Obsessed (21 page)

That thought made Nita feel much better. She was going to end up with Michael, and there wasn’t a thing Judy could do to stop her. Nita got up and read the plaques at the side of the diorama. She’d prove that she was every bit as smart as that spoiled little rich girl!

As Nita read, she memorized the important facts. Elephants were the largest living land mammals, and they came in two species, Loxodonta africana, the African elephant, and Elephas maximus, the, Indian elephant. The elephants at the watering hole were African elephants and they could grow to twelve feet tall and weigh more than six tons. They lived in herds and fed on grass and foliage.

Another plaque described the giraffes. Nita learned that Giraffa camelopardalis was the tallest living land mammal. The males could reach eighteen feet, and over a third of their height was neck and head. They lived by grazing, often on trees, and they were speedy runners who were related to the deer.

It took only a few more moments for Nita to memorize everything on all of the plaques. She’d always been able to memorize rapidly, and her teachers had often chastised her for not applying herself in school. Nita guessed they were right. She knew that if she took the time to study, she could get excellent grades. Today, she wanted to memorize every thing so that she could impress Michael. It was a great incentive. If she’d gone to school with Michael, she might have been a straight ‘A’ student.

A glance at her watch told Nita she’d been gone for only five minutes. They were probably in the pre-Columbian room by now, looking at the model of the Aztec temple. There was no need to hurry. Michael had told her to take her time. She could sit on the bench for a few minutes and rest her aching feet.

Nita walked over to the door, closing it firmly. That was better. Then she sat back down on the bench, slipped off her sandals, and smiled. Now that the traffic noise was gone, she could hear the sounds of the African jungle much more clearly. She was surrounded by monkey chatter, call ing birds, and the trumpeting of an elephant in the distance.

Looking at all the exhibits had been exhausting, and Nita shut her eyes for a moment to concentrate on the bird calls. They were strange and exotic and wonderful, so different from the birds she heard in Los Angeles. She could hear the squawking of something that sounded like a parrot, but there was another call that was delightfully musical. The birds in the barrio weren’t very musical. They screeched at the tops of their lungs from the high tension electrical wires, and the sounds they made weren’t music. The barrio birds sounded as if they were protesting all the crime and vio lence on the streets. Maybe they were. There were times when Nita wished that she could sit up on a high tension wire, far away from the gangs with their knives and guns, and the young taggers that invaded her neighborhood to scrawl their names on fences, and walls, and mailboxes. She tried to avoid any contact, but that was almost impos sible. There were dope deals going down on her corner, and she woke up to the sounds of gunshots almost every week end. It was so dangerous that when the man next door had suffered a heart attack, the ambulance had refused to come without a police escort.

Nita heard the faint roar of a lion, and she shivered. The jungle seemed peaceful, but there was violence in its depths. Down in the barrio, she was living in a concrete jungle, but she wasn’t stuck there like the giraffe or the elephant. She had a way out, and that way was Michael. He might not make it big in show business, but he would never have to live in a slum.

What time was it? Nita opened her eyes and glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. It was time to get back to Michael and Berto, and that bitch, Judy. She didn’t want to give Judy too much time with Michael. That would be asking for trouble.

Nita was just slipping on her sandals when she heard it, a small mewling sound from the depths of the diorama. At first she thought it was some kind of jungle noise, but it sounded very familiar. There it was again! Nita got up and moved forward, leaning over the velvet ropes. It was a kit ten, she was sure of it, and it sounded real. The door had been open and kittens were naturally curious. It was possi ble the poor thing had wandered in and climbed into the diorama. It was probably frightened because it couldn’t find its way out. Nita loved kittens. They were adorable little balls of soft, warm fur. She couldn’t just leave it there.

Nita hesitated, wondering whether she should go and no tify the guard. But the guard would probably toss the kitten out of the museum, and it sounded too young to get along on its own. It might try to run across the busy street, and get hit by a car. Or if it was lucky enough to stay out of the traffic, it could still starve to death!

A thought flashed through Nita’s mind and she grinned as she stepped around the velvet ropes. She’d find the kitten and take it home with her. Her mother wouldn’t mind. They still had the litter box they’d used with their old tomcat, and it would be nice to have a pet.

The kitten cried out again, and Nita held her breath as she walked straight into the diorama. She just hoped she could find the kitten before anyone caught her. She’d be very careful not to touch anything unless she absolutely had to. Walking into the diorama was bound to be against the rules.

“Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.” Nita called out softly. If anyone spotted her, she’d probably be kicked out of the museum for life. But then she heard a scratching behind the trunk of the huge baobub tree. The kitten was back there, and it sounded even more desperate. She had to hurry. It could be tangled up in the vegetation, caught helplessly as it fought to get loose. She had to find it and free it quickly before it strangled itself.

The big bull elephant looked very real as Nita inched carefully around it. And the jungle noises were louder, now that she was actually inside the diorama. It was so real, Nita actually felt a prickle of fear as the lion roared, and she chided herself for being foolish. She wasn’t really in a jungle. These were dead, stuffed animals and there was no way they could hurt her.

But the illusion was very compelling and Nita held her breath as she slipped past the giraffe, and headed for the trunk of the massive tree. It even smelled like a jungle in here, moist and green and sweaty. Of course she’d never been in a jungle, so she couldn’t possibly know how it smelled. It just seemed as if it would have to smell like this, from the pictures she’d seen.

As Nita stepped deeper and deeper into the display, the shadows grew darker and more ominous. The vegetation was thicker, and she had to be careful not to trip over the tangle of
vines. The lights didn’t shine back here, but it was still very hot. Hot and airless, like being stuck in a boarded-up warehouse in the middle of a heat wave.

Nita paused to let her eyes adjust to the dark. It was scary back here, and she could feel cold drops of perspi ration dripping down her back. What if she’d been wrong? What if the cry she’d heard was only part of the jungle sounds? It could have been a baby lion mewing, or a new born leopard crying for its mother.

But there had been a scratching noise. She hadn’t imag ined that. Of course, they’d probably taped the jungle noises in a real jungle. And big cats sharpened their claws on tree trunks, didn’t they?

No. There was something back here, something alive. Nita was sure she could hear it breathing. Animals panted when they were afraid, and this poor little kitten must be terrified. She had to find it and rescue it. She’d come too far to give up now.

Just as she approached the massive tree trunk, Nita heard that desperate cry again. She stopped and looked up, ex pecting to find the terrified little animal clinging to a tree branch, but
there was nothing there. No kitten in any of
the branches. No kitten caught in a hanging vine. But she could still hear the breathing and it seemed to be coming from behind the tree trunk.

Nita took a step forward and parted the vines. She saw a dark shape, massive and looming, so still it looked like part of the tree trunk. But even in this dim light, Nita could see that it had a human shape. Legs. Torso. Arms. And one arm was raised high in the air.

Time seemed to stand still as Nita’s mind spun in horri fied circles. The kitten had come in through the open door. And so had the shape, the human shape, with its arm raised in the air. But there was no kitten. It had all been a trap to lure her back here.

Nita stepped back just as the killer’s arm came down, narrowly missing her head. She tried to run, but her foot was tangled in an electrical cable. She tugged, hard, and something snapped. The jungle noises stopped abruptly, and all she could hear was her own tortured breathing. And then she caught sight of the killer’s face, grotesque with rage. Nita opened her mouth to scream, but the tire iron came down too fast for her to utter a single sound.

Eighteen

J
udy took a sip of water. Her hands were trembling, and her mouth was dry. After the guard had found Nita’s body, Detective Davis had asked them all to come down to the station to give statements.

“And what did you do when Miss Cordoza didn’t come back to join you?”

Judy sighed deeply. “I said I’d go see if she was all right. I had heard her say that she was going to the ladies’ room.”

“What did you do when you discovered that she wasn’t there?”

“I looked around in the halls. I thought maybe she’d stopped at some exhibit and lost track of the time.”

“How long was it before you went back to get the boys?”

Judy sighed again. “I don’t know for sure. I didn’t look at my watch.”

“What happened when you got back to pre-Columbian room?”

“I told the guys that I couldn’t find Nita, and we split up to look for her.” Judy took another sip of water. “We were all wearing watches so we agreed to look for twenty minutes, and meet back in the lobby.’

“You didn’t think there was anything wrong?”

“No.” Judy shook her head. “We just thought Nita was looking at something on her own. I don’t think any of us even thought about . . . about the killer.”

“And when you all met in the lobby after your search, you notified the guard?”

Judy nodded. “That’s right, sir. By then we were getting nervous. Nita had been missing for a long time. That’s when I thought about the killer. But I didn’t say anything to Mi chael or Berto.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to say it because . . . well . . . I was afraid that if I’d said it out loud, it might come true. I guess that’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?”

“No, not really.” Detective Davis looked very under standing. “Now I want you to tell me what was running through your mind when you all split up to look for Nita. Where did you go?”

“I looked in the restaurant first. I thought maybe she might have gotten hungry and gone in there to buy a snack. And I checked the patio area where we’d eaten our lunch. After that, I retraced our footsteps, all the way back to the entrance.”

“Why did you do that?”

Judy frowned slightly. “I thought maybe Nita had dropped something, and she’d gone back to try to find it. I kept thinking I’d run into her any second, standing in front of some display, reading one of those little plaques. Nita always read the plaques.”

“Did you look in the diorama section?”

Judy nodded. “Yes, I did. That’s where we were going next, and it occurred to me that Nita might be waiting for us there. I went to the North American section first, the one with the polar bears, and the penguins. I ran into an elderly couple standing in front of the wolves. She was sketching the grey wolf, so I figured they’d been there for awhile. I asked them if they’d seen Nita, and they told me that no one else had come in for at least an hour.”

“And then you went across the hall to the other diorama section?”

“Yes.” Judy’s voice started to shake. “I walked through the
whole thing. And I
noticed that the sound system wasn’t working at the . . . the big diorama at the end of the hall. But I had no idea that Nina’s foot was tangled in the speaker cords!”

Judy’s voice quavered, and she took the tissue Detective Davis handed her to wipe her eyes. “I’ll never forgive my self, Detective Davis. I should have told the guard that the sound system wasn’t working!”

“That’s all right, Miss Lampert.” Detective Davis’ voice was kind. “There’s no way you could have known that your friend was inside the diorama.”

“But I should have been smart enough to realize that something was wrong! If I’d just mentioned it to the guard, he would have found Nita right away. And then we could have called for an ambulance and . . .
”

“Look, Miss Lampert . . .” Detective Davis interrupted her. “An ambulance wouldn’t have helped. Your friend died instantly.”

Judy shuddered, and took another sip of her water.

“I have only a few more questions, if you feel up to it.”

“Of course.” Judy drew a deep, shaking breath. “I’d like to help, but I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

“Let’s go back to the last time you saw Miss Cordoza. You were in the pre-Columbian room?”

“No. We were looking at a display of rocks and minerals in the hallway. That’s when Nita excused herself to go to the ladies’ room
.”

“And Miss Cordoza’s brother and Michael Warden were with you?”

Judy nodded. “Michael told Nita that she should take her time. We’d go on to the pre-Columbian room and she could meet us in there.”