Never Sorry: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (2 page)

He did not smile as he introduced himself. "Gerald Frank, City Detectives." His thin voice was hoarse, and from the redness of his nose and the puffiness of his eyes, Leigh guessed he had a raging cold. His gaze seemed to center on her chest, and for a moment she was offended. Then she remembered the blood.

"Leigh Koslow," she offered.

He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose softly, then folded the hanky into a neat square. "Wretched cold. Could we sit?" He waved to the low brick wall that lined the path opposite the tiger exhibit. Leigh nodded, and they sat.

The first few questions, such as her address and phone number, were easy. The interview went downhill from there.

"Start at the beginning, Miss Koslow," Frank urged between sniffles. "What were you doing here at the tiger exhibit in the middle of the night?"

His tone seemed almost accusing, and Leigh had a sudden, intense urge to make her new boss field that question himself. Unfortunately, the good doctor hadn't the decency to be available. She chose the wording of her explanation carefully, painting herself as a naïve new employee who did whatever she was told. It wasn't too far from the truth.

She had been hired to work just three hours a day—from 3:00 PM, when the full time vet tech left, to 6:00 PM, when everybody else left. What she discovered quickly, however, was that not everyone left. Tanner was both a workaholic and a night owl, a combination which frequently kept him puttering away into the evening. For obvious reasons, she had enjoyed staying late with him, and had cheerfully agreed to assist in a late afternoon procedure on one of the gerenuk. It was a simple pin removal from a healed broken leg, but when late afternoon arrived, Tanner was not inclined to begin. He had forgotten—he claimed—the famous fifth-Wednesday barbecue.

How the tradition started, Leigh still wasn't sure. But whenever a fifth Wednesday rolled around, the zoo staff held a barbecue behind the administration building. The meat went on the grills at six, with drinking before, during, and after. For Leigh, who preferred to keep coworkers as coworkers, the event had been a trial. For Tanner, it seemed the stuff life was made of. Though he went relatively easy on the Rolling Rock, he seemed particularly delighted to be introducing Leigh around, and reluctant to leave the action. The "action," such as it was, continued well past ten, and Leigh assumed, logically enough, that the surgery would wait until tomorrow.

She was wrong. At quarter to eleven, Tanner draped his arms across her shoulders and asked if she was ready to set up. Like an idiot—an infatuated idiot—she had agreed.

Leigh explained the scenario to the detective as best she could, omitting the infatuation part. The surgery had taken much longer than expected—Tanner had darted the gerenuk in good order, but the radiographs she took showed that the leg wasn't healing right. It would have to be restabilized, and as far as Tanner was concerned, there was no time like the present. Between the setup, the surgery, the cleanup, and the intermissions (also skillfully omitted), she considered herself lucky to have packed it in by 2:00 AM. She concluded the rather complicated story with a play-by-play of her walk down the path and behind the shed that was both accurate and concise. She hoped the detective appreciated it.

Frank scribbled in a note pad as she talked, but appeared to be only half listening. When she stopped he closed the notebook, draped his soggy handkerchief symmetrically over one knee, and gazed off into the distance.

Leigh waited a few seconds, expecting more questions, then gave up and asked one of her own. "Do you know yet who—" she stammered. For a wordsmith, she was particularly inarticulate tonight. "Whose leg it was?"

The detective took his time answering. "The body has not been identified. Hard to say when it will be." He looked at her with a twist to his mouth that could have been a smile or a scowl. "You have a theory?"

She couldn't tell if he was humoring her or baiting her, but either way, she couldn't resist. "After the barbecue, one of the tiger keepers offered to help us out with the gerenuk. But she only hung around the hospital for a few minutes. She left saying that she needed a smoke and was going to the tiger shed to get her cigarettes. She never came back."

The detectives eyebrows rose. "Were you worried about her?"

Leigh wished she could give a more thoughtful answer. "Well, no. She wasn't big on keeping promises."

"I see," he mused. "So you think the tigers attacked her?"

Leigh's eyes narrowed. How could a detective be such a lousy listener? "Of course not!" she blurted out. "She was obviously killed in the shed. The tigers never left their cages."

"But you were afraid of the tigers being loose, weren't you?"

The smile/scowl had widened, and an uncomfortable feeling began brewing in Leigh's stomach.
Get a grip
. "Only at first, before I was really thinking," she said slowly. She couldn't get annoyed. Getting annoyed got her into trouble. "The blood spooked me, that's all. But when I saw the knife, I knew it was a human's doing."

"And you picked up the knife for protection."

"Yes."

"Even though it had blood on it already."

The discomfort increased. She wasn't telling this right, was she? "I didn't see the blood at first."

"Then why did you think a person had used the knife?"

"I guess I didn't realize that until later. When I picked up the knife, I was still afraid of the tigers."

"I see." The detective reopened his notebook and scribbled further, the lead weight in Leigh's stomach growing heavier with each illegible word.

"Did you drive a car here, Miss Koslow?"

Leigh responded that she had, and described it.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to drive the car home tonight," he said evenly. "We're examining evidence in the employee parking lot, and your car will be needed for a while longer."

She opened her mouth to protest—and to ask more questions—but Frank cut her off with a pale, raised palm. "Don't worry. One of the officers will give you a ride to the bureau. You can call someone to pick you up from there."

The bureau?

Leigh sat, speechless, while the detective tucked his notebook neatly into its designated pocket. "We'll need fingerprints from you, and everyone else who was in the zoo after hours," he said matter-of-factly, rising. "And of course, your clothes will be taken as evidence."

Leigh looked at the dried streaks on her khaki uniform. Fashionwise, the ensemble was no loss, but taking the clothes off one's back seemed a little third world, and a trip to a police station in the middle of the night was out of the question. Besides, she needed her car. She had important things to do—like be at her other job by 8:00 AM.

She stood up to protest, but Frank's attention had already been diverted to a younger officer who approached with heavy footsteps. "We can't do any more until we get the vet," the man announced somewhat breathlessly. "The zoo hospital's locked up, but he's not answering at home."

"He's probably en route," Frank answered, turning to walk toward the tiger run. "Ever heard of night court? Well, now we've got night surgery."

The younger man chuckled insincerely at his superior's attempt at humor, and the two moved off.

Leigh fumed silently. She wasn't sure how he did it, but Frank had managed to make her feel like a prime suspect and an unimportant bystander at the same time.
An officer would give her a ride to the bureau
. When? And what was she supposed to do in the meantime?

She had almost decided to follow Frank and tell him she was calling a cab when she realized why the police were looking for Tanner. For the crime scene to be fully investigated, the tigers would have to be sedated. Yet she knew the police would never find the zoo vet by calling his house all night. If they had asked her, she could have told them that Tanner was probably sacked out in the hospital lounge, by now sound asleep.

She started after the officers, but stopped. She would get the vet herself. Detective Frank could fall all over himself thanking her later.

***

Though all the walking paths in the zoo were now fully illuminated, every light in the dreary-looking concrete block hospital was off, and the doors were locked. No wonder the police had assumed it was empty.

Leigh lifted the tail on the plastic squirrel affixed to the downspout by the back door. A key hung from a peg underneath. She opened the door, replaced the key, and stepped inside.

"Mike? Are you awake?"

The name sounded strange to her ears. She had certainly always thought of him as Mike, but as a respectful teenager, she'd opted for "Dr. Tanner." Especially with that persnickety wife of his always hanging about watching for indiscretions. What a shrew, Leigh remembered. She had never understood what a man like Tanner had seen in Stacey the Wonder Witch, but at least he had finally got enough gumption to divorce her.

She flipped on every light switch she could find as she made her way to the staff lounge. She was an adult now—she could call him Mike if she wanted to. And if she wanted more, well, that was her business, too.

The makeshift staff lounge consisted of one green vinyl couch, a drink machine, and a corroded metal waste basket. The ambience evidently wasn't a problem for Tanner, who was sprawled out on the couch, dead to the world.

Leigh flipped on the fluorescent lights overhead, but received no reaction. "Mike!" she said louder. "Wake up!"

The form shifted position only slightly. Leigh sighed, but didn't begrudge the opportunity to admire his sleeping form. Mike Tanner was one of the Southern variety of cowboys. He was good with pickup trucks, guitars, and any hoofed mammal—but worthless with a lasso. His long, lean form was crumpled onto the narrow couch, his feet hanging off the near edge and hovering possessively over his disengaged boots. Had she ever seen him with his boots off? She didn't think so.

She plopped down on the narrow ledge of couch that wasn't already occupied, and bounced.

Tanner sat up quickly, looking at Leigh with cloudy eyes. He rubbed his face with his hands, then focused on her and smiled. "Well, this is a nice surprise. I thought you left. Where've you been?

Leigh smiled back. Actually, she
had
walked out on him, which was why she had left the hospital in such a rush to begin with. The evening had been quite memorable. The camaraderie of a complicated surgery, then—well, the other. But she had her principles, principles which happened not to be in agreement with the clamoring of her hormones. After Tanner had taken the gerenuk back to its stall for recovery, she stayed only long enough to clean up, then vamoosed. She knew he often spent the night at the zoo, and she could take only so much temptation.

"I did start to leave," she answered. "But something happened."

Behind long lashes any woman would kill for, Tanner's eyes widened with concern. "Are you okay?"

She nodded her head, a wave of sadness suddenly creeping over her. How well had he known the tiger keeper? Had they been good friends? She was certain, despite the detective's vague dismissal, that it was Carmen whose body she had seen. It wasn't just logical—she
knew
. Her sixth sense was finely attuned, and Carmen was, after all, more to her than just a new coworker.

How should she tell him?

"There's been a tragedy. Someone was killed behind the tiger exhibit."

Tanner sat up, fully alert. "An accident?"

Leigh shook her head. "I don't think so."

Tanner blinked twice, then pulled on his boots and started for the door, motioning for Leigh to follow.

"You'll need to load the dart gun," she called, jumping up after him. "All four tigers have to be knocked out."

He wheeled around, incredulous. "Why? You said somebody was killed
behind
the exhibit."

"The body was thrown in," she said simply.

Tanner swore colorfully and strode to the pharmacy cabinet. He collected some supplies in a tackle box, closed it with a bang, and headed for the exit, sweeping one arm around Leigh's waist on the way.

He opened the clinic door and stepped back to let her through. Leigh's heart melted.
Chivalrous—even in a crisis
.

She walked outside, then turned. "There's one more thing you need to know," she said to his back as he closed the door. "I think it was Carmen."

Though his face was hidden, the tremor that passed through his body couldn't be missed. He grabbed her arm and took off at a jog.

***

Detective Frank stopped Tanner a few paces from the tiger's gate. He did not seem unduly pleased when Leigh arrived with him. "Why didn't you tell me the vet was still here?" his words were calm, but behind his puffy lids, dark eyes flashed.

"You didn't ask," Leigh said defensively, the bad feeling creeping back into her stomach. "I figured I'd just get him myself."

Frank pulled his gaze away from her, somewhat reluctantly she thought, and turned to Tanner. "I'll need to ask you several questions," he said in a more respectful tone. "But right now, we need those tigers out of the way. For at least a half hour, if possible."