Night Kill (25 page)

He turned back to Denny. “I’m starting the process to terminate you. You’ll get the paperwork today.” He glowered at Calvin and sat back down. “Out, all of you.”

“What on earth was that all about?” Calvin asked as soon as we were safely out of the Administration building.

“Suzanne talked to Freddie,” Denny said to me, ignoring him.

“No shit,” I said.

Chapter Twenty

I sat in my pickup in the employee portion of the parking lot trying to grasp the full scope of the disaster. Denny was to blame for the misfire, but in truth, this would still be a catastrophe if I’d been the one to spring the trap.

Denny would appeal his firing, which might delay it long enough for Wallace to calm down, although that did not seem likely. I was in only moderately hot water—a warning in my personnel file was the least of my worries.

The big deal was this: if all the surmises and logical leaps were correct, Rick’s murderer was wise to the trap, or would be soon, and, moreover, knew what Denny and I thought had happened the night Rick died. If we were getting close to the truth, and I thought we were, the killer needed to get rid of both of us, pronto.

Now Denny was at risk, too. What about Marcie? After consideration, I concluded she probably wasn’t. Denny had mentioned her name to Suzanne, but it would take some work to find out who she was and where she lived. She was likely safe for now.

If Wallace was exonerated…I got out of the truck and walked back to the Administration building.

A peek through the window showed that the door to Wallace’s office was closed. Jackie was sitting at her desk, on the phone and turned away. I nipped around the building to the side door. This time the Education Outreach office was unlocked. A large woman in a large dress printed with large sunflowers was pulling paper handouts, colored pens, and what, on a closer look, resolved into bat masks, off crowded shelves and piling them into a plastic crate. Materials for a classroom presentation.

“Good morning to you,” she warbled, and beamed at me. “What can I do for you on this bountiful day?”

“I think I left a jar here. A jar with a little snake skin?”

“We have guinea pig skulls, ostrich eggs, porcupine quills, and a peacock foot. We have snakeskins in all sizes. Or can I interest you in parrot feathers or a turtle carapace or a freeze-dried hawk moth?” She giggled.

I edged around her and scanned the shelves. On the second pass, I spotted it, nestled into a mink pelt.

One small snake shed, two hatched-out turtle eggs, and—hard to spot—one small tooth.

“This is it. Thanks.”

“Any time. This is your full-service nature’s magic shop! Showing children and adults the spell of the wild!”

I fled with the jar.

Her voice followed me. “Have a beautiful day! Each one comes only once!”

Wallace’s door was still closed. I stuck my head into the office.

“Jackie, come talk to me outside,” I hissed. I didn’t want Jackie spreading news about the failed trap. It was barely possible that the killer might not learn about it for a day or two if she kept quiet. I needed that slim advantage for a trap of my own. Of course, if Hap were the killer, which I could not believe, Denny had already alerted him to what we were on to.

Jackie didn’t waste any time.

“What did you and Denny do?” she asked, as we huddled in her smoking refuge under the eaves. “I thought Mr. Crandall was having a heart attack.”

I stuck close to the shrubbery. If Wallace came out, I’d vanish into the bushes like a hunted doe.

“Jackie, listen. You have to keep absolutely quiet about this.”

“About what?”

“Everything. Look, I can’t tell you. It’s important. Keep quiet until…until next Wednesday. Then I’ll tell you what’s up. Honest. You owe me one, remember?”

Jackie sputtered, “How can I keep quiet if I don’t know what it is?”

“Denny getting fired and me in trouble and the reason why.”

“I never talk about that stuff. It’s unprofessional. What happened ?”

“I can’t tell you. Just don’t talk about it at all. You really, really have to do this. Or we won’t be friends.” Because I’d quite possibly be dead.

Jackie stared at me. “You are seriously flipping out. You need to get away from this place and calm down.”

“No, I’m not crazy, but I’ve got to go. Wednesday you get the scoop.” I checked that the coast was clear and started toward the parking lot. I stopped in two steps and turned back to Jackie, who was still looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Jackie, I got the L.A. job. Tell anyone you want. Tell everyone.”

I sat in the truck again and planned my next step. Jackie would probably find out what Denny and I were in trouble for. She might or might not keep quiet about it. She certainly would share with the world that I had the L.A. job. That was the best I could do.

Now for the tooth.

Wallace did want it in the hands of the Education Outreach department. Wallace really was innocent, if the burial site part of the scenario was correct. And perhaps now I knew why my house had been broken into and set on fire. Someone other than Wallace knew about the tooth and wanted it out of circulation.

I drove to Portland to catch my dentist, Dr. Chen. I made it to her office in southeast Portland, not far from my parents’ house, by 11:45 AM. The receptionist was new, with spiky frosted hair and a blue tattoo around her wrist. I said I needed to talk to Dr. Chen. She said I needed to make an appointment. I said I needed to see the dentist immediately. We went on like that for a bit, but I was prepared to spend all the time it took, and she wanted to go to lunch.

Finally she agreed to see whether Dr. Chen would talk to me, and what was it I wanted to speak with her about? The concept of a talk with the dentist that didn’t involve actual dentistry on my actual mouth was difficult. I used the words “consultation” and “urgent” and “long-time patient.” My patience was used up, and I said these words several times with escalating decibels.

She went off disapprovingly to the back of the office and came back to grant me “a very few” minutes with Dr. Chen when she finished with her procedure. I sat down, the only customer in the waiting room, to stare at the framed Chinese calligraphy on the wall.

In spite of the new receptionist, Dr. Chen was possibly the world’s most perfect dentist. She was calm and had a motherly air, enhanced by her four-year-old who sometimes played in the reception area. You knew she wouldn’t ever hurt you unless she really, really had to for your own oral good. She also had little fingers, a positive attitude, and a cool machine that showed live videos of your gums. I never exactly looked forward to visiting her, but I liked her enough to pay her bills instead of finding a dentist who would accept the zoo’s dental insurance.

She was puzzled about the urgency of my mission, which I skipped explaining. “I need to know what you can tell me about this tooth,” was as far as I went.

She wasn’t entranced with the tooth, but she gave it careful consideration. “An incisor.” She turned it over in her hand. “I’ll go with upper right incisor, Number Seven. Where’d you get it?”

“Human?”

“What else could it be?” She sounded startled. “You work at the zoo, right? I have no idea what else it could be from. I’m not familiar with monkey teeth or anything like that. It looks like a human tooth. That’s really all I can tell you.” She walked to the sink and rinsed it and scrubbed it with her fingers and a little toothpaste. “See here? It’s got a filling. This pale spot. I suppose that makes it more likely to be human, although a zoo animal might need a filling. I never get called for animals. Too bad. It would be a great change from the office.”

“Could the tooth be really old, like a hundred years?” Maybe there were dentists a hundred years ago. I had no idea.

“It’s a composite filling. I’d say the work was done no more than twenty-five or thirty years ago, probably much more recently.”

Not from any ancient gravesite. I thanked her, took the tooth back. The receptionist stopped me, checked on the fee with Dr. Chen, and grudgingly let me go for free.

I sat in the truck and gathered myself, shaken. Rick really had found a skull; that guess was dead-on. But it wasn’t ancient. It had nothing to do with Native Americans.

I spelled it out. A man or woman had died, probably a few years ago, and been buried on the zoo grounds. The source of the tooth in my hand had been murdered. Why else hide the grave in the woods at the zoo? The secret had been safe until construction had started. Now the rest of the remains were long gone, unearthed by hosing, then taken away and destroyed.

My break-in and house fire. He, or she, had come for the tooth. And was desperate to conceal the murder again, at the price of a new death. Mine.

I had a plan, but it seemed ridiculous, a piece of twine to hold back a charging Cape buffalo. Did I dare risk it? What else could I do?

If I went to the police now, I’d look like a hysterical widow afflicted with conspiracy theories. All I had was one tooth and a story. But not going to the police seemed stupid. I started the truck, pondering.

When I got home, I didn’t call Marcie or Denny. I would handle this myself.

I called Linda at Felines to change my clouded leopard watch, and then I went shopping.

Chapter Twenty-one

Saturday was my first solo at Birds. I stayed alert, thanks to a restful night at my parents’ house, and kept pepper spray in my pocket. I’d told the folks that I suspected the prowler had been back. As predicted, they insisted I stay with them and didn’t make a squeak about the dogs coming too. I’d fed Bessie Smith and told her she was on her own for a day or two. She had bobbed her head at me, looking cranky.

Once the zoo opened, I stayed in sight of visitors almost continuously. Weekends brought out the visitors, even on a dull, cool day, and for once, I was glad to see them.

The penguins condescended to eat from my hand, after some initial consternation that I was neither Calvin nor Arnie, who was the customary weekend relief. Nothing dropped dead or bled or crippled itself or even looked ill. Nothing fell on me or zapped me or otherwise threatened my life. I worked steadily and got everything done without incident.

Jackie didn’t work weekends. Neither did Wallace. The only keepers I talked to were Sam and Arnie.

I picked up the empty food pans in The World of Birds in late afternoon and sat in the Penguinarium filling out reports, tired and hungry, but cautiously optimistic about living through the day. After tidying up the insect shelves, which was on Calvin’s “do if you have time” list, I was feeling modestly successful as a bird keeper.

Tonight I would take the offensive. I quivered at the thought. The plan was simple. I was signed up to watch the clouded leopards on TV monitors in the Feline kitchen. They were newly together and under continuous watch to protect Losa, the female, in case Yuri took a dislike to his roommate and decided to attack her. I’d be there, alone at night, me and the monitors. Waiting for the next attempt on my life. Only this time, I’d be ready.

My jacket was on and I was almost out the door when I noticed the blinking message light on the phone. It was Denny. The long message said he’d caught the same off-note I had when we had talked to his friend Mark of Huddleston Construction Company and Hap had joined us, then abruptly left. Mark finally admitted that Hap and his buddies used the zoo’s Maintenance shop to work on their cars at night since it had an engine hoist and a grease pit. Wallace wouldn’t approve, so Hap kept it secret. That was why he’d left the conversation when the topic shifted to cars. He hadn’t wanted Mark to spill the beans to me or Denny.

Hap had been at the zoo the night Rick died, but it had nothing to do with Rick’s death. I put a hand flat on the counter. Relief made my knees weak.

The rest of Denny’s message said that Wallace was forced to reinstate him until a hearing on firing him, and he would be on nights until then. After a long moment’s thought, I called Denny at his house. I needed backup, and he was, oddly, the one person at the zoo I could trust. I trusted him not to try to kill me and hoped I could, for once, trust him to do what I asked. I said I’d be on clouded leopard watch and to drop by every hour if he could.

“Scared, huh? Yeah, I’ll come by when I can.”

I would tell him about the tooth later, when I had time for an explosion of consternation and theories. I stepped out the Penguinarium door and was nearly run over by George, the night watchman. He leaned out of the window in the electric cart.

“I got a call some crazy visitor was trying to cut open a fence.”

“Nobody here. I haven’t heard or seen a thing.”

“Caller said it was over by the aviary. He was real excited.” George was distressed. He hated emergencies.

I got in and we tooled around the area and found a trash can tipped over, but no one engaged in vandalism.

“Some dumb crank call,” George finally diagnosed as he watched me clean up the litter.

I was half an hour late clocking out, and there was a note from Hap asking me to find him before I left. I was not terribly surprised that he was working on a Saturday. He might need to take a day off later in the week. If he wanted to come clean about midnight mechanics, that would clear the air between us. More likely, he had a problem with the fish delivery for tomorrow. Everyone else had left, and I figured I’d missed him, but took a quick look anyway. I needed to eat dinner and show up at Felines for the clouded leopard watch.

The roll door at the front of the Commissary was open. I walked out and checked the loading dock. It was stacked with boxes of lettuce, carrots, and miscellaneous produce set out for Diego, the night keeper, to deliver to the animal areas. No sign of Hap. Back inside, I looked around the central space crammed with shelves full of supplies and glanced through the window of the big refrigerated room to the left. This building was possibly the only part of the original zoo that wasn’t cramped and undersized. Toward the back was a walk-in freezer half the size of my house. The freezer door was open, and I heard Hap talking inside. The door was designed to swing shut to keep in the cold. It was held open by a claw hammer lying on the floor.