Murder After a Fashion (25 page)

First I made my way to where the new hippo I’d heard about was swimming in his pool with his enormous head
out of the water. He seemed to be looking straight at me. But maybe that was just me wanting to be the center of the universe even though I knew I wasn’t. Even though the hippo might not appreciate my appearance today, I was feeling good about myself. I liked what I was wearing, and I was proud of myself for branching out job-wise. The bonus would be if I found Diana and had a word with her.

I found Nick leaning over the fence gazing at the hippo too. He was dressed as usual in European casual: tight pants, a Zegna Sport leather jacket with the collar turned up and a form-fitting T-shirt underneath. On his feet he wore a pair of Bacco Bucci crocodile-skin loafers. I wondered what the crocodiles would think of those shoes. Maybe we ought to avoid their area. When Nick turned and smiled at me, I felt a jolt of excitement. Yes, it was time for me to branch out and see some more of the other men in my life. Nick was generous, athletic and had a certain European flair that other men didn’t. So take that, Detective Wall and Dr. Jonathan.

“It is good to see you and this hippo,” he said. “You look quite stylish and beautiful, as always,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he really meant it or if it was Romanian custom to always pay a compliment to a woman. I also didn’t know who was highest on his list, me or the animal they called the king of the river.

“Thank you,” I said, thinking that he’d be equally impressed with the outfit in my tote bag.

After a close-up look at the three-thousand-seven-hundred-pound land mammal submerged in the pool, I realized how much of him there was to admire.

“I love this hippo,” Nick said. “I had read about him, and then you call and tell me to go to the zoo. It is as if it is destiny. Do you know his story?” He nodded toward the hippo.

“I don’t remember the details,” I said. Even if I did, I knew he wanted to tell me. And who else would know the hippo’s story but Nick?

“He came here from Kansas,” Nick said.

“Really? They have hippos in Kansas?” I didn’t ask how he knew this. I knew he was proud of his ability to read English, which was better than his ability to speak it.

“They had too many there, so they sent this one here. First they had to make for him a larger pool and more land.”

“There seems to be room for more hippos,” I suggested, looking at the large, fenced-in field. “So he can have company.”

“Hippos don’t like to share, so all this is for him. They have very thick skin,” he added. His smile faded. “Sometimes can come in handy.”

“You mean he can shrug off criticism or rejection more easily?” I asked with a sidelong glance at Nick. I didn’t know if he knew the double meaning of “thick-skinned.” He didn’t like to complain about anything, so if something was wrong, I had to pry it out of him. A moment later he suggested we move on to see the gorillas.

I told him I had a friend who was a docent who might give us a tour or at least tell us more about the gorillas. When we got to the Gorilla Preserve, I saw Diana in a forest green jacket and a matching hat that said “Ask Me” on it. She was surrounded by a crowd of visitors to whom she was explaining that the gorillas’ natural habitat was lowland tropical forest.

I wondered if I “asked her,” if she’d tell me what happened after we left her house the night of our class. But I suspected today her answers would be confined to gorilla behavior, their habitat and their diet. Which was why we were there, after all. I told myself the only thing I could learn today
concerned wild animals. I should try to forget about Guido’s murder and learn more about the inhabitants of the zoo instead of the inhabitants of San Francisco’s Pacific Heights mansions.

When Diana caught sight of us, she looked startled and stumbled over her explanation of the gorilla’s natural diet of leaves, stems and insects. I guess I should have phoned and told her I was coming today.

“At the zoo,” she said to the group clustered around her, “the gorillas are fed fruit, vegetables, cottage cheese, whole wheat bread and cooked rice.”

“Sounds boring,” I muttered to Nick, who nodded in agreement.

“Is that your friend?” he asked.

“Yes, I wonder if she gets to feed them their cottage cheese.”

“I would prefer to feed the small animals,” Nick said. “Like penguins or baby koalas.”

That’s what I liked about Nick. He was secure enough in his masculinity that he didn’t have to act all macho. Another man might have insisted his favorite animals were the lions and tigers. Not Nick.

When most of the crowd had disbursed after Diana finished her talk, I rushed up to her, with Nick following close behind me.

“Diana,” I said. “So good to see you.”

She nodded, but she didn’t seem that happy to see me. Was it because she was in her docent mode and wasn’t supposed to fraternize with the customers? But then why would she have invited me for a VIP tour? Or had I done something wrong at her house, either at the jewelry workshop or at the open house?

“This is my friend Nick Petrescu,” I said.

She glanced in his direction but ignored the hand he held out.

“I missed you at the house and garden tour,” I said. “What a wonderful day.” The more she didn’t respond, the more I continued to talk, hoping to reach her. “And your house looked beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“And the pizza was fabulous. Do you use the oven often?”

“Not really,” she said. “Although…” She looked over my head and waved her hand at someone. “Sorry, I have to go. I have another primate tour waiting for me. And there’s a cobra missing. The world’s longest venomous snake. You might want to leave now to be absolutely safe. Good to see you again.”

Nick and I looked at each other in alarm. A cobra missing? Why didn’t a siren go off? Why didn’t they close the zoo? I had to admire Diana for being cool in the face of an emergency like a missing cobra. That was probably part of the docent training. Don’t alarm the visitors. But she was so casual about it. Why suggest
we
leave now but let everyone else stay? What was wrong? Had something I said caused her to invent a crisis?

“Are you afraid of snakes?” I asked Nick.

“Only the ones which are poisonous,” he said. “I wonder if it’s an Egyptian cobra, the kind that killed Cleopatra.”

“I believe that was a suicide,” I murmured. I looked around at the ground and up in the trees above us in case the cobra was going to drop down on me, bite me and leave me to die an agonizing death while waiting for the ambulance to come with the antivenom. I hoped no one would say it was a suicide. I didn’t want to die. I had my whole life ahead
of me. Men I hadn’t met yet. Racks of clothes to wear. Styles I hadn’t tried yet.

“They’re not what you call slimy, you know,” Nick said. “They have smooth, dry skin.”

“I’m sure they do. It isn’t their sliminess that worries me. It’s the venom. You know, the poison. Do you think we should leave?”

“I’m not afraid,” he said. “Why would a cobra attack us when we are harmless visitors?”

I figured if he wasn’t afraid of a snake on the loose, then I shouldn’t be either. If we saw the snake, Nick would bravely grab it by its smooth, dry body and take it back to its cage, holding it tightly around the neck so it couldn’t strike with its poisonous fangs.

To my relief, there were no snakes in sight anywhere and no signs of panic. Quite a few people were strolling around looking at a male gorilla who was beating his chest. I didn’t know whether he was warning us or just exhibiting typical male gorilla behavior. I decided it was Diana’s job to alert the authorities or the visitors about this snake. Not just us. Instead of leaving now and missing the other exhibits on a day when the entrance was free, I planned to forget about the snake and move on to the penguins.

And so we headed toward Penguin Island. I figured if no one else was running for the exits, then Diana must have been mistaken. But where was she? I’d pictured her giving us a special behind-the-scenes tour. Instead, she’d given us a special brush-off.

“The woman, she is your friend, yes?” Nick asked me. Probably wondering what kind of friend would ignore me like that. I was wondering too.

“Not really a friend,” I said. “She’s a customer at the
shop. And I have been to her house a few times. I think she takes her job as docent seriously and probably didn’t want to be interrupted while she was working. I understand that.”

Actually I didn’t understand it at all. I had a job, but I always had time to socialize with the customers. Just a “Hello, how are you?” would have been nice. Especially after I’d missed her at her open house. Where had she been that day? I was starting to get worried. Had I said something wrong? Done something out of line? The last time I’d seen her, she was standing at her front door waving a cheery good-bye to me, Maxine and Patti. Then Armando had his so-called “accident.” Next Diana was a no-show at her own open house.

I was determined to face off with Diana and ask her what was wrong, because clearly something was. But when I suggested we follow Diana and even join her next tour, Nick said we should first see the penguins. He’d read a lot about them and wanted to observe their behavior and their habitat as close up as we could get.

I felt that way about Diana and her husband. I’d observed their behavior and their luxury habitat up close, and I had more questions. It seemed obvious that Diana was avoiding me as if she thought I was going to butt into her life. But I wouldn’t. Not really. I just wanted to know if I’d done something to offend her or her husband. And of course I wanted to know about Armando’s “accident.” But I would never come right out and ask. Not me. I’d try to find out in some subtle way. Of course I would.

The penguins were fun to watch as they waddled on the walkways and paddled in the man-made pool around the man-made gunite rocks. I leaned over the fence to admire them. “No poison, nothing dangerous here,” I remarked to Nick. “No way for them to escape if they wanted to, which I don’t think they do. They look happy.”

“But all is not calm as what you see on the surface,” Nick said. “I read about the problems in the newspaper. So not so happy for every penguin. Didn’t you read this story?”

I shook my head.

“Some penguins are homosexuals. Not surprising, since they all look the same to me. Male and female. Maybe they can’t tell either.”

“They look the same to you and me, but I suppose the penguins know which is which and who’s who,” I said.

“See the two penguins over there?” He pointed to a couple of identical penguins on a rock by the water. “Many couples are here like those over there.”

“You mean that’s a gay couple?” I asked. “Oh. How can you tell?”

“I can’t, but as you said it, the penguins can. I just think that they might be gay or not. Anyway, they look like they belong together.”

“I don’t know how you can tell they’re a couple,” I said. “They’re just standing there together.”

At that moment a man in khaki shorts with an “Ask Me” button on his shirt came up to the exhibit with a crowd of visitors.

“Our penguins have a good life here at the zoo,” he said. As usual I was eager to learn more about animals and people too, so I took Nick’s arm and we stepped up and got in with the group. I loved hearing the scoop from well-informed volunteers like Diana. Only this guy, because of his uniform, seemed to be a regular zoo employee and not a volunteer. Even better.

“They’ve got the water at the right temperature for swimming, fish to eat that they don’t have to catch themselves. What’s not to like?” he asked with a smile.

“Is it true some of the penguins are gay?” an older man asked, looking like he wanted to hear it was just a rumor. “I read about this gay penguin couple in the paper.”

“You may be referring to Harry and Pepper,” the guide said. “They aren’t the only gay couple. Many penguin couples, gay or straight, will raise their adopted children together like humans do. I think I know which story you’re talking about, the one that made the newspapers. Probably because of the female penguin we call Linda. She had a
reputation for being a home wrecker. Sure enough, she came in and broke up Harry and Pepper’s marriage, or rather, their same-sex union.”

“Where is she now?” I asked, wondering if he would point her out or if she’d changed her cheating ways.

“She left the zoo some time ago,” the guide said. Then he went on to describe other fascinating penguin behavior traits.

“I wonder,” I whispered to Nick, “if she’s breaking up some other couple’s life somewhere.”

He shrugged and I glanced around, startled to see Diana at the edge of the crowd, listening and looking upset. Her face was pale, and her brow was creased. Hadn’t she heard this story of the penguin Linda before? It was a disturbing story, but I would have thought that working at the zoo, she’d have gotten used to these kinds of things. I was surprised to see her there with the other visitors like us; I’d assumed she was off leading another tour, but maybe she was on her break. I couldn’t deny that she’d hurt my feelings when she brushed us off the way she had.

It was not only Diana who was interested in the flightless birds; Nick was also staring at the penguins with an intensity that worried me. I thought he was over his breakup with his so-called fiancée, but maybe not. Maybe he was hurting but pretending to be fine.