Night Kill (3 page)

The air was moist with a fall tang of damp leaves that were still on the trees but starting to turn scarlet and yellow. Soon it would be time to shut the cats inside at night. The long, dank Northwest winter wasn’t firmly in place yet; a sunny day was still a possibility, although probably not today. No noisy visitors, no soda cups or paper napkins littered the grounds. A quiet moment before the hard work of cleaning and feeding the animals began.

I heard muffled roaring as I turned the corner toward Felines. Two men were standing at the guardrail outside the lion exhibit, staring across the moat, their backs to me. One was too big and bald to be anyone but Hap. The other looked like Dr. Dawson, the zoo’s veterinarian, in a dark green jacket. I got closer and was surprised to see people inside the yard, where the lions belonged. Wallace, the beefy foreman, was bending over something on the ground. The other, a keeper in the zoo’s brown uniform, was removing his or her jacket. What were all these people doing? The lions were shut up inside and, judging by the noise, not happy about it.

I started to trot. As I got closer, I could see that the whole outdoor exhibit was wet, a lot wetter than the path or anything else around. A hose was draped over the guardrail. Someone had hosed the cats to drive them inside so they could be locked in the night den. The cats were trained to come in when I blew a whistle; surely Wallace and Dr. Dawson knew where to find the whistle in the kitchen?

A bad memory opened. Years ago, one of the maintenance staff had fallen in the moat with a pair of polar bears. Every new keeper got told the story a couple of times. The man had not survived the experience and neither had the bears. They’d both been shot to recover the body. Worldwide, big cats—lions and tigers—kill a careless keeper or visitor every few years. My heart started pounding. I could feel a sweat breaking out that had nothing to do with running.

The keeper inside the exhibit turned out to be Linda Carson, who gently draped her jacket over something large lying near the edge of the moat. The jacket left a bit of blue exposed—fabric?

Dr. Dawson had a dart pistol in hand. A shotgun rested on the guardrail next to him.

I loped toward the service entrance to get inside and do whatever a feline keeper was supposed to do in this situation. Not a single thing from the crisis training a year ago came to mind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a long crimson smear on the cement slope from the moat up to the exhibit. Blood? Wallace looked up as I ran past the guardrail.

“Get in my office,” he bellowed. “Now!”

I skidded to a stop, astonished. It was my area—I was supposed to be there. Hap took two quick steps and grabbed me by the arm. He swung behind me and put his other hand flat between my shoulder blades, propelling me away from Felines, toward the Administration building and Wallace’s office.

“Let go of me! I’m supposed to deal with this.”

“Not today you aren’t.” He kept shoving me away from the disaster area. With two hundred pounds to shove with, he was persuasive.

“Why not? What happened ?” I tried to set my heels and lock my knees, but nearly fell over. I tried twisting sideways. Hap grabbed the back of my uniform into a bunch, lifted me to my tiptoes, and kept me moving forward.

“Stop it! Get your hands off me and tell me what is going on, damn it!”

He didn’t answer and he didn’t let go.

“Let go of me, you son of a bitch!”

“Shut up, Iris. Just shut up.”

He hauled me across the zoo, into the Administration building past the astonished secretary, into Wallace’s office. He kicked the door shut behind us and turned me loose. I whirled around. Hap raised his hands warily, ready to ward off a punch. I was ready to deliver one, except for the uselessness of it.

“Now you tell me what the hell is going on.” Terror and anger left me spluttering. “Don’t you ever grab me like that again. If you want me somewhere, you ask.”

Hap stood blocking the door, silent and immovable, beard and mustache half-hiding his expression. His eyes were grim. We were friends. Getting yelled at by Wallace was nothing new, but Hap shoving me around instead of joshing with me was scary. This was really, really bad.

I gave up on getting past him and struggled to get myself under control. Was that really a body I had glimpsed? “Who was that in the exhibit? You have to tell me what happened.”

No response.

I tried to figure out how this disaster, whatever it was, could be my fault. Had I forgotten to lock a door? Did it happen somehow because I was late? Was I confined to the office because they were going to shoot the lions and didn’t want me to watch? Would they do that, even if it was too late to save anyone? My heart was pounding and my hands were tight fists.

We both turned at wailing sirens. Through the window I glimpsed a police car and then an ambulance hopping the curb, headed toward Felines. I was getting the shakes.

“Hap, who was hurt? Was someone killed?”

Hap winced and stepped aside as Wallace banged the door open, slamming the knob into his kidneys. Wallace looked desperately at Hap, then at me. He took a deep breath, sweat darkening his shirt and beading on his forehead. “I’m sorry, Iris.”

I stared at him, trying to decode meaning and coming up empty.

Wallace wiped a sleeve across his face. “It’s Rick. The lions killed Rick. He fell in the moat last night and they killed him.”

That was ridiculous. Rick was fine, staying at Denny’s place since I wasn’t ready to let him come home yet, probably still asleep since it was his day off. Some loony stranger, some mental case, had wandered into the zoo at night and climbed in with the lions. Rick wouldn’t do any such thing. Rick was a professional keeper, not a reckless trespasser or a suicide. Then I remembered the scrap of blue cloth and Rick’s blue T-shirt at the party last night.

Hap nudged me gently into one of the metal-framed office chairs. “I didn’t want you to see him,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

Wallace backed out uncertainly. “I got to be there with the police. Hap, you stay.” He left, muttering that Mr. Crandall, the director, should be handling this, not him.

Hap stood and I sat in silence in the little room. I looked blankly at gray carpet, at an ordinary wood desk with an ordinary computer. I wasn’t going to think about…anything. I studied the room carefully. Papers were piled on the desk. No photos of family. Instead, a framed drawing of clouded leopards. Color photo of Wallace with a young elephant when he was still a keeper, blue uniforms back then instead of brown. My previous visits were generally so that Wallace could yell at me about being late or letting the cougars chew up another hose. I hadn’t ever really examined this room. I looked at every single thing with my complete attention. If I kept my eyes focused intently, my brain would lack the space to make up its own images. My heart was still hammering; my breath came in short gasps.

I wasn’t nearly done looking when two police officers came in and shooed Hap out. The middle-aged woman sat down in Wallace’s swivel chair, claiming the dominant seat behind the desk. Her brown hair was gray at the temples. She looked like she’d been up all night. Her uniform was a little tight and her gear—pistol and keys and unidentifiable things—clanked when she sat down. The lanky crewcut junior cop sat a little behind me in the other guest chair. He crossed his ankles and twitched one foot over and over.

The policewoman opened her notebook. “Mrs. Douglas, I’m sorry to bother you at such a bad moment, but we need to get a little information from you. Would you mind answering a few questions?”

I stared at the woman blankly. Mrs. Douglas? “Who?”

“You are Rick Douglas’ wife, right?”

“I’m Iris Oakley. Yes, I’m his wife. Was his wife. Kept my own name.” A dark wave started sweeping up from my gut. I looked hard at the clouded leopard drawing.

“How long have you been married?” she asked patiently.

“Five months? Since May.” The bit of blue shirt wouldn’t leave my mind.

“Has your husband acted unusual in any way recently?”

“Unusual how?” It came to me that the red smear on the concrete was made by the lions dragging Rick’s body up from the bottom of the moat to the exhibit area.

“Anything different from normal.”

“We had a fight,” I told her, words emerging slowly through cortical smog, “and I left. Then he left, to stay with a friend, and I moved back in to the house.” I paused, waiting for phrases to form. “Last night we made up, almost. I think we were getting back together. We were going to get back together. The two of us.” My brain was stuck, stuck on never being with Rick again. Ever. My hands were tight knots in my lap.

“When did you have the fight?”

“About a week ago?” I guessed. A long time ago. Some other lifetime. The lions would have torn through the clothing and opened the abdominal cavity. I saw Linda pulling her jacket over Rick’s face, over his chest.

“And then what happened?” Her voice was calm and steady, but her brown eyes showed a predator’s intensity.

“Like I said—(had I said?)—I left. I stayed with my friend Marcie. Then Rick left to stay with Denny because it was my house, before we were married, I mean, and I moved back in.” Would this have happened without the fight?

“But you reconciled?”

“Last night we ran into each other at a party. We sat and talked for hours.” Warm in the truck, his quiet voice, his scent…“I thought we were going to be all right and work it out. He said he’d quit drinking. Did he fall in the moat because he was drunk?” Please, God, don’t let him be drunk.

“We won’t know until we get the lab reports back. Had he been drinking recently?”

“Huh?” I focused hard. “He drank a lot of beer. That’s why I got mad and left. He told me he’d quit. I don’t think he had any beer at the party.” Who had dragged his body up? Simba? One of the females? Rick’s one hundred seventy pounds wouldn’t have been a problem for any of them.

“Was he depressed?”

Was he dead before they got to him? Maybe the fall had broken his neck instantly. I shuddered, staring blankly. The policewoman had said something. I ran the sounds through again and caught the meaning. “Depressed? No. I think, thought, he was glad we were making up. Happy.”

“So you were together last night? Did anyone see you?”

“We sat in his truck and talked, until maybe midnight or so. I wouldn’t let him come home with me. He was going to go back to Denny’s for the night. We were going to talk again today.” Which lion had gotten to him first? Spice, probably. The one who paid attention, the smart one.

“Why did he come up to the zoo late last night?” The younger cop behind me leaned forward. I’d forgotten he was there.

“I don’t know.” Why would he do that? Why didn’t he go to Denny’s, to bed? I pictured him falling over the rail, trying to catch himself, slipping…Spice watching with the same interest I saw in the policewoman’s eyes.

“Were you alone at home, Ms. Oakley?” The policewoman was writing careful notes in a little pad.

“Huh? No.”

“Who was with you?” she asked.

“My dog, Winnie, and Rick’s dog, Range.” I found I was rocking in my chair and stopped. “Can I see him?”

She looked past me, at her partner. “No. Later, if you want to.”

The dogs. Winnie. I needed Winnie. “I want to go home.”

“Do you have a roommate? Did anyone see you after the party?” Her voice was calm and patient, insistent.

“No. No roommate.” I stood up. “I have to go.” Could I leave? Did I need to go do my job before I could go home? What about Rajah? The old tiger hadn’t been fed yet, or any of the other cats.

Just the lions.

I made it to the wastebasket—barely—before dumping my breakfast in gasping retches.

The policewoman closed her notebook and handed me a tissue. “Look, we’ll have more questions later. You can go.”

I wiped my mouth and stumbled out of Wallace’s office into the lobby. Jackie Margulis, the administration secretary, stepped out of the bathroom, her eyes wide. The bathroom had a common wall with Wallace’s office. It was a safe bet she was in there to listen in on my interview. Hap was gone. Wallace was sitting at Jackie’s desk with his aggressive authority back in place, impatient to reclaim his office.

“Your mother said she’s on her way,” he told me. “The, uh, the body has to go to the police morgue.”

I wanted to be alone, alone someplace where I could find the switch to shut off the pictures looping through my mind. My mother finally came, pale and shaking. She took my arm and walked me to the car, like I’d been sick at middle school and the nurse had sent me home. Wallace reluctantly followed us to the curb. I climbed into her car, a familiar place where sanity had a chance—and climbed out again.

“Wallace, are you going to shoot the lions?”

“No. I’m not going to shoot the lions.” He turned away. Jackie lurked in the background, fascinated, a magpie gathering tidbits of gossip.

Mom started the car and pulled out.

Was that an honest answer or an evasion? Was he going to have someone else shoot the lions? Panic or anxiety or dread, or all three, filled me and flowed over, displacing anguish for a few short minutes.

Mom drove me home, her home. She and my father kept me there all day, then I made her take me to my house, to my dogs. She settled herself on the sofa with sheets and blankets. I called Winnie and Range into the bedroom and made them get on the bed with me. Curled in a ball in the middle, with Winnie pressed against my chest and Range snuffling at the back of my neck, I rocked us all until sleep stopped the pain.

Chapter Three

“What the hell are you doing here?” Hap stood gape-jawed in the middle of the Commissary, the combination kitchen and warehouse, with a cantaloupe in each big hand, ZZ Top thumping from a little speaker behind him.

“Going to work.” I swiped my time card and turned to go.

“Does Wallace know you’re coming in?”

“He’ll figure it out.”

“Iris…” faded behind me as I took the familiar path.

Felines smelled like it always did, like a lot of big cats that eat meat and then go potty. It was warm inside and ugly as only off-exhibit areas ever were—unadorned cement and metal. I caught the steel service door before it clanged shut behind me. Night dens stretched off to the sides—lions, tigers, leopards down the hall to the right, cougar, servals, bobcats, and clouded leopards to the left. In front of me, across the hall, a second door opened to the kitchen. Drop ceiling of stained acoustical tiles, double stainless sink, an ancient microwave, and an even older fridge. Metal table and two chipped metal chairs. Décor consisted of curling Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoons and a color poster of lions stalking zebras somewhere in Kenya or Tanzania.