Darwin's Blade (46 page)

They began walking again. Yaponchik's crumpled form did not stir.

Syd and Dar were only thirty yards away and could actually see the red spray of arterial blood on the grass and the Russian's head tilted back at an impossible angle when the skies above them filled with noise.

Both stopped and looked up.

Two of the helicopters had Marine markings and the third one had “FBI” lettered on the side. The FBI chopper landed between them and Yaponchik's body.

Dar turned, ripped the Velcro off Syd's vest, lifted the Kevlar over her head, and held her in his arms. All around them, the grasses swayed wildly from the madness of the rotors' blast.

“I love you, Dar,” said Syd, her words lost in the engine roar, but perfectly understandable.

“Yes,” Dar said, and kissed her softly.

I
t was ten days later, a Sunday morning, when Dar's condo phone rang at 5:30
A.M
.

“Shit,” muttered Dar sleepily.

“Ditto,” said Syd, propping herself up on one elbow.

“Excuse me,” said Dar, grunting slightly with pain as the stitches in his side stretched. He reached across Syd's bare breasts to get the phone, and felt clumsy as he lay on his belly to answer it. He had never learned to sleep on his stomach, but the slowly healing wound just below his backside gave him little choice. Syd claimed that she did not mind when Dar forgot in the night, rolled over on his back or side, and awoke shouting and cursing.

The bullet in his side had been no problem. The emergency-room medic had given Dar a local anesthetic and dug the slug out in fifteen seconds. “Hardly worth coming inside for,” the medic had said. “Should have just used the drive-through.”

Oddly enough, it was his ear that still gave him the most problems. There was still some plastic surgery in the future for that.

Lying on his stomach, using the wrong ear, he answered the phone. “Dar Minor here.”

“Lawrence Stewart here,” came Larry's happy voice. “Dar, you've got to see this.”

“No, I don't,” said Dar.

Trudy got on the line. It sounded like their cell phone. “Yes, you do, Dar. Trust us. This is going to be a tricky reconstruction job. Bring both your regular camera and your digital.”

Dar sighed. Syd pulled the blanket over her head and sighed even more heavily. “Where are you?” said Dar. If it was more than ten miles away, they could forget it.

“The San Diego Zoo,” said Lawrence, obviously pulling the phone back.

“The zoo?”

Syd lifted her face above the covers and silently mouthed a word.
Zoo?

“The zoo,” said Lawrence. “Trust me, you'll never forgive yourself if you miss this one.”

Dar sighed again.

“Hurry,” said Lawrence. “And say good morning to Syd and invite her along, too.” The adjuster broke the connection.

Dar looked at Syd. She shrugged—Dar always thought that her shoulders were cute—and said, “Why not? We're awake now.”

“It's Sunday,” Dar reminded her. “We have a tradition of spending Sunday mornings a little…differently.”

Syd laughed. “Tradition,” she said. “One precedent. Some tradition.”

He touched her cheek. “
I
think it's a tradition,” he said softly. “Shall we shower together?”

“I heard Lawrence say we needed to hurry,” said Syd.

“Okay,” said Dar. “I'll shower first.”

They stopped by a Dunkin' Donuts to get coffee and sustenance. The cups were hot—napkins around them did not help much—and Dar was doing quite a balancing act, moving the cup from hand to hand while shifting. Syd just tried to keep from spilling her own coffee. She knew by now how picky Dar was when it came to the NSX's leather upholstery.

“Have you decided yet?” she asked as they took the zoo exit.

“Decided what?”

“You know what. You said you'd give me an answer by Sunday. Today's Sunday.” She tried to sip the hot coffee without spilling it as the black sports car zoomed up the curling exit ramp.

Dar sighed again. “I don't know…” he said.

“Come on,” urged Syd. “You've seen the depositions from Dallas Trace and Constanza and that surviving Russian…”

“The one you saved with the belt tourniquet,” said Dar nostalgically.

“Yep,” said Syd. “Anyway, you've read their testimony. This fraud group—the Alliance—is even bigger than we thought. We're going after the New York boys and girls next…and then the Miami area.”

“You don't need me,” said Dar. There were police cruisers at the open gate to the zoo. The patrolman glanced in, saluted Dar, and waved them on.

“No, we don't need you,” agreed Syd, “but now that this is a joint NICB/FBI operation, nationwide, it would sure be fun to have you along. Just try it for a year.”

“I hate handguns,” said Dar, turning in to the parking lot. He could see the Stewarts' Isuzu Trooper parked by a coroner's ambulance and five more police vehicles.

“You wouldn't have to carry just because you're on the task force,” said Syd. “Just stay home—wherever that will be—and work on your analyses and computer reconstructions while I'm out in the field. And then, in the evening, I'll hang my shoulder holster on the headboard and we'll make love before dinner—”

“You don't wear a shoulder holster,” pointed out Dar.

“Damn it, Dar. You can be such a pain sometimes.”

Dar parked and they got out into the warm July air and began walking toward the distant glare of yellow accident-scene tape.

“Syd,” he said softly, “why didn't you tell me that I almost fucked up the whole investigation for you guys?”

Syd drank the last of her coffee, tossed the cup in a receptacle, and looked at him. “The photos, you mean? And tracing the Russians' phone number? It doesn't matter, Dar. The photograph of Constanza that Lawrence used to identify Esposito's killer was taken by the FBI guys in their observation post across from Dallas Trace's place.”

“Why didn't you tell me about that and—”

Syd touched his arm. “It doesn't matter, Dar,” she said softly. “The defense could use that if it had been a real factor in the arrests, but they'll never hear about the illegally taken photos or the phone number. The FBI got all the same stuff legally anyway—”

“But I almost screwed everything up…”

Syd stopped. Dar was surprised to find her smiling at him. “Look at it this way, Dr. Minor. Now you don't have to testify in any of these trials…just send a few reconstruction videos to Lawrence. That means you'll be free to head back east with the task force and me in August.”

“New York in August,” said Dar, realizing as he said it that he was deciding to go.

Syd squeezed his hand and they walked past the yellow tape and through the door to the large-animal enclosure where the police were gathered.

The zoo's assistant curator was trying to explain. “Carl's taken care of Emma for fifteen years…more than fifteen years,” she said between sobs. Her face was red and she kept wiping the mucus from her reddened nose. “Carl really loved Emma. He's been so worried about her the last two weeks. Constipation in an elephant can be fatal, you know…”

“Emma's the elephant,” confirmed Lieutenant Hernandez.

“Of course Emma's the elephant!” said the assistant between sobs. She was wearing long, yellow rubber gloves. In the next enclosure, the elephant in question gave a trumpet that sounded as sad as Dumbo's mother calling to her baby. “And now…now…they'll probably have to destroy her,” said the assistant, her shoulders heaving with sorrow.

Hernandez patted the distraught woman on the back.

Lawrence, Trudy, Dar, Syd, and half a dozen uniformed police officers were gathered around the three-foot-high and seven-foot-long heap of elephant excrement. A pair of human legs protruded from the near end of the heap. The trousers were well creased and the same khaki green as the other zookeepers' uniforms.

“It reminds me a little bit of that scene from the first
Jurassic Park
movie,” said one of the cops in soft but amused tones.

“It reminds me of the ‘Chuckles the Clown' episode of the old
Mary Tyler Moore Show,
” said another cop, hitching up his gunbelt. “What did Murray Slaughter say in that episode? Something like…‘We're lucky nobody else died. You know how hard it is to stop with just one.…' ”

“That's because Chuckles was dressed as a peanut in a parade when the elephant shelled him,” said the first cop. “This zoo guy wasn't in a peanut costume.”

“No, but…” said the second cop, lamely trying to save his joke.

“Shut up,” said Dar. To the kneeling medical examiner, who so far had studied only the deceased's feet and legs, Dar said, “When did this happen?”

“We think a little after midnight,” said the ME.

“And
how
could it happen?” asked Syd.

The medical examiner got to his feet with a groan. “Ms. Haywood there says that Carl—that's Emma's keeper here—had been worried about the elephant's constipation for days. Evidently, last night about three hours after closing time, he mixed Emma a serious laxative mixed with oats and various grains. He overdid it on the laxative part, though.”

“Boy, did he,” said a third cop.

“Jesus,” said the youngest cop. “I've heard of projectile vomiting, but I've never seen a case of projectile—”

“Shut up,” Dar said again. All of the cops glared at him. They were having a good time.

Trudy was shooting photographs. Lawrence was measuring the long trail of dung. “Seven feet and eight inches long,” he said as if reading off skid marks. “Five and a half feet wide. A little over three feet deep in the middle.”

Dar went to one knee near the two legs protruding from the heap. Syd looked at him curiously. Dar touched the dead zookeeper's polished shoe. “He must have been pushed backward hard enough to be knocked unconscious when his head hit the concrete,” Dar said dully. “Then asphyxiated. He probably just never regained consciousness.”

“Better for him, probably,” said the young cop with a grin. “Imagine having this on your record…”

Dar moved so fast that the young cop took two steps back and actually set his right hand on his pistol in alarm.

“I told you to shut the fuck up and I mean
shut the fuck up,
” snarled Dar, his finger almost in the young cop's eye.

The officer tried to show a smile of contempt, but the effect was spoiled when his lips quivered.

“No more pictures, Trudy,” said Dar. “Not yet. Please.”

Syd watched as Dar walked over to the sobbing assistant curator, borrowed her long, yellow gloves, came back to the pile of dung, and begin digging carefully, almost reverently, at the far end.

Dar was weeping silently. Tears coursed down his cheeks and his shoulders were shaking.

The cops looked at one another and then took several steps back in embarrassment. Lawrence looked at Trudy.

“Larry, would you give me that hose, please?” said Dar, his shoulders still shaking slightly. His fingers were visibly trembling in the yellow gloves.

“Lawrence,” said Lawrence, but he brought the trickling hose.

Dar used the water and his fingers to wash the dung off the dead man's face as best he could. Syd stepped closer. The dead zookeeper had been a very handsome man, in his late fifties. His graying hair was short and curly. He looked asleep—more natural and simply at rest than most corpses laid out in funeral homes for public viewing. Dar ran more water over the face and gently brushed away the last of the dung.

“Ms. Haywood,” he said to the assistant curator, “what was his name?”

Emma the elephant trumpeted sadly from the next enclosure. The noise was like an inconsolable woman weeping.

“Carl,” said Ms. Haywood.

Dar shook his head. “His whole name.”

“Carl Richardson,” said the assistant curator. “He has no family…His grown daughter died in an accident near a Hawaiian volcano last year. Emma was his only…He always tried to…” Ms. Haywood broke down again. “He was only a month away from retirement,” she managed to say. “He was very worried about how Emma would get along without him.”

Dar nodded and looked at Lawrence and Trudy. “You can take the pictures now,” he said. “But let's get the man's name right. Mr. Carl Richardson.”

Lawrence nodded and began taking more photos.

Dar stood and pulled off the gloves, dropping them on the concrete. “Names are important,” he said as if to himself. “A name is—”

“An instrument of teaching,” said Syd, “and of distinguishing natures.”

“Socrates,” said Dar as if in final benediction. He turned his back on the group and walked to a nearby restroom to wash up.

Syd waited for him outside. When Dar finally emerged, his sleeves were rolled up and his hands, arms, face, and neck smelled of liquid soap.

“Sorry,” he said when he came close to Syd.

“Hush,” said Syd. “It's a pretty Sunday morning and the zoo isn't open yet. Can we walk a bit before we head home? The only thing I don't like about zoos is the crowds.”

Dar nodded. Syd took his hand and they started walking down the wide and curving asphalt path. The bright summer sun made the tropical foliage here an almost impossible green. Somewhere a lion or tiger coughed.

“Hesma phobou,”
Syd said after a while. They paused in the shade of a wildly branched tree with tiny leaves. On a nearby island, small monkeys were leaping from branch to branch in perfectly silent balletic arcs.

“What?” said Dar, looking at her strangely.

“Hesma phobou,”
repeated Syd. “I've been reading up on your Spartans. The weeping after a battle…falling to their knees…shaking, trembling.
Hesma phobou
—‘fear shedding.' ”

“Yes,” said Dar.

“It wasn't considered a weakness,” continued Syd. “It was considered necessary. Another way—after the battle—of ridding themselves of the worst sort of possessing-fear daemon. The daemon of indifference.”

Dar nodded.

“It's been too long, my dear,” she said, and squeezed Dar's hand.

“And they never forgot the names of their fallen,” said Dar. He hesitated only a few seconds before he spoke again. “My wife's name was Barbara and my son's name was David.”

Syd kissed him.

“It is a pretty day,” said Dar. “Let's enjoy the zoo awhile and then come back and get Lawrence and Trudy. We can have breakfast outside somewhere with them.”