The Llama of Death

by Betty Webb

  “You didn’t stop to think he might be the blackmailer, counting his payoff?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He was the one who had plenty to hide. If the law found out about him, they’d send him back to prison, so he was really, really secretive. About everything. Why, for years he never once said anything to me about who he really was. I just thought he was an old family friend who every now and then looked at me funny. Aunt Edna, my mom’s sister, was close-mouthed about everything, too. I didn’t find out Victor was my father or anything about that stupid robbery until she developed multiple sclerosis and decided it was time to tell me everything. She told me he’d kept in contact with Mom until she died. He…he really cared about her.”

  Emotion overtook her again. I gave her time to recover, then urged her to continue.

  “About a year after Mom died—heart attack, in case you care, which you probably don’t—he escaped from prison. He made his way to Los Angeles and lived on the street for a while until he decided to get in touch with Aunt Edna. She told him she’d help him if he moved up here, so he did. She financed his trailer and even the chapel. He paid her back but it took a long time. He never had much money.”

  “Which is another reason he made an unlikely blackmail victim, Bambi.” Despite my disapproval over her dalliance with Judd Sazac, I’d begun to feel sorry for her. Mother dead, aunt dead, father murdered. Her life hadn’t been easy.

  But it didn’t excuse her home-wrecking habits.

  “Did Victor ever say anything about knowing somebody’s secret?”

  “Not that I can remember,” she said. “We mainly talked about Mom and stuff that went on in New Jersey while I was living there. You know, school friends and things. He was disappointed when I decided not to go to college, but I told him there was no reason to, I was doing okay, that I got a nice settlement from Max Giffords. I thought I’d be able to get one from Judd once we got married and then divorced, but now that I know the money’s all hers, he’s not worth the effort, is he?”

  “Probably not.” I wasn’t interested in Bambi’s financial schemes so I steered her back to her conversations with Victor. “Tell me more about your dad, what you two used to talk about.”

  “Oh, his chapel business, who was marrying who, what kind of wedding they wanted, stuff like that. His favorite weddings were when they wanted him dressed like Elvis. He didn’t like the animal ones so much because half the time the animals crapped all over the chapel before the ceremony was finished, and guess who had to clean it up. At least he got to charge extra for that.”

  “You did know those marriages weren’t exactly legal, didn’t you?”

  She gave me a blank look. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  Didn’t the woman read the papers? Or had she been so overwhelmed by a combination of grief and greed that she’d not understood the fake reverend part?

  “Victor received his mail-order divinity degree and notary license under an assumed name, which means by fraud. Therefore, he had no legal authority to perform marriage ceremonies. Or witness any other legally binding contract, for that matter.”

  Her face, already pale under the heavy makeup, paled further. “Victor married me and Max. Are you telling me our marriage wasn’t legal?”

  “Probably not.” I could guess what she would ask next.

  She didn’t disappoint. “But my divorce settlement! What happens with that?”

  “I’m no lawyer but I think there’s a good chance you’ll have to give it back. If Max comes after it, get yourself a good family law attorney.”

  When I left the house, she was still cursing.

  ***

  On my way to see Caro, I thought about everything I had learned. No wonder half the people in San Sebastian, including myself, assumed Victor and Bambi were having a May-December love affair. Whenever the two were seen together, there had been obvious warmth between them. The real truth gave credence to the old saw, “Appearances can be deceiving.” Bambi was hardly an admirable woman, but after our conversation I was certain of two things.

  She loved her father.

  And she had not killed him.

  ***

  Mother was more agitated than usual when I arrived at the jail.

  “What’s that smell, Theodora?” she snapped. “Don’t tell me you didn’t shower before you came here!”

  “I was in a hurry. How are you doing?”

  She waved a freshly-manicured hand. “Oh, I’m doing fine, just fine. Food’s lovely, bedding’s sublime.” She leaned forward until her nose was almost touching the Plexiglas barrier. “Of course I’m not doing well! I’m in jail, you hear, jail! And now my only child, from whom I’ve expected so much, visits me reeking of cattle dung!”

  There was a collective wince from the other jail visitors. Caro isn’t much for screaming, but when she does indulge, there’s not a soprano at the Met who can match her lung power.

  “It’s llama dung, actually. With a soupçon of wallaby and a dash of anteater. Would you like me to leave?”

  “Do what you want to do.”

  If I walked out on her I would never hear the end of it, so I stayed. Since she had not yet accepted the fact that Elvin Dade was still looking at her for the Victor Emerson murder, I decided not to bring up Bambi’s disclosures. I saved that information for her attorney.

  I also didn’t mention Mr. Rat.

  Given so much withholding, our time together was strained and it was with great relief on both our parts when visiting hours ended. On my way out, I noticed Acting Sheriff Elvin Dade talking to a deputy near the corridor that led to the office suites. Apparently worried that the exiting visitors might hear him, he held his hand to the side of his face, shielding his mouth. He didn’t see me and I stayed well away to make certain he didn’t smell me, either.

  Observing Elvin’s secretive behavior made me wonder if he himself was the open book he appeared to be. Yes, he had contaminated the crime scene by wiping any surviving fingerprints off the crossbow dart—which everyone present, including myself—viewed as proof of his incompetence. He had intentionally tried to cover up the killer’s identity because he suspected his own wife of killing Victor Emerson.

  But why? The timing was wrong.

  My old truck ate up the miles toward home, the surrounding darkness providing little distraction as I tried to make sense of things. Victor’s true identity had not been revealed to the public until the San Sebastian Gazette ran its article six days after his death. True, Elvin could have alerted Wynona as soon as the fingerprint match came in, but that was after Victor’s cooling body lay in the morgue for several hours. At the time of the murder, no one, including Elvin and his wife, knew who Victor really was.

  Or was I wrong about that, too?

  Not necessarily. If Elvin had discovered before the night of the murder that an escaped convict was living in San Sebastian, he wouldn’t have given a thought to the possible marital consequences. He and his minions, along with all the media he could muster, would have descended upon Victor’s trailer and taken him into custody with a slam, bam, thank you ma’am. But if Wynona had found out the truth before her husband did, she might have been panicked enough to make a pre-emptive strike. Which posed yet another question.

  When, exactly, did Elvin discover his wife had a motive for murder? A week before the killing? Days? Just hours?

  As the hills of inland Gunn Landing rolled silently by in the indigo night, I wondered how Wynona could have blundered onto Victor’s guilty secret. To my knowledge, Bambi was the only other person in the county who had known the truth about him, and I doubted she and Wynona were confidants. Or did the two women share a connection I didn’t know about? I was tempted to take out my cell and call her, but decided not to. Given the rage Bambi had been in when I left her house, letting her cool off until morning would be wis
er. Besides, Tuesday was my half day. After my appearance on Anteaters to Zebras, I would drop by her house for another talk, whether she welcomed it or not.

  In the meantime, there was someone else I’d grown more curious about: Ada Fife.

  Howie’s mother was hiding something, that was certain, but whether it had to do with her own past or some minor crime that Howie had committed, I needed to find out, so I opened my laptop and signed onto Google.

  As far as the Internet was concerned, no Ada Fife matching her description had ever existed, same for her son Howie. Neither appeared on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or any other social media, which in this day and age was distinctly unusual. One possible explanation was that she and Howie were living under assumed names.

  “Ada, who are you?” I whispered to my laptop screen.

  Never one to leave a puzzle unfinished, I thought back on what I had observed about the two first hand. From my visit to their boat, I’d seen a photograph of Howie as a Little Leaguer and another one of him perched on one of the New York Public Library’s stone lions. Maybe he and his mother were from New York? There was no discernible accent in Ada’s voice, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  I remembered Howie once saying something about his father’s occupation. A musician? No, he’d said, “more of a producer.” Maybe that was enough to go on.

  One more thing. “Howie” was probably short for “Howard,” so in Google’s search area, I typed Howard+New York+producer.

  And received thousands of hits, too many to go through individually.

  I tried again, this time typing “Howard+Ada+music producer+New York,” putting quotation marks around the whole mess.

  That reduced the hits to two hundred and fifty-one. I resigned myself to scrolling through the entire list, but stopped at entrant number eighty-three, where I saw a headline in the New York Tattler, a Westchester County newspaper.

  OPERA PRODUCER’S WIFE AND SON DISAPPEAR

  After finishing the article, I understood why Ada kept such a low profile at the harbor.

  The abuse of money and power. The abuse of children by their parents. Just thinking about the misery inflicted upon the innocent made me forget all about Bambi.

  And Mr. Rat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alejandro was still depressed when I stopped by to see him the next morning but he cheered up somewhat during our one-sided conversation.

  “People are complicated, aren’t they, Alejandro?”

  “Onnn.”

  “You would know, I guess, given what that nasty Dalrymple did. Knocking out your front tooth. Hurting that little girl.”

  “Maaa!”

  “Why did he buy you from that llama farm in the first place if he couldn’t take care of you?”

  “Mph.”

  “Maybe he thought it was a good idea at the time, but then the ‘new’ wore off and he got bored. That often happens with people who buy exotic animals for pets. Once they discover how much work it entails, they either start abusing the animal or dump it in some zoo’s parking lot. I’d like to give Dalrymple the benefit of the doubt and say that he probably didn’t mean to hurt you. But then again, maybe he did, ‘cause he’s sure mean enough to sue the zoo for something that was his own fault in the first place.”

  “Aiiiii!” Maybe it was my imagination, but he sounded angry.

  Better change the subject. “Are you making friends?” I waved toward the other animals—the zebra, the goat, the eland. They had their ears pricked forward, watching us. Although the barn was a safe and comfortable temporary home for quarantined animals, there was little entertainment, and they appeared to appreciate this interruption of their dull routine.

  So did Alejandro, whose expression became placid again. He stepped forward and nuzzled my ear with his soft lips.

  “Mmmm.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie, but you know what? I need to pick up some animals and drive them over to the TV station for their fifteen minutes of fame. Maybe someday I’ll take you. Would you like that?”

  “Maaa!”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  I gave him a goodbye scratch behind the ears and set off for the animal clinic, where the day’s charges would be waiting for me.

  Bernice Unser, the zoo volunteer who always accompanied me on these trips, was waiting by the cages. She looked nervous. “I’m not that comfortable with snakes,” she admitted.

  “You’ll like Lillian, though.” I squatted down and peered into the albino boa constrictor’s cage. After pigging out on breakfast, Lillian appeared relaxed and happy. “Lillian’s friendly, which is why we chose her for the program. Ever since Sssbyl started tweeting, snakes are rising in popularity.”

  Bernice brightened. Despite her fear of snakes, she’d become a Sssbyl fan, too. “Did you see this morning’s tweet yet?” She held out her phone so I could see the screen.

  At 5:46 a.m. Sssbyl tweeted how much she was enjoying her visit to San Francisco. “Sssigned Bridal Regissstry at Gump’sss, ate mousssie on wharf, usssed wi-fi at Ssstarbucksss. Good timesss!”

  “Bridal registry?” I asked. “Sssbyl’s getting married?”

  “Remember, last week she tweeted ‘Love isss a many sssplendored thing.’ Apparently it’s serious.”

  I wanted to be happy for Sssbyl, but my own love was somewhere in the woods of Virginia and I missed him like crazy.

  ***

  During the live program of Good Morning, San Sebastian, Ariel welcomed Pooh Bear the bearcat with open arms. Literally.

  The minute I took the two-foot long juvenile bearcat out of his cage he leapt on her, licked her neck a couple of times, then snuggled up in her lap. As she stared down at him in amazement, he began to chuckle.

  “He sounds like he’s laughing!” The tough ex-Marine was obviously charmed.

  “That’s how bearcats sound when they’re happy. He’s sure taken a shine to you, hasn’t he? With your black hair, I’ll bet you remind him of Elysa, the keeper who hand-raised him. Like many of the zoo’s animals that have to be bottle-fed for whatever reason, he’s grown into a real snuggle-puss.”

  While Pooh Bear chuckled away, I explained that bearcats, who lived mainly in the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia, were classified as binturongs. They had received their nicknames because their faces and extraordinarily long whiskers resembled a cat’s, and their bulky bodies, a bear’s.

  “He looks like something Dr. Seuss might have dreamed up,” Ariel said, stroking the Pooh Bear. “And he smells like buttered popcorn.”

  “That scent, their cute appearance, and their sweet personalities are just some of the reasons why they’re so frequently turned into pets. That, plus, the fact that they’re murder on cockroaches and rats.”

  Pooh Bear stood on his hind legs and began snuffling through her hair with his pointy snout.

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “Looking for bugs. But I’ve got something better.” I reached behind me and pulled out a paper bag. “Watch what happens now.”

  Bearcats love grapes, and the minute I pulled a fat concord out of the sack, he emitted a squeak and beat feet to my own lap, where he clasped my wrist with his little paws and lowered the grape to his mouth. Munch. Gulp. He squeaked again. More, more.

  It didn’t take him long to get through the entire bag of grapes, which was just as well, because Bernice was waiting backstage with more animals. This time a stage hand named Jeff helped her lug out a large cage. The stage hand remained as Bernice moved away with a still-chuckling Pooh Bear.

  “Remember my saying that some people keep bearcats to help control the rat population?” I said to the camera. “Here’s a South American animal that’s often domesticated for the same reason.”

  With Jeff standing beside
me, I opened the cage door and dragged Lillian out—coil after coil after coil. Although she had not yet reached her full maturity, she was six feet long and weighed around forty pounds. With Jeff holding one end and me the other, we looped the snake around my shoulders. Lillian enjoyed the heat of a human’s body so she didn’t try to get away, just lay there, tongue darting, head bobbing gently.

  “Pretty, isn’t she?” I asked Ariel, scratching the boa under the chin while trying not to stoop under her weight. “As you can see, she’s an albino. She has pink eyes and her skin is a lovely cream color with yellow and gold markings. Unfortunately, this pretty skin has caused these animals to be hunted into endangered status, so if you see a woman walking around in boa-skin shoes or carrying a boa-skin handbag, you might want to say something about her fashion choices.”

  Sermon over, I launched into some of the lesser known facts about boa constrictors: they were non-poisonous; after incubating the eggs in their bodies, females gave live birth to up to sixty young; some species grew as large as thirteen feet; many could stretch their jaws wide enough to swallow a wild pig whole after they’d constricted it to death in their muscular coils.

  “If you want to have a boa constrictor for a pet, make sure you don’t already have a dog or a cat. Uh, and make sure your children have grown up and left home.”

  Ariel laughed, but Jeff looked stricken.

  “Thinking about buying a constrictor?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I was.”

  “Have kids?”

  He nodded again.

  “Young ones?”

  “Two and four.”

  “Then you’ll be glad to know that the San Sebastian County No Kill Animal Shelter has a wonderful assortment of dogs and cats waiting to be adopted. Thanks to the financial success of the Renaissance Faire—huzzah!—this week the shelter is skipping the usual fee for vaccinations.” I pushed Lillian’s bobbing head away and reached into my chest pocket. “Here’s a coupon. After you’ve chosen your new family member, present the coupon and you’ll get fifty percent off neutering.”