Did Not Survive (11 page)

“Any internal candidates?”

“Yeah. Sam. The rest are from outside.”

I thought that over while Jackie puffed. “So who's it going to be?”

She shrugged. “Can't say.”

I was pretty sure that meant she didn't know.

“So,” she said, “you know about the senior keeper position that's posted? It's for Bears and Felines. You could apply.”

The keepers had wondered if this position, funded by the bond measure, would ever be created. “I'll think about it.” Trying for senior keeper was full of pros and cons. I changed the subject. “Have the police said anything about who killed Wallace?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Could be anyone with keys to the elephant barn or Wallace could have let someone in. I don't see how they can ever find out.” She waved the smoke away from her face, frowning. “Icky.” She ground out her butt. “That big old cop looked in Wallace's file cabinet and took his computer.”

Wallace's files immediately seemed like a source of crucial information, now that they were out of reach. Damn. “Just unplugged it and took it? Is he going to bring it back?”

“How would I know? We've got another one for the new guy, whoever it is. A better one. Wallace didn't want to upgrade and have to learn a new interface.”

“Won't New Guy need Wallace's files?”

Jackie gave me a pitying look. “We do have backups, you know. We aren't living in the bronze age.”

Of course. “What about Wallace's email? Is that backed up, too?”

“It's all on a server. We've got everything except what Wallace kept on his hard drive and didn't save to the server. He wasn't good with computers. Mr. Crandall is even worse. I spend half my life straightening out his files. He does this Save As thing and has all these versions of the same file and then he—“

“Jackie, I want to take a look at that computer.”

“Why? What do you care about it?” Her brow furrowed in alarm. “You want to see Wallace's files. Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“To find out if anyone had a reason to want him dead? Not your problem.”

“You don't think the cops are going to figure this out, do you?” I asked.

“Might.”

“Is Mr. Crandall in or not?”

“He's got a telephone conference in his office for…” She looked at her watch. “Another forty minutes. What could you find that the cops couldn't? You're wasting your time.”

I waited out her struggle between common sense and professionalism on one side and a little excitement on the other.

Her eyes narrowed. “He might come out to go to the bathroom or something. It's a risk. It's set up with Wallace's logon. He's still getting email, and I have to deal with it. You'd never guess that the password is ‘neofelis.' If I'm out of the office, I'd never know who went in there, would I?”

“No, you come, too. You're
supposed
to read his email. I'll look over your shoulder.”

Jackie thought this over. The pheasant stepped up to the poacher's snare and hesitated. I couldn't come up with any corn to sprinkle on the ground. Jackie shook her head. “Nah. You're on your own. Mr. Crandall's already crabby.”

“Have a nice lunch,” I said, and she tossed her stub into the mulch and headed for the café.

Inside the office, I found the summer intern, a chirpy high school girl in a skimpy tank top and big hoop earrings, there to handle the phones and run errands in the busy season. She beamed a welcoming smile.

“Um, I'll be doing some data entry using the computer in here,” I said, walked into Wallace's office, and closed the door. It didn't feel right to be there, anymore than it ever had. The room was small, with two ordinary wooden arm chairs for guests, gray carpet, a wooden desk with a monitor. Cheap wood paneling. An army green file cabinet. Swivel chair behind the desk with a cushion dented in the shape of Wallace's butt.

Nothing good had ever happened to me in that room. That was where keepers were chastised for their sins, where I'd learned Rick was dead, where I was busted from Felines to Birds. The photo of a younger Wallace with an elephant was still on his desk. Not Damrey, an elephant from a different zoo. The room smelled stuffy, with a hint of elephant. I wandered to a small closet and opened the door. A warm-up jacket, rubber boots, a white shirt neatly hung on the rod, a blue tie draped over it. I checked the jacket pockets and found a package of dried mango slices, a piece of monkey chow, and a grocery receipt.

I put my butt on the chair behind the desk and looked in the drawers. One was locked, probably full of personnel files. A chance to inspect my own file? And Denny's, which probably shared some of the same disciplinary forms. But I couldn't find the key in any of the other drawers. Wallace hoarded paper clips and pads of yellow sticky notes. I stood up and checked the file cabinet, which wasn't locked. Every drawer held folders labeled by species or year or topic. It was stuffed with paper. No way did I have time to examine all that.

This seemed hopeless. I didn't even know what I was looking for. No, I did. I was trying to find out who he met or found at the barn.

I turned on the computer. It came to life much faster than my own. Did Wallace have a personal calendar? If he did, the police probably took it. Maybe he used an online calendar. I logged on and opened his email. It was the same software I used at home. I clicked on the Calendar button and was excited to see that Wallace actually used it. Every day had entries. I hit the back arrow until I got to the day of the incident. Nothing for seven in the morning. The first entry was a meeting with the senior keepers at ten. I rummaged around, looking at the week before and the week after, and found nothing interesting.

Disappointed, I clicked on Mail. He'd received a gazillion emails since he'd died. Many of them were newsletters from wildlife and zoo organizations. Most hadn't been read. Jackie wasn't keeping up.

Feeling criminal and not in a competent way, I took a closer look, trying to sort out the personal emails. Those were few, judging by the subject lines. I paged back, sampling anything not quickly identifiable. I tried sorting by “From.” Reading emails from Dr. Reynolds seemed intrusive, but I did it anyway and learned that she had requested that the zoo pay her way to a zoo vet conference in Georgia. Also that she was over budget for lab tests she sent out. Nothing juicy.

I skipped all the emails from Mr. Crandall once I figured out that they were forwarded memos to and from the city council. I skipped the zoo newsletters.

I opened three emails from names I didn't recognize. One was a link to a YouTube video of a woman old enough to know better hugging an adult male lion she'd raised. Another notified him of his high school reunion coming up and reminded him to come dressed as his favorite movie character. The notion boggled. The third was from his dentist reminding him to come have his teeth cleaned.

This was not working. It would take many hours to paw through all of the emails. I checked my watch. I had twenty minutes before Mr. Crandall's meeting was scheduled to end.

As though I'd summoned him, the door opened and Mr. Crandall put his head in. “Iris? What are you doing here?”

Flustered, I clicked the mouse and missed the spot to close out the email. “Oh, hi. You startled me!” I prayed he couldn't see the screen from where he stood.

“Are you on light duty today?”

“Yeah, I mean, yes. My ankles are swelling, and Calvin said I could find something to do sitting down. Jackie set me up to enter animal records.”

“Well, good. You take care of yourself now. No heavy lifting. No ladders.” He pulled his head out and shut the door.

Rattled, I gave up on emails. I scrolled up to the top and moved the mouse to reset the sort back to Date instead of From, covering my tracks. Before I clicked, I saw that at the top was one from [email protected], with the spam-like subject “Your letter,” sent two weeks ago. I opened it. The message was short and to the point: “Too little, too late. I hope you rot in hell, like I am.” No signature. I jerked back as though I'd put my hand on a hot stove.

Mr. Crandall was chatting with the intern when I walked out. “Done?” he asked.

“No. I'm not comfortable in there. Too much Wallace. I'll find something else to do.”

He nodded. “Yes, I miss him, too. It's a hard adjustment.”

My nerves shredded, I found Jackie and told her how close I'd come to being busted.

“Good save,” she said. “You'll be doing identity theft before you know it. Big money in that. You're a natural criminal.”

When I glowered at her, she said, “I'll cover for you, but you owe me. Did you find anything good?”

“Not sure. Who's ‘A Team Mom'? She's really pissed at Wallace.”

“A visitor, some soccer mom? Maybe one of the petting goats bit her kid. Let me know if you find out.”

“Deal.”

“Do you think we'll ever know what happened?” Jackie was almost plaintive.

“We'd better.”

How do you track an email address back to a name and street address? I had no clue, but I was going to find out.

Chapter Eleven

I had an armful of outraged spectacled owl when my radio crackled. The owl was clamped between my right elbow and my hip, with my right hand clutching his legs tight together so those powerful talons couldn't get at me. I fumbled around with my left hand and got the message: “Iris, call Felines.” Dr. Reynolds' voice. I was immediately certain that Losa had killed her cubs. No, I was surely overreacting. Surely. With an effort, I continued checking out the bird.

What inspired my meddling was that the owl had skipped breakfast and was fluffed up and dull eyed. As Calvin would say, he looked “crumpy”. A minute ago, I'd casually poked around in his exhibit like I always did, then made a fast back-handed swipe at his ankles with a leather-gloved hand, wiping him off the perch and into my clutches. This would not work twice. If I didn't examine him now, we were facing an ugly scene of chasing and flapping. If I used a net, he'd still end up exhausted and possibly with broken feathers.

In my five months under his supervision, Calvin had done his best to teach me how to examine a bird. A check of the owl's breast muscles confirmed that he was too thin. Mouth looked okay, feet were fine…Maybe the cubs were all right, but Losa had died of some post-partum infection. I re-focused, parting feathers on his back and peering at the bases, nudging my little white face mask with a thumb so that I could see. Ah-ha. Feather lice. He was old and tired and not keeping up with his grooming. I carried him to the little shed outside the aviary where Calvin kept cardboard boxes and stuffed him inside one. Powerful as the feet and wings were, the owl couldn't break out of a cardboard box and wouldn't even try. He would be safe and quiet. Later I'd take him to the hospital for treatment. Maybe Linda had saved one of the cubs.

I called Felines and got Dr. Reynolds.

“Iris, I thought you'd want to be here.” Steely professional voice, emotionless, calm.

I panicked again.

“Rajah can't get up this morning, and it's time to put him down.”

Shit. I wasn't prepared for that, either. “You're doing it now? I'll suit up and be right over.” I couldn't do that steady voice, not even close.

“I'll wait for you.”

“Losa's okay? The cubs?”

“No problems there.”

One more loss. I stood still outside the aviary shed and forced myself to think like a professional. Leave the owl and the leather gloves in the shed. Remember to disinfect the gloves later to get rid of any lice contamination. Uniform was contaminated also. I stripped off the coveralls, down to maternity jeans and a tee shirt, wadded them up, and dumped them in the shed. Locked it. After sloshing through the footbath at the Penguinarium and washing my hands, I rounded up vinyl gloves and a fresh face mask. I found Calvin's spare clean overalls and pulled them on.

Oh, Raj, I'm so sorry…

I walked to Felines remembering, barely noticing the drizzle seeping from a gray sky. My first days as a Feline keeper, three years ago, with Harold training me in the two weeks before he retired. Wallace hanging out with me on my first solo day, suspecting correctly that Harold hadn't done much more than show me how to put meat into feeding chutes. I was more afraid of the foreman than of lions or leopards. My terror led to clumsy mistakes, and Wallace had elaborated on each one and how it might have led to my death. Looking back, his extra training had helped keep me alive.

Raj, old even then, was the bright note those first weeks as I struggled to get the job done and survive. Soon he permitted a little face scratching from the beginner, two fingers through the mesh of his night den—prohibited, unsafe, irresistible. After a month, he greeted me with the growly poof that is tiger for “hello” and I still loved rumbling back.

I remembered when a naïve visitor dumped a pair of white domestic ducks on the zoo grounds, probably envisioning a happy life for them forever. One flew well enough to land in the tiger exhibit and had made Rajah's day. I picked up white feathers in the exhibit for weeks.

I'd salted his log and rocks with different scents—perfume, zebra manure, cloves—and watched him explore and react—intent, fierce, and gorgeous.

I pushed aside a memory that still sent iced lightning through me: the day we ended up in the outdoor exhibit together, and he chose not to kill me. He snarled and stalked, but he let me back out and slam the door on him.

Raj was my best animal pal. We were cross-species buddies, imperfectly, awkwardly, giving what we had. Tears had me pretty well blinded by the time I turned my key in the door to Felines. I had to be there, and, with precautions, my flutter would be safe. Half the pregnant women in America live with cats.

The tiger was lying flat on his straw bed, Linda and Dr. Reynolds waiting in the hallway outside his night den, Kayla hovering behind them. Old and underweight, dying, he was still so beautiful he made my eyes sting and my throat ache. His food sat in an untouched pile a yard away from his nose, of no interest. I said, “Good morning, Raj” and he raised his head a little, then lay back down, relaxing, ribs rising and falling slow and shallow.

In the last year, he'd survived dental work, an infected claw, and arthritis. Dr. Reynolds and Linda had bought him an extra six months, a comfortable six months, with diet, medications, and careful husbandry while his systems failed. Despite a special diet and medication for his failing kidneys, he was too damn old and sick to go on. Unquestionably time to say good-bye, but it was hard, hard.

Near death, he still commanded respect. Dr. Reynolds waved us out of her way, took her time, and darted him with her pistol through the mesh. He barely flinched. His eyes closed. Dr. Reynolds loaded a pole syringe. She couldn't reach him through the bars. Linda opened the door, the vet stepped in, jabbed Rajah in the rump, and stepped back out.

After a long, long time—a minute or two—his ribs grew still. At Dr. Reynolds' gesture, Linda opened the door to the den again and the vet walked in alone. She injected a syringe-full into his foreleg. He didn't move. After a bit, she crouched to put her stethoscope to his ribs. “It's over,” she said, standing up. We filed in to pay our last respects.

“Poor old thing,” Kayla said softly. “Are you sure he's dead?”

Dr. Reynolds nodded.

He seemed both bigger and smaller than before. I rubbed his cheek for old time's sake and ran a hand down his shoulder and leg, my first and last chance to feel the coarse fur and now-slack muscles. His feet were enormous. I tried to smooth an eyelid down with a white plastic finger. Linda's face was wet with tears as was my face mask. We touched him respectfully and bid his spirit a silent farewell. I wished him a verdant jungle with fat stupid deer, lovely lady tigers, and no people.

Dr. Reynolds murmured something and I looked up. “What?”

She was talking to Linda. “I left the zoo van outside with a litter. We'll need some help lifting him.”

Kayla asked, “What do you want to do with him?”

Dr. Reynolds said, “I'll take a look, a standard necropsy. Maybe I'll find something that might help with the next tiger or other cats. Then we'll donate the body to one of the universities. You can make the calls to see which one wants him.”

Kayla nodded.

“I'll call Hap for help,” I said and walked to the kitchen to use the phone.

He showed up with Denny and Ian. At my raised eyebrow, Denny said, “Takes manpower to lug tigers, Ire. You shouldn't be lifting. By the way, you look ready to decontaminate Chernobyl.”

“Price of admission.” I adjusted the face mask, which managed to let air leak around it while still impairing my breathing.

Ian didn't say anything.

Denny and Hap brought in the empty litter and stood for a moment in the den, looking at the old tiger. Linda and I stood with them. Denny put an arm around my shoulder, a brief half-hug, and let it slide off. Hap shook his head and said, “Sorry, Linda. Comes to every one of us.” We'd worked together, in our different roles, for enough years, enough triumphs and disasters, to share an understanding of what Rajah's passing meant. I wouldn't cry over a deceased snake myself, but I knew why Denny might want to and that I would attempt a word of comfort. Hap didn't work with the zoo animals as directly, but he raised parrots at home, and he knew.

Ian and Dr. Reynolds and Kayla waited quietly. A tickling wiggle in my belly made an obvious but helpful point about the cycle of life. The moment passed. We lifted Rajah's legs to roll him onto the litter, an ignominious procedure. Linda draped a stiff blue tarp over his body to hide him from visitor eyes. The zoo wasn't open yet, but someone might be on a special tour. Hap and Denny were clear that I was not to help. I stood around as Denny and Hap took one end. Linda and Kayla arranged themselves together, Ian took the fourth corner. Hap said, “On three,” and counted. The litter sagged and they adjusted their grips and posture, then carried him out into bright sunshine. In his prime, Rajah had weighed almost four hundred pounds. He'd lost weight steadily this last year, but he was still a lot of cat. Dr. Reynolds opened up the rear of the van, and they shoved the litter inside.

“Put him on the necropsy table,” Dr. Reynolds said. “One of the sun bears has a bite wound, and I have to get over there. I'll notify Mr. Crandall later. He'll put out the press release.”

Five of us climbed into the van, a big white box, anonymous since Maintenance hadn't gotten around to sending it out for zebra stripes and the zoo logo. I was of no use, but neither was I ready to let go of Rajah. Ian chose to walk rather than crowd in with us.

We sat with our tiger on his semi-final journey, Hap driving, Denny in the passenger seat, Linda crouched alongside Rajah's tarp-covered back. I was near his head, Kayla sat by his hind legs. Linda and I each laid a hand on the tarp, as though to steady or comfort the body beneath. The van smelled of cat, a hunter's scent. We were all silent, even Denny. Hap slowly steered this funeral cortege toward the fence that separated the visitor area of the zoo from the restricted Commissary, maintenance barn, and hospital side. He activated the key pad to open the gate, drove through, and turned left to drive along the alley toward the hospital, between the visitor fence and the outer perimeter fence. The gate swung shut behind us.

Rajah was hand raised as a cub and lived his entire life in a zoo, never missing a meal but never killing for himself. Well, except for that luckless duck. He'd had the best life we could give him, but a limited one. It was easy to picture a different life in the wild—hunting and mating, cooling off in jungle pools with tropical orchids overhead. The picture included local villagers stalking him with guns to protect their livestock and for the princely sum his hide would bring into their impoverished lives. Wild tigers weren't living in any paradise these days. Populations were on the skids, and the extinction alarms were sounding. Raj wouldn't have lived this long if…

Kayla erupted with something along the lines of “Aggh!” and, jarred back into the real world, I looked toward her and saw Rajah's hind legs twitch under the tarp. Then, next to me, his front paws moved, reaching out from under the tarp with claws extended.

I also said something a lot like “Aggh!” and yelled, “Hap, he's not dead! Let us out!”

Hap glanced once over his shoulder, gunned the motor, spun the van into the space between the Commissary and hospital, and killed the engine. We emptied that van in milliseconds, piling out through the front doors. Somehow Kayla scrambled out before either Linda or I did. Hap slammed one door, Denny slammed the other, and Hap clicked the “lock” button on the key ring.

We stood in a huddle like alarmed primates. “What the hell?” Hap said. “I thought he was supposed to be stone dead.”

“Holy crap,” Denny said.

“Twitching after death is normal,” Kayla said with a complete lack of conviction.

“You bailed out like your hair was on fire,” I said.

Linda spoke into her radio. “Dr. Reynolds, mission was not totally accomplished. There is still activity,” she said, calm enough to use words that would not alarm anyone overhearing. Stress overtones were thick in her voice, but the lousy sound quality might mask that.

After several seconds of silence, Dr. Reynolds' voice crackled back. “Negative. Mission definitely accomplished. Normal activity. Don't worry.”

Don't worry. “No way are we opening up that van.” Denny spoke for us all.

“We'll wait for you before we move him,” Linda said into the radio.

“And another dart,” I squeaked.

“Holy crap,” Denny said again.

We stood around in the rain for several minutes, peering into the van now and then. Ian joined us. The blue tarp twitched once for sure and maybe a second time. Kayla and Hap explored the concept of undead tigers in a zombie zoo, Kayla giggling. Linda and I couldn't switch moods that fast. Ian stood back and said nothing.

“She's not coming any time soon,” Hap said. “Call me when you need me.” He ambled off toward the Commissary, and, after a moment's hesitation, Ian followed.

Linda said. “We might as well wait inside.”

We took a final look at the blue tarp through the van windows, agreed the tiger was definitely probably dead, and walked in. The hospital had a small sitting area next to the entrance. Linda and Denny and I settled at the table and chairs. My face mask was sliding around, and I pulled it off.

“I might as well get some work done,” Kayla said. “I'll be in the quarantine rooms if you need me.”

Denny waited with us, reading a
Natural History
magazine that was on the coffee table. Linda and I told Rajah stories and debated how long we should wait before returning to our areas. I asked about her ceramics and she told me about a class she was taking. “It's more sculpture than throwing pots.”