The Anteater of Death (2 page)

“Get a grip,” I’d told her, as I angled around with my safety board, careful to keep it between us. “Be a good girl or you’re going off-exhibit until you calm down.” Such an extreme decision would be left to Zorah Vega, the zoo’s head keeper, but Lucy didn’t know that.

I’d eventually corralled her in the chain link holding pen where she continued her tantrum, slashing out at the world in general. Lucy wanted a piece of me. She wanted a piece of everybody. She especially wanted a piece of Popcorn Man. After I’d spent the rest of Monday afternoon picking up popcorn kernels saturated with anteater dung, I wanted a piece of him, too.

But today, on this sun-drenched California May morning, Lucy should have returned to her more-or-less cheerful self. Across the way, the orangutans
huhu-huhu
ed cheerfully as they threw feces at each other. Macaws squawked for joy. Everyone was happy, so why not Lucy? Why didn’t she trot out to welcome me as usual?

Then I remembered the Gunn Zoo Guild black tie fund-raiser, which had started at sunset the previous night and continued on until the wee hours. The noise had probably disturbed her, and sleepy anteaters were cranky anteaters. Especially when pregnant.

Scanning the area more carefully, I spotted Lucy in the far corner of the public enclosure, her nose sticking out of the large, rattan-covered dog house she used for a nest, her diagonal black-and-white shoulder stripes hidden in its shade. “Lucy not say good morning to Teddy?” I crooned in the baby-talk many zookeepers use with their animals. She grunted once and turned over, but refused to emerge.

“Be like that.”

I left her to her sulks and drove my electric zoo cart down to the commissary to fetch breakfast. Mashed Purina Monkey Chow mixed with wiggling termites always cheered her up.

After I’d fed the squirrel monkeys, the capybaras, and the Chacoan peccaries, I waited by Lucy’s fence for the head keeper to turn up. Zorah had mentioned that she wanted to check on the anteater herself this morning, but when she hadn’t appeared after ten minutes or answered my radio calls, I finished the routine on my own. With the same caution other keepers used with the big cats, I entered Lucy’s holding pen at the rear of the enclosure.

Hearing me, Lucy stuck her long nose out of the dog house, lifted it high for a good sniff, then trotted over to the chain link fence that separated her public enclosure from the much-smaller holding pen. While she watched through the links, I poured her breakfast into the Wellington boot we used for her food bowl and turned it on its side so it would look more like a log. Then I picked up the safety board and held it in front of me. Thus assured she couldn’t take her bad mood out on me with her lethal claws, I opened the gate to the pen and stepped aside. With a happy chortle she rushed past me, stopping once to give the safety board a perfunctory swipe, then stuck her snout in the boot and began to lick up termites.

Once again I wondered about Zorah’s absence, but guessed she had been held up in a meeting with Barry Fields, our new zoo director. Or perhaps she was helping another keeper with a difficult animal, a common occurrence.

I’d saved some of the Monkey Chow mixture for Lucy’s public area, and after exiting the holding pen and locking its gate securely behind me, I stuffed the rest of her breakfast into various hollow plastic “logs” placed in several locations around the enclosure. That accomplished, I picked up my bucket and broom and set about the least fun part of a zookeeper’s job: picking up poop.

For a giant anteater, Lucy is relatively tidy. She always relieves herself in the deep brush near the banana tree, so I started my cleanup there. But when I leaned over to pick up the first pile, I saw a man in a soiled tuxedo lying half-hidden in the weeds. A drunk left over from last night’s fund-raiser?

When the man didn’t move at my approach, I gave him a poke with the broom. “Party’s over, sir. Rise and shine. And just between the two of us, you shouldn’t be in here. Lucy’s…well, Lucy’s not much of a hostess.”

Nothing. Not even a groan. I poked harder. “Sir, didn’t you hear me? Lucy’s a Code Red animal. If she decides to, she’ll rip the skin right off your bones! Let me escort you to safety.”

The man still didn’t move. “Sir, you need to…” I stepped closer and pushed the weeds out of the way. “
Oh!”

Lucy had already ripped the skin off his bones.

I made it all the way to the moat before I vomited. It wouldn’t do to soil Lucy’s enclosure.

***

The first argument that morning was over how much of the zoo should be shut down while the San Sebastian County crime scene techs did their jobs. Sheriff Joe Rejas wanted the entire zoo closed for the day but the zoo director and Zorah, who’d finally turned up, held fast for Tropics Trail only. Attempting to forget the mess the anteater had made of the dead man, I listened to them argue while I sat on a rock under a eucalyptus tree at the trail’s entrance.

“I’m sure you understand, Sheriff, that the Gunn Zoo is a private establishment and as such, receives no government funding,” Barry Fields snapped. The zoo director’s high voice made him sound like the dingos in Down Under. With his sleek build, pointy nose, and California tan, he resembled a dingo, too, albeit one dressed in Armani. “Besides relying upon the good graces of our benefactors, we must also keep an eye on gate receipts. Two thousand-plus visitors a day adds up, you know, and I can’t allow you to cut those numbers. There’s staffing, upkeep…”

“Sir, there’s been a death.” Sheriff Rejas towered over the director, his own bronze skin owing more to genetics than Fields’ obviously obsessive tanning rituals. He moved a lot more like a stealthy mountain cat than some scruffy Australian canine, too. If Fields was wise, he’d watch his step.

But Fields had all the self-confidence of the truly ignorant. Dismissing the sheriff’s frown, he stroked his sports jacket’s expensive lapel. “Oh, something’s always dying at a zoo.”

The zoo’s park rangers, who had come running when I radioed them, gave him a disbelieving stare.

The sheriff looked disgusted. “I’m sure your animals are all very healthy, but this is a special situation. A man is dead.”

Aware of his gaffe, the director looked around for a scapegoat. Seeing me, he fired off a series of accusatory questions. “Why wasn’t that thing locked in its holding pen for the night? Did you forget? Idiot! Don’t you realize the lawsuit your incompetence has let us in for? What’s your name? I’m reporting you to Human Resources.”

I stood up and brushed away the eucalyptus leaves clinging to my butt. “I’m Teddy Bentley, and I didn’t forget to lock the gate. Since being impregnated, the anteater prefers to spend the night in her enclosure, not the holding pen. The man must have climbed over the fence and waded across the moat. It’s not as deep as the one the bears have.”

“Climb over the fence? Don’t be ridiculous! No one would do such a stupid thing. Especially not with that nasty aardvark.”

“Giant anteater, sir.
Myrmecophaga treidactyla
.”

“Whatever you call it, I want it shot before it causes us any more trouble.” Suddenly his face changed. “Wait a minute. Did you say your name is
Bentley
?”

Angered by his outrageous order, I gave my full name. “Yes, sir. Theodora Iona Esmeralda Bentley.”

Fields blinked. “Any relation to Mrs. Caroline
Bentley
Petersen, of the Gunn Landing Bentleys, by any chance?”

“She’s my mother.”

His abrupt manner segued to servile. He did everything but lick my mud-caked work boots. “Then I’m certain you were very careful, Ms. Bentley. And that you always are.”

What a jerk. “I was careful.”

At this point, Zorah, her big frame sunken in shock, spoke up. “Shoot the anteater? Oh, c’mon! Giant anteaters are on the Vulnerable Species list. We can’t go around killing them just because some idiot let himself get clawed. Besides, Lucy’s one of our most popular attractions, and if you send her to another zoo, our visitors will raise hell. The publicity for the Name-the-Baby-Anteater contest is all set to go as soon as she gives birth, and that’ll give us tons of media coverage.”

While the director mulled this over, Sheriff Rejas spoke again. “Here’s what we’re willing to do. We’ll keep the zoo closed until noon, then cordon off Tropics Trail for the rest of the day. That way, the man’s death won’t cut into your gate receipts too deeply.”

Fields missed the barb. “It’ll cut them by half!”

Ignoring him, sheriff turned to me, his frosty eyes warming. “Teddy…ah, Ms. Bentley, perhaps you’ll show me what you were doing when you discovered the body? Without entering the exhibit again, of course.”

Relieved that my long-ago boyfriend had decided to keep our interaction on a professional level, I led him and his deputies back to Lucy’s enclosure and ran through my movements. “I didn’t notice the man until I…” I motioned to the bucket and broom I’d dropped on the way out of the exhibit. “…until I started cleaning.”

“Did you touch the body?”

I averted my eyes from the ongoing action under the banana tree. “When he didn’t wake up I poked him with my broom. He still didn’t move so I pushed the brush aside. That’s when I saw that he didn’t have much skin left. Especially on his face.” I swallowed hard.

“What did you do then?”

“Got sick.”

“Teddy, that’s not what I meant.”

Back to first names. Not wanting to let our personal history sidetrack me, I said, “Sheriff Rejas, I’m not sure what I did then. It’s horrible, finding someone clawed to pieces.” I breathed deeply. “After I finished upchucking, I radioed the park rangers. And the head keeper.”

Zorah, who had followed us, looked up expectantly.

Joe ignored her. “When you called in the emergency, did the park rangers respond immediately?”

“As soon as they finished their Earl Grey and crumpets.”

He shot me a look. “No point in getting smart, Ms. Bentley. I’m just doing my job.”

“Yes, they showed up within seconds. With first aid kits and rifles.”

He glanced into the enclosure, where the crime scene photographer was packing up his camera equipment. “Has the anteater attacked anyone before?”

“Her former keeper, whom she didn’t like. But Lucy didn’t kill him, merely scratched him on the leg.” As far as zookeepers were concerned, anything less than twenty stitches was a scratch, and he’d only required nineteen.

The photographer backed out of the enclosure, looking as sick as I felt.

Oblivious, Joe resumed his questioning. “What do you think brought on the attack?”

“It could have been anything. Merely intruding into her territory might have set her off. She doesn’t even like it when I enter, and she’s used to me. A stranger would be taking his life in his hands.” Oops. The dead man certainly had. “Do you know who he is, ah,
was?
I couldn’t tell from his face.” What was left of it.

Joe leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “I don’t want this to get around yet, but his driver’s license indicates that he’s Grayson Harrill. The deputy I sent up the hill to notify his wife radioed me a few minutes ago that she collapsed. Her doctor’s with her now.”

My nausea returned, but at least not to the retching point. “Oh, Joe, you can’t let Jeanette see him like this!”

“We’ll make the official ID from dental records. The condition he’s in, it’s the only thing possible for now. We can confirm with DNA later.”

Grayson’s wife was the great-great-granddaughter of Edwin Gunn, the zoo’s founder. Jeanette—who’d been my roommate at Miss Pridewell’s Academy—was a voting member of the Gunn Trust, the organization which ran the zoo.

Now I was more alarmed than ever on Lucy’s behalf. She was just an anteater being an anteater, and as such, blameless in the attack. But I doubted that the billion-dollar Gunn Trust or its insurance carriers would interpret her actions in such a benign manner. Regardless of her popularity with our zoo visitors, the Trust could order her traded to another zoo. Even worse, they might follow Barry Fields’ advice.

Grasping at straws, I said, “When you get through questioning everyone, it might be worth your while to find out what Grayson was doing up here. He wasn’t all that cuddly with animals.”

Joe frowned. “Isn’t he one of the Zoo Guild members? Like his wife?”

“Sure. So’s my mother and she doesn’t even own a cat. A lot of the Guild members see community service as their civic duty, others perform it for political reasons. Sure, the majority of them like animals. Grayson did, too, at least in the abstract, but he didn’t care for close encounters with them. You should have seen his face a couple of weeks ago when someone stuck an adolescent saki in his arms for a publicity picture. He looked at the poor little thing as if it were a bomb ready to explode.”

“Adolescent saki?”

“Small white-faced monkey. Weighs about a pound.”

“If he was uncomfortable with animals, why did he spend so much time at the zoo? People have told me he was here almost every day.”

“That’s because he’d taken over for his wife. As one of the Gunns, she did a lot of office-type stuff around here besides her Guild work, but her migraines, which she’s suffered from for years, started getting worse, so he jumped in to fill the breach. He’s always been good about helping her. And it kept him busy.”

“Didn’t he have a job?”

“He dabbled in real estate. Some, anyway. Other than that, I guess his job was being Jeanette’s husband.”

“Sounds like a kept man.”

A harsh epitaph, and unfair. Grayson worked harder for Jeanette than most men did at their nine-to-fives. In my mind, I could see his round, eager face turned toward her, anxiously awaiting her next request. Not my idea of the perfect husband, perhaps, but as they say, it takes all kinds.

“You’re being unfair. He didn’t just sit around counting Jeanette’s money. If the zoo needed anything, from a gross of paper clips to new plantings for the cheetah exhibit, he was our point man.”

“I’ll take your word that the victim earned his keep.”

We were both silent until I asked, “What’s going to happen to Lucy?”