Endangered

by Ann Littlewood

  One of the officers said, “We’ll have a patrol car check the house every hour or so. Call 911 if anything happens.”

  I reminded them to coordinate with Gil Gettler.

  Robby and I spent the night at my parents’ house, and I didn’t remember my date with Ken until I pulled my earrings off to go to bed, too late to call back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I sat in my car in the employee parking lot as the sun considered whether it was worth the effort to rise and listened to Ken’s calm, puzzled voice message on my cell phone. I figured he’d be up by seven thirty so I pushed Send to call him back. I got his voice mail. “It’s Iris. I was on my way out the door last night to meet you when the Tiptons broke in.” That should short-circuit any hard feelings. “I had to deal with them and then the police. I’m really sorry. Call me, would you?”

  The call and sleep-deprived sluggishness had made me late. Hap hovered at the time clock like a thundercloud. “Listen, you. We’re buying you a hand gun after work today.”

  The onslaught wasn’t a real attack, and I tried not to slip into defensive mode. “Pete and Cheyenne told you about my visitors.”

  “Yup. Let’s do this. I’ll meet you here after work, and we’ll go shopping.”

  “I’ve never even fired a gun.” I swiped my badge at the timeclock.

  “About time then. We’ll go to a range and I’ll show you.”

  Hap knew things I never would, from the years that left him scarred and an expert on motorcycles and bar fights. I knew different realities, different disasters. “Hap, I have a kid. No way can I have a gun in the house.”

  “You can lock it up.”

  “If I do that, it’s useless if someone breaks in.”

  “No, you get a fingerprint safe. Sits on your nightstand and opens fast. Reads your fingertips. That’s what people use if they have kids.”

  “No way. I could shoot the wrong person or somebody could yank it away from me.”

  “So you’ll just sit here and wait to see what happens?” Frustration warped his face into a vicious scowl. The snake tattoo climbing his arm swelled. “Look, there’s sheep and there’s wolves. The guard dogs aren’t keeping the wolves away, so you need to do better than sit around and grow wool.”

  I took a breath and a step away. “Robby’s safe for now. I’m figuring out what to do. I’ll put a piece of iron pipe by my pillow.”

  Hap’s head waggle said this was totally unsatisfactory. “You’ve got suspected killers breaking into your house. You’ve got a kid to protect.”

  “Hap, I know that. Give me some space. I’m figuring this out.”

  Options and obstacles preoccupied me as I worked birds, the routine absorbed into muscle memory. I could feed and evaluate the penguin colony, which had returned to normal after the previous day’s medical ordeal, and also ponder a heavy, dark gun in my hand. Would I shoot someone to protect myself, to save Robby? I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. I couldn’t have it around for my child to find and investigate.

  Did Jeff and Tom have reason to return? Had I convinced them I didn’t know anything useful? No way to tell. Old Man Tipton had not raised them to be competent and confident. He’d raised them to obey orders. I’d feared them as dangerous adults, but they were also nervous and uncertain. Country boys in the big city, out of their comfort zone. Unpredictable.

  They had enough initiative to follow the zoo van and take that accursed plastic bag. I wished I’d challenged them about the bag. No, that would have been too confrontational.

  I wished I could talk to Marcie about what I should do. Maybe call my mother instead? But I already knew what she’d say—“You and Robby are staying here until those men are in prison.”

  One of the Bali mynahs was fluffed up and sluggish. I spared a little brainpower for my job and put in a call to Dr. Reynolds with the radio at my hip. My cell phone rang while I was talking with her about the mynah. I wrapped it up abruptly and barely caught the call.

  Ken didn’t sound angry or shocked. “I guess I can’t compete with drug dealers. Did they really break into your house?”

  “Yup. Can we reschedule? I’ll tell you all about it.”

  We set up dinner for the next evening and I hung up. It was more than a date now. He had spent time at the Tipton farm. Maybe he could help me figure out how to get them apprehended. That would be a first step in justice for Liana and the smuggled animals, not to mention the possibility of getting my life back. Ken and I had plenty to talk about.

  On the way to lunch, I swung out of my way to the maintenance barn to have a chat with Ralph and José, who were deep into the guts of a giant riding lawnmower. “You guys get a work order for a mandrill feeder?”

  Ralph, who looked about sixteen but had been at the zoo longer than I had, pulled his head out of the cab. “Kip came by with a design. We’re on it.”

  “How long?”

  José said, “Oh, probably three-four weeks. We’re pretty busy.”

  An instant before I lost it, I caught the way he was watching me out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t toy with me, you heartless gear heads. That baby’s life is at stake.”

  José grinned. “I think we put it up tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s better.”

  Ralph was smiling, too. I was an easy mark on a boring morning.

  “You’re welcome,” José called as I left.

  I turned and blew him a kiss, then one for Ralph. They hooted.

  I’d almost forgotten how to smile.

  I called Linda and asked her to eat with me at Felines instead of the basement lunch room. To avoid running into co-workers and sharing my indecision, I bought lunch early. The burrito was cooling when I caught Feline’s steel door to keep it from slamming behind me.

  The old concrete box was hers now, her posters and cartoons on the wall, her food in the fridge, but it still smelled and sounded the same as when I was the feline keeper—cat smells, cougar chirps, lion grunts. It always felt like a home I’d abandoned. We sat at the metal table in the kitchen. I unwrapped the burrito and popped the lid off the coleslaw container. “I need to hear myself talk.”

  “I’m told your date with the dog guy was pre-empted by the Tiptons.” She’d already pulled cottage cheese and sliced peaches out of the fridge.

  “Pete, Cheyenne, or Hap?”

  “Pete. It was on the news, too—‘broke into a Portland house and fled.’ No mention of your name or address.”

  “Good. Here’s the thing. I have to keep Robby far, far away from them. Hap wants me to buy a gun, but that’s a non-starter. Pete and Cheyenne are mostly home when we are, but it’s not fair to ask them to go up against criminals. I don’t know what to do.”

  “So is your house safe or not? I’m thinking the evidence is pretty clear.”

  “Damn it, why should I have to wrench my entire life around and move out because of those bastards? I would take the risk, if it was just me, but letting Robby stay there is unthinkable.”

  “Hello? You can’t afford it either. Who’s going to raise him if they shoot you?”

  “Where on earth can I take Robby and two dogs? I wouldn’t feel any safer in a motel, and it’s too expensive. My parents have their own lives, and I can’t keep spreading the disruption.”

  Linda raised an eyebrow. “My keen intuition tells me you have made a decision and are just stalling.”

  “Pete and Cheyenne should leave, too. It keeps rippling out.”

  “Call your parents. I’ll come with you to pack.”

  “No!” I sulked for a moment. “All right. Yes. Where can Pete and Cheyenne go?”

  Linda thought about it. “Denny’s, I suppose. He’s got room. All I’ve got is a sofa.”

  “They can train that dog of his and clean up the place. Th
en all this might be worth it.”

  It was a weak joke, and Linda ignored it.

  I finished my food, ranted some more, and departed in search of Pete. Cheyenne would probably refuse to hide out, so best to start with him. He was working Bears since Arnie, the regular bear keeper, was off. I found him on the platform above and behind the black bear exhibit, hosing down. “Pete,” I called, “need you for a minute.” He shut the water off and climbed down. He agreed that it made sense for all of us to move out for awhile and that Denny’s place would be their best bet. I said, “I’m leaving it to you to persuade Cheyenne.”

  He looked glum.

  I called my mother and explained the situation. She’s at her best in a crisis and assured me that I was doing the right thing and that “we’ll have a good time.” What if Jeff and Tom had been raised by two warm-hearted, capable parents? I wished I could clone mine and assign all the sad, frightened toddlers in the world to better homes.

  Hap waited at the time clock at day’s end. He wanted to share that Oregon doesn’t allow bail bondsmen or bounty hunters. “That means you can jump bail in Washington and hop over to Oregon, the state where you live, and no one but the police can haul you back to Washington. That means…”

  “Yeah, I get it. The Tipton boys might stay in Portland, and they could come back to my place.”

  “You need protection.”

  “No, I need to hide out for awhile. I’m going home to pack.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Somewhere else.”

  He considered being offended that I wouldn’t tell him and decided to pass on it. Or else he figured out that it had to be my parents’.

  He met me at the house after work “just in case.” He checked the inside, then hung out in the living room as Linda and I rounded up stuffed animals, clothing, and dog food. Pete and Cheyenne showed up with a load of groceries and put them away in a strained silence. I raised an eyebrow at Pete. He shook his head.

  “So,” Cheyenne said when she finished tucking away the coconut milk and lemon grass, “you’re bailing?”

  “Yeah. Until the Tiptons are back in jail. And you?”

  “We’ll be fine here.”

  I considered arguing and gave it up. My own problems were more than enough. “Pete, would you feed the macaws while I’m gone? I’ll write out instructions.”

  “No problem. Show me where the food is.”

  “We can feed them together now, before I go.”

  Hap took a break from guard duty and the three of us fed the macaws, with minor disputes about the proportion of fruit to pellets and whether the basement was warm enough at about sixty degrees. Since one of them—I didn’t know which was Stanley and which was Stridder—was half naked from feather-plucking, I had set up a heat lamp to radiate on a perch. Pete said he’d keep an eye on the bulb.

  “Pete,” I said, “if you talk Cheyenne into moving out, just call me. I’ll come feed them. I won’t be that far away. Don’t let her use this as an excuse.”

  He nodded. “It could happen. Elephants could sing opera.”

  “Look at those two,” Hap said. “Crammed into that cage side by side for years, and now they can’t get far enough away from each other.”

  True. The birds perched at opposite ends of the remodeled cage. “Too bad. They’d be happier paired up,” I said. Happier flying free in a tropical jungle, but that was really beyond my powers. And only a fantasy since they couldn’t have a clue how to survive in the wild.

  Hap said, “I’ll send you an email with links to local sanctuaries. If you can get them in. They get lots of big parrots that people can’t keep or don’t want. I don’t breed mine anymore, not since I tracked down what became of half a dozen birds I bred and sold. Too many of them resold and vanished or given away or stuck in a basement.”

  I said, “This basement was so not my idea.”

  “I know that.”

  Pete went upstairs to start dinner and fight with Cheyenne, Hap to see if by any chance our fridge held a beer. I stayed a moment, watching the birds pick through our offerings.

  Jerome Tipton had been outraged that we were hauling them off to the zoo. When he hollered to “get my birds,” I was sure he meant Stridder and Stanley and not the Amazon parrots. He and his sons were facing trial, his wife was in the hospital, his “daughter” was missing—assuming he didn’t know she was dead—and his property was invaded. Yet he was desperate to get his birds back. His last words were about them.

  The unplucked macaw put his face to the mesh, and I scratched his forehead. “What are you not telling me?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  My mother had put basil in something and dinner smelled like summer, a promise that winter would end someday. I scooted Robby up to the table on the booster seat. The parents had already eaten, so my mother hovered, offering me hot tea, lemon slices for the fish, rice vinegar for the beets, a salad dressing. My father sat with his wrists on the table. They both looked tired, probably from tearing around setting the house up for me, my son, and two dogs. Winnie and Range sprawled where people would be mostly likely to trip over them.

  “You are the best ever,” I said to both. “I could not make it without you, and I’m sorry for everything I ever did that worried you, and for being an awful teenager, and not turning the compost last fall like I promised, and for not growing up to be a teacher or a sign painter. I will make this invasion as short as I can, I promise.”

  They gave each other a look, and my mother said, “Relax. You’re doing the smart thing.”

  I thought she might add, “For once,” but she didn’t.

  My father said, “We’ll sleep better with you here and safe.”

  That night I lay again in my adolescent bed with Robby curled up asleep—at last—on a crib mattress on the floor nearby. The dogs snuffled unhappily in the hallway outside the door when they weren’t barking at unfamiliar noises. The bedroom was chaotic, suitcases and tote bags everywhere. I was evicted, stressed out, and desperate.

  In the morning, I pulled on a clean uniform without disturbing Robby. Today he would stay with his grandparents, so I could let him sleep.

  I walked into the empty living room carrying my rubber boots and dialed Officer Gil Gettler. Whether he had an early shift or a late one, I couldn’t say, but he did pick up and I suppose he was sorry to find me at the other end. No, the Tiptons weren’t in custody. No, he couldn’t say when they would be. Yes, he would let me know as soon as it happened.

  “They were driving around in their own van,” I said. “How does that happen? They show up at the farm and just drive it away and nobody notices?”

  “We’re stretched thin and their place is out on the edge. We’ve got a murder/suicide and a bank robbery in the last couple of days.”

  “So they get to wander around until somebody trips over them? Look, are you sure they aren’t sleeping in one of those barns? Or at Pluvia’s, that neighbor woman?”

  “They haven’t been in either of the barns or the house, and we know there’s been no vehicular traffic in that neighbor’s driveway.”

  “And how do you know all that when no one spotted them driving away?”

  “Trust me, we know. It’s just a matter of time until we find them.”

  Trust me. I hung up in an angry panic.

  I found my mother, wearing the green velvet robe I’d given her for Christmas, in the kitchen making coffee.

  “Mom, go back to bed. It’s Sunday. I can feed myself. Robby’s still asleep.”

  “No, it’s fine. Here.” She handed me a mug.

  I sagged at the kitchen table, trying to let go of the frustration and fear. “I’m really sorry to crash on you like this. I have no idea when I can go home.”

  “It’s not so terrible to have you back. You used
to live here, if you recall.”

  “Not with two dogs and a little kid.” Was I bringing my troubles to them? If the Tiptons wanted to find me, maybe they could track me here. The thought made my head hurt.

  My mother puttered around while I ate. I expected advice or warnings or pleas, but she just puttered while I ate my cereal. She pulled up a chair next to me. “Tell me about that girl you found.”

  I told her about following the dog to Liana’s body. “I don’t know why, exactly, but I feel really bad for her. I have this notion that she escaped from something awful, like a vicious pimp. Maybe the Tipton farm was a place to hide, although it was pretty awful, too. I keep seeing her walking through the woods to visit her friend. Trying to make a home out of that skanky house. Playing with the Doberman puppy. And then someone shot her before she had a chance at a better life.”

  “Do you think her pimp found her and killed her?”

  “At the same time as the drug bust? That seems too coincidental. I have no idea. But I keep thinking about her.”

  “I wondered how you’d handle motherhood.” She patted my hand.

  I wasn’t at all sure what that meant, but it seemed to be a compliment. “I don’t think I’m ready to feel motherly toward a teenager, not yet. Let me get through toilet training first. Or maybe you’re right.”

  A quiet conversation between equals. How odd.

  I had my hand on the front door knob, ready to leave, when I remembered. “Mom, I know this isn’t the best timing, but I have a date for tonight. I already canceled on him once. I can see if Amanda’s daughter will watch Robby. Courtney’s good with him.”