Night Kill (17 page)

Then there was the famous scene at Hap’s annual party the year I started at the zoo. I’d come alone, hoping to nudge new work relationships toward friendship. Instead, I’d been holding up a dining room wall, nursing a beer and watching the crowd. Across the room, Hap was large and festive in a Hawaiian shirt, pink shorts, and plastic thongs, laughing with people I didn’t know. A woman with hard miles on her, yellow straw hair, a leather vest and ripped jeans, punched him in the shoulder, ragging him about his muscles, feeling his chest. She was no one associated with the zoo, that I was sure of. Grinning, he’d thrown her an air punch. She grabbed the big fist and inspected tattoos on his hand, then his arm, rolling up his sleeve to see the length of the cobra. She moved her body against his and I heard her suggest they move to a bedroom so that he could show her the full set. Hap shook his head the way you might at a cute puppy that tinkled on the carpet.

Peroxide-woman was well fueled and had spoken too loudly. Benita wafted up to her, shimmering in a silky blue body suit, high neck, no skin exposed, but the tight fit telegraphing her thong and absence of bra. I’d wondered all evening whether she could get out of that thing to pee without assistance. Benita took the woman’s hand, moving it off Hap, and put her other hand on top, a friendly, confiding gesture, a thousand-watt smile on her face. In four-inch heels, she tiptoed higher to reach the woman’s ear, honey-and-chocolate hair loose on her back, breathy voice in a whisper too low to hear.

After a second’s paralysis, the hard woman jerked her hand away, made fists, and stood with her jaw thrust out and color rising. Hap folded his arms across his chest, noncombative. She took a step toward Benita, wavered in the glare of that stainless smile, then wheeled around, grabbed a leather jacket and her soused boyfriend, and hauled them to the front door. At the open door, she hesitated long enough to drop her ratty pants and moon us—flat, pale ass—then shrieked some combination of “bitch slut dyke” as she slammed the door behind them.

Benita rotated her spotlight to Hap, who raised eyebrows and flared his fingers in a “not my fault” gesture. Benita’s gleaming smile never reached her eyes, but she nodded, finally, and turned to rejoin her guests. A peculiar little grin twitched on Hap’s lips and was gone.

I sagged against the wall. Benita had scared the nuggets out of me ever since.

Within two days, the zoo people had the story pieced together and the Legend of Benita never died. I’d been careful that the pleasant little buzz between Hap and me had stayed little.

Like Greg, Benita treated sexuality as an Olympic sport, one she’d medaled in. She’d asked for Rick’s help with her snake. A scenario flowered: Rick and Benita meeting at the zoo to look at baby garter snakes or the python eggs. Benita deciding to give Hap some of his own back and making the moves on Rick, out of revenge or genuine attraction, or merely because she could. The two of them drinking together? Drunk and passionate. Hap suspicious, trailing Benita, walking in on them and going berserk.

Or was Jackie simply wrong? Who might actually know if Rick was having an affair? I made a list of people to ask, a short list. That kept me occupied for the rest of the flight.

Chapter Fifteen

The plane landed in late afternoon and I wrestled the two crates and my backpack onto the parking lot shuttle. The air felt moist and clean, kindly, after the eye-stinging atmosphere of Southern California. I’d never noticed how benign Northwest daylight was, all soft pastels, or the multiplicity of shades of green. Some muscle behind my eyeballs seemed to relax, no longer hard-clenched to withstand the exuberant Los Angeles sunshine. Could I adapt and live happily with reliable sun and a well-funded zoo? Or was I moss and mud to the core?

I drove to the folks’ house and said hi to delighted dogs and to my mother, who was happy to have me haul them away. Winnie had tipped over all the wastebaskets looking for tidbits, and Range had trampled the fall cyclamens chasing squirrels. I promised a hard day’s digging come spring to pay my debt. I kept quiet about the job interview and declined the offer of dinner.

My house was cold and dark, still tainted with stale smoke. I almost missed the tang of spilled beer. I had five phone messages, four from people interested in buying the truck and one from Marcie. She’s the one I called back. After giving her the rundown on my weekend, I set up dinner for Monday night. The truck could wait.

Next was feeding Bessie Smith, who loathed me even when she was really hungry, then checking the mail. It included a surprise—the first installment on Rick’s life insurance, $40,000, more money than I’d ever seen with my name on it. The usual amount of insurance was a year’s salary, but Rick, ever susceptible to a sales promotion, had popped for double that. The insurance company had called a couple of times and I’d filled out forms, but the whole thing had seemed like a fairy tale.

I stared at the little piece of paper. What on earth should I do with it? What if the burglar returned? I folded it up and put it in my wallet next to about $8 in bills. I took it out again. I felt like Winnie with a fresh bone, carrying it around, inside, outside, what to do with it?

The house felt isolated and vulnerable.

I put the check under my pillow, locked all the locks, and fell into bed feeling like the sacrificial virgin on a cold stone altar. I was weary enough to sleep, but woke up on my feet when the dogs started barking at four in the morning. I locked the doggy door to keep them inside and cowered in the dark bedroom with the pipe wrench until we finally dozed again.

The next morning, the check was missing. I searched the bedroom, still half asleep, until a scary thought jerked me awake. I examined every door and window lock. No sign of intrusion. I stood still in the bedroom and pulled myself together. Coffee first, then think. After the first cup, I found the check where it had slipped behind the bed’s headboard to the floor. I drank a second cup over a bowl of granola and stared at the little piece of paper. Getting paid for Rick’s death was somewhere between peculiar and perverse. I stuffed it in my pocket with my wallet. I’d drop by the credit union after work and deposit it.

At the zoo, I hauled the crates back to the Commissary and checked the schedule. Three more days of training with Calvin, then Wednesday and Thursday off. I’d solo at Birds on Saturday and Sunday, Calvin’s days off.

I chatted with Hap about L.A. for a bit, looking for guilt, regret, or self-righteousness and finding only his rough-edged friendship. An opportunity to ask him what he did after the party didn’t materialize.

No way would Hap kill Rick. My imagination had run away with me.

I walked toward the Penguinarium with a gentle drizzle misting my sunburned face. Back in my own world, back at Finley, Rick’s death seemed a lot more like an accident and the dangers to me more like…no, not like fantasies and coincidences. Uncertainty and ambiguity returned, but an icy core of conviction did not thaw.

Finley Memorial Zoo seemed smaller, older, and poorer than it had the week before. Much of it had been built in the sixties and seventies and the exhibits showed their age with rusting metal, worn paint, and outmoded design. Vancouver citizens had stepped up to the problem, I told myself. The bond measure they had passed would make a big difference, if the construction was ever finished. I wanted to be around to see that, to see a fine orangutan exhibit and classy housing for Asian cats, birds, and reptiles. Many of the new spaces would be filled by animals we already had, and all the staff were eager to see their circumstances upgraded. In a small zoo, I could make a difference. At Los Angeles Zoo, who knew whether that would be possible?

I took the long way to the bird kitchen, swinging by the future Asian Experience complex to see what progress had been made. Wallace and Dr. Dawson were in front of the construction site when I arrived. Dr. Dawson was carrying a long pole, the kind that holds a syringe full of some drug so you can poke it into an animal from eight feet away, if you’re quick—and Dr. Dawson was quick. Wallace had a little curved hoof knife in his hand, so I guessed some antelope was in for a nap and manicure. They were both in parkas with the hoods down, indifferent to the rain in the best Northwest tradition. They looked companionable, two men with a chore they didn’t mind doing together.

“Those penguins delivered?” Wallace inquired.

I stepped to one side of a puddle. “No problem. I left the crates at the Commissary.”

“You talk to the people in L.A.?” He peered at me intently.

“You bet. I interviewed with a senior keeper. It went okay.” No, wrong tone—safety required enthusiasm. “They loved my experience with servals and clouded leopards. What a great place.” I needed to work on this—too stilted to convince people I really hoped to quit and move to L.A.

Wallace looked pleased. “I’ll let you know if they call me for a reference.”

“They’ve got fabulous animals in really cool exhibits,” I added, warming up. “We don’t have anything that comes close.”

Dr. Dawson’s chin went up a little. “It’s a world-class zoo. You would be fortunate to have a job opportunity there.”

Wallace turned toward him, annoyed. “Asian Experience is going to be as fine as anything at L.A. or anywhere else. The orangutan piece will be state of the art. We’ve waited years for this.”

“Of course. You’re quite right,” Dr. Dawson said in apologetic agreement.

I waved at the mud. The bulldozer was gone at last. “Yeah, it’ll be great when it’s finished, and I suppose this is how it has to be done, but it’s hard to see our little woods torn up and scraped bare.” I thought of clear-cuts visible from the plane, and it came to me for the first time that the whole zoo had been a forest long ago, thick with trees and ferns and wildflowers.

Wallace shifted impatiently. “No one’s going to miss scrub second growth. They’ll pour the foundations soon, and it’ll start taking shape. In a year, we’ll be up for design awards.”

“And nobody will know or care what’s gone,” I mused aloud.

The alpha males gave me disapproving looks and departed toward their pedicure at the hoof stock barn. I walked on toward the Penguinarium, wondering about Dr. Dawson and his wife, or ex-wife. His aloofness now seemed to hold a hint of vulnerability, or perhaps my imagination was running away with me. I didn’t know for sure that his wife had left him. Maybe he left her.

“How did those birds travel?” Calvin asked.

“They were fine. Their quarantine area is about as nice as our display area.”

“They got the dough and we don’t.”

He was relieved to hear the penguins were in good hands and just nodded when I told him I was considering moving to L.A. He seemed more amiable than usual. I noted a few moments of teamwork. I’d be on my own after a few more days of his tutelage.

I got in the groove and burbled to everyone I ran into about the glories of the L.A. Zoo—the bongo breeding project, the gerenuks, the botanical specimens. I felt disloyal to Finley, and the other keepers’ faces were careful and polite.

At day’s end I trudged through the twilight rain to the Administration building, wind ruffling my hair. Canada geese circled overhead, wild voices invisible in the clouds.

My first goal was to resolve Jackie’s speculations about Rick and another woman while attracting the minimum possible attention. It didn’t feel safe to ask questions, L.A. job possibility or not, but it had to be done. I had multiple strategies in mind.

The first was a failure. George, the security guard, was delighted to chat with me from his tiny office. He’d seen and heard nothing and nobody at the zoo the night Rick died. He might as well have been in San Francisco or a coma for all the light he had to shed. And, no, he’d never seen Rick at the zoo after hours. Benita either. He’d seen the night keeper, of course, but was foggy about who exactly had been on duty that night. Not Diego, he was pretty sure. Sort of. He had, however, seen a possum on the grounds recently and once, months ago, a house cat. I eased away before he finished a story about a pet crow he’d had as a boy and trudged to the Commissary and the time clock.

Denny was sitting on the counter by the bulletin board, swinging his feet and talking steadily. He’d changed from his uniform to brown cargo pants and a tattered gray sweater. He was keeping Arnie from leaving by explaining the difference between contrails and chemtrails and speculating that the government was using airplane emissions to drug us all into docility.

“I always wondered about that,” Arnie said vaguely and ambled out to the parking lot.

I rummaged through the wastebasket for a scrap of paper and found a ballpoint pen on the countertop behind Denny’s rump. If I were matter-of-fact about this, maybe Denny wouldn’t notice.

“Thanks for waiting for me,” I said as I wrote out my question and folded the note over Diego’s time card. “I wanted to ask you about a few things in private.”

Denny slid down to the ground. “Yeah, Ire. I’ve got a few questions for you, too. In my van. It’s out of the rain.” His jaw was set and his shoulders looked tense. My eyebrows rose.

I climbed onto the passenger seat of his battered Chevrolet panel truck. He sat rigid in the driver’s seat, with the motor on. The wiper blades whapped back and forth while the defroster fought the windshield fog and lost. It felt like a distorted reflection of my last night with Rick.

Outside, the last of daylight was fading. Inside, fish smell rose from my clothes, mingling with a musty smell from Denny’s snakes and lizards or maybe from the big pillows in back.

Get his issues out of the way first. “What’s on your mind?”

“I hear you’re getting serious coin from Rick’s life insurance.”

“That was fast. Who told you?”

“I got ways of finding stuff out.” He sat with his wrists draped over the steering wheel, staring moodily past the wiper blades.

Jackie, most likely. “So…you asking for a loan?”

He kept on looking through the cloudy windshield, not at me. “You heading to L.A. got me thinking.”

I stared at him, baffled.

“I’m trying to picture it. What, you got mad ’cause he was drinking and clocked him with a rock? You got the temper for it, God knows. Thought he was dead and wanted to hide the evidence? I tried to picture you doing it for the money, but I can’t. Mad makes more sense. Is that what happened? Did you lose it after the party and do Rick, then drop him in the moat?”