by Karen Harper
“The thing is,” Claire said, “where are the originals of these that would be clearer, even if smaller?”
“He didn’t have a computer that I know of,” Brit said. “Unless he used Dad’s and, once again, the police found nothing of interest on his laptop while they had it.”
“It’s getting late,” Nick said. “We’ve got to get Lexi home to bed. Jace, I can run you home after that, unless Brit can take you. But I’d like, as your lawyer, Brit, to take these photos with me to study more closely, let Claire look them over too. Jackson was obviously taking pictures of a person—persons—watching the BAA from the ranch, and that could be key in your father’s case.”
“Yes. Yes, all right. Key in Stan Helter being behind everything after all, even though that’s hardly him in that photo. I think Helter looks like that rugged Marlboro Man they used to use to sell cigarettes before the tobacco companies had to admit those things cause cancer. Helter’s a cancer too, and I should have realized it. Sorry I’m such a downer right now.”
“‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’” Claire said quietly.
“Mommy, it’s October, so winter’s coming soon,” Lexi put in.
“It’s a quote from a poem by someone named Percy Bysshe Shelley. I meant it in a kind of special way,” she explained, pulling Lexi to her and petting the lamb’s head. “It means if times are hard, something good could be just around the corner.”
Jace said, “Let’s hope so. Like pilots under fire have been known to say, ‘Sometimes there’s nowhere to go but up.’”
* * *
That night, after the house was quiet, Nick and Claire studied Jackson’s photos until their eyes were as bleary as the photos.
“We’d better hit it,” Nick muttered. “All these photos but only two faces, Gracie and the bearded guy.”
“So many men are wearing beards these days. You’d think we’re back in Civil War times. It really hides their faces, and most men look better without them.”
“I’ll remember that, Your Honor,” he said, patting her rear as she got up from the kitchen chair.
They turned out lights and headed down the hall to their bedroom. While he went ahead, Claire peeked in at Lexi. She had dug an old stuffed animal of a lamb out of the back of her closet and had her arm around it. The petting zoo had certainly done a lot for some kids. Duncan still talked about the pig he had befriended there. If things just worked out with the Naples Zoo, that would indeed be the place to take the Comfort Zone kids, especially if Tiberia was safely living there, a good lesson about hard times getting better. She hated to admit it, but the BAA animals would be better off at a different facility, certainly one with better funding.
She quietly closed Lexi’s door and went into their bedroom. Nick was lying in bed already, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
“I can’t believe I’m slipping,” he said. “It took that memory game of Lexi’s—and your mentioning that it was a unique filing system—before I recalled that Jackson had told me he had a so-called filing system in the storage building. Worse, I’m thinking he also told me it was his best hiding place. Talk about Lexi’s memory game—my brain’s wired wrong lately.”
She sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. Her weight rolled him a bit toward her. He took his hands from back of his head and put one arm around her waist, one on her thigh.
“Nick, you have so much going on, and some of it means life or death for your clients, so you can’t keep everything straight.”
“Yeah, and here I was relieved Brit didn’t get accused of anything, so that didn’t turn into a court case. And then I end up playing middleman between two zoos, when I have other big-time cases pending.”
“As well as family life—for the first time in your life.”
“Which I don’t want to screw up, and sometimes do,” he said, tugging her down into his arms. “First things first—you and family. After all the years I was out for justice, even revenge, against the man who murdered my father, here we are, the target of someone who fights with dead animals and—maybe—dead people. And then those weird pictures Jackson took. Mostly thick foliage, as if he was obsessed with someone watching there, hiding. It’s like some nightmare...”
“I know about those. Which reminds me, time to take my pill. Nick, I’ll study those pictures again, and I can take Heck and Bronco out to search for more in the storage shed—maybe Nita too, if they’re speaking now. Jackson used that place like a bank and a file drawer.”
“You’re right—what you said earlier about that memory game,” Nick called after her as Claire rose and went to get a drink of water to take her pill. “Memories are hidden, but you lift the cup or something, and out they come. Then what you do with them is what matters.”
She swallowed her pill, went back in, removed her robe and turned out the lights. “I’m interested in making new family memories,” she told him as she got into bed. “I think it’s great that Lexi has animals to love, beyond Scout. Maybe animals can help the Comfort Zone kids, even someone as damaged as Duncan,” she said, through a yawn.
He reached for her in the darkness, and they held each other tight.
* * *
The next morning, Claire was back out at the BAA, searching the shed with Jace, Bronco, Nita and Heck. Even though she and Nick decided she wouldn’t be hands-on anymore in this case, he’d agreed to this. After all, she figured, there was safety in numbers.
While Brit was feeding animals, they’d come up with two more stashes of photos, but ones of Jackson and his family from way back to the present. When Brit joined them, she said, “I called Jackson’s daughters about the windfall of money, and they’ll be thrilled to have these family photos too. Actually, I hate to just give everything to them as if he’s dead already. The doctor said he may pull through, though he can’t discount brain damage. And here, I couldn’t even afford decent insurance for him, though he had some of his own.”
She sat down on a bag of feed and started to cry. “It’s best this is all over. I’ve got to let go of this, Dad’s dream, no matter where Tiberia and I have to go.”
Jace hobbled over and managed to sit on the sack next to her, with his crutches on the floor. “We’ll make it, Brit. We’ll find a way to work it all out. If Gina can go study in Miami and she and Heck can stay together...”
Claire saw Heck’s stricken look at that. Oh, not him and Gina too! Did she have to give up her forensic training and just go into a couples’ counseling business?
And did she hear Nick’s voice, calling her name outside or was she losing it too?
But Bronco’s head jerked up, and he started for the door with Claire right behind him.
Nick was coming at a sprint past Flamingo Isle, with his white shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie flapping. And—in his hand—a magnum of champagne?
“I’m going to have to fire myself for missing too much work lately,” he called to them as the others waited with Claire. The sun popped out of a cloud as Nick stopped and lifted the bottle. “We’ll have to give a dish of this to Tiberia too,” he told them, out of breath. “Brittany Hoffman, you and your tiger, as well as the other BAA animals, are going to the Naples Zoo! The small Tampa area zoo has decided that will be best for the tiger—best for them too, I persuaded them. Are you crying already?”
“Oh, Nick,” Brit shrieked and the others exploded in cheers. It thoroughly annoyed the tropical birds, especially the one that always screeched Who—are—you?
Brit hugged Nick; Claire hugged them both. Brit fell so hard into Jace’s arms she almost knocked him off his crutches. Heck grinned, for he’d had a part in this too, and, thank heavens, Bronco and Nita embraced.
“Hope you have some crystal goblets around here!” Nick told Brit when everyone calmed down.
“Paper cups in the snack booth! Oh,” she said, breaking into tears aga
in, “Dad would be so happy to hear this, and Mother will too! The animals will be well taken care of, and I can stay here too,” she added with a teary smile at Jace.
Claire had to laugh through her own happy tears of relief. Nick might be over programmed and forget things at times, but the man was usually amazing with details.
This was a huge victory, she thought. For Nick, for Brit and Jace too. And the next victory was going to be finding out who came over that fence, possibly to kill Ben and hurt Jackson. Surely nothing else bad could happen now.
28
Just before noon the next day, Claire heard a car door and got up from working on her laptop in the library to look out in front. Nick was home in the middle of the day. Why hadn’t he called so she could have lunch ready? She hoped something wasn’t wrong.
Maybe he was trying to make it up to her for wanting her to “stay domestic” until the baby was born. Or because he hadn’t told her about the women at the Trophy Ranch. Surely he wasn’t ill. But he hadn’t pulled into the garage, so he must not be staying for long. And, thank God, she saw a smile on his face.
She met him at the front door with a hug. “What’s happening?” she asked.
“I love to tell good news in person. And we have a lot of work to do between now and Saturday afternoon. Part of the deal I just finished negotiating with the zoo.”
“Which zoo? An interview? An event?”
Smiling even more broadly, he took her hand, closed the door and tugged her down the hall toward the back of the house. With his free hand, he dug a folded piece of paper out of the inside pocket of his suit coat and opened it as they went into the brightly lit Florida room.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, you tease!” she protested. “I’ll pour you a cup of coffee, but you’ll explain before you get one bit of food.”
Still playing it to the hilt, he picked up an apple from the bowl of them on the table and bit into it. “Actually,” he said with his mouth full, “I proposed something like this to sweeten the deal, and it’s worked out.” He put the apple down, sat and skidded the papers toward her across the corner of the table. “You’re right, an event. The BAA and the zoo here are inviting the media, the mayor, zoo board and other special guests to the donation of the BAA animals to the zoo this Saturday. It will include Tiberia being moved into a travel cage, put on a truck and taken to his new digs.”
“Oh,” she said, skimming the second page after the copy of the press release. “I’m glad he’ll have his own cage for a while.”
“A necessary period of quarantine for disease.”
“And who knows how he’ll react around the tigers they already have? I’ll bet they socialize them gradually.”
“I think you’d be a good animal psychologist too. The problem is, of course, that this is happening tomorrow, and we have a lot to do to prepare for a crowd at the BAA. But it will be great for zoo publicity and to have the BAA dissolved on a good note, so to speak. I called Brit, and she’s so happy things worked out she’ll agree to anything. Except when she told Lane, he insisted on bringing a string quartet to play, which probably won’t fit the hoopla atmosphere.”
“I wonder what poor Gracie will think.”
“She may not have a phone, but the word’s out here in town and on local news. I thought, if you had the noon news on, you might see it before I got here. Brit is worried that Gracie might try to spring the tiger before the zoo can get him protected. So the zoo management—Brit’s ecstatic about this too—is assigning two of their guards to spend tonight at the BAA, tending and guarding the animals.”
“This will be another huge shock for Jackson when—if—he recovers. But a happy ending to a sad case for the animals and for Brit,” she said, pouring him a cup of coffee and setting it next to him on the table.
“For sure. Except, she says, for two things worrying her, besides Gracie. One, that zoo visitors won’t get over Tiberia’s reputation for having killed a man. And two—like me—she doesn’t want this Disney-happy ending to mean we won’t still pursue the foul play possibility in her father’s death, especially since the police are accepting the accidental death autopsy report.”
“That makes me feel better about Brit. I believe in her, I believe her, yet occasionally I realize she, and Lane much more so, do have reasons to have been angry with Ben. Is Ann okay with all this?”
“I talked to her this morning too. She was with Brit. She’s sad yet relieved. It was a financial burden for her, and the BAA just depresses her now. Despite losing Ben, she’s glad to see Brit happy—and maybe ready to settle down.”
“With Jace.”
“He proposed once before, and Brit said they had to wait.”
“Oh. Didn’t know that. At least they won’t be leaving for parts unknown where they’d want to have Lexi with them sometimes.”
“I know that worried you—me too. But here’s the deal,” he said, finally stopping talking long enough to sip some coffee. “Brit needs help to plan the event at the BAA. Ann is helping, of course, apparently so is Sandra, Lane’s wife, who usually won’t set foot in the ‘dirty’ place.”
“I’ll see if Nita wants to go out there with me, since Bronco’s working at the ranch starting this afternoon. I told you I won’t go out there on that road alone, and I won’t. I’ll call Gina too. I’ll be glad to help Brit, and I’ll call her right now.”
He snagged her wrist as she got up, then tugged her onto his lap. “Just look ahead on the road for spike sticks and don’t drive too fast. Sweetheart, I don’t know what I’d do without you, though I suppose I’m repeating myself. I actually came home to tell you in person not only because we both deserve some great news, but because I thought you might be interested in a little private celebration. Lexi’s at school, I’m taking a long lunch and you’re not exhausted or on your narcolepsy meds. The truth is, I can do without coffee or lunch right now. I’m really only hungry for a little R & R with my beautiful wife.”
“Good news and flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Including in our bed, Mrs. Markwood?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
They kissed so long, right where they were, that Claire was certain she could float down the hall. All they’d been through, since their lives had been endangered—well, she’d never felt so happy.
* * *
“Jackson would have hated all this,” Brit told Claire as the six women sat around one of the BAA picnic tables late that afternoon to plan transition day, as Brit was calling it. Not only would Tiberia be departing, but the other animals would be following soon after, all heading for new homes at the Naples Zoo.
It had also been announced that the cleanup and dismantling of the BAA would begin soon, sponsored by the zoo as part of the deal. The Trophy Ranch, which was buying the property, had insisted they would take the land with the buildings as is, but Brit wanted it “buried.” The work crew would leave the trees, but the foundations and contours of the razed buildings would be bulldozed to smooth the surfaces out rather than leaving things to rot, derelict and sad.
Ann sat between Brit and her daughter-in-law, Sandra. Lane’s wife looked as if she should be modeling for Saks Fifth Avenue casual wear rather than sitting at a wooden table in a petting zoo. On the other side of the table, Claire sat between Nita and Gina. Gina was leaving next week for med school in Miami. They had quickly divided up duties to welcome nearly one hundred guests tomorrow afternoon for the grand farewell.
Ann would oversee phone calls in the BAA office. Brit was the media liaison. Claire, Nita and Gina were figuring out supplies and food to offer a light buffet and drinks for the 3:00 p.m. event. Besides insisting on Lane’s string quartet, Sandra kept talking about tying welcome balloons near the gate, pink ones around Flamingo Isle and black and orange ones on the fence around Tiberia’s cage. She’d also brought a huge plastic bag of various colo
red ribbons, so “this plain place would look pretty.”
But after their meeting ended and they each went their own ways in the BAA, Claire had not been prepared for Lane’s appearance as he came striding toward her.
“I hope you’re not going to side with Brittany on my part in this,” Lane told her as he cornered her near the exotic bird cages.
“Your part in the welfare of the BAA?” she asked, instantly regretting she was goading him. “Brit won’t change her mind about closing the BAA, though I suppose you’d like to keep it open.”
“Very funny. Hardly. You know what I mean. A string quartet will add some class to the event. We can play appropriate music, of course, something lively and triumphant, not calm and soothing.”
“Lane, your beautiful music should be for people who are going to stop and sit and listen to really enjoy it. With guests and the media here—”
“Exactly.”
“—things will be busy and a bit noisy with the focus on moving the animals into vans and trucks. You certainly aren’t thinking you need the publicity?”
“It never hurts. And it’s—it’s the best I can do to honor Dad’s dream of this place,” he added in a rush, suddenly sounding sincere instead of snide.
She stopped walking back toward the business trailer, just as, you might know, the familiar screech of Who—are—you? filled the air close by.
Her gaze locked with Lane’s. He demonstrated that nervous habit he had of stroking his beard. But that bird’s question was one she desperately wanted to ask him. Was he just a hurt son who wanted back in his family’s good graces? Was he a fraud, a forger of more than that letter he’d written? She was tempted to ask him that now, but she didn’t need him going ballistic on her. It suddenly bothered her too, standing here with him, the fence and line of thick tropical foliage nearby, that, on second thought, Lane did remind her of the bearded man in the photo peering through the ranch fence. The outsider looking in—to the BAA, to his family—was that Lane? Had Jackson recognized that and so not shared those blown-up photos with Ben’s family to make their agony worse?
