Night Kill (16 page)

The flight was fifteen minutes late and I worried about finding the Los Angeles Zoo staff. I needn’t have. Two beautiful people in khaki shorts and shirts awaited me, the L.A. Zoo logo on their shirts: silhouettes of snake, condor, rhino, gorilla. He was dark and handsome; she was blond and pretty. Their pockets identified them as Ben and Cindie; their knees were tanned. I felt like Sasquatch lumbering out of the Northwest, too big, too pale, and still stunned by harsh conclusions.

We hung around until the penguins were unloaded, shepherded the crates into the zoo van, and took off through vivid sunshine, Cindie driving. Interstate 5 was a familiar landmark, although with more potholes and patches than up north. I set my fears aside, gaped at palm trees and started peeling off layers of winter clothing, down to jeans and a T-shirt.

At the zoo, we went in through a service entrance and drove to the quarantine area. Fresh paint and good equipment made me want to weep. I felt a new kinship with Mr. Crandall and his ambitions. We put the crates in a quarantine room with its own pool, then opened up their little front doors. The penguins crammed themselves as far back in the crates as they could. I reminded them that they hadn’t wanted to be in there at all a few hours ago. We went off, leaving them huddled in their little prisons-turned-refuges. The idea was that they would come out when they settled down and felt secure. But it had to be by 5:00 PM because that was when I needed to head back to the airport with the empty crates. Lucky little dudes. Eventually they would reside in a bigger, better exhibit than they would ever live to see at Finley.

Ben and Cindie gave me the short version of the insider tour of the Los Angeles Zoo. We strolled among visitors, many speaking in languages other than English. My mother would have swooned at the plants, beautiful botanical specimens with neat labels. I glimpsed animals I’d never seen before including meerkats—a type of mongoose, looking like cute weasels—and capybara, sort of a hundred-pound guinea pig.

For minutes at a time I was free of wondering which person I thought of as a friend might have killed Rick.

I stopped dead at the gerenuks, African antelope that apparently the Disney Imagineers had designed because Bambi wasn’t cute enough anymore. They were wonderfully slender with long elegant legs and necks. Big dark eyes were ringed with natural eyeliner. A fawn nursed vigorously, its ears flapping as it bunted the mother’s udder. The mother stood stock still, except that she switched her tail rapidly and stamped one foreleg delicately, over and over, like a film loop. Another doe stood straight up on her hind legs to nibble shrubbery eight or ten feet above the ground. The adult male, presumably the father of the fawn, walked up to the high-reaching female and waited until she dropped lightly back to all fours. Just as weightlessly, he reared up and mounted her back. She casually walked out from under him, not interested today. No hard feelings on either part that I could see.

This place made Finley Zoo look like a backyard menagerie. I had a wonderful time, except for fear and anger about the quagmire waiting for me at home bubbling to the surface every quiet moment. Joy would slip off like an unbuttoned cloak, leaving me chilled.

We ran into Ben’s boss, whose exact title escaped me. An athletic guy with wraparound sunglasses, a gold earring, and a sexy little beard, again the shorts and tanned legs. Greg something. Ben explained my mission.

“I’ve heard of Finley Memorial. Thought it was in Canada. I know a guy who worked there. Is Neal Dawson still around?”

“Yeah, he’s still the vet.” Greg wasn’t the first person to overlook Vancouver, U.S.A.

“We were in school together for a year, UC Davis. He stole my girlfriend.”

Dr. Professional in a fevered love triangle? I gaped.

Greg laughed. “Yeah, he doesn’t seem the type. I think it was the contrast effect, Mr. Distant coming on to her. I thought he was stuck up and bad tempered, so it caught me off guard. But she thought he was shy and lonely.” He shook his head, shaking off regret. “Man, was she ever hard to write off. Perfect body, a smile to light up a city…”

“I had no idea he was married. Seems like the classic bachelor.”

“I wish. Hey, maybe she left him. That would be fantastic. Got divorced myself a year ago.”

“Again,” said Ben.

His boss shrugged that off. “Man was not meant to live alone. You tell Dawson you met me, and I was incredibly hot and have an awesome job, okay? And if you find an address for Winona, send it to me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh with him. He was pretty hot.

He gave my upper arm a tiny squeeze and the sunglasses probably hid a wink, then he was off down the path. Cindie rolled her eyes at his back.

The beautiful pair of keepers—I tried not to think of them as prime breeding stock—left me to finish the tour by myself. They gave me their work phone numbers on a scrap of paper. Cindie dotted her “i”s with circles, but didn’t turn them into smiley faces. They promised to try to connect later and show me around some more if there was time before my flight.

I had two hours before my job interview and made slow progress through more of the zoo. The black rhino was hypnotizing—quick, agile movements in a burly shape that should have been cumbersome. The horn on the tip of her nose was improbably long and sharp, with a shorter horn closer to her eyes. She had something on her mind and was pacing from one end of the enclosure to the other, raising her weirdly shaped head to peer and sniff every few minutes. Her skin was reddish brown, hairless like a person’s. Her eyes were dark and suspicious.

“I like a big girl who drools,” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see Greg, still in the sunglasses. “She’s worth drooling over,” I said.

“Not you—her.” He grinned.

The rhino was indeed drooling a little.

He leaned against the rail next to me. “Lunch coming up. She’s on a diet so she’s hungry.” Aftershave lotion and a hint of fresh sweat awoke a primitive part of my brain. “Hey, did you leave a husband in Portland or are you free for dinner?”

Interesting way to phrase the question. “No husband, but I’ve got a plane to catch. Sorry.”

“Lunch then?”

“Uh, sure.” I nodded and produced a cautious smile. I could use a few friends at this zoo, and I was hungry.

White teeth showed when he grinned, a dominant, confident lobo. “Let’s go to my apartment. I’ll fix you something special. Gourmet chef is one of my many talents. Parking lot’s this way.” He took my elbow and started off.

I balked. “A restaurant would suit me better.” He wasn’t that charming.

“I make a mean spaghetti carbonera. Got some white wine in the fridge, a nice salad. Show you a little California hospitality.” There was the grin again, and the pressure on my elbow.

“Hey, back off. I’m not going to your apartment for a nooner. And let go of me, damn it.”

He stepped back, hands held palm out. “We’re talking lunch here. Just a little hospitality.” The smile was gone.

I felt off balance and klutzy. Was there a worse way to turn down a pass? Now his pride and feelings were hurt, a potential ally lost. “Look, I’m not up for this. My husband died a couple of weeks ago and I’m…not up for this.”

Greg’s eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses. The rest of his face shifted from resentment to curiosity. “No kidding.” A pause. “You’re from Finley Zoo? They lost a keeper recently, right? I saw a newspaper article.”

Sigh. “Right.”

“A cat keeper. Was that your husband?”

“Reptile keeper, not cats,” I said, trapped. I had never used Rick’s last name and had been counting on that to shelter me from talking about his death.

Greg thought about it. “Rough situation. Don’t miss seeing the bongos.”

And he was off, head up, arrogant stride, saving his charm for a more likely prospect.

I kicked myself for not deflecting him with more grace and ground my teeth at his predatory opportunism. The rhino stared at his back, then whirled like a quarter horse and trotted across the enclosure.

A burrito and soda with a good view of giraffes took care of lunch, but I was hot and depressed when it was time to go find the personnel office. If word got around about how my husband died, management would have questions that I didn’t want to answer. Like why I still wanted to work with large carnivores, why I still wanted to work at a zoo at all, was I unstable. I wanted, needed, a job offer.

Maybe Greg wouldn’t discuss it with the hiring manager. Maybe I was worrying for nothing.

I introduced myself to the middle-aged receptionist. She gave me an application form to fill out. That done, she ushered me into a cool, dim conference room.

Waiting to interview me, minus the sunglasses, was Greg.

Chapter Fourteen

The interview did not go well, but I stayed until Sunday evening anyway, through both of my days off. I needed the time. I called Jackie and made her change the tickets and tell Wallace that the crates wouldn’t be back until late Sunday. Cindie put me up on her sofa. The extra days could be justified as research into moving to L.A.

My mother promised to pick up extra dog food and told me to have fun. Bessie could easily survive a couple days without food. My dad reminded me about the ad for Rick’s truck, which I’d completely forgotten. The phone could collect any messages, and I’d deal with it later.

I spent Saturday roaming the Los Angeles Zoo, ignoring all the other blandishments of the big city. Cindie invited me to join her at a Halloween party, but I declined. Sunday I toured the La Brea Tar Pits.

Sun, traffic, thick air—so many people, so many different people. I’d just fallen off the turnip—no—log truck. I ate sushi and Thai pizza, bought mirror sunglasses and an L.A. Zoo ball cap. My nose and cheeks turned pink. I picked out a hummingbird tattoo to get someday and decided to have my hair highlighted soon.

Two days touristing in Southern California prevented conscious thinking and planning. Instead, new fears and suspicions settled in. Implications and connections formed in the fertile mud below the clear stream of conscious thinking. The outrage did not erode.

Cindie arranged a ride to the airport for the crates and me. I offered to return the hospitality if she ever got up to Portland.

On the flight back, I stared out the window at side-lit pink and gray clouds, regretting and editing my responses in the job interview. Greg had had the grace to look as embarrassed as I’d felt and had explained he was a last-minute substitute. He hadn’t known he’d be interviewing me. In light of what he’d learned about me earlier, ordinary questions such as “why would you like to work here?” were complicated and slippery. I answered that one honestly, keeping to the surface: working there seemed like moving to fantasyland. Cool animals—black-footed cats, snow leopards, maned wolves—and excellent facilities. For the other questions, I ignored widowhood and brought up my experience with the clouded leopards and training the lions at every opportunity. The conversation was stilted from beginning to end.

I let go of regrets and leaned back in my seat. I’d done my best. Maybe it would be good enough.

If I got the job, it would be a fresh start, not running away. A step up professionally to a much bigger zoo. Tempting…leave all the ugliness behind. And maybe, someday, there would be another man. Thank Greg for that idea.

Interesting to hear him say that Dr. Dawson had a wife. Another thing to ask Jackie about.

Except that Jackie was coming up with these unsettling theories.

All the problems submerged for two days thrashed to the surface. The simple conviction that Rick was a blameless victim wavered. Nudged by Greg’s prowling, infidelity crawled out from under a rock.

What woman did Jackie think Rick came to the zoo to see? Linda? Any of a number of zoo volunteers? Not Jackie herself. Rick didn’t much like her, and she was ten years older.

Benita? He had been helping with her sick rattlesnake.

Benita and Hap. Hap’s friends understood that Benita kept him on a short leash and that this was, all things considered, an excellent strategy. The story was that she gave him his name. Biker friends called him Hazard, but Benita had scoffed that he was just haphazard, and it stuck.

Once when I’d inquired about his life before the zoo, Hap pulled up his Harley T-shirt to show me an appalling scar snaking across his belly. “This souvenir is why I don’t get rowdy or hook up with women anymore. Hardly anymore,” he’d told me. “Got into this fight at a rally and woke up with tubes in me in the hospital. All my friends came to visit ’cause I was there for weeks. Except not the one that was totaled by the same guy who got me, and not the one in jail, and not the one that was hiding out over in Malheur County. Benita sits down to talk to me and this time I can’t walk off, and I hurt too bad to bullshit her. So I walk the damned line. Mostly. At least I don’t get shit-faced and fight anymore. But if you ever need some help, Iris, you let me know. I can still take care of business when I have to.”