The Koala of Death (19 page)

“Is anyone hurt?” This, from Larry DuFries, owner of the
Texas Hold ’Em
.

Waving aside their questions, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and punched in 9-1-1. After giving the necessary information to the dispatcher, I then called Joe, who told me to do exactly what I was already doing: stay off
My Fancy
and keep the others away, too.

“You’re sure it’s a crime scene, Teddy?” he asked.

My back was turned to the crowd on the dock so they couldn’t see my lips move. “It looks like he was strangled. By something thin, like a wire.”

A grunt. “Keep the boat clear until I get there, all right? Get those folks off the dock and back to their own boats.” Without waiting for my answer, he hung up.

My next call was to MaryBeth O’Reilly. The harbormaster had a right to know I’d found a second murder victim. When I briefed her, she said she would notify the Harbor Patrol, then she hung up as abruptly as Joe. I knew that within minutes I’d see her marching toward
My Fancy.

I turned my attention back to Linda, who had pulled herself together and was slapping away the many arms reaching out to comfort her.

“Leave me alone, you bastards,” she barked. “I’m fine.”

She didn’t look fine. Her eyes were red and her broad shoulders slumped with grief. My heart ached for her almost as much as it did for Heck. Pushing my own emotions aside, I followed Joe’s orders and began herding the onlookers back to their boats. Since boat owners, especially liveaboarders, don’t like being told what to do, they grumbled as they shuffled away.

“Don’t know who you think you are, Teddy, ordering me around like this,” Larry DuFries muttered, as I nudged him toward his
Texas Hold ’Em
. “You’re not the boss of me.”

Sam and Doris Grimaldi were less argumentative as I escorted them to the
Gutterball
, but Doris was curious. “What’s happened?”

“The Sheriff will tell you everything you need to know.”

“Is Heck sick? Shouldn’t someone stay with him? Or did…?”

“Doris, I can’t…”

Thankfully, the arrival of the harbormaster, flanked by a khaki-clad foursome from the Harbor Patrol, interrupted us. MaryBeth looked as pale as the hull on
Ghost Rider
, her all-white Catalina sloop. Leaning close, she whispered, “Teddy, what makes you think it’s murder?”

“Someone looped a wire around his neck,” I whispered back. “Or maybe a thin cord of some kind.”

Always level-headed, she didn’t let her face reveal her shock. “Have you notified the sheriff?”

“He’s on his way with crime techs and the coroner. And, I guess, an ambulance. For Heck’s body.” It wasn’t easy keeping my eyes dry, but I managed.

MaryBeth turned and issued orders to the men from the Harbor Patrol, three of whom stationed themselves at varying points along the dock, the other at the electronic gate. The harbormaster herself stood sentinel in front of
My Fancy
, her face grim. Linda and I joined her. Until Joe arrived with his yellow crime tape, our harbor posse would keep anyone from contaminating the crime scene any more than Linda and I already had.

Joe’s arrival seemed to take forever, but a glance at my watch proved it had only been fifteen minutes before a cascade of sirens swept toward us down Bentley Hill, the setting sun casting a pink glow across the black-and-whites. If you hadn’t known why they’d been summoned, you might have thought their lights pretty.

The first thing Joe did when he arrived on the dock was to separate Linda and me. “Go on back to the
Merilee
, Teddy. I’ll be over to interview you later.” He glanced toward Linda. “Is that Miss Cushing? The woman who was with you when you found him?”

I nodded.

“Isn’t she the one who helped you with…?”

The other body, he meant to say, but didn’t. I nodded again.

He raised his voice so Linda could hear. “Ma’am, don’t go anywhere. I need to talk to you.”

MaryBeth put a comforting hand on Linda’s shoulder and answered for her. “Can’t you see how upset she is, Sheriff? Her own boat’s just a couple of slips away. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

After a brief pause, Joe nodded and disappeared into
My Fancy
.

For the next few minutes, while I cuddled a nervous Miss Priss and DJ Bonz in the
Merilee
’s salon, more sirens screamed toward the harbor. Myriad feet clomped past. Voices issued orders. Miss Priss, normally the most aloof of cats, tucked her head under my armpit as if to deafen the noise.

“There, cat, there, everything’s fine,” I said, stroking her trembling sides.

Bonz looked worried, too, so along with a few comforting pats, I directed some reassuring words his way. “Nothing to worry about, Bonz. Just some unpleasant human business that doesn’t concern you.”

It was full dark by the time Joe got around to me. When he and two deputies stepped onto the
Merilee
, both my pets fled into the aft bedroom. At Joe’s first question, I regretted that they’d abandoned me so quickly because I needed comforting myself. Especially since the larger of the deputies was taping our interview on a hand-held digital recorder.

“Ms. Bentley, approximately what time did you leave Gunn Zoo?” Joe said, in a chillingly neutral voice. He was taking notes, too.

With a wary eye on the tape recorder, I answered, “At the usual time. Just after six.”

“And you went straight to Mr. Liddell’s boat?”

“First I fed Miss Priss and walked Bonz.
Then
I went to see Heck, um, Mr. Liddell.”

He didn’t look up from his note pad. “That would be at about what time?”

“Maybe five minutes before 9-1-1 received my call. Maybe three. I wasn’t checking my Timex, and you know darn well that conversation was time-tagged.”

“Describe your movements yesterday, say, from two-fifteen until this morning.”

“You mean after our trip to the zoo with the kids?”

He didn’t look up, but I saw the tips of his ears turn red. “Just answer the question, Ms. Bentley.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Joe, don’t tell me you think I killed that poor old man!”

His next few words proved why he refused to look at me. “In a murder investigation, no one is above suspicion, Ms. Bentley.”

Swallowing my anger, I gave him a rundown on yesterday’s activities. Visiting Heck and promising to help him clean the filthy
My Fancy
. Surfing the Internet and finding
The Tasmanian Devil
. Going with Caro to visit Speaks-to-Souls in San Sebastian. I did skip, however, the more ridiculous details of the doggie séance.

“That’s your vacuum cleaner on Mr. Liddell’s boat?”

“Yes.” I knew better than to ask for it back. The vacuum cleaner, along with
My Fancy
and everything on it, would soon be joining Kate’s
Nomad
at the county impound lot. Then I remembered something much more important than any old vacuum cleaner. “Joe, Heck’s cats. They can’t be left on the boat.”

“Animal Control’s on their way.”

Here was the problem. Building on the San Sebastian County No-Kill Animal Shelter was months away from completion, and in the meantime, strays were being housed at the county pound. And due to overcrowding…Well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Tell Animal Control to turn around. I’ll take the cats.”

He turned his attention away from his note pad and looked me full in the face so I could see the disapproval on his own. “You can’t be serious, Teddy. There must be a dozen cats on that boat, and the
Merilee
’s too small for the animals you already have.”

“Seven.”

“What?”

“Seven cats. And there’s more room on the
Merilee
than you think.”

Theoretically
Merilee
offered around four hundred square feet of living area, most of which was taken up by decks, bulkheads, the galley, and various fittings. I’d once estimated that there was less than twenty feet of actual walking-around space. But crowded cats were better off than pound cats. I’d find them good homes, beginning with zookeeper friends who had proven to be soft touches for needy animals. Come to think of it, Zorah was down to three cats. She had room for at least two more.

Joe’s voice interrupted my kitty placement plans. “If you want to bring in more animals, I can’t stop you, but you’re cra…” After a glance at the tape recorder-wielding deputy, he looked back down at his note pad and changed the subject. “Right. Let’s talk about Ms. Cushing. Didn’t you once tell me she and Mr. Liddell hated each other?”

“You must’ve heard me wrong.”

“How about Ms. Cushing’s relations with Kate Nido? Any problems there?”

That question made me wonder if Joe was beginning to doubt his case against Outback Bill, but any joy I might have felt was replaced by a new concern for Linda. The last thing she needed was to take up residence in the San Sebastian County Jail.

Joe’s official voice pulled me back from my worries. “Ms. Bentley? You didn’t answer my question. How did Ms. Cushing get along with Ms. Nido?”

Oh,
Ms, Ms, Ms
. He sounded like a beehive. “They were the best of friends.”

Apparently he didn’t see my fingers crossed behind my back, because he then proceeded to ask me about Heck’s and Kate’s relations with everyone at Gunn Landing Harbor, including the harbormaster.

“We all get along great.”

“Yeah, you’re just a ‘Kumbayah’-singing bunch. Anything else you can tell me that might be pertinent to the investigation?”

Now that the roughest part of the questioning was over, I opened up and told the tape recorder everything Heck and I had talked about the night before, leaving out Heck’s comments about my mother and her car, of course. I also didn’t tell Joe the probable reason for Kate’s animosity toward Walt MacAdams. But now, after Heck’s murder, I felt duty-bound to confess that I had been hiding something. Well, not actually
hiding
, just not being completely open, and those were two different things, weren’t they?

“Ah, Joe, have you read Kate’s blog?”

“Sure. It being within my jurisdiction, I read that zoo stuff all the time. Besides, it makes a relaxing departure from all the heavy material on
LawOfficer.com
. By the way, I’ve got an article in there this month about the new reactive skin decontamination products. You should read it.” Belatedly remembering the tape recorder, he cleared his throat. “What does
Koala Kate’s Outback Telegraph
have to do with anything?”

“I mean Kate’s other blog,
The
Tasmanian Devil
.”

He looked up, his eyes narrowed so much that I wondered how he could see through them. “Are you telling me that Kate Nido had two different blogs?”

“I just found out myself.” My voice was so tiny that even I could hardly hear it.

His eyes narrowed even further. “Tell me everything.”

With a sigh, I started in.

***

By the time Joe left—after escorting me over to
My Fancy
to pick up the cats—I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me or merely disappointed. I was left alone on the
Merilee
with a boatload of furry angst.

“Dog, cats, can’t we all just get along?”

Miss Priss, recovered enough from her fright to bristle with indignity at this multi-cat invasion of her turf, stood on the galley counter and yowled her displeasure. Fluffed out to twice her size, her one remaining eye stared daggers down at the newcomers. They weren’t happy, either. Three stood mewling in distress on the steps leading up to the hatch, while the other four found comfort behind cushions in the triangular-shaped sleeping quarters at the bow.

Bonz stared at them all in stupefaction. “More cats?” his expression seemed to ask. “They’re gonna steal my food!”

After shutting up my own outraged pets in the aft bedroom and leaving Heck’s cats to make peace with their new environment, I headed over to the
Tea 4 Two
with a pot of freshly-brewed tea. I found MaryBeth just stepping off the boat. The look the harbormaster gave me was as dour as Joe’s. “Don’t stay too long, Teddy, and for God’s sake, don’t ask her any questions. She’s had to answer too many already.”

For a fleeting moment, I wondered if Linda’s story matched mine. But why wouldn’t it?

While MaryBeth headed toward her office at the northern end of the harbor, I called across to
Tea 4 Two’s
hatch. “Linda, it’s Teddy, with a pot of tea. Permission to come aboard?”

“Yeah.” She sounded soggy.

The tidy
Tea 4 Two
was a far cry from the slovenly
My Fancy
. A Catalina 30 that was almost the twin of MaryBeth’s, it was a sloop-rigged boat that had almost worn itself out from thirty years of sailing up and down the California coast. Last year, after unexpectedly coming into a small inheritance, Linda had repaired the keel, installed a new mast, and refurbished the interior with sea-blue carpeting and color coordinated appointments. She’d spiffed up the teak fittings, too, so much so that the interior looked like it had just left the showroom. Now she seemed oblivious to her splendid surroundings. Accompanied by her faithful German shepherd Hans, she sat in the galley, huddled into a blanket.

“It’s all my fault,” was the first thing she said.

Survivor’s guilt. I had a touch of it myself. As I set down the teapot on the galley’s Formica table, I responded, “There’s no way you could have done anything.”

She shook her head. “I heard it, Teddy. Only at the time I didn’t realize what I was hearing.”

When I sat down next to her, Hans licked my hand and whined. He was worried about her, too. “That’s impossible,” I said, pouring us both some tea.

“Around one in the morning I heard someone walking along the dock, but I didn’t pay any attention. I figured it was just Sam Grimaldi sneaking someone over to the
Gutterball
for a midnight screw.”

Linda had just confirmed my own suspicions about the Grimaldis’ marriage. Doris was the one with the money and big house, while Sam had youth and a boat. Since it was impossible that Doris didn’t know what was going on, the two had probably come to some sort of “modern” understanding. “Maybe you did hear Sam.”