The Koala of Death (28 page)

“Are you sure, Teddy?”

“Absolutely.”

“I sent your mother a note of apology this morning. Do you think I should call her, too?”

“The letter will be enough. After all, you weren’t the only person involved in that brawl.”

“I’m used to paying for my mistakes, Teddy.”

Taking note of the tears in her eyes, I gave her a squeeze on the shoulder. “You already have.”

We chatted for a few more minutes, and I confirmed that she planned to attend Bowling for Rhinos that evening. Before driving away, she said, “What you told me last night? You’re right. He’s not worth it.”

Not long afterward, I saw Myra as I was driving by the mountain gorilla enclosure. She only had one black eye. I slowed and waved, but she didn’t wave back. Nor did she attempt an apology for last night’s behavior.

At the end of the day, after I had fed the squirrel monkeys and returned them to the Monkey Mania night house, I went in search of Bill. I found him cuddling Wanchu, who was the only female he’s ever remained faithful to.

When he saw me, his face curved into a sneer. “Well, if it isn’t Little Miss Heiress. Here to hobnob with us commoners?”

I refused to take the bait. “Are you going to be at Bowling for Rhinos tonight?”

“Yeh. I’m going to show you Yanks what’s what, rub your uppity noses in the dirt.”

That set me back. “You bowl?”

Now it was his nose that poked up in the air. “Been a dab hand at tenpins since I was a kid. Yer looking at the winner of the 2006 Gold at Joondalup and the 2008 Melbourne Silver. Gonna win me that trip to Africa.”

“Bill, that prize is for the winner of the raffle, not the bowler with the highest score.”

His face clouded. “You sure about that?’

“Aster Edwina was very clear that the trip would be the Grand Prize for the raffle. But all zoo employees and volunteers who registered for Bowling for Rhinos will receive one raffle ticket when they sign in. You can buy extras if you want. Two for a buck, twelve for five dollars.”

He exploded into curses, which disturbed Wanchu enough to give him a leery look.

“There, there, little sheila,” he cooed to her with lowered voice, but his words to me remained harsh. “You bloody cheatin’ Yanks! Yer all like that, stealin’ a man’s chance ever time he turns around. Lockin’ him up for nothin’…”

Considering how hard we’d all worked to get him out of jail, his ingratitude annoyed me enough to indulge in a mini-tantrum of my own. “If you’d cooperated with the police in the first place, you probably wouldn’t have been arrested! But no, you had to pull the I’m-Not-Talking-to-the-Cops routine, which—considering that you were seen near the harbor at the same time Kate was killed—made you look guilty as hell. So don’t give me that ‘locking you up for nothing’ crap!”

I expected more vitriol in response to my outburst, but it had an unexpected effect on him. “Ah, Teddy, now look what I’ve gone and done. I’ve made ya sound just like that hellion Kate.” The roughness of his words contrasted with his suddenly sad expression.

My anger fled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

He waved my apology away. “Not yer fault. Was me out of line. Want to know why I wasn’t sayin’ naught to the sheriff? That court-appointed attorney
told
me to keep me trap shut. But I wasn’t all that bumblin’ anxious to fess up, anyways. Hell, I’d been callin’ Kate for hours that night, tryin’ to get her to pick up the phone, wantin’ to crack onto her.”

“Crack?” That was a new one to me. Did he mean
hit
?

He rolled his eyes. “Put the moves on, ya dumb sheila! Anyways, instead of waitin’ around anymore, I biked down to the harbor intendin’ to beg her to take me back—yes,
beg
the bitch—but when I got there, it’s like I said, she was prancin’ around on that damned
Gutterball
, and I never saw her again. Yer satisfied now?”

The idea that Bill would beg anyone for anything—especially for a woman to take him back—rattled me. “You told me you were the one who’d dumped Kate.”

His shoulders slumped enough that Wanchu had to scramble to keep her hold. “Was the other way around, Teddy. Kate musta tired of me Aussie charms ’cause she was movin’ on, most likely to that pretty-boy park ranger, Lex what’s-his-face.”

“Lex Yarnell?”

“Yeh. Him.”

This surprised me, because Lex had always appeared more interested in Myra Sebrowski than in Kate. “When did she tell you this?”

“Couple weeks before she died. Without a by-your-leave she turned up at the Amiable Avocado when I was slaggin’ ’round behind the bar and told me it was over, that she had other fish to fry.”

“Those were the words she used, ‘other fish to fry’?”

“Yeh.”

“Did she actually use Lex’s name?”

“Nah.”

“What else did she say?”

“Nothin’. That was it. And I was at work, right? I couldn’t hang around grassin’ with her, so I went off to deliver some idiot’s mojito.”

There had to have been more to the conversation, because a woman doesn’t normally walk into a bar and deliver a Dear John without any explanation. “Didn’t you ask Kate to explain what she meant by that ‘other fish to fry’ remark? Maybe she wasn’t talking about leaving you for another man. Maybe it was something else.”

He gave me an incredulous look. “Are yez daft, Teddy? Damn bar was swarmin’ with blokes orderin’ fancy drinks with fruit and such like. Think I’m gonna start mewlin’ and whinin’, tryin’ to get me woman back front of ’em? Hell, after she hit me with the bad news, I kept meself down at the other end of the bar ’til she took off, like any self-respecting Aussie would do.”

In other words, he’d hidden his hurt feelings under a steaming heap of, well, false pride. What idiots men could be. But considering everything Bill had undergone the past two weeks, I kept the observation to myself. After making a few sympathetic comments, I left him to Wanchu’s less judgmental company.

***

As I pulled into the parking lot at Lucky Lanes, I was startled to find it already three-quarters full even though the doors wouldn’t open for another thirty minutes. Anticipating the rush, Zorah had sent her executive assistant over to take care of last-minute sales, which was a good thing because the line of eager ticket-buyers snaked halfway around the building. Helen, Zorah’s assistant, sat at a canopied table in front of the entrance, dressed for the occasion in a leopard-print blouse, matching leopard-print hat, and a zebra-striped pair of leggings that added twenty-pounds to her already robust figure. She was having the time of her life.

Seeing me approach with my arms full of Bowling for Rhinos registration materials, Sam Grimaldi unlocked the double doors and let me in. The only other time I had visited Lucky Lanes, which was to finalize the Bowling for Rhinos arrangements, I’d heard balls striking pins, cheers of triumph, and a sound system playing a combination of rap hits and golden oldies. The place seemed eerily quiet now, but from the scent of hot cooking oil that wafted to me over the smell of rosin and polished hardwood, the chefs were already busy deep-frying the vitamins out of potatoes and zucchini.

Locking the doors behind me, Sam led me past a shoulder-high inflated rhino—it had a lei hanging around its neck—to the sign-in table. He then disappeared into the office. Before he closed the door, I saw a flashy young blonde sitting on the office sofa with her skirt hiked up to the eequator.

What gall, flouting his playmate more or less under Doris’ nose! I fumed for a bit, then something Sam had said—or almost said—flashed through my mind. Right after Kate had been murdered, I’d talked to him and his wife on board the
Gutterball
. He had said something about Kate being “sweet,” then added, “Every time I…” At that point, Doris had cut him off. Had Sam been involved with Kate? If so, how much had Doris minded? She was a big, strong-looking woman, and…

Buster’s voice interrupted my dark musings.

“Welcome to Bowling for Rhinos, ma’am,” he cracked, taking the cartons and putting them down on a table next to a
WIN AN AFRICAN SAFARI
! poster. His lumpy face was alight with smiles. Of all the zoo’s many fund-raisers, this one was closest to the rhino keeper’s heart.

“My, my, aren’t you the early bird,” I said.

Crooked teeth flashed. “The girls were more than happy to go into their night house. ’Course, that might have had something to do with the new shipment of alfalfa hay the suppliers brought in this afternoon. Usually I have to coax them to leave their enclosure, but Notch and Half-Ear both love alfalfa, and when I put several flakes in their mangers, they almost knocked each other over in their hurry to go in. I was out of the zoo by six and drove straight here. Don’t worry, I showered first!”

We spent the next half-hour arranging various door prizes and raffle gifts on the long tables: a necklace with tiny rhinos a-dangle; a bright watercolor executed by Indu, our painting elephant; a glass snow globe with two rhinos inside; a pink plush rhino; a ceramic tiger; an autographed copy of Jack Hanna’s
Monkeys on the Interstate
; a plethora of gift certificates from local businesses; and a year’s pass for four to the Gunn Zoo. After these prizes were awarded, the winning tickets would be put back in the raffle hopper so that everyone would have the chance at the African safari.

“Ticket sales will continue until half an hour before the drawing, won’t they?” Buster asked.

“They’d better, or there’ll be a riot. You should see the crowd outside.”

Buster looked around at the jammed prize tables, then rearranged them so that the evening’s trophies were more visible. The design for Best Male Bowler, Best Female Bowler, and Best Bowling Team had been Buster’s creation: bronze-covered rhino turds the size and shape of a softball, elegantly mounted on teakwood stands.

“Beautiful,” I sighed, knowing that with my poor bowling skills, this was as close as I’d ever come to one.

A clamor at the front of the alley made me look up. Sam Grimaldi had just opened the doors and people were thronging in, led by eager members of the zoo staff.

“Let the games begin,” Buster said.

The first to arrive was Bill, his arm around a smug Myra Sebrowski. Next came Monkey Mania volunteer and part-time television aide Bernice Unser. Following close behind were our married zookeepers: Haylie Hewitt, desert tortoises; and her husband Mark, black-footed ferrets. Behind them came Robin Chase, nose splint, black eyes and all.

“You bowl?” I asked Robin, as she signed in.

“More or less. And more less than more, if you understand what I mean.” She bought ten extra raffle tickets, explaining, “Considering how little I make, winning the raffle is the only way I’ll ever make it to Africa to see cheetahs in the wild.”

I wished her luck.

For the better part of an hour, as Lucky Lanes came alive with the sound of crashing bowling pins, curses, and cheers, I manned the registration table. After paying the $35 registration fee, each Bowling for Rhinos participant received a canvas tote bag filled with coupons, pens, one free raffle ticket, and a gold tee shirt showing a rhino knocking down bowling pins, with the legend,
BOWL LIKE A MUTHA FOR DA RHINO
!

Midway through registration Aster Edwina arrived with Caleb, her chauffeur, a stoop-backed man who didn’t look much younger than she. Having donated the evening’s big prize, she would choose the winning ticket. She grandly paid her registration fee and demanded three extra totes for Caleb’s grandchildren. Knowing which side the zoo’s bread was buttered on, I handed them over without argument.

“How is Caro doing after last night’s fiasco, Theodora?” she asked, passing the totes to the chauffeur.

“She’ll survive.”

“It was a shame about that table, especially since I hear it belonged to one of the Romanovs.” The malicious smile on her face revealed that she didn’t think it was a shame.

“I’m having it fixed. At my own expense.”

The smile disappeared. “That will cost you a pretty penny. Can you afford it without dipping into that hush-hush offshore account your father set up?”

“You know I don’t use that money, Aster Edwina.” To keep her from needling me some more, I added, “We all appreciate everything you’ve done for Bowling for Rhinos, but please move along. You’re holding up the line.”

Gratified at having annoyed me, she patted my cheek and moved off. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caleb settle her into a reserved booth near the drinks window so that she could sip cheap wine from a plastic glass while missing none of the action.

The registration continued with no more unpleasantness. Most of my harbor friends showed up: Linda Cushing, looking a little less grief-stricken than she had at Caro’s party; firefighter Walt MacAdams, with his latest girlfriend; harbormaster MaryBeth O’Reilly, who bought several extra raffle tickets; and
Texas Hold ’Em
’s owner, Larry DuFries, who slipped his tee over his shirt even before he stepped away from the registration table.

Also present were Mayor George Baffin, followed by Senator Harrison Hedley Grainger, attempting to curry popular support before the Ethics Committee began its public castration process. Mrs. Wexford-Smythe even showed, and purchased one hundred extra raffle tickets.

“I’ve always wanted to see Africa, and winning would certainly be a cheap way to do it,” she explained.

Just before the registration closed, Josie/Speaks-to-Souls and her daughter Alyse walked in. Alarmed, I gave a quick glance at the drinks booths, and was somewhat comforted to see Aster Edwina deep in conversation with Sam Grimaldi. To give Josie fair warning, and to keep her from wasting her registration fee, I whispered, “Aster Edwina is here!”

“Here’s a twenty for extra raffle tickets,” Josie said. She looked serene, as if the thought of publicly confronting the mother who’d given her away at birth didn’t disturb her. Being raised in New York inured one to shock, I guess.

On the off-chance that she hadn’t heard me, I delivered my warning again, this time in a normal voice. “Aster Edwina is sitting right over there by the drinks window.”