The Llama of Death

by Betty Webb

  Next up on my suspect list came Walt McAdams. Walt and I were such good friends I felt guilty checking up on him, guiltier still when I found a short newspaper article about a barroom brawl he had once been involved in. He’d broken a man’s jaw when the man slapped his drinking partner, a woman. Walt had a short temper, but he was no killer. Especially not a killer of women.

  Or was I in denial?

  ***

  The puzzle being impossible to solve given my limited computer skills, I gave up on Serena Sue for the time being. I was getting tired, anyway, and needed to get some sleep for my next grueling day at the zoo. Then I remembered that Zorah told me that since I would be staying late playing the star of the Great Escape, I didn’t have to come in until noon. Good. That would give me more time. Now that I knew what information I was missing, I could concentrate with a fresh mind after breakfast.

  A glance at the clock showed it was after eleven. I had been up since five, so no wonder I’d begun to droop.

  “Just a few more,” I said to Bonz, who watched me from the foot of the bed. “The easy ones.”

  He wagged his tail. It hit Miss Priss across the snout, but after a perfunctory hiss, she fell back to sleep. Feroz never stirred.

  A renewed search came up with little on my harbor neighbor Linda Cushing, just a mention that she’d once been questioned in the suspicious death of another Gunn Landing Harbor liveaboarder. Since the real killer had been caught and sentenced to life without parole, Linda was off the hook. Other minimal finds included a society column announcement of Jane Olson marrying her Gold King, and a photograph of family law attorney Frank Turnbull receiving a plaque for his volunteer work with the San Sebastian Food Bank. That last being the only clear photograph I had found so far, I breathed a sigh of relief that Frank was wearing clothes, not his Speedo.

  Before turning in for the night, I went down the hall to Caro’s bedroom and took a quick inventory. Her jewels still there, so were her furs. Next I walked downstairs and checked off the more valuable pieces of furniture. Louis XV ormolu-mounted bibliotheque basse, still there. George III painted satinwood secretaire, still there. Seventeenth-century Flemish open armchair, ditto. Sixteenth-century Portuguese side table, ditto. Eighteenth-century Russian ormolu-mounted bergère, ditto.

  Even the nineteenth-century settee that once belonged to Czar Nicholas II was still there, although it did look less elegant now that the scrawny form of Bucky lay snoring on it, a baseball bat clutched in one hand, a book on classic films in the other. He hadn’t bothered to take off his shoes.

  When I nudged him, he continued to snore.

  I nudged him again, this time more strenuously. More snores.

  Some bodyguard he was.

  I leaned over his prone body and yelled in his ear. “Yo, Bucky!”

  He sat up so fast I had to jump out of the way of his flailing arms. “Whazzat!”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping watch?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “That’s what I was doing until you startled me.”

  “You were…Oh, never mind. But could you at least please take your shoes off if you’re going to sleep on my mother’s settee? It’s…” I almost told him its provenance, then changed my mind. “If you get it dirty it’ll take Eunice forever to clean it.”

  “Right, right. Sorry. Don’t want to put the poor woman to more trouble than I already have.” He untied his sneakers, tucked them under the settee, and sat up straight, facing the door: the very picture of an alert bodyguard.

  “Thanks, Bucky.”

  “Anything you need, lady, just ask. I sure appreciate everything you’ve done for me and Eunice, what with the job at San Sebastian Cinema and all.”

  “And I appreciate your standing guard. It’s very thoughtful.”

  Minutes later, when I left to go back upstairs, he was snoring again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bucky must have been a better bodyguard than he appeared because when I woke up the next morning we were all still alive. The crossbow killer hadn’t murdered me and Viking Vengeance hadn’t rubbed out Soledad.

  After a quick shower—I had to admit it was nice not to have to trudge across the parking lot to the harbor’s community showers—I walked downstairs, trailed by my pets. The dogs immediately availed themselves of the doggy door, but Miss Priss stalked over to her bowl and scowled at me through her one eye.

  At the table, Eunice was dishing up an avocado omelet to Soledad.

  “Where’s Bucky?” I asked, parceling out dog and cat food into separate bowls.

  “Still sleeping,” Eunice replied. “He sat up all night guarding you girls.”

  Soledad startled me with a smile and a wink. Minus her gang-gal makeup she looked like a normal person. Acted like one, too. “I appreciate Bucky’s sacrifice, Eunice,” she said. “It was very gallant.”

  Gallant? Accent on the second syllable? Heck, she didn’t even sound like her former self. I would have thought more about that, but whatever was going on with Soledad would have to remain a mystery. For now, at least. Something had occurred to me in the shower this morning, so as soon Eunice served my own omelet I gobbled it down, excused myself, and ran back upstairs. I needed to hang out with Google again.

  Just as I fired up my laptop, I heard a knock on my door. “Come on in,” I called.

  “Teddy, I think we should talk.”

  Soledad. The gangster wore a nervous smile.

  “Sure.” I hit the screensaver command and a picture of Lucy, the giant anteater, filled the screen. “Pull up a chair.”

  Soledad sat down with her hands folded primly in her lap. “First of all, just to get things clear, I’m not going to steal anything from this house. Secondly, I’m not going to steal away your mother’s affections, either.”

  The woman had the power to render me speechless.

  “I know this is a difficult situation for you, Teddy, but it’s difficult for me, too. I’m used to being with my chicas, yet here I am, staying in the house of a woman I met under less than optimum circumstances who was kind enough to get me out of jail when no one else could. She offered me sanctuary in her own home, with all this…” She waved her hand around, taking in my tacky teenage four-poster bed and Bon Jovi posters. “…all this this grandeur. You need to know that whatever I can do to pay her back, I’ll do. But you also need to know that right now I’m intimidated as hell, both by her and by you, and when I get intimidated I tend to act extra scary to make up for it. Sorry about that.”

  I finally found my voice. “Optimum?”

  She grinned. “Sociology major, English minor.”

  “Have I been had?”

  “Not really. The tough chica, that’s exactly what I used to be and still am to a certain extent. Old habits die hard. When I was younger I got in a lot of trouble, mostly petty stuff, thank goodness, so with my 3.8 grade average I was still able to get a full ride scholarship to UCLA. Now I’m back and helping my chicas, but after my recent legal troubles I’m beginning to think I’d serve them better as a defense attorney, not a free-lance social worker. So law school’s next.”

  I shook my head. “You’re a surprising woman, Soledad.”

  “So are you, Teddy.” She stood up and walked to the door. “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to tell you. With all the weirdness happening around here these days, you have enough problems of your own without having to worry about me ripping off your mother. Same for Bucky. Last night I took him aside and told him what my chicas would do to him if Caro came up with so much as one fork missing. Ever see that TV program, Scared Straight? That’s what I laid on him.”

  “I’m more into the Penguins of Madagascar, myself.” As she opened the door, I asked, “How will you pay for law school?”

  Another big grin. “Manicures?”

  After we g
ot through laughing, I thought of another question. “Soledad, do you know who killed Duane?”

  She gave me a long look. “Not yet. But I’m in the process of finding out. A woman owes that much to the only man she ever loved.”

  ***

  As soon as she left, I opened up my laptop again, cruised onto Google, and continued snooping into the personal lives of my friends and neighbors.

  Deborah Holt’s crimes of violence appeared to have ended with her graduation from college, but there was no way to be certain. Google was mute on that. Another search for Linda Cushing’s possible misdeeds came up empty, too. Same story with Jane Olson.

  I did start to have some luck when, remembering Willis Pierce’s cousin, the first husband of the lovely Serena Sue, I typed in “ANTHONY JAMES MOSS”+NEW JERSEY. I found a legal announcement that Serena Sue Tagliossi Moss was no longer responsible for the debts of Anthony James Moss. Well, well. Usually, when a couple is divorcing, it was the man who put that sort of notice in the paper. Regardless of the social strides women have made, males were still the major family breadwinners, and had the most to lose if they ran up big debts. Then I remembered that the wedding announcement said that Willis’ cousin worked for a casino. Dollars to doughnuts, he had a gambling problem.

  Finding more information turned out to be tricky. Another search using the state and full name turned up nothing of relevance. Same for “ANTHONY MOSS” and “JAMES MOSS.” When I tried “TONY MOSS,” there were so many hits I almost gave up. The professions of the sixty thousand or so Tony Mosses ranged all the way from janitors to a father-son team of circus acrobats. After a quick scan of some possibilities, I narrowed my search to “TONY MOSS”+NEW JERSEY and came up with only six thousand. Making progress. Then, remembering a possible gambling connection, I typed “TONY MOSS”+NEW JERSEY+COURT.

  Bingo!

  I took another look and realized I had patted myself on the back too soon. This was a different Anthony James Moss and he lived in Reno, Nevada, not Egg Harbor, New Jersey. So why did it come up on my NEW JERSEY search? Damned Google.

  Frustrated—I’d been working the laptop for more than an hour—I stood up and paced around while Bonz and Feroz went downstairs and urged the two outside through the doggy door. After a few minutes pacing, I was still restless, so I walked downstairs to find the two dogs back in the kitchen, arguing over a rubber bone.

  “Play nice, you two,” I scolded. I helped myself to a cup of coffee, and wandered through the house. Eunice was in the entertainment room watching a daytime rerun of Real Housewives of New Jersey with Bucky and Soledad. Bucky, who still clutched his baseball bat, was enthralled but the leader of Demonios Femeninos had returned to her de rigueur sneer.

  “Interesting program?” I asked, just to be saying something.

  Eunice: “I really admire those women!”

  Bucky: “They’re smokin’ hot!”

  Soledad: “Que pedazo de mierda.”

  I don’t speak Spanish, but I doubted it was anything complimentary. Not wanting to share their viewing pleasure, I continued wandering the house, sipping my coffee. Sanctuary isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; it’s mainly boring. I still had four hours to kill before I left for the zoo and the Great Escape. I went into my mother’s library, a smaller, less grand version of Aster Edwina’s, and looked for something to read. Caro’s collection leans toward best-selling biographies of famous people. I wasn’t interested in anything written by the cast of Jersey Shore, but I was able to find a copy of Alison Weir’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII. I took the heavy tome back to my room and began reading.

  Wrong choice.

  Although the book was well-researched and written, it remind me too much of Victor Emerson clad in his Henry the Eighth cloak, lying murdered at Alejandro’s feet. From there my thoughts traveled to Bambi’s bedroom and the ghastly sight of her dead, staring eyes. Anything, even Google, was better than this, so I put the book down and returned to my laptop.

  The link to “TONY MOSS”+NEW JERSEY+COURT was still up on the screen. With nothing left to do, I clicked on it…

  …and saw a clear mug shot of “TONY MOSS.”

  After that, I couldn’t get to the phone fast enough.

  Chapter Twenty

  Joe was still on voice mail, not that I was surprised. Homeland Security could be ruthless in their phone confiscations.

  But my old friend Deputy Emilio Gutierrez was on voice mail, too.

  There being no other choice, I called Acting Sheriff Elvin Dade. He wasn’t on voice mail and sounded more than happy to talk to me.

  “Ready to confess to the murders of Bambi O’Dair and Victor Emerson, Teddy?” he asked. Without waiting for my answer, he continued, “Good for you! Hey, I’ll send a car over right away to bring you in so’s you can give your statement. We’ll even brew up a fresh pot of coffee. Or do you want tea? I’m sure we can find a bag around somewhere. There’s a nice clean cell waiting for you, right next to your mother’s! Ya know, Teddy, offenders are always relieved once they confessed, like weight has been lifted right off their shoulders.”

  “There’s no weight on my shoulders,” I snapped, then proceeded to tell him what I’d found out.

  Before I finished, he began to laugh. “You think I’m stupid or something?”

  Yes, I did think Elvin was stupid or something, but admitting it would be foolish. I started all over again, walking him slowly, very slowly, through the timeline, even giving him the URLs of the web sites I found so he could double-check my information. The only thing I left out was my break-in at Victor’s wedding chapel and trailer.

  Elvin still didn’t get it.

  “You think I have time to play these games? I’m warning you, Miss Theodora Bentley. If you keep pestering me or any of my deputies, I’ll have you arrested again.”

  “On what charge?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  There’s nothing worse than the combination of stupidity and smugness. It’s brought down many a politician and was now in danger of letting a double murderer go free. I swallowed my pride and asked if he knew when Joe would be back.

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “How about Emilio?”

  “Your old buddy? His mother wound up in the hospital last night, something to do with her heart, I think, or maybe it was her gall bladder, I can’t remember, so Emilio and his family flew down to L.A. to be with her. My guess is that they’ll stay for a couple of days, keep her cheered up and stuff like that. They say happy people live longer. Come to think of it, why do you need to know where Deputy Gutierrez is? Gonna complain about me? Don’t think I’m not aware of what goes on around here, all the bitchin’ and carpin.’”

  The man was beyond stupid. Instead of a brain he had a vast echo chamber where one was supposed to be.

  He was still talking. “…and if you and your mother would behave yourselves and stop poking into other people’s business, San Sebastian County would be better off. The both of you are a disgrace to decent, God-fearing people.”

  He paused and I heard a man’s voice in the background saying something about a car. Coming back on the line, he said, “Gotta go. Some idiot’s parked in a fire zone over at City Hall. Anyways, I got more important stuff to do than listen to your crank calls. If you know what’s good for you, Teddy Bentley, you won’t call me again.”

  Click.

  It took me several minutes of heavy breathing and clenched fists before calming down enough to think rationally. Not that it did any good. Due to Dade’s intransigence, there was nothing I could do until Joe—an eminently sane, intelligent man—came back from Virginia.

  Or Homeland Security returned his cell phone and he saw all his messages.

  Glancing at my watch I saw there were still a couple of hours left before I was due at the zoo,
but given everything that had happened, I decided to start work early. Aster Edwina wouldn’t pay me for it, but working with the animals would take my mind off my frustration with Elvin.

  On second thought, leaving the safety of Caro’s house might not be a good idea. Maybe I should call in sick.

  I was reaching for my cell to call Zorah and tell her I wouldn’t be coming in before remembering that this was the day of the Great Escape. The press would be there. So would ex-Marine Ariel and a mob of cameramen, plus every zookeeper and park ranger on the Gunn Zoo payroll. Despite Bucky’s trusty baseball bat, today the Gunn Zoo would be the safest place in San Sebastian County.

  After making another call—this time to New Jersey—I put on my zoo uniform and headed to work.

  ***

  Once at the zoo I became so immersed in caring for the animals that the hours flew by. It seemed like only minutes before I found myself in Zorah’s office, slipping my lion costume over my zoo khakis and two-way radio. The lion head was heavy, but it looked authentic, at least from a distance.

  “Fits great,” Zorah announced as I pranced and preened in front of the mirror. “Just comb that mane and straighten out that tail.”

  I combed my mane and flipped my tail. “Meow.”

  She laughed. “Try to sound more like a killer, Teddy.”

  No laugh from me, the word “killer” having a vastly different connotation.

  “Ready to hit the trail, girlfriend?”

  “ROAR!” I was getting in the mood.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” She took me by the paw and led me out the door.

  Ariel, mike in hand, was waiting behind the big cats’ night house. Being interviewed by the anchor was Aster Edwina, dressed in Renaissance finery for some reason. She wore a long gold and purple gown studded with so many jewels it was a wonder she didn’t fall over. To add to her grandeur, a large bejeweled crown rested atop her white hair.

  I hated to admit it, but she looked fantastic.