Night Kill (27 page)

I unlocked the service door and walked inside the Feline building, shutting it quietly behind me. Ahead of me was the kitchen door. The familiar hallway stretched to my right and left. I could see the lions’ night cage on the right, but the cats were lying out of my line of sight. A cool breeze touched my cheek, probably from the cat door to the cougars’ night enclosure on the left. I’d need to close it later, when they were willing to come inside.

No more skittish uncertainty. This time I knew full well I was walking into a trap. Baiting the trap. I was the goat staked to the tree, waiting for the tiger.

In the kitchen, one new monitor showed an empty outdoor enclosure and the other an empty indoor holding area. Both screens floated from overhead brackets at head-height. Linda sat at the metal table with a clipboard in front of her, watching the monitors. It was a little after eight.

“Where’s the cats?” I asked, pulling up the second chair.

“Yuri’s in that shadow. You can see his tail. He’s been sleeping for the last hour.” She was still in uniform and looked tired.

“Where’s Losa?”

“She’s in the den box inside. You can’t see her.”

“Fascinating.”

“Huh. You want fascinating or you want peaceful? Boring is good. What’s with the duffle bag?”

“Food. A blanket.”

“You’d better not fall asleep.”

“No worries.”

She pulled out the instruction sheet and walked me through the standardized data collection. Every fifteen minutes I was to check off what each cat was doing. “Sleeping” had a long row of check marks. I flipped through checklists from the previous night, the first the clouded leopards had ever spent together. The cats had slept until about midnight, then started moving around. Linda’s notes included “M. and F. sniff noses,” “F. flee,” “M. footscrub.” M was male and F was female.

“Use the checklist first. Then you can add a note if anything interesting is happening.” She reviewed the definitions of foot scrubbing (urinate, then use hind feet to rub it into the ground, a territorial signal), sniff noses, snarl, attack, and the favorite, sleep. “Mostly they’re pretending the other one isn’t there.”

I didn’t remind her that I’d developed the checklist myself.

“Can you stay awake until one?” Linda asked again. “You look kind of wrecked.”

“I am kind of wrecked. But I won’t fall asleep.”

“What happened to your chin?”

I got up and checked the little mirror over the sink. “Fell down and bumped it.”

Linda cocked her head at me. “It was dumb to ask you to be here in Felines. I wasn’t thinking. I can stay with you.”

“I’m fine. Go get some sleep.”

Linda shrugged. “Board meeting tonight. People might drop by. Call me if anything comes up. You know what to do if they fight—the hose is set up.”

Marcie’s cell phone bulged in my jeans pocket next to the pepper spray. I’d driven to her apartment, told her I would feel safer with the cell, and dodged her questions. I’d taken other steps as well, everything I could think of to ensure my survival. As soon as Linda got herself gone, I had a few more steps to take. She took a final look at the monitors, gave me a doubtful look, and left.

Alone in the kitchen, I finished my preparations. The bait wanted to both entrap and survive. All I had to do was wait for the man I expected, confirm he had murdered my husband, and survive until Denny and/or the police showed up. I had the cell phone, pepper spray, and my dad’s big pipe wrench. In case I couldn’t call 911 myself, Marcie expected to hear from me every hour and would phone the police herself if I didn’t check in.

Done, I settled in at the table. Lions grumbled from their side of the building; a cougar yelped from the other direction. The building creaked as it cooled; something dripped. On the motionless monitors, all color faded into gray concrete, dark shadows, black corners. The clouded leopards slept on. The metal table was cold under my wrist. I marked the checklist.

I made a cup of coffee, drank it from one of Linda’s gleaming cups, and marked the checklist. It came to me that I had failed to advertise my presence. I’d called Linda only the day before to change to this shift. Would the killer even know I was here alone? I shrugged. My enemy had been ahead of me every step so far. I had bigger worries.

I wandered around the kitchen and shut off the faucets hard. They dripped anyway. Meat for the next day hadn’t yet been delivered. The stainless steel counters that ran along two walls were spotless and mostly bare. Small bottles of cheap perfume and jars of spices lined the back counter, interesting scents to spot around the outside yards for olfactory excitement. Gear for catching small cats was stashed in a corner by the door, including various size nets on long poles.

I marked the checklist and countered ragged nerves by fantasizing about Losa and Yuri. They’d get used to each other and, maybe in spring, she would go into heat. Passionate cat love would ensue. We’d separate Yuri for safety’s sake and tap our fingers, waiting for the birth. Darling clouded leopard cubs would frolic at their mother’s feet.

I had used up that sweet scenario and was about to head down the hall to visit Rajah when the outer door banged shut. I flinched. It was Wallace blowing in with a blast of wet night air. He looked surprised to see me and not pleased. I guessed he had come from the board meeting.

“Any action?”

“Both sleeping.”

“Good.” He walked behind me to see the monitors and stared at them. Touchy topics floated through the air. I made marks on the checklist. Losa got up and wandered around the inside enclosure, barely visible. She stepped outside through the little door and settled herself in bark chips sheltered by an overhanging ledge, head up, forepaws in front of her. Across the yard, Yuri slept on.

Wallace stood behind me and watched. It made the back of my neck itch. “Uh, it’s looking good,” I said, getting to my feet and turning toward him. I stretched my arms and back theatrically. He wasn’t my first choice for killer, but he wasn’t completely out of the running either.

He stepped back a little. “Why wouldn’t it look good? We’ve done everything by the numbers. She’ll go into heat soon, he’ll breed her, we separate them for safety, and then it all depends on whether she’s going to be a decent mother or not.”

I tried a small test. “You don’t think he’ll beat her up?”

“No. It’s going fine. People think they’re so smart, predicting the worst. These two aren’t that old. They can learn to get along.”

Neither of us found anything else to say until he finally took his leave, with a gruff “don’t fall asleep.”

I called Marcie from the phone on the counter rather than use up her cell phone minutes. She was watching a Jane Austen movie with cats in her lap. I put my jacket on, shifted around on the hard chair, and marked the checklist.

Dr. Dawson was next in, also startled to see me. He scanned the monitors and riffled briefly through the checklists.

“Nice and peaceful. Looks very promising,” I said, never taking my eyes off him.

His brows drew down. “He may be fine for months, then he could decide he doesn’t want to share his territory, and he’ll attack her. It’s the way clouded leopards are wired. We’ll hope for the best.” He would never trust Yuri. He stayed only a moment, the door shutting silently behind him.

I watched another forty-five minutes, my anxiety level escalating. I called Marcie, who sounded sleepy. Unable to sit still, I picked up the pipe wrench and headed down the hallway to see Rajah. The old boy was lying flat in the inside den. I watched his ribs rise and fall, nostrils fluttering. Without any voice in the matter, the cats had traded hunger, parasites, and maybe a broken jaw from a frantic hoof for steady meals and good medical care. In exchange for accepting a tiny territory and few choices, the zoo provided a life with little risk. Their own kind was the major source of danger, just as it was for me.

In the dim hall light, I looked at the cat door and the bar attached to the cable that would pull it open. I pulled on the cable a little. The door opened six inches, squeaking softly. Raj raised his head, looking puzzled. I let the door close gently.

The day Raj jumped me, I’d heard that sound. What I hadn’t heard was the main service door banging shut, the way it did when most people used it. If I had it right, whoever had let him out on me had known the service door slammed and had closed it carefully and silently.

I turned around to check the common leopards on the opposite side of the hall. The inside quarters were empty. Their little door to the outside was open, letting in brief cold gusts. My face was near the mesh as I tried to spot them outside, looking across the night den and through the cat door. No sensible keeper puts face or other body parts directly against mesh or bars, vulnerable to a quick claw or beak. I could see only a black square of darkness and neither the black male nor the yellow female. I half-turned to leave and, with only a flicker of movement and a tiny thud, a black leopard hung inches from my face, white teeth in a gaping crimson maw, black claws hooked on the mesh. I jerked back involuntarily, lost my balance, and banged hard into the bars behind me. Bagheera dropped agilely to the floor.

He’d timed it perfectly, lurking in the darkness until my attention shifted. Invisible against the black night, he’d vaulted through the little door and up on the fencing. I scrabbled to my feet, heart pounding. He leaped easily up to the sleeping platform and settled in, licking an inky foreleg with a long pink tongue, ignoring me. I told him he was a jerk and limped off, leaving him to savor his feline joke.

Frayed nerves still vibrating, I checked the monitors. Losa was up, wandering around. Yuri was still in the shadows, still not moving. I marked the checklist. Losa lay down again in the bark chips.

The door banged and I jumped as Denny slipped in. He was in uniform with a big flashlight clipped to his belt on one side and a cluster of keys on the other side. “All good?”

“Yeah. Quiet. When’s your termination hearing?”

“In a couple of weeks. Arnie’s doing Reptiles, but at night I can fix whatever he screws up. Suzanne says she’ll get my job back. Listen, I’ve got a couple of new ideas about Rick.”

“We need to talk, but not tonight. I’ve got to focus on the cats. Just come by every hour. Please.”

He stared at the monitors, another person enraptured by shadows. He tore himself away. “Will do.”

“Denny, watch yourself. We’ve stirred up the hornets.”

He waved that off, invulnerable.

Alone once more, I watched the monitors and watched the clock in a strange state of suspension, drifting between sleepiness and stomach-clenching anticipation. What else could I do? What would I regret not thinking of?

One of the lions coughed twice. I walked back and stared at them, slack tan bodies resting. Three sets of golden eyes stared back, mouths a little open, outlined by black gums. Spice stood up, turned around completely, and lay down again with a little grunt. I saw her climbing down into the moat, checking out something interesting—Rick, stunned and helpless. “I thought I could accept that you killed Rick because you had the chance to do what lions do,” I said aloud. “I thought it shouldn’t matter to the keeper part of me, but it does. It does matter.”

I went back to the kitchen, marked the checklist, and thought about anger and relationships. I got up, stiff and chilled, and paced around the kitchen. I looked at the observation schedule, taped to the wall by the sink. An unfamiliar name, probably a volunteer from the Children’s Zoo or the Education department, was scheduled for one to five in the morning. Denny hadn’t come back. I heated leftover coffee in the microwave and stood staring into space. I’d almost used up my full store of resolve.

The clock had crept almost to midnight, and it was time to call Marcie. I used her cell phone to test it. It didn’t work. I was redialing when Dr. Dawson walked in again. He’d come through the outside service door silently and had opened the kitchen door as quietly, but I’d been facing that way and saw him immediately.

“I completed a lab test on the male penguin that died,” he said. “I’m heading home, but I remembered you were here and thought you might be interested in the results.” The hood of his parka was down, and he had water spots on his glasses. He stood at the closed kitchen door and fussed with the glasses, struggling to get a handkerchief out of his pocket to dry them, half turning away from me. That done, he moved a few steps into the room, toward me.

“The door didn’t bang,” I said.

“What?” His chin came up, alert.

“Most people let the door slam shut.” I stood at the far end of the table with the cell phone in one hand and the other resting on the wrench. He didn’t get it, and I didn’t explain.

From about ten feet away he said, “Most cell phones don’t work in this building. I imagine it’s all the concrete and metal. Here, try mine.” He pulled out his phone and tossed it to me in a quick, smooth motion. I automatically grabbed for the sleek silver object and, still in the same motion, he flowed forward and captured the pipe wrench off the table. He was astoundingly fast.

I jumped back, both phones clattering to the concrete floor, and pulled a chair in front of me like a circus lion tamer. But I was the animal, one more for him to outmaneuver and far from the quickest. But he didn’t come for me. Instead, he examined the heavy wrench and tossed it into the bin with the nets. It clanked on the bottom, well out of reach, and he withdrew back to the door. I looked at him and thought of Rick, gone from me forever; my beautiful lions used to kill him. “You murdered Winona and buried her in the forest like a road-killed possum, and when Rick found her bones, you fed him to the lions.” My voice was shaky, ragged with loathing and adrenaline.

His chin jerked up. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” He scanned the room carefully, then stepped aside and glanced toward the hallway, looking through the window in the door. I took a step toward him with the chair raised, when he turned back to me. I froze, indecisive.

Whatever he’d seen, or not seen, was reassuring, and I was no threat. He relaxed. I’d heard him tell keepers, “Stay calm and take your time. Work with the animal, don’t rush, and you can accomplish almost anything without trauma.” Now he said quietly, “You think you have it all figured out, but you don’t. I loved Winona. We had a good life—a nice house, enough income. I was never unfaithful or unkind to her.”