Taking On Lucinda

by Frank Martorana

  She did a slow take of the room. Empty. Almost. Still early. There was a collegiate-looking couple quietly nursing beers in a corner. The only other patron was a man at the bar, his back toward Aubrey. Stringy brown hair squeezed from under his baseball cap and draped onto meaty shoulders. He was big but slouchy. Dark tanned arms and neck would place him more in a country music-blasting roadhouse than in the understated ambiance of the Groggery. He engaged in heated conversation with the barmaid each time she passed near him. She looked around nervously when the man’s gravelly whispers became too loud. Both conversed angrily, with much gesturing and disgruntled expressions.

  Aubrey was halfway through her drink when she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, languishing in rare solitude.

  It was an abrasive, throat-clearing grunt close by that aroused her from dreamy tranquility. She snapped open her eyes to focus on the stranger from the bar looming over her, leering at her legs. Reflexively, she recoiled them under the table.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Just long enough for a look.”

  His eyes were embedded in dark sockets above a matted beard. He emitted a musty odor, like a kennel suffering an outbreak of distemper.

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you a minute.” His lips twitched in and out of a wry smile.

  “I’m really not looking for company.”

  “This is business.”

  “Business? What kind?”

  “It’ll only take a minute. Can I sit down?”

  “Give me a little more information.”

  “It’s about Copithorn. I can help you with your problem there.”

  “I don’t have a problem. Copithorn has a problem.”

  “Whatever. You want to see them stop hurting animals, don’t you?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Can I sit down?”

  Aubrey reluctantly signaled him into the seat across from her. “Yes, I’d like to see Copithorn quit experimenting with animals.”

  “Well, wouldn’t it look bad if they found somebody’s pet dog in there?”

  “Who are they?”

  “The police. And what if Copithorn had a fire?”

  Aubrey leaned away from the man’s foul breath. “If I get your drift, you’re suggesting something way too extreme for our organization.”

  “I’m not asking you to do nothing. I’m just asking if it would look bad.”

  “Forget it. We’d be the number-one suspects.”

  “Me and a few friends have a personal reason to see Copithorn take some heat.” He shook his head in disgust. “And it ain’t because they hurt poor little animals.”

  He said it in a way that made Aubrey think he would probably enjoy seeing animals suffer. It angered her, and the idea of this boor tying FOAM to some personal vendetta angered her more.

  “Listen. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to know. If you’ve got a problem with Copithorn, you deal with it. Leave me, and FOAM, out of it.”

  The barmaid appeared next to the table and pointed at the man. “Is he bothering you, miss?”

  “Never mind, Tammy,” the man said before Aubrey could reply. “I’m outta here. We’re done talking.”

  The little woman watched him move slowly out the door. Then she turned to Aubrey with an embarrassed look. “I’m sorry, ma’am. He don’t mean nothin’. He’s just drunk. I’d ignore him if I were you.”

  Aubrey’s eyes shifted from the stranger to the barmaid and back. She said nothing but sensed the last thing she should do was ignore him.

  Chapter 10

  Kent sat at his desk, humming “Stars and Stripes Forever” as he rifled through a pile of window envelopes. His back was to Sally, who was addressing postcard reminders to owners whose pets were due for vaccinations.

  “The bills never stop,” he said almost cheerfully.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Seems to me that we haven’t been busy enough to run up these kinds of bills.”

  “It has been sort of slow lately. Want me to take my car out and hit a few dogs and cats? You know, stir up a little business?”

  “If you do, you’ve got to be accurate.” Kent kept the black joke going. “You can’t kill them. No money in that.”

  “What you want, then, is just a real expensive fractured leg?”

  “Now you’ve got it. One for the morning, one for the afternoon for a week or two. That ought to get our cash flow where we want it.”

  Their sarcasm was interrupted by the telephone. Sally answered it. As Kent half listened, he turned to Lucinda. “Don’t worry, girl. We’re not really going to hit-and-run any of your buddies.”

  From her rug, Lucinda rolled her brown eyes but did not dignify his remark with a tail wag.

  “It’s Merrill.” Sally stretched the phone cord so Kent could take it.

  “Morning, boss.”

  “You sound cheerful,” Merrill said. “Must be you haven’t heard what happened last night.”

  “All is well as far as I know.”

  “Copithorn burned last night.”

  “What?” Kent said into the phone loud enough to make Sally turn.

  “Not the whole place. They had a big fire in the research wing. Destroyed it. Firemen are still at the scene, but it’s gone.”

  Kent stared at Sally, phone to his ear. He slipped his palm over the mouthpiece. “There was a fire at Copithorn last night.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  He repeated what little Merrill had just told him. Then he said into the receiver, “Where are you now?”

  “At the station. But I’m headed back over there to meet the arson boys. I thought I’d pick you up on the way.”

  “You figure it’s arson?” He knew the answer before he asked.

  “Does a bear shit in the woods? That’s why I need to talk to you.”

  “FOAM is on the list of suspects. Right?”

  “Wrong. FOAM is the list of suspects. I need to know about your meeting with their gang leader…whatever her name is.”

  “Aubrey Fairbanks. I was going to call you to tell you I didn’t think Aubrey…er, Ms. Fairbanks was likely to overstep the law.” He hesitated. “Guess I was wrong.”

  “Very. She’s overstepped the law, all right.”

  “How much damage is there?”

  “Lots of cooked puppies and bunnies mostly.”

  “Jesus.”

  “A million and a half will probably build the place back.”

  “I can’t believe they would do that. Did I ever buy into her line of bull. Yeah, Merrill, stop by and pick me up. I’ll be ready.”

  How gullible can a person be? He had believed her! Or maybe he’d simply wanted to believe her.

  Kent scowled through the window of Merrill’s cruiser, oblivious to the background chatter of the police radio. Village scenery was an irrelevant blur as it passed. All he could think about was how he’d been duped.

  Merrill didn’t help. “So you figure you misjudged her, huh?”

  Kent kept his eyes aimed out the window. “I admit I am the ultimate sucker. She told me, ‘Violence is not FOAM’s style. We work within the law.’” His voice was dripping with sarcasm. “What a crock. She’s just as evil as the rest.”

  “You should have known, brother. That’s why you’re not a cop, I guess. You’re not cynical enough. You’ve got to remember, they’re guilty until proved innocent.”

  “I’m learning.”

  “Yeah. Well, don’t take it too hard. We’ll get to the bottom of this mess. You could say, we’ll ferret out the perpetrator.”

  Merrill’s weak pun caused Kent to shift his gaze toward his brother. He countered the chief’s simpering grin with a look of disgust.

 
“Sorry,” Merrill said. “Anyway, tell me about your meeting with Ms. Fairbanks.”

  Kent thought momentarily. He could feel his anger tainting the image of Aubrey and her FOAM cohorts. “They believe all animals should be wild, no domestication of any type. And they are against any use of animals by man.”

  “Any at all?”

  “Any. They have a lot of quasiscientific jargon to support their position. And they expound alternatives to animal use. Most of it wouldn’t work.”

  “But they think it will.”

  “Right. They play heavily on human emotion. You know, tug at a person’s heartstrings. ‘How would you like to be in the poor little bunny’s place?’ kind of thing. Make every issue a matter of rescuing the helpless, suffering animal. Then, to top it off, they throw in religion as a wildcard that gives them an unfair advantage.”

  “Religion?”

  “Yeah. They flaunt religion as their reason for action. Except, instead of the usual, ‘God is on our side,’ they say the opposite. ‘There is no God. We are not made in his image. We have no immortal soul. We are just animals in the big picture of nature—creatures of the Earth Mother, like all the rest.”

  “Sounds like a neo-pagan cult to me.”

  Kent’s eyebrows V’d into a questioning look. “Neo-pagan cult?”

  Merrill smiled slyly. “Pretty astute, huh?”

  “From you? Yeah. Where’d you get it?”

  “Actually, I’m reading a book about the rise of Nazism. It calls Nazis neo-pagans. They believe the same crap— man is just an animal, no different from a rat or a cockroach.”

  “That’s about what it boils down to, now that you mention it.”

  Merrill wheeled the police car through the gate at Copithorn. Last week’s picketers were now replaced by a police guard. An officer waved them through.

  Ahead, Kent could see a thin gray plume of smoke floating skyward out of a charred window frame. All else was strangely still. Scorched cages and furnishings extracted from the building sat among hoses crisscrossing through puddles in the parking lot next to the burned-out building. Firefighters stood in small groups talking or were quietly stowing their gear.

  Merrill rolled down his window as a firefighter with a chief’s insignia on his helmet slogged over. The acrid odor of burning chemicals and electrical fire rolled into the car. Lucinda, in the backseat, sneezed hard.

  “Hi, Tod. Looks like you guys are winding down.”

  “We are. Not too much more we can do.” Tod thumbed toward two men in trench coats conversing beyond the firefighters. “The investigators take over from here.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “It’ll be arson for sure, if that’s what you mean. The fire originated in at least two, possibly three, spots.”

  Neither brother showed surprise.

  “You figure it was the animal rights people?”

  Merrill kept his tone neutral. “Time will tell. Can we look around?”

  “It’s okay with me if you go in, Merrill, but I’m not sure I can let you in, Kent. Official personnel only. You know what I mean?”

  “I’m Copithorn’s animal-care supervisor. There’re animals in there. Right?”

  “Lots. But I don’t think you can help them.”

  “I’ll take a look anyway. I need to make a report.”

  The explanation was enough to satisfy Tod. He waved them through.

  “You’re getting pretty assertive in your old age,” Merrill said as they walked toward the rubble. “It’s about time. I like seeing the old Kent.”

  “Yeah? I hadn’t noticed.”

  Ahead, Kent saw Stef Copithorn. She picked up their approach.

  Her hands were locked on the lapels of an ultra-suede overcoat, pulling it around her like a kid hiding in bed. Red circles glowed under each eye. “Morning, gentlemen,” she said.

  “Hi, Stef. I’m sorry about all this,” Kent said. It sounded hollow. “You okay?”

  “As good as I can be under the circumstances.”

  “Right. Do you need anything?”

  “Yeah.” She gave a short sad laugh. “A research wing.”

  “Whole thing gone?”

  “I’d say ninety-five percent, after a quick look-through.”

  Kent used his toe to nudge a blackened stainless steel water bowl that lay on the macadam. “This never should have happened.”

  “It’s not your fault, Kent.”

  “I talked to her. Yesterday. To Aubrey Fairbanks, that is. They’re a bunch of selfish, vicious thugs. I didn’t know it then, but I do now. We’ll get them.”

  Stef did not seem so confident. She stared blankly into the smoldering remains of her research building and said nothing.

  Kent drifted away as an insurance adjuster approached Stef and introduced himself.

  “Let’s have a look inside,” he said when he caught up to his brother.

  They entered through a steel fire door warped by the heat. A lone fireman remained inside watching for flare-ups. He looked at their footwear.

  “In those street shoes, you better stay away from the back corner. Still pretty hot back there. The rest should be all right.”

  They stepped carefully through sodden black ash and heat-mangled debris. The flat black that coated the walls seemed to swallow the beam from Merrill’s flashlight.

  Kent tried to remember the layout from their tour a few days ago. “This must have been a rabbit ward. Right?”

  “I think so.” Merrill forced open a cage door. Its hinges were twisted out of alignment by the heat. He studied a bundle of singed fur huddled against the back. “Yeah. This is a rabbit all right.”

  Kent stepped over and confirmed it. He shuddered at the thought of the creature’s last moments of life. “Talk about cruelty to animals. What do they think this is?”

  “Hey. They probably figure it’s the cost of making a statement. Sacrifice a few for the good of the many.”

  They pushed through the burned-out rooms one after another. Like most veterinarians, Kent had a strong stomach for gore, but he felt it rolled as they entered the dog ward they had toured with Stef. Each cage held a canine victim frozen in a hideous contortion. Some had died with paws outstretched through the bars, some had attempted to burrow into corners, all whose expressions were discernible had died in terror.

  He noticed a canine body lying on its side across a lab counter. It must have been there during the fire, he thought. Hair on its side was almost completely burned away, and charred flesh and skin was exposed. It seemed smaller than the others.

  “What time do they figure the fire started?” he asked.

  “Haven’t pinned it down yet. Sometime after midnight they think.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s a body here on the counter. Why was it left out? It must have been dead before the fire. Right? Or it wouldn’t be there.”

  “Maybe for an autopsy in the morning.”

  “Maybe. But I imagine they’d have left it in some sort of cooler. At least it would be in a plastic bag.” Kent gently elevated the tiny creature by the tip of a rigored toe. “I don’t see the remains of any plastic underneath.”

  “Got me.”

  Kent let it go. “Who knows? Let’s get out of here.”

  The air outside smelled like springtime on a trout stream in contrast to the burned-out lab filled with soot. Kent scuffed the ash off his shoes in a patch of grass. “Now what?”

  “We begin our investigation. Of course.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning”—Merrill gave his brother a direct look—“don’t expect an answer overnight. You let me do my job. We’ve got a systematic approach to this sort of thing.”

  “Think you can nail the bastards?”

  “P
robably. We usually do.” Merrill climbed into his cruiser. “You want me to drop you back at your clinic?”

  “Yes. I need to get cleaned up before I head over to the Red Horse.”

  “What you got going there?”

  “I’m going to pay another visit to Ms. Fairbanks.”

  Merrill groaned. “Don’t do anything to compromise our investigation. You got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And if you get any info that may be important, I’m the first to know. Got it?”

  “Drive.”

  Chapter 11

  Kent and Aubrey Fairbanks faced off from their positions in heavy leather chairs in the Red Horse’s lobby.

  “You certainly reeled me in. I actually thought you were sincere. Maybe misguided, but at least honest. ‘We would never send an anonymous threat letter.’ Right. You convinced me that you weren’t some lunatic—you were honorable. Then you go and pull this crap.”

  “As I told you before, I know nothing about the letter to Sally. And we don’t start fires. I assure you, the Freedom of Animals Movement was not involved in either.”

  “You must realize you’re the gold-plated suspect here.”

  Aubrey leaned forward and gestured with both palms up. “Of course. Which is one reason why we would not do it.”

  “Except zealots crave publicity. You run around the countryside like mad dogs, rabid with your cause.”

  “We work within the law!”

  “Uh-huh.” Kent stared at one of Jefferson’s ancestors on the wall.

  “Look at our record. Civil disobedience, yes, but no violence. No felonies. And certainly no crimes against animals.”

  “You’ve got that right—this was definitely a crime against animals. You should have seen all those burned-up dogs and rabbits and mice and ferrets. It would make you vomit. They died the worst death anybody could imagine.”

  Kent watched as the horrific picture contorted Aubrey’s face. She sank back into her chair. It was the first time he’d seen her defeated, the first time he’d uttered words that stabbed into the essence of all she believed. Instantly he felt ashamed. “I had no right to say that to you.”