The Dragon Keeper (29 page)

Gerald looked straight at Meg, his eyes kind yet implacable. “He owes his life to you, Ms. Yancy, and to Ms. Perkins, too. I have not received a satisfactory explanation as to why he was in the exhibit in the first place, but if it had not been for your quick and well-trained responses, he might not be here to worry about a leg.”

“Perhaps Ms. Yancy can give us an explanation.” Dr. Reading’s fingers were calmly laced together on the edge of the table, but her eyes flashed at Meg. “I agree that we were extremely fortunate that Antonio was only injured, but one of my brightest, most accomplished students could have died yesterday. I think you and this institution deserve some answers.”

Meg crossed her arms. “I was already in the exhibit preparing for the feeding when he entered.”

Dr. Reading leaned past Chuck to address her directly. “He spoke to you when he grabbed your arm.”

How did she know that? Meg blinked, trying to remember if Dr. Reading could have been in the crowd.

“It’s all over the news and the Internet,” Dr. Reading said. “At least three tourists took videos of the attack. The publicity is raging.”

“We were arguing about the research options for Jata.” She met the doctor’s gaze with a tight glare. “I don’t remember exactly what he said.”

Chuck jumped in, eager to put his conflict resolution skills to work. “This isn’t an investigation, Megan. Not yet.”

“Not ever,” Gerald interjected. He made a steeple out of his fingers and nodded over the fingertip peak at both of them. “The board has studied the footage and found no deliberate misconduct by any involved party. There will be no disciplinary action toward any staff member.”

So she still had her job, but they didn’t bring her up here for that—Chuck yelled at her and let her keep her job every day. They were right. It wasn’t an investigation; it was what came after that, after everyone with heavy, black pens made up their minds. She swallowed, hesitated, and forced the next question up her raw throat.

“What about Jata?”

A long silence filled the room, engulfing everything inside. Meg looked from Chuck to Gerald to Dr. Reading. No one seemed to want to speak.

Finally, Gerald sighed and met Meg’s question full in the face.

“We have decided to euthanize the Komodo.”

“No.”

Meg shot up. The verdict had been there all along, building underneath everything Chuck and Gerald were saying and choking her with dread. Now that it was out, its gut-wrenching terror unleashed, the fight broke loose inside her. She dashed to the head of the table. “No, you can’t. I won’t let you.”

“The decision has already been made. The procedure is scheduled for ten o’clock today.”

Today. They wanted to kill Jata today. Hysteria swelled in her throat, and she clamped down on it.

“Mr. Dawson, she’s not dangerous. I swear. She has no history of violence. Look at the entire archive of her logs. Look at her SAMs. She could eat out of my hand.”

She leaned over the table, speaking only to Gerald. “This was an isolated incident, brought on by the unfamiliar environment and excessive crowds. I promise you it will never happen again.”

“I’m afraid that’s not true, Ms. Yancy,” Dr. Reading said.

“What do you know?” She whirled toward the doctor. “You’ve been here a week. You don’t know anything about Jata. I’ve been by her side every day for the past five years.”

“You reported the animal’s previous aggressive behavior to Antonio in my presence and lied about the reason for it. I don’t feel this can be considered an isolated incident, and neither does”—Dr. Reading glanced at her notes—“a Ms. Gemma Perkins.”

“What?”

Chuck cleared his throat. “Gemma, ah, stepped forward to speak to me last week and reported the aggression that both of you witnessed at the animal’s last feeding before the incident. Her version was different than yours, and she voiced concerns over the level of human interaction with Jata. In view of her testimony, and the fact that you didn’t log the behavior, well, it seems that there is a pattern of instability in the animal and probably more than what has been recorded.”

Gemma. The floor had been stolen from underneath her feet. She was in free fall. The words floated in the stale boardroom air. Gemma came forward. Gemma voiced concerns.

“In other words, Ms. Yancy, how many other times did you manipulate the logs for this specimen?” Dr. Reading asked.

“None. That was the only time, and I reported—”

“What I want to know is why, in light of this pattern, you chose to stock a tranquilizer gun in the exhibit with no lethal measures available? Antonio could have been killed in the time it took for the dose to have an effect. Komodo dragons are alpha predators. They will attack humans without provocation, and yet you neglected to stock the appropriate contingencies?”

“I don’t have to prove my procedures to you,” Meg retorted. “You don’t have any authority here.”

Gerald cut in. “I would like an answer, too, Ms. Yancy, for the record. I know the reporters are going to be asking that question, and we want to be able to respond with confidence.”

“Jata trusts me. I knew if I could get between her and Antonio, I could regain control of the situation. And that’s exactly what happened. If it’s all over the Internet, you must have seen that part, too.”

“Yes, we’ve seen a lot of footage this morning.” Gerald Dawson nodded to Dr. Reading, who pressed a button on a remote control.

A video popped up on the projection screen at the far end of the room. It was a fly-on-the-wall view of a dark room filled only with a giant cage and a small, wiry woman with a brown ponytail pacing the outside of the bars. Meg stared at the grainy picture of herself from yesterday in the quarantine room. When was it? She was pacing, so that must have been right after they brought Jata there, just before…

Oh, God.

She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see it twice, but the picture was still there, playing over and over on the back of her eyelids.

“Jata!” The tinny recording distorted the name. Meg pinched her eyes shut tighter, shaking her head at the floor, willing the past not to happen. Not here in this soulless boardroom. Her voice sounded hollow and small, and it was followed by the crash of Jata’s body against the cage—the horrible, bone-crunching lunge—and finally a rustling before a heavy silence.

“You were saying something about the animal trusting you?”

Meg spun around to Dr. Reading. “She was drugged and scared. I shouldn’t have approached her so soon and especially not while she was in quarantine. That was my fault. And Antonio shouldn’t have been in the exhibit at all. You don’t call that deliberate misconduct?”

Gerald replied, “He has already been punished enough, Ms. Yancy.”

“Punish me! Don’t take this out on Jata! Please. Please, I beg you. Suspend me. Fire me. You can’t kill her for something that’s my fault.” She leaned toward Gerald, pleading with the black pen.

“It’s obvious from the public feedings that you had Jata’s trust for a long time, Ms. Yancy, but the bonds between a keeper and a young animal change during maturity.” Dr. Reading turned off the projection screen and continued. “How many times have we heard of a person who was mauled to death by an adult tiger that they bottle-fed as a kitten? Remember the keeper in Bruges who was decapitated by the orphan polar bear that imprinted on him? The list goes on and on. The fact is that Jata is now a liability to this institution and has become too dangerous to maintain.”

“Maintain.” Meg whispered the word.

“Your judgment is clouded by loyalty, Ms. Yancy,” Gerald said, standing up and nodding solemnly at her. “It’s an admirable trait. I’m very sorry to have to make this decision.”

“What can I do to change your mind? What do you want? If you want me to quit, I’ll quit. I’ll feed myself to the CCCR if that will make you happy. We’ll … we’ll stop the feedings.” She swallowed once, hard. “I’ll keep Jata behind bars and glass for the rest of her life, if that’s what you want. She’ll never come into contact with a single living thing.”

“The decision has already been made,” Gerald said.

“You’re just doing this because you want to take her apart.” Meg’s voice shook. “This is just an excuse.”

“That’s not at all true,” Gerald said.

Dr. Reading stood up and paced over to the bay windows, her back to the rest of them, as Gerald continued. “The public will abandon the zoo if we don’t respond appropriately to the attack. No one wants to take their kids to a place that they feel is dangerous in any way. We could lose a significant amount of private funding and public revenue, and we can’t neglect the safety of our staff.”

“The bottom fucking line? You’re killing her to save the bottom line?”

“Watch yourself, Ms. Yancy.” Gerald’s voice sharpened; he was getting angry in his own right. He squared off, face to face with her. “This zoo provides shelter and safety to hundreds of species, twelve of which are endangered. We educate the public about ecological concerns as well as introduce new generations to the importance of animal diversity. We need money to do all that. I know this decision grieves you, so I understand your reaction, but we don’t tolerate that kind of attitude here.”

With that, he walked her to the door, and Chuck followed silently behind. Dr. Reading didn’t even bother turning around. She just stood at the window looking down, as if she owned every last godforsaken animal on the grounds beneath her.

“You may be present during the injection if you wish. It’s against policy, but I’ve cleared you for the procedure. I know what this specimen means to you.”

Did she nod? The door shut behind her, then she and Chuck stood alone in the executive hallway. Neither of them moved.

“She gave us a miracle,” Meg whispered.

His face blurred and she looked away, letting the burn of tears overflow.

Chuck cleared his throat. “I know.”

“I have to see Jata. Before they take her.”

“I’ve got clearance. Let’s go.” Chuck took her elbow and gingerly led her down the hallway. His clipboard was missing; he must have forgotten it in the boardroom. Dumb with grief—that was the only thought she could form as his clammy fingers helped her into the glass and chrome elevator. His clipboard was gone.

~

Chuck stood quietly by the door as Meg knelt in front of the quarantine cage. Tears ran dully out of the corners of her eyes and streaked down the metal bar that held her head up. When they’d entered the room, the smell of feces permeated the air, and Jata had been curled up awkwardly in the far corner of the cage. She’d risen when she saw Meg and stood expectantly for a minute, hopefully. Her tongue grazed the air in greeting—the old Jata saying hello. It was too much.

The raw chicken Chuck watched her steal from the cafeteria was balled up in a plastic bag in her fist.

“It’s almost time,” Chuck said.

She nodded and carefully unwrapped the chicken, digging her fingers into the soft meat and pulling apart the chunks of flesh and fat.

Jata lumbered up to the front of the bars, her head bowing and claws scraping harshly on the metal floor. If she stayed in quarantine a few more days, the cage would eat her claws down to the marrow.

“Jata, chow time, Jata,” Meg whispered, elongating the syllables, feeling her way around the familiar chant. She tossed the chicken pieces gently through the bars, one by one. They sailed in like ticks of a clock, each one closer to the last.

“Jata, Jata.”

Jata ate the chunks in eager bites, scooping them from the floor. Her scales looked dull in the half-lit room, and her tail rapped awkwardly against the confines of the cage. Meg had a flash of her basking spread-eagle on a boulder, feet sprawled, full and sleepy after her weekly feeding. There were so many other moments—the late nights she’d spent swimming after minnows in her pool, how she’d burrowed that cave out for herself so many years ago, the time she tore apart a Frisbee and dumped the chunks of it so proudly at Meg’s feet—but this one ripped at her heart. Just Jata, content and basking on her favorite rock.

“Will they do it in here?”

“Yes. They’ll inject her here and then take her to the morgue.”

“They’ll do an autopsy.”

It wasn’t a question, but Chuck answered anyway. “Yes.”

Jata settled uncomfortably back down on the hard floor of the cage, watching Meg. “Did you know this was how they used to exhibit Komodo dragons, in cages just like this?”

“Really?” He played along.

“They died pretty quickly, just couldn’t handle it. I studied everything I could find about Komodos when you made me her keeper. I researched for hours at night and made calls to Indonesia. Do you know how much it costs to call Indonesia? I read about this one specimen in Germany named Bubchen. She was the tamest Komodo I ever found on record. She took walks with her keeper through the public zoo grounds, posed with children for pictures—children, Chuck, tasty little meals—and never once took a bite out of them. They said she was afraid of planes when they first got her, that she’d hide whenever a plane flew by. Do you know how she died?”

He didn’t answer.

“The zoo was bombed to the ground by the Allied forces in World War II. Frankfurt burned. The keepers had to shoot all the injured and escaping animals, and the rest died of hypothermia or starvation. Planes killed her. Isn’t that funny? What you’re scared of really does kill you in the end.”