help.
“You should stop,” said Cam. “Stanley’s coming.”
At this point, Nigel would sooner plunge in like a pearl diver than give up the search. He stretched his fingers to their max, hoping to feel metal. He didn’t. What he felt was his body go stiff and buzzy, like being hit with an electric cattle prod built for elephants. The next sensation was one of hearing his own waffling scream before his mouth filled with green lagoon water.
Annie let go of the pant leg to cover her ears.
Nigel rolled into the water like a quivering log. When he next emerged from the depths, he did so with a mad, flapping, vertical leap. Had Annie been an experienced fisherman, she’d have recognized the move as that of the hooked tarpon realizing it had drawn the attention of a hungry bull shark. As he cleared the water, Annie spotted the source of his torment in the form of a slimy, slender creature lunging for his ankle. This aquatic version of a weenie dog did not bark but crackled as it made contact.
Nigel’s upper body landed on the bridge, and Annie helped to pull the rest of him out of the water. Even though his head had been submerged, his hair appeared dry and frizzy. His bulging eyes darted to and fro as if searching for an exit, and his body, stiff as a tree trunk, shuddered as if under attack by a chainsaw.
“Are you all right?” asked Annie.
After a few false starts, Nigel said, “Wh-Wh-What?”
Annie looked at Cam for an explanation.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I mean, I told my aquarist I wanted an electric eel. I didn’t know he’d gone out and gotten one.”
“Wh-wh-why? A-a-a-an eel?” stammered Nigel, struggling both to speak and to not
bite his own tongue.
“Who wouldn’t want an electric eel?” said Cam. “Maddie’s got one. If Maddie’s got one, you know they must be something to have.”
The logic was indisputable.
Stanley eventually showed up with the thingy, but without electrician’s boots or rubber gloves declined to plumb the depths.
The party made their way back to the house, exchanging thank yous, apologies, and adieus while studiously avoiding the subject of eels. For Nigel and Annie, it was a night they’d long be unable to forget. Cam, he thought, might not remember it the next day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Baseless Accusations
Some nights don’t want you to sleep, and Nigel went through one of those. It may have been the room, thick with the essence of Gastrick, or it may have been the recurring aftershocks from his recent electric eel attack. Whatever the culprit, the old soul refused to lie still with the body. But, sleep or no sleep, Nigel was to report to Mrs. Sandoval for day three of his new career. Days one and two had included disposing of a dead body, catching an old crone flung from a banister, welcoming husbands (past, present, and future), and being implicated in a murder. Not to be overlooked, his leisure time had included two exploding water heaters and electrocution by an eel. He looked forward to day three.
The morning’s breakfast failed to compete with an unpleasant aftertaste from the previous night. Unable to ascribe the lingering flavor to any particular menu item, Nigel suspected he was experiencing the aftermath of having one’s saliva fried in situ. With the taste of eel-generated electricity in his mouth, he made his way to Mrs. Sandoval’s office for his morning briefing.
“We didn’t see you at dinner last night,” said Mrs. Sandoval, picking lint from her commodore’s jacket.
