Endangered

by Ann Littlewood

  Gettler put a hand on his gun and told us to stay where we were. He vanished into the brambles, returning in a few minutes. “The path disappears in the woods. I’d guess those boys came in here last night to get out of the weather.”

  We slipped back into the barn and shut the hidden door. Gettler turned the electricity on and we looked around in better light. The deputy thought the buckets of potting soil had been moved and the dirt pawed through. He unlocked the other barn, and we found a duplicate door at the back. Again, the trail petered out.

  We all looked around the meth barn with fresh eyes. Denny was sure someone had disturbed the straw in the tortoise corral. It was heaped up in the middle. The deputy had frown lines on his forehead that hadn’t been there before. He said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” and left toward the house. My guess was that he had a few people to consult with about access to the supposedly-secure barns.

  “Now can we load those birds and go?” Denny asked.

  “Damn straight.”

  We followed Gettler outside.

  I glimpsed a human shape emerging from the trees behind the barn. My muscles were set to “flee,” but my brain identified the woman before I bolted. It was the neighbor I’d seen before.

  Today she looked less like a woods witch and more like an aging woman worn down by a hard life. Her gray hair was still wild, and again she held the shotgun in lumpy fingers, the barrel pointed down. A brown wool shawl was draped over her shoulders. Her eyes were cautious in a soft, lined face. “We met before. I’m Pluvia. I was hoping you might have learned how Wanda is getting along. Wanda Tipton.” She had a nice voice, a little hesitant but clear.

  “I’m Iris. This is Denny. I haven’t heard anything more. Her husband died last night. A heart attack, we think.”

  “In prison?”

  “No, here. He was released on bail.”

  She didn’t react to the death, but her eyes widened with the news the Tiptons had been released. “I heard the ambulance. I wondered…” She scanned the yard behind us. “Tom and Jeff were released also?”

  I hoped Denny would keep quiet and not scare her off. She knew more about this farm than anyone alive except the Tipton brothers. “That’s the sons, right? They were here last night. Scary guys.”

  “Jeff can be. Neither one will pee without the father’s permission. They’re probably watching us. I do wish I could find out about Wanda.”

  She confused me—the shotgun, the mix of boldness and fear, her concern about a difficult neighbor. I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with any of the Tiptons, no matter how charming and innocent Wanda might be. “That friendship must not have been easy.”

  She nodded. “Jerome and the older son, Jeff, were unpleasant. But Wanda would walk to my place and we would visit. Liana brought her. Wanda stopped coming a few months ago, and I... I wasn’t going to come here.” She looked around the farmyard.

  “You could talk to the deputies,” I said. “They could tell you where she is.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. They came to my home. I found their questions very unpleasant.”

  I wanted to know much more about the Tiptons, and she looked about to take flight. “I could let you know if I hear anything about Wanda. If you gave me your phone number.”

  She stepped back and studied us both. “You’d be wise to stay clear of Jeff. Tom is a different story.” She looked toward the house and back to us. After a hesitation, “I’m worried about Liana, too. I thought if she escaped, she’d come to my place. If you see her, I live north…” She raised her head, looking beyond us. I turned and saw the deputy approaching at a fast walk.

  Denny said, not harshly, “Iris found Liana’s body yesterday. She was shot during the raid.”

  Pluvia’s eyes went distant, and she stood motionless for a few seconds. Then she walked back the way she’d come, threading her way among the blackberries, her shawl snagging a little. I could see only the top of her head when she made it to the little trail behind the parrot barn and disappeared toward the woods.

  Denny said, “This is so not a good place.”

  The deputy arrived and demanded to know who we had been talking to.

  “A neighbor dropped by,” I said. “She’s a friend of the mother.”

  The deputy was not mollified. “This is a crime scene, and people can’t go wandering around ignoring the tape and breaking into the barns, poking their noses in everywhere. She comes back, I’m going to arrest her.”

  He was mad at her? “It could have been the brothers.” I didn’t add, “while we were out here alone and you were in the house,” but he got my point.

  Pluvia lived to the north and it was within walking distance, but what were the odds of finding her house in the woods? Not good, but no matter. We wouldn’t be back after today. I’d lost my chance to learn more about the Tiptons, such as their car trips to pick up animals.

  Time for the macaws. I’d brought the biggest animal carrier we had. Denny and I carried it into the dining room. I handed the birds broccoli spears and spinach leaves, which did not appeal, and more carrot sticks, which did. Their hooked beaks reminded me of a description of their genus, Ara, that I had once read: “can openers with feathers.” I had the feeling that my bird mojo was insufficient to allow me to grab them and stuff them into a carrier without losing a finger.

  I hated situations where animals had to be moved in a hurry. Given time, I could train the macaws or almost anything to shift to a smaller cage in exchange for treats—no stress or excitement. The rushed alternative was to cowboy the critter—grab it or net it or throw a towel over it—and hope that no legs or wings were broken and no one was bitten. I wasn’t looking forward to grabbing the macaws, for their sake or mine. Another way finally came to me.

  Denny said, “Can’t we just put the whole cage in the van?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” I found a piece of string and used it as a tape measure to get the width and depth of the cage. We checked the dimensions. It looked tight, but do-able.

  We’d need to put the cage on its side, and then the macaws wouldn’t have anything horizontal to perch on. I found a branch and stuck it through a corner of the cage at an angle. The macaws objected at volume.

  Together we tipped the cage over, with me apologizing to the birds for the disruption. They hit new highs in decibels, clinging to their old perch until gravity and good sense sent them scrambling to the branch. The cage was heavy and we were leery of the birds chopping our fingers off so it was hard to know how best to grip it. Denny nicked his thumb on a projecting metal stub and stopped to wrap a handkerchief around it. Ken from Animal Control showed up and stepped in without a word, hefting my end as though I were too frail for the job. Which I had to admit, I was. I moved to Denny’s end. The electrician and various agency staff offered conflicting advice and annoying opinions. We three animal pros wrestled the cage out of the house and into the van. I shut the tail gate, and we shared high fives.

  The excitement over, the agency people drifted off toward the barns or inside the house. The photographer in the wool cap took pictures of us standing by our zebra-striped van. “Would you mind answering a few questions?” he asked. “It won’t take long. I’m writing an article on this arrest, and I’d like to include the zoo perspective. Let’s start with your names.” He smiled, expectant.

  I looked up and met intelligent hazel eyes. A stray shaft of sunlight lit his face and faded. I glanced away from that perceptive gaze. “The names you want are Neal Humboldt, the curator, or Dr. Crandall, the director. We can’t talk to you without their okay.”

  He looked unsurprised. “I’ll see to that. I’m Craig Darsee.”

  He seemed fit and competent despite the limp. In his thirties. Narrow nose, a mouth ready to smile. If he shed that cap, he’d be good looking. His clipboard was at the rea
dy and the long-nosed black camera hung off his chest. “I should ask about talking to ….”

  “Iris Oakley. This is Denny Stellar.”

  He studied me, ignoring Denny. He reached out his hand. “Iris. Very glad to meet you.” I shook it. He turned and Denny shook it. He said, “I’ll be in touch” and stepped back, still looking at me.

  While Denny and Ken tied the unused animal carrier to the rack on top of the van, I went back to the living room for the bag of parrot food. It’s best to transition to a new food gradually, so I’d need the old food. The cage had been set tight in a corner. Left behind was the inevitable residue of spilled birdseed, peanut shells, feathers, and dried bird poop that had drifted down and stacked up between the cage and the wall. It was a sprawling pile now that the cage wasn’t supporting it. It had been out of sight behind the metal skirt around the bottom of the cage, and the tidiest housekeeper couldn’t have reached it.

  I wanted to leave, but I was more or less responsible for this. Out of a dim sense of respect for Liana or whoever had toiled to keep this sad house clean, I searched out the broom and dustpan. My first pass uncovered …what? I grasped a corner and shook the detritus off. It was a quart-size plastic bag, the kind with a seal you press shut along the top. Inside was a small water glass and inside that was a wadded up tissue. I opened it and looked closer. The tissue was dirty, a smear. Something put down and forgotten when the cage was originally set up?

  “What cha’ got?” asked the electrician.

  “Beats me.” I shouldn’t have touched it. Too late now. I sealed the bag back up and stuck it in a pocket. The house was empty of law enforcement. I swept the carpet as best I could and dumped the mess into the kitchen trash.

  Denny stood in the cold by the van yakking with Ken. I waved the bag. “Found this behind the cage. A bag with a glass in it.”

  Denny gave it a glance and didn’t try to care. “Let’s go.”

  Deputy Gettler emerged from the barn and tromped over to the photographer who stood watching us. “You again? You want to get yourself arrested? Keep on doing what you’re doing, because I am that close. You get yourself behind that crime scene tape right now.”

  Craig saluted and headed toward the driveway with the deputy close behind him. Ken followed them. I could hear Gettler’s radio mumbling in Navaho or Sanskrit on his hip.

  I checked the macaws and the carrier on the roof while Denny visited the bathroom. Denny climbed in on the passenger side, and I started the motor. “I need to show this bag to the cops.” But all the patrol cars were gone from the parking lot. Only the electric company van remained. “Damn. Where’s a cop when you need one?”

  Denny was preoccupied with his thumb injury. “Call them tomorrow. Or tonight. We are done with this place. I can’t remember my last tetanus shot.”

  “The date will be on file in the office with your TB tests.” I tucked the bag behind his seat where we wouldn’t kick it and the macaws couldn’t chew it. I’d deal with it at the zoo.

  Two men in parkas, jeans, and boots wandered the driveway between the road and the parking area. Denny and I tensed, but they ignored us, focused on the metal detectors they each waved along the ground. Looking for some sort of evidence? Nothing they wore displayed an agency logo. The log that had trapped us the night before was gone.

  “Outta here!” Denny said.

  “Too right.” I gunned the van onto the road. It skidded on an icy patch and I wrestled it back into the right lane. Getting creamed just as we were escaping the Tipton farm would fit right in.

  Even in daylight, the road seemed ominous. Thick, moss-padded limbs of big-leaf maple hung over the highway. Sword ferns and evergreen shrubs prevented any view inside the forest. A raven followed the road ahead of us for half a mile, flying easily at our speed before veering off on unknowable raven business. We passed a tangle of logs on a naked hillside; a yellow log loader rusted amid the stumps.

  After a few miles, Denny said, “Nothing is ever totally bad. Those birds will end up in a better place, and we got these amazing torts. I’m going to talk to Neal and see if we can set up a whole tortoise unit. This is golden—we’d never see these guys otherwise. A few will be good for Asian Experience, and we could set up a whole Madagascar exhibit. I’ll look at the master plan with Neal maybe next week and see what we can do.”

  “Golden?” I said. “Golden? Two people are dead and you’re celebrating? And may I remind you, that these are stolen reptiles?” Anger felt good. It flushed out some of the impotence and fear of the last three days. “How many of those animals died before they got to the Tiptons’? Most of the rest could croak despite everything Dr. Reynolds can do. Golden, my ass.” A macaw squawked behind me.

  Denny cocked his head, considering my perspective as if it really hadn’t crossed his mind. “Probably true, but no one can change what already came down. All we can do is deal with the new reality and improve the trajectory. We could do a ton of conservation messaging. Between the pet trade and the food markets, tortoises are getting vacuumed up everywhere.” He wound up, “And if we learn more about breeding them, collectors won’t need to take them out of the wild.”

  “Messaging, sure. Breeding, mostly bullshit. Those Amazon parrots? Neal told me plenty of people breed them. They’re common. Anybody can buy a legal one. The wild ones are just cheaper.”

  “Huh. That sucks swamp water.” He took a moment to think. “Captive bred ones are healthier, so it’s stupid anyway. But nothing we can do about it now. Seriously.”

  “Yes, there is. We can figure out where they came from, who the importer is, and shut down the pipeline.”

  Denny looked at me sideways. “Uh, what have you got in mind?”

  “Nothing. Yet.”

  We rode on in what would have been silence if Denny hadn’t lapsed into muttering. “Different antibiotic…Show Marion how to soak them…Humidity…Ban cold meds…Legalize to strip out the profit…”

  The macaws also muttered, but didn’t release the full power of their vocalizations. The van would have been intolerable. I rolled down the window to clear the disinfectant smell and soon rolled it back up because it was cold out there.

  I waited until we were on the freeway and the van was settled in the middle lane. Letting go of annoyance at Denny was an old challenge. I squared my shoulders, took a breath. This week, we’d worked together, been in danger together. We were both calm. Well, he was calm. There was no reason to think we’d be alone together any time soon. A better opportunity wasn’t likely. “Denny. Life doesn’t offer up unlimited opportunities, you know. They don’t circle back if you miss them the first time.”

  Any normal person would have said, “Huh? What the hell are you talking about?”

  What Denny said was, “That’s true and it’s not true. Karmic debts don’t go away until they’re paid. And some life lessons keep repeating until you get them.”

  He had a talent for derailing me, but I wasn’t having it. “You won’t find someone like Marcie again. You should make it work.”

  He shifted in his seat, not looking at me. “We decided to separate for awhile and see how it goes.”

  It sounded rehearsed. “Not what I’m hearing. She’s pretty broken up.” I kept my own tone reasonable.

  “Why am I talking to you about this? This is between her and me.”

  “I’m collateral damage. She’s my best friend.” The silence that followed didn’t feel quite right. “And you and I, we go way back.” There was a muddle. What were Denny and I to each other? Co-workers, sure. Ex-lovers from long ago. Friends? Yeah, sort of. With Marcie, I needed to know she was solid and there for me when I fell apart. Pure self-interest. No, not just that. I hurt when she hurt. With Denny—

  “I talked to her two days ago. We’re friends. She’s fine.” His voice was firm, but stress leaked out in the line of his m
outh.

  “Yeah. I heard about that. Not fine.”

  Silence.

  I adjusted the rear-view mirror to check on the birds and set it back. All I could tell was that they hadn’t escaped. “Her dad split when she was four and she hardly ever hears from him. She had this abusive boyfriend when we were college roommates. He used to tell her she was fat and stupid. You were her first boyfriend after that—it took her four years to try again. Now you bail on her. She’s hurting.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “What is it like?” When he didn’t answer—“She told me she never used the M word, but something flushed you like a pheasant. She’s good enough for hooking up now and then, but not for a real commitment. Is that it?”

  “Bullshit. You know that’s not true, and it disrespects us both.”

  He sounded angry and he had a right to be. I’d lost patience and gone to goading him.

  After a pause, he said, “She’s into mellow music, like Jack Johnson. I like Unknown Mortal Orchestra. She’s super tidy and clean. I’m not. But the big thing? Whatever she thinks I should do or say, I don’t get it right, and she’s nice about it. She’s always nice about it. She has to transcend us both to make it work. We can’t keep misaligning and pretending it doesn’t matter.” Denny’s eyes were locked on the Costco truck ahead of us. “You never wanted us together. So what’s your beef now?”

  He had me there.