The Koala of Death (30 page)

The end of the city’s older section signaled the new business center, flagshipped by the corporate headquarters of SoftSol. Although it clashed with the Spanish-themed buildings that came before, at least it was attractive enough not to be an eyesore.

But the view degenerated once I passed the
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING HISTORIC SAN SEBASTIAN
sign. This signaled the less aesthetic side of the Modern Age, which was represented by fast-food restaurants and strip malls. Idling at the last endless red light before the turnoff, I found myself staring through the window of a laundromat, watching what appeared to be the entire San Sebastian Community College’s women’s soccer team doing their laundry. A black woman with hair as red as mine stood at the sorting table near the window, folding an SSCC red-and-black regulation jersey. As the light changed, she looked up and waved. I waved back.

I was just about to release the pickup’s clutch when a dark sedan pulled along beside me and I heard a loud
crack
. Before I could react, the driver’s side window of my truck disintegrated, covering me with powdered safety glass.

“Wha…?”

The sedan pulled forward, then angled in, effectively cutting me off.

Before I could breath again, I heard another
crack
, and my windshield splintered into a web-like pattern. Shocked, I released the clutch too fast, and my Nissan stalled. Still not understanding what was happening, I turned the key in the ignition and tried again, intending to shift into reverse to give myself room to pull around the dark car. The pickup truck took two hops forward, then stalled once more.

Another loud
crack
, this one followed by the clang of something hard striking metal. Then, without the interference of safety glass, I felt something whiz by, and a nanosecond later, the rear widow exploded.

I sat there, too stunned to move.

My mind cleared when someone yelled,
“Get out of the truck! There’s a sniper out there!”

I saw the redhead from the laundromat holding its door open, gesturing frantically for me to come in.

“Get in here, girl! Someone’s shooting at you!”

Sometimes I might be a little slow on the uptake, but I’m not stupid, so I followed her instructions. As more
cracks
and
clangs
destroyed the peaceful San Sebastian night I lowered my head, slid along the bench seat to the passenger’s side, and bailed out the door. Shielding my head with my Best Money-Grubber trophy, I scurried toward the laundromat in a bullet-ducking crouch while more shots rang out. The redhead’s strong arms yanked me inside. As soon as I’d cleared the door, several other women upended a metal sorting table in front of it.

“We’ve already called 9-1-1,” my savior said, kneeling beside me and brushing powdered glass off my shoulders. “Did you get a good look at him?”

“I never saw…” My voice came out as little more than a squeak.

“You’re bleeding.” She turned to a wiry blonde and snapped, “Jennifer, hand me that pillowcase. No! The clean one.”

The blonde handed her a snowy pillowcase.

I protested that I was fine and couldn’t possibly be bleeding, but the redhead pressed the pillowcase to my cheek, then held it up. “See?”

The pillowcase was now blotted with red. “But I can’t be shot,” I squeaked again. “I would have felt it.”

She shook her red curls. “Just a scratch. Where’s the damn cops when you need them?”

“Joe’s right down…he’s right down…”
The street
, I meant to finish, but I ran out of voice.

“Dina, give her a drink. She’s going to faint.”

Sorry, Red, I’m not the fainting kind. But I complied with her orders and took a big gulp out of the insulated water bottle Dina—a female bruiser almost the size of Joe—held to my mouth. After I’d swallowed, I gagged. “What the hell’s in here?”

“Grapefruit juice and bourbon,” Dina answered. “About half and half.”

Steeled for the burn this time, I took another slug while Red, whom I guessed was the team captain, snapped out more orders. “Ariel and Brittany, make sure the back door’s locked. Lacy and Denise, lift that other sorting table onto the top of the one at the window. We need to block it before that asshole starts firing in here. But make sure you’re covered while you lift it. We don’t want anyone shot, and God knows how long it’ll take the cops and EMTs to arrive.”

Accustomed to obeying Red, the women snapped to attention, and within seconds, turned the laundromat into a fortress. They weren’t through yet. After breaking open the supply closet, they armed themselves with mops, brooms, and open jugs of bleach.

“He comes in here, I’ll knock his head off,” Dina muttered darkly.”

“It would be more fun to bleach his eyes out,” Red said, her face fierce. “Wonder if they’d sizzle?”

“What’s that thing you’re hanging onto?” Dina asked. “A bronzed softball?”

I looked down at my Best Money-Grubber trophy. The teakwood base now sported a round hole just below the rhino dung.

“Rhino shit. I won it.”

Dina and Red shared a long look, the kind you give people who claim they’ve been abducted by aliens.

I started to explain that the heavy trophy would make a good weapon if worse came to worse, but then the sounds of approaching sirens cut me off.

The law had arrived.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

It was hard to tell if Joe was furious or worried, which is a common problem with cops; you can’t always read their faces.

“Did you get a good look at your assailant?” he asked again, while redheaded Liz Carroway, the captain of the SSCC’s women’s soccer team, looked on.

The laundromat had never been meant to hold so many people; an entire soccer team, several sheriff’s deputies, two inquisitive crime scene techs, and a fussbudget EMT who kept insisting that I go to the hospital. It was all very irritating.

“Too dark,” I said. “Not even sure he was a he.”

“How about the car. Make? Model?”

“Big and black? Small and blue? You think I’m a bat or something? Not that they actually ‘see,’ it’s more of a radar kind of thing.” I took another deep drink of Dina’s grapefruit juice/bourbon mixture. By now, it not only tasted a whole lot better, but I felt a whole lot better, too. So much fuss over a sniper. Hey, I was still in one piece, wasn’t I? So no harm, no foul. Except for my poor Nissan pickup truck. All those windows! What was my deductible? Two hundred? Three?

“
It’s five hundred dollars!”
I wailed.

Joe turned to Liz. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

She shrugged. “Girl never did make any sense. She even told us that bronze baseball was rhino shit.”

I clutched my beautiful award to my chest. “Is too!”

Joe frowned. “Teddy, are you drunk?”

“Am not!”

“Are too,” chortled the EMT. “C’mon, Miss Bentley. Let’s just get you on this nice little stretcher here and we’ll take a nice little ride to the nice little hospital. Just scoot onto…”

“Gonna slap you!”

Liz reached forward and jerked Dina’s water bottle from my hands.

“Cruel!” I sobbed, trying to grab it back.

Joe stood up. “Oh, for…All right, folks. Party’s over. Ms. Carroway, if you’d give your statement to the deputy over there, I’d appreciate it. Same with the rest of you, ah, ladies.” Then, to the EMT, he said, “She’s refusing treatment.”

“Let it be on your head,” the EMT warned. Then he and his partner took the stretcher and left.

After giving his men a slew of instructions, Joe hauled me to my feet. “I’m taking you to your mother’s.”

I looked at my watch. “Awwww, it’s after curfew. She’ll
kill
me!”

His face assumed another expression I couldn’t read. “Not in front of a witness, she won’t.”

***

Several hours later, I woke up to see a red-eyed Caro sitting next to the bed, Feroz perched on her lap like a miniature guard dog. She looked like she’d been there all night. Pushing the covers and Miss Priss aside, I staggered past DJ Bonz and his cat into the bathroom. As my mother held my head, I emptied my stomach into the toilet.

“Good thing I put the seat up last night, otherwise there’d be a mess on the floor,” Caro commented as I re-heaved. “Think you’re through now? Heavens, you were drunk!”

“I don’t know how that happened.”

“Joe said something about grapefruit juice and bourbon.”

“I’ve always hated bourbon. Now I hate grapefruit juice, too.”

After I stood up, she dampened a washrag, blotted my face, then handed me a glass of Listerine. “Just gargle, don’t swallow.”

As per instructions, I gargled, brushed my teeth, and gargled again. Since Caro continued to hover, I said, “I would like to take a shower now, so if I could have a little privacy?”

She pressed her lips into a hard line. “I’ve seen your naked butt before, Theodora. Remember, I used to change your diapers.”

At the mention of diapers, my stomach heaved and I looked longingly at the toilet again.

“You see? You’re not safe to be left alone.”

“You never changed my diapers,” I said, waiting for the nausea to pass.

“Between nannies, I did. You can’t replace those people right away, you know, what with all the references that need checking.”

Ceding defeat to a stronger opponent, I stripped and showered. When I stepped out of the tub, she handed me a thick towel. Once I dried myself off, she wrapped me in a terrycloth robe so closely and slowly it felt like an extended hug. But since my mother wasn’t into displays of physical affection, I figured I must have imagined it.

“How does buttered toast sound, dear?”

I waited to see what my stomach would do, but when it made no comment, I nodded.

Down in the breakfast room, the toast, albeit somewhat charred, hit the spot. As I started on my third slice, I realized that Caro must have made the toast herself. “Where’s the maid? Surely you haven’t started giving her Sundays off, too.”

“Grizelda quit.”

“What was she, your third this year?”

“Fourth. People are so disloyal these days. Myself, I blame the media.”

Myself, I blamed Caro. She was enough to drive old Padre Bautista de Sosa to drink.

“Speaking of touchy subjects, how long did Joe stay last night?” I asked.

“Until three.”

“That long?”

“We talked.”

The very idea that my mother and Joe could remain alone together for that amount of time without killing each other boggled me beyond boggle. “What about?”

“New York Fashion Week, Halston’s fall line…” Seeing my expression, she said, “We talked about
you
.”

“Come to any conclusions?” I started on my fourth piece of toast, which tasted better now that I’d heaped it with the expensive marmalade Caro had shipped over regularly from London.

“We agreed that you need protection from yourself.”

“Oh, ha.”

“Oh, ha
back
, Theodora! You could have been killed last night.”

“Random violence is just part of modern life.”

“Joe thinks you were targeted.”

“Cops tend to be paranoid.” After a moment’s reflection, I added, “Except when it comes to this family, of course. They’re right on, there. The Bentleys and the Pipers have been thieving around San Sebastian County since the early 1800s.”

“Don’t change the subject, Theodora. Someone tried to shoot you last night.”

“All he bagged was my poor Nissan.” I blinked. “Hey, where is it? I know I didn’t drive it home.”

“Joe had it towed to the county impound lot. As soon as the automobile showrooms open today, I’ll buy you a new vehicle.”

“Save your money. I like that truck.”

Caro’s face assumed the dreamy expression it always did when contemplating major purchases. “I’m thinking an armored Mercedes with a computer system that will alert the authorities if you run into trouble. Maybe a gun rack for the rear window and a gun, one of those long things you prop against your shoulder to shoot.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Of course not. I’m not losing my daughter, either.”

We argued until she backed down on the idea of an armored Mercedes with a gun rack, but we stalemated over the idea of another pickup truck. Only lawn crews and rednecks drove them, she said, while I insisted that zookeepers drove them, too. Anyway, the entire subject was moot, since I didn’t have enough money for a replacement.

Burnt toast breakfast completed, I returned to my room and dressed in a pair of old jeans and a green tee shirt that advertised bird-watching tours of Gunn Landing Marsh. With Sunday my new day off, I wasn’t expected anywhere, so I could just relax. After writing a thank you note to the San Sebastian Community College women’s soccer team, and a separate, more personal note to Red, I went up to my room and watched
Meerkat Manor
reruns with my dog and cats for company.

The good thing about reruns is that they give you space to think. Despite what I’d said to Caro earlier, I didn’t think the attack on me was random. But why in San Sebastian, and why now? While the meerkats went about their meerkatty business, I sat cross-legged on my bed and mulled over the possible answers. Kate had been murdered twelve days earlier, but no one had tried to kill me then. Nine days later Heck had also been killed, yet still there had been no attack on me. Then last night…

What had changed?

Determined to keep my promise to Heck to find out who had killed Kate, I ticked off the week’s timeline on my fingers.

Tuesday, Heck had been killed.

Wednesday, little of significance happened, other than my visit to Aster Edwina.

Thursday, nothing happened.

Friday, ditto.

Satur…. Wait a minute. Friday, Caro had held her Let’s-Find-Teddy-a-Husband party. Many of Old Town’s residents and other moneyed people around the county were in attendance, along with friends from the zoo and the harbor. Conversations had encompassed everything from Bowling for Rhinos, to rising slip fees to the murders, with Caro acting her usual hostessy self. Zorah had been almost as chatty; she even discussed my visit to Tyler’s nursing home, and my finding out about the prepaid cemetery plots.