The Llama of Death

by Betty Webb

  Then again, what about Walt McAdams? I hadn’t checked up on him yet, but doubted the firefighter had a motive for killing Victor. Then again, Walt had always been a carouser, so it was easy to imagine him falling into trouble. Plus, as a security guard at the Faire, he was the first to arrive on the crime scene. Handy, that. He was also…

  A loud crack, followed by a shriek from Lemur Island.

  Then a splash.

  I looked up to see Marcus Aurelius struggling in the water several feet from a broken eucalyptus branch.

  Lemurs are not aquatic animals, which means most can’t swim. Instead of doing the smart thing and struggling toward the branch, the panicked lemur floundered off in the opposite direction, toward the open lake where he was almost certain to drown.

  Leaving the notebook on the table, I grabbed my radio off my belt and punched in 999 while running toward the water. Without waiting for an answer, I yelled, “Lemur in water on the southwest side of the island. Send help!”

  Screams from the other lemurs accompanied me as I threw the radio aside and plunged into the lake. The few yards were warm and shallow, and as I struggled toward Marcus, the mud sucked the shoes off my feet. I didn’t mind. Bare feet would make my swim easier, if not pleasant. This area of Gunn Zoo Lake was brackish, and as I stroked along, algae and debris of every sort slopped around me. By the time I reached the deeper portion of the lake where I had last seen the lemur, I was covered in filth.

  And Marcus had gone under.

  Fully aware that in cloudy water my chances of finding the lemur were slim to none, I took a deep breath and dove under anyway.

  First dive, nothing.

  The water stung my eyes—God only knew what kind of bacteria was floating around in there—and all I could see were greenish-gray shadows within shadows. Stretching out my arms, I grasped at them, but they swirled away, unsubstantial as air.

  I surfaced, took another breath, and dove in another direction.

  There!

  A darker shadow. Moving. Twisting. Long tendrils—legs?—trailing from it.

  I stroked toward the shadow, reached out…

  And grabbed a limp, furry arm.

  I surfaced.

  Rolling onto my side, I tucked Marcus’ head under my left arm, and with the right, swam for shore. Although less than twenty yards away, it seemed like a mile as I stroked one-handed though the algae-thickened muck. Finally, my feet touched mud and I staggered ashore.

  Not worrying, for once, about being gentle, I placed the lemur down on the ground belly first and pressed three times on his back, expelling the water in his lungs. Then I turned him over and gave him mouth-to-snout respiration for ten seconds.

  Then I began the chest compressions.

  I was still working on Marcus when help arrived via the zoo’s animal ambulance. A vet jumped out of the passenger side and ran toward us carrying an oxygen tank and a snout mask. As I continued the chest compressions, she fitted the mask over the lemur’s face.

  “Keep going,” she said, feeling for a pulse in his neck. “Don’t stop. Not for a second.”

  I wasn’t about to stop.

  Compress.

  Compress.

  Comp…

  “Eooowow!”

  Marcus was alive. And very unhappy with what I was doing.

  By now the vet and I were surrounded by other keepers who had heard my emergency call, and they sent up a loud cheer. Marcus might have been a pest, but he was one of the zoo’s favorite animals. To lose him, especially in this way, would have been hard on us all.

  Before I could turn him over to the vet’s care, Marcus rewarded me for saving his life by giving me a blood-drawing bite on the hand.

  ***

  I spent the next half-hour in First Aid, getting cleaned off and having my eyes and lemur-bit hand cared for.

  “Hope you didn’t hurt that lemur,” the nurse said, as she gave me yet another painful shot. “He’s a sweetie. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “I’m not a fly, as my bit hand can attest.”

  Dumping the used syringe in a medical waste box, she said, “Well, that’s it. You’re good to go, but you might want to keep an eye on that hand. If the redness doesn’t go away and it gets more tender, go straight to the ER. Same thing if you start coughing up anything strange. Oh, and while you were showering off, your buddy Deborah came by with a clean uniform for you. And shoes. Hope they fit.”

  The shoes turned out to be a little tight, but other than that, I was—as the lemur-loving nurse had proclaimed—good to go.

  So I went.

  After stopping by the animal hospital and checking on Marcus Aurelius, who appeared to be doing fine after his soggy adventure, I made my way to Down Under. Fortunately, I’d had the presence of mind to retrieve my notebook and radio from lakeside, so I didn’t have any worries on that front and was able to pick up my day where it had left off.

  The residents of Wallaby Walkabout were in fine fettle. Abim, another former star on Anteaters to Zebras, hopped over to meet me. When I doled out pre-packaged wallaby feed—mostly grains mixed with dried fruit—into their dishes, they crowded around like pigs at a trough. Because of their placid nature, the mini-kangaroos made popular pets, but not necessarily appropriate ones. Ever try to paper train a wallaby? It can be done, but not easily.

  After Abim sated himself on his entrée, he came back begging for dessert. I didn’t disappoint him. Like many wallabies, he was partial to banana slices, so I sneaked him a couple until the others figured out what was going on and swarmed around for their share. No problem, since I’d brought enough for all.

  It didn’t take long to clean the entire enclosure and freshen their bedding, so soon I was in the koala habitat where I found Wanchu asleep again. Adorable though they may be, koalas don’t make better pets than wallabies but for an entirely different reason. Due to their low protein diet, koalas doze seventy-five percent of the time, thus providing their owners with less companionship than usually desired. Wanchu’s coma-like slumber enabled me to take care of her enclosure without being poked or clawed, but I did miss her company. When I left a few minutes later, she was still sleeping the sleep of the innocent.

  Several stops later it was almost closing time, which was a good thing. The shoes Deborah so kindly loaned me had rubbed blisters on my heels. But as I prepared to leave Down Under, I noticed a small crowd around the bowerbird habitat. Most birds are kept in the aviary or nearby surrounds, but our New Guinea natives’ mating rituals were so unusual that Dundee, Sheila, Evelyn, and Marsha were given their own large space with the rest of the southern hemisphere animals.

  A middle-aged woman left the fence and approached me with a bewildered look on her face. I knew exactly what she was going to ask.

  “What in the world is that bird doing? He’s got, he’s, well, he’s collecting piles of things. I swear to God they’re color-coordinated!”

  “That’s his way of wooing the ladies,” I replied.

  I walked back with her to the exhibit to explain in detail. “He’s already built his bower,” I pointed out. “See those two large, perpendicular sticks? He’s using them as columns to support the roof he’s built out of small twigs and leaves.”

  “But it must be six or seven feet across—and he’s not that big a bird!”

  “No, but he’s a busy bird. See what he’s doing now? This morning I dropped off a mixed pile of bright-colored objects—bottle caps, big buttons, rocks, shells, small fruit, even flower petals and macaw feathers. Right now he’s rooting through the pile, hoping to gather more blue for the blue stack he’s started. Once he thinks it’s big enough, he’ll start on a red stack, then a green one, then purple, each color in turn until he’s gone all the way through the color spectrum. He’ll go after those shiny black stones I brought for hi
m, too. Lady bowerbirds always prefer a well-decorated estate, one with some flash.”

  “I thought animals were supposed to be color blind.”

  “Not as many as science once theorized.”

  “How long will it take him to finish?”

  I watched as Dundee scuttled back and forth, carrying blue objects in his beak. “At the rate he’s going, several more days. Then, if he’s done a good job, one of the females will join him in his color-coordinated love nest.”

  From the eager expression on her face, I knew which question was coming next. “Do bowerbirds make good pets?”

  “Only if you can give it an entire room of its own. And if you want to spend the rest of your life collecting bottle caps and rose petals.”

  She smiled. “Guess I’ll just have to enjoy him here in the zoo, then.”

  I smiled back. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  Later, while ushering the squirrel monkeys into their night house, I thought about Dundee’s nest building and smiled again because the bowerbird reminded me of Joe. Once I agreed to marry him, he had gone into a frenzy of rebuilding. First he erected a mother-in-law apartment for Colleen on the back of his property, a lovely self-contained cottage she liked so much she could hardly wait to move in. Just before he left for Virginia, he’d started a new wing on the east side of the house. The extension boasted an enormous master suite with his and hers bathrooms, and a walk-in closet big enough to live in. When I’d protested such extravagance, he’d said, “Nothing’s too good for my girl.”

  As soon as Joe came home, I’d introduce him to Dundee. They had so much in common.

  When I finished caring for the squirrel monkeys, one final chore remained before clocking out, and that was the chore I most looked forward to: returning Alejandro to Friendly Farm.

  Alejandro greeted me with a surprised chirp as I walked into the Quarantine barn. And when I actually led him out of his stall and into the evening air he danced with delight.

  “Maaa!”

  “Yes, I know, my sweet boy,” I said, as we walked along the back trail toward Friendly Farm. Doves cooed above us, while in the distance, the squirrel monkeys chattered. The evening breeze smelled of honeysuckle. “You’re free for the night, Alejandro, but tomorrow morning I have to take you back to Quarantine.”

  “Ipe?”

  “Bummer, isn’t it?”

  Once I turned him loose in the barnyard, I took a pitchfork from the tool shed and shoveled some bedding into the corner, but the llama wasn’t ready for sleep. After being cooped up for so many days, he wanted to move around. He took several circuits of the area at a gallop before calming down enough to bleat greetings to his old pals.

  A horse neighed back from the barn. A cow mooed. Chickens clucked sleepily.

  Relieved to see my friend happy again, I returned the pitchfork to the tool shed and clocked out.

  ***

  When I arrived at the jail, Caro had good news, and it showed. Her makeup was perfect, her hair was perfect, her manicure was perfect. She even glowed as she announced, “Soledad’s been released!”

  “How’d that happen? I thought the judge considered her such a danger to the public that he ordered her held without bail.”

  “A misunderstanding, which her new attorney cleared up, pointing out that there was insufficient evidence to hold her.”

  “Did the new attorney happen to be Albert Grissom, your own attorney?”

  She inclined her head regally. “I told Al if he wanted our relationship to progress further I expected him to help my friends. See what a woman can accomplish when she plays her cards right?”

  A beautiful woman, maybe, but not us plain Janes. “How nice,” I said, only partially meaning it. While I felt happy Soledad Rodriguez was once more free to litter San Sebastian County with her uncle’s fliers, the specter of Duane Langer’s murder was worrisome. For a while she had been the chief suspect, and I wondered how Duane’s friends in Viking Vengeance would view her release. If only half the rumors about the gang’s viciousness were true, Soledad had better watch her step. Or leave town, change her name, and get face-changing plastic surgery.

  I pointed Soledad’s peril out to Caro, but she pooh-poohed my concerns. “Demonios Femeninos has her back.”

  “Maybe so, but I can’t help but wonder how a group of women might fare going up against a heavily armed White Power gang. What are the Femeninos planning to do, bat their eyelashes in unison?”

  “Sexist.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Theodora. That was a blatantly sexist remark and I’m appalled to have raised a daughter who has such a Victorian view of women.”

  “Who are you and what did you do with my mother?”

  She sniffed. “Like all sexists, you’ve always underestimated a woman’s powers of persuasion.”

  “Such as, ‘Please don’t shoot me, Mr. Viking Vengeance, it might hurt?’”

  “You’re such a snip.”

  I managed to stop myself before replying, I’d rather be snippy than self-deluded. Somehow my mother always brought out the worst in me. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “Caro!”

  I lowered my voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “Sorry, Caro. Okay, so now that Soledad’s been sprung, where’s she staying? Not at her apartment, I hope. She’d be a sitting duck.”

  “She’s staying at my house.”

  I felt my mouth drop. This was such a bad idea on so many levels it took me a while to speak again. “Are you nuts?” I finally hissed. “You’ve got a maid who’s married to an ex-con, and now you’ve opened your house to a gangster!”

  Somehow she managed to purse her collagen-plumped lips into a thin line. “Don’t be so judgmental. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Your jewelry. Your furs. Your antiques. Soledad’s not just a gangster, she’s a gang leader! She’ll call her buddies and they’ll strip that house clean.”

  “There’s gangs, and there’s gangs.” She was lucky the Plexiglas separated us, because her smug expression made me want to wring her neck.

  “Oh, really, Caro? Then what kind of a gang is Demonios Femininos?”

  “A social group. The women don’t do drugs, let alone sell them. They don’t knock over banks or convenience stores, and they don’t go in for breaking and entering.”

  “Oh, really?” I couldn’t help repeating myself.

  “Really. Soledad told me.”

  “Which means you’re taking the word of a murder suspect!”

  Her eyes narrowed. “In case you haven’t forgotten, Theodora, I’m a murder suspect, too. So are you. Surely you’re not under the impression that Al Grissom didn’t tell me about you being handcuffed and dragged in for questioning after you found Bambi’s body.”

  Affronted, I said, “Whatever happened to client confidentiality?”

  “Stop being so naive. Because of the jailhouse grapevine, I’d heard about your situation before Al did. We get the news faster than the San Sebastian Gazette, so when he stopped by for a visit I only needed him to fill in the blanks. Now I don’t want to hear any more about Soledad, understand? Cell mates have to stick together. It’s the jailhouse code.”

  Since there was nothing intelligent I could say to that, I clomped away in my borrowed shoes.

  ***

  On the way back to Gunn Landing Harbor, I drove by Joe’s house. It was dark. Colleen must have already turned in. From the outside nothing looks lonelier than a dark house so I didn’t slow down, just kept on going.

  I felt better once back at the Merilee, where my furry friends, already fed and walked by Linda Cushing, welcomed me with unrestrained joy. Once I took care of their petting needs, I changed out of my borrowed clothes into more comfortable sweats and nuked a TV dinner. I read the notes I had m
ade before Marcus Aurelius fell into the lake, then began to add to them.

  Dr. Willis Pierce, San Sebastian Community College’s favorite drama teacher, could easily have a guilty secret because pretty young co-eds were the standard professorial temptation. Willis’ former relationship with Bambi and the revelation he’d been married before, proved that despite his dandified ways, he had an eye for the ladies. Maybe Victor caught him having a dalliance with one of his students, a real no-no in these more enlightened days. I placed a star beside his name as a reminder to Google him.

  Among my non-liveaboarder friends and acquaintances I listed the people working the Renaissance Faire.

  Due to Yancy Hass’ experience as a stunt man in action films, the Faire’s Black Knight had a good working knowledge of all sorts of weapons, including crossbows. He was also probably the person most capable of violence. Given the wild lifestyles so many Hollywood people led, Yancy could have easily wound up in Victor’s blackmail ledger.

  I put a star next to his name, too.

  There was one more person I needed to add to the list: Suspect X. The child, now grown, of the man Victor killed in the convenience store holdup. Had he or she discovered Victor’s whereabouts and wreaked a belated justice? The person would have been around Bambi’s age—but so were Deborah and Phil Holt, Walt McAdams, Yancy Haas, and both Keegans.