The Anteater of Death (23 page)

I wrenched out of his clutches and moved closer to the wolves’ fence, hoping that his recent encounter with the monkeys would make him nervous about getting too close to animals. It worked. Seeing one of the wolves cast a slant-eyed glance his way, he hopped back into his own cart. Then he drove a final nail into my coffin.

“Now, I don’t want my girl to work too hard!”

After Barry blew me a kiss and drove off, Jack Spence gave me a dirty look.

***

The day grew increasingly difficult. Regardless of my morning’s bravado, my endurance began to wane and several times I was forced to sit down and catch my breath. At noon, I braved the stares of the other keepers in the employee lounge as I took an extra-long lunch break. My worst fears about Jack’s addiction to gossip were confirmed.

“So you and Barry hooked up, huh?” This from Miranda, the Down Under keeper.

“No, we didn’t ‘hook up.’ I had dinner with him, that’s all.” I couldn’t even look at Zorah, whose frosty expression hurt the most.

Miranda wouldn’t let it go. “We thought you had better taste.”

I was saved from trying to answer the unanswerable with the arrival of Kim Markowski. The education director announced that she wanted to use us as a test audience for a quick run-through of her revised puppet show, now titled
Little Red Riding Hood and the Giant Anteater.

Eager to get the spotlight off myself, I volunteered to help set up the small stage. The new puppets weren’t finished (the anteater looked like one of the beaky old codgers on
The Muppet Show
), but she explained that she was taking a puppet-making class once a week in San Francisco.

“By the time the show debuts, they’ll look more professional,” she said. Then, to my surprise, her eyes teared up. “Grayson paid my tuition. Wasn’t that a kind thing to do?”

A murmur of assent around the table. Zorah remained silent. She still hadn’t forgiven him for not appointing her as zoo director.

Once Kim began the show, I found myself drawn to the tale of an innocent anteater accused of killing and eating Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. After a brief investigation, Little Red discovered that the anteater was simply hiding Grandma to keep her safe from Mr. Wolf. In a stirring climax, the anteater yanked the sheepskin off a nearby “sheep” to reveal Mr. Wolf himself. Demonstrating a less pacific temperament than the peaceful anteater, Miss Hood whacked him with a shepherd’s staff.

Gratified that the idea I’d given Barry had been so successful, I cheered with the rest of the keepers when the wolf ran howling into the forest, chased by the valiant Hood. After Kim took a few bows, the keepers drifted back to work. I stayed behind to help her take the puppets back to the cart. As we worked, I told her what a great job she’d done.

“I can’t take all the credit,” she replied, her long-lashed eyes bright. “Barry gave me the idea. He said the plot came to him in a dream.”

“
Really
!”

“I didn’t know he was so creative. Did you?”

“Can’t say I did.”

As she drove off, I realized that our zoo director’s ethics made the Big Bad Wolf look saintly.

***

By the time the zoo closed for the day and the last visitor straggled out the gate, I was exhausted, but at least the bald spot on my head had stopped throbbing. After the events of the past couple of days, the prospect of a peaceful evening on the
Merilee
couldn’t have been more desirable.

At first, the reality lived up to the dream. As I watched Jack Hanna cavort with a wallaby on
Animal Planet,
my pets curled up next to me. The only blot on the evening came when—for the first time ever—I locked the salon hatch. Except for that, the evening passed without incident, although
Animal Planet
grew too fuzzy and I switched over to a rerun of something named
Magnum
. The guy playing the private detective was cute, but the plot didn’t seem as realistic as those on
Law & Order
. Or maybe life in Hawaii wasn’t as rough as in Manhattan. After the program was over, and the fog had enfolded the harbor in its soft embrace, I sank into bed.

Although exhausted, I couldn’t sleep and lay listening to the tide whisper against the
Merilee
’s hull. I tried to empty my mind of its chaos by picturing a soft gray blankness. It didn’t work. Since nature abhors a vacuum, more disturbing images crowded in: Grayson’s ravaged corpse; Jeanette caressing his old suit; Zorah’s face shadowed by iron bars; the lines of pain around Joe’s eyes when I told him we needed to put our relationship on hold.

Defying doctor’s orders, I went to the galley and poured myself some wine. Once back in bed, I propped myself up on the pillow next to where Priss now lay snoring and tried to organize my thoughts.

With the exception of Zorah and Dr. Kate, most staffers had come in contact with Grayson only on those rare occasions when he attended the zoo’s fund-raisers. How could they have a motive to kill him?

Dr. Kate’s refusal to discuss the independent vet study worried me. Not only that, but according to zoo gossip, she had once crossed swords with Grayson over the ever-increasing expenses involved in keeping our animals well-fed and healthy. Yet would anyone murder a man over the rising cost of hay?

Moving my focus outside of the zoo, I reviewed a different group of suspects.

Most of the pro-Trust Gunns benefited from Grayson’s murder because it effectively ended attempts to break the trust and disperse its funds among the heirs. Now the Gunns would receive their dividend checks in perpetuity. With an increasing sense of discomfort, I remembered Roarke’s timely arrival at my side seconds after I’d been mugged. Speaking of the Gunns, what about Henry and Pilar? Something had been nagging me about that conversation, something that didn’t make sense.

Nothing came, so I let it go, deciding to revisit the conversation later. One thing was for certain. The Trust was administered by a firm in the City, which probably meant that another drive up there might be wise, even if I had to take a day off work. I groaned aloud at the thought, making Bonz open his eyes and look around. When no action toward his food bowl was forthcoming, he fell back asleep. Priss never stirred from her place on the nearby pillow.

The pillow.

Where only a few nights earlier Joe…

I resumed staring at the
Merilee
’s low ceiling.

Why did life have to be so complicated?

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

The next day brought no enlightenment. Hoping to turn my mood in a more positive direction—and to distract myself from my head’s throbs—I lingered at the anteater enclosure. With no visitors nearby to make me feel self-conscious, I told her how pretty she was. “Such a fluffy tail! Such marvelous black and white markings! Lucy is the queen of giant anteaters!”

She pointed her long nose at me and grunted in what I imagined was agreement.

“Not only are you more beautiful than any giant anteater alive, but you’re a wonderful decorator, too. That nest you made for your baby is exquisite. Would you like to come down to the
Merilee
and decorate for me? I have a sea-animal theme going, but I’m not adverse to incorporating an anteater motif. Do you think I could find the right fabric? Anything’s possible.” If I had the money. In reality, if I had enough money to redecorate, I’d also have enough to overhaul the motor. Which I didn’t. A successful trip to Dolphin Island in order to keep my boat berthed at the harbor remained impossible.

Wrong train of thought. Instead of getting my mind off my problems, I was reminding myself of them. Time to get back to work.

“See you later, Lucy. I’m going to look in on the capybaras. They’re —”

An arm snaked around my waist. “How’s my girl? Feeling better?”

Barry. As impeccably groomed as ever, the afternoon sun made his perfectly styled hair glow in the morning light. He looked almost handsome, if you were nearsighted.

I stepped out of his grasp. The only thing good about this situation was that Tropics Trail was deserted, and no one would witness his overtures. “Hey, don’t…”

He closed the distance between us and drew me back to him. “There’s no point in denying the chemistry between us.”

In an attempt to set some relationship parameters, however belatedly, I began to peel his hand away one finger at a time. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

His smile made him look like a hungry dingo lying in wait for a juicy wallaby. “Anytime’s the right time when a man’s in love.”

“Listen, Barry, you’re not in love…”

Before I could finish, he jerked me toward him so hard that I had no chance to pull away before his carnivorous mouth clapped onto mine. Desperate, I freed my hand, grabbed a fistful of hair, and yanked.

To my horror, the top of his head came off.

As I goggled at the hair in my hand, he snatched it back. “Give me that, you…you…”

A chorus of laughter from a zoo cart emerging around the bend snapped me out of my shock. I looked at the zoo director’s gleaming bald pate, then at the flap of hair I’d removed, and understood. I hadn’t scalped him, merely lifted off his toupee.

Trying my best to dial down his anger, I said, “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Barry slapped me.

Hard. With the back of his hand.

Without thinking, I hauled off and slugged him in the nose. Blood spattered my uniform.

He drew back his own fist.

While Lucy hissed in alarm, I danced out of Barry’s reach. He started after me, but brakes squealed and the cart of zoo workers tumbled out and ran toward us. Even Kim, crutches under her arms, hobbled along as best she could.

“That’s enough, you two!” Dr. Kate yelled, waving a clipboard. She looked like she would use it to swat the next person who made a hostile move.

Not being entirely stupid, I raised my hands in the universal signal of surrender. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

Nearby, the anteater hissed louder. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her rise to her full height of five feet and extend those long talons, looking every bit the Code Red animal she truly was.

Ignoring her, Barry unclenched his fist, his eyes glittering with hate. “Miss Bentley, you’re fired. Your ass better be gone by the end of the day.”

He stuck his toupee back on his head and walked away.

I was trying to shake the dizziness away when the others reached me.

“Are you all right?” Zorah put a steadying hand on my arm.

I clenched my eyes shut, then opened them again. Better. “I think so.”

“Your concussion. Is it…?”

Yes, my head hurt like blue blazes, but that wasn’t what made me feel so miserable. “Did you hear? He fired me!” I wanted to bawl.

“He can’t fire you,” she snapped. “He grabbed you first, and even if you over-reacted with that toupee-pulling stunt, his response was
way
over the line. If you’re sure you’re okay I want you to fill out a grievance complaint. Don’t worry. You have witnesses.”

Jack Spence made it clear where his sympathies lay. “Regardless of the provocation, management can’t go around hitting keepers,” he said. “Aster Edwina’s gonna have a fit if he gets us in trouble with the law or the EEOC.”

Aster Edwina. I’d forgotten she remained the final arbiter of all things zoo, so maybe my situation wasn’t as bleak as I feared. She’d always preferred animals to people.

“You saw everything?” I threw a glance at the anteater. With the director’s departure, she’d returned to all fours and no longer looked dangerous. But the continued hissing wasn’t a good sign.

Dr. Kate nodded. “Everything. I saw you resisting what appeared to be unwanted overtures, the toupee removal, the backhand, your attempt at self-defense.” She raised her hand to my cheek. “The swelling isn’t too bad yet but you might develop a shiner if we don’t get some ice on that right away. Come on down to the Animal Care Center and I’ll fix you up. And I suggest you see your doctor. That slap can’t have been good for your concussion.”

As I tottered toward the cart, Zorah added, “Let’s call the police, too. We just witnessed an assault.”

“No!” I didn’t want Joe brought into this. Our relationship was already a mess. “This is all my own fault, anyway.” No lie there. With my ill-conceived plot to help the anteater, I’d brought all this on myself.

Zorah snorted. “Every battered woman thinks she asked for it. Tell me what’s been going on, Teddy. That was no lover’s tiff we just witnessed.”

Lover.
Since my relationship with the zoo director was now beyond repair there was no point in keeping secrets, so I told them everything. Lucy’s distress, the hatching of the plot, the dinner, Barry’s behavior in the restaurant’s parking lot, the continuous gropings.

Instead of being shocked, Zorah gave me an approving smile. “I suspected something like that. Hell, if it would help our animals, I’d put on fishnet hose and hang out under a street light with a sign saying TWENTY-FIVE BUCKS A THROW hanging from my neck.”

Probably envisioning the Amazonian keeper as a particularly ill-dressed hooker, Dr. Kate smiled. “Same here. But there’s another way to play this. As you may or may not know, there’ve been rumors of harassment. Our boy Barry really likes the ladies, whether they like him or not.”

Interesting. She’d once asked if I was “having trouble” with him. At the time I’d thought nothing of it but now her question seemed oddly prescient. Notwithstanding the shadows under her eyes, she was still an attractive woman.
Harassable
, in fact.

***

The rest of the day passed without further drama. I stopped working only once, to fill out the grievance forms Zorah handed me as I tossed vegetables into the capybaras’ enclosure.

While I wrote, she studied my face carefully. “Before you leave tonight, I want to photograph the evidence.”

I touched my cheek, which was now as sore as the back of my head. “Do you have to?”