The Anteater of Death (21 page)

Lights again. Noise that hurt my head. Some woman asking stupid questions.

“Can you remember your name?”

What an idiot. “Theodora Iona Esmeralda Bentley, of course. Leave me alone.”

“Do you know where you are?”

Two times an idiot. “On the
Merilee
. Now would you please switch off those lights? I want to go back to sleep.” I tried to turn to a more restful position but couldn’t, so I closed my eyes tightly to block out the glare.

A sharp poke in the left leg. I opened my eyes and saw a woman with hair redder than mine hovering over me with something sharp in her hand.

“Don’t do that again,” I warned her.

“Good response to pain. How about here?” Another poke, this time in the right leg.

“Stop it!”

She ignored me. “Reflexes fine, but she’s still confused. Let’s get her over to X-ray.”

“Hey, lady, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Teddy, be nice to Dr. O’Hare.”

Where had I heard that voice before? Oh, yes. Caro. What was my mother doing here? She hated the
Merilee
, wouldn’t visit on a bet. Except to leave notes.

“Tell her to get away from me.”

“You have a big bump on your head, dear, and she wants to make sure there’s no fracture.”

“Humpty Dumpty.”

“Who?”

“Had a great fall.”

“You didn’t fall. Someone attacked you.”

“All the king’s men?”

“Probably some nasty homeless person.”

As whatever I was lying on bumped along, my eyes found their focus. I wasn’t on the
Merilee
, but rolling down a wide, white corridor on a gurney. “Did Lucy bite me?” I asked. But how was that possible, considering that anteaters had no teeth?

Giving up on making sense of the world, I went back to sleep.

***

When I woke later to a strong chemical smell, my head throbbed. Had I been careless and mixed bleach with ammonia, thus gassing myself while cleaning the
Merilee
? Then I saw the television set bracketed high on a plain white wall. Ignoring the pain in my head, I surveyed my surroundings. Wilting flowers on the nightstand next to my bed, a carafe of water with a plastic straw protruding from it, no dog or cat anywhere in evidence. Stranger still, across the room, Caro slept in a chair guarded by a man, who, although the temperature was pleasant enough, wore a heavy coat with its collar turned up.

Oh. A hospital room.

The man approached the bed. “Feeling better?” he asked. After a closer look, I recognized him as my father.

“My head hurts,” I complained. The light streaming through the half-closed blinds merely made it worse.

He gave me a concerned look. “That’s because someone hit you over the head.”

I decided to worry about this strange piece of information later. “What time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Almost seven. And keep your voice down. Your mother’s been up with you all night. This is the first time she’s slept.”

“Up all night, you say? Is this seven in the morning or seven in the evening?”

“Ante meridian.”

“Then I need to go to work. Outta my way, I’m getting up.”

Dad pushed me back down. “The only place you’re going is to your mother’s, and that’s only if the doctor says you can.”

“But I need to walk my dog. And feed the anteater. And the wolves. And…”

“Like hell you do. I called the zoo, got passed around from person to person, and eventually wound up talking to the head zookeeper and told her what happened, so she’s feeding your precious animals. Don’t worry about your pets, either. Some fireman named Walt is taking care of them. On a less pleasant note, your cop friend just left to get some coffee, but says he’ll be back.”

The world, and my father’s problems with it, began to come back to me. “Did Joe recognize you?”

“Let’s hope not or bundling up like this was all in vain. He only poked his head in here for a second, then left, so it’s doubtful he saw me at all. Now tell me who did this to you so I can kill him.”

“What?!” In my alarm, I raised my voice, and Caro began to stir.

“Teddy? Are you awake?” she called. She stood up, revealing that she was wearing pajama bottoms and an old tee shirt. For the first time I could remember, she looked like hell.

My father called to her. “Yeah, she’s awake, and I’m clearing out before the fuzz comes back.”

“Dad?”

“What?”

“They’re not called ‘the fuzz’ anymore.”

“See what happens when you lose touch?” He leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I don’t want to push my luck, so I’ll wait for you both at the house.” To Caro, he said, “Make her tell who did this.”

He started to say something else, but at the sound of nearing footsteps, hunched into his coat and scuttled out the door in the opposite direction.

Caro trotted over and kissed my forehead. “Oh, baby, you could have died! First the anteater, then the bears, now this. Move back to Old Town where you’ll be safe!” As she caressed my cheek, her hand trembled.

Joe entered the room in full uniform, his own reaction more subdued. “Awake, I see.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Those harbor low-lifes tried to kill you, that’s what happened!” Caro hissed. “The only reason you’re alive is because of Roarke.” She gave Joe a stern look. “She’s too ill to see you.”

“No, she’s not. Mrs. Bentley, um, Mrs. Hufgraff, uh…”

Her voice could have cut glass. “It’s Mrs. Petersen.”

That’s the problem with multiple marriages: the police have trouble staying current.

Joe matched her frown with one of his own. “Please leave us alone for a minute. I need to question her.”

She squared her slender shoulders. “No.”

He squared his broad ones. “Ever see a jail, Mrs. Petersen? Looking
out
from the inside of a cell?”

As much as I enjoyed their pissing contest, it was time to interrupt. “I’m dying for a glass of orange juice. Caro, would you please bring me one from the cafeteria?”

Her face fell. “But I…”

“The vitamin C will do me good.”

“Oh, all right.” With a beauty pageant flick of her hips, she strode out of the room.

With her gone, I hoped to make some sense out the night’s events. “Joe, what happened?”

“Somebody clocked you, but Roarke Gunn and that fireman…”

“Walt McAdams.”

“Yeah, him. They prevented whoever it was from doing anything else to you. After chasing the guy away, McAdams held your hand while Roarke called 9-1-1. When the EMTs brought you in, you were kind of goofy, and you stayed that way for a while. You just don’t remember. The doc kept you here overnight. If you feel the back of your head, you’ll find a bald spot where they had to shave your hair to stitch you up.”

Obviously I was no longer “goofy” because Roarke and Walt acting in concert didn’t sound right. “Who reached me first?”

“Roarke, as I understand it. Seconds later the fireman came along.”

“But Roarke was back at the restaurant having dinner. And anyway, the
Tequila Sunrise
is in the other direction from the
Merilee
. There’s no reason he’d be walking toward the harbor’s south end. And Walt, well, he’d been drinking. He and Roarke exchanged words before he left Fred’s in a huff.”

“The guy was hammered, all right. Both of them admitted there’d been some kind of altercation at the restaurant with you in the middle. Roarke said that as soon as you left, a couple of the liveaboarders headed for the door, too, so he told his wife to stay at the restaurant while he made sure you got home okay.”

I tried to envision the scene. Me, lying on the pavement, Roarke running to my rescue, Walt staggering along behind. “He left Frieda with the liveaboarders?” This didn’t fit with the new and improved Roarke, the Roarke who ran back to his boat to get a jacket for his wife, the Roarke who was already planning his son’s on-land education.

“That’s what he said. What do you remember before the lights went out?”

I closed my eyes but the darkness just made me more aware of my headache so I opened them again. “Fog. Maybe footsteps, but they might have been my own.”

He sat on the side of the bed. Now that my mother wasn’t there to disapprove, he took my hand and kissed it. “That’s not a love tap on the back of your head, Teddy. Whoever hit you meant business. Look, I know you’ve continued to ask around about Grayson’s murder and for that I blame myself. We’ve made our arrest, so drop it, okay?”

“You arrested the wrong person. By the way, where
was
Zorah last night?”

He couldn’t meet my eyes. “Attending her niece’s
quince
.”

A
quincea
ñ
era
was the coming-of-age celebration for a Hispanic girl, carried out with all the hoopla of a confirmation, bat mitzvah, and high-school graduation party combined. There would have been at least one hundred witnesses who would swear up and down Zorah never once moved from her niece’s side for the entire day and evening.

“So she has an alibi,” I gloated.

“Family members always lie for each other, that’s nothing new.” He didn’t sound like he believed his own argument.

“You know darned well Zorah didn’t ‘clock’ me, as you so delicately put it.”

“She’s strong enough.”

“But not sneaky enough. She can’t even hide a gun without screwing up.”

He spread his hands. “What can I say?”

“You can say goodbye, that’s what. I’m going home.” During my earlier look around the room, I had seen something that looked like a closet door. My clothes were probably in there. I’d slip them on and leave.

Joe gave me a pained smile. “To your boat? Your mother will never allow it. Obviously you don’t remember the hell she raised last night, screaming about you living alone on that thing.”

I tried to shrug, but it hurt too much. “That’s nothing new.”

“Right now she has a point. As sheriff, I’m saying it’s not safe to go back there. And as someone else who loves you, I’m in total agreement with her. She may not be the easiest person to live with but she’ll make sure you’re safe. Knowing her, she’ll probably hire an entire battalion of security guards.”

“I’m going back to the
Merilee
.”

“You do and I’ll come up with an excuse to have it impounded!”

What an impasse. If I stayed at my mother’s, he’d find an excuse to visit and might catch a glimpse of my father. It may have been twenty years since Joe had laid eyes on him, but he had a policeman’s memory. I searched for a compromise.

“Okay. I’ll stay at Caro’s for a day or two. But then I’m going back to the
Merilee
, where—I’d like to remind you—I have a guard dog.”

“That three-legged mutt of yours?”

“He’s vicious.” I didn’t tell him about the night my father snuck aboard and DJ Bonz failed the guard dog test. In an attempt to solve my other problem, I added, “Um, I was going to discuss this before my, uh, accident. I think we need to…” I searched for the proper phrase, something that wouldn’t be too harsh. “…put our personal relationship on hold for a while. Give ourselves some breathing room.”

He stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “On hold? Has your mother issued another edict against me?”

“It’s just that I…I…” Obviously I couldn’t tell him the truth, that I was afraid he’d run into my father at the house and arrest him. But since I hadn’t yet come up with a believable excuse, I said, “So much is going on, Joe. We need time to think about us, our future. If we have one, that is.”

His face intent, he leaned over the bed. “Teddy, are you dumping me again?”

I turned away so he couldn’t look into my eyes. “No, no. I just need a break for a while. Some space.”

“Space?” Then his expression changed and he grew terribly quiet. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

I didn’t answer. How could I?

With a sigh, he stood up and walked out of the room. I could heard his footsteps echoing all the way down the hall.

It was the loneliest sound in the world.

***

Later that afternoon the hospital released me, and by dinnertime I found myself ensconced with Bonz and Priss in the bedroom where I’d grown up. Caro had kept it unchanged, apparently believing the posters of Jon Bon Jovi, Gloria Estefan, and the Thompson Twins I’d collected as a teen would lure me home. While the Nineties’ Gloria still looked stylish, I now realized how weird all that hair looked on Bon Jovi and the Twins. I didn’t much care for the room’s turquoise and lime green color scheme, either. The bright colors hurt my eyes.

Although I felt fine except for the raw spot at the back of my head and some residual light sensitivity, Caro, changed into a yellow Betsey Johnson frock that hurt my eyes even more than the room, wouldn’t even let me out of bed to eat. She served my dinner on a silver tray piled high with rosemary chicken, roasted potatoes, a steamed artichoke in garlic butter sauce, and for dessert, a strawberry-kiwi torte. Obviously, my father remained in residence.

After watching me gobble down the food, she asked, “Ready for seconds?”

“What I need is to walk this off, so I’ll take Bonz out. Where’d you put his leash?”

She set the tray aside and leaned forward to dab at my chin with a snowy linen napkin. “He can use the old doggy door. You’re staying in bed.”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Oh, please. I’m thirty years old and I’ve been living on my own for more than ten years.”

“And look how that turned out.” With that, she picked up the tray and left the room.

She did have a point, I mused, as I lay there staring at the ceiling with Bonz snoring at my feet and Priss curled on my stomach. My life choices had worked out so well that someone was trying to kill me and the man I loved had just walked out of my life.

I didn’t know which was worse.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

The next morning I was finishing up a chorizo omelet topped with tangy salsa and a dollop of sour cream, another of Dad’s culinary creations, when my bedroom door opened. Stiff with disapproval, my mother let in Walt McAdams. She waited by the door like an irritated pit bull.