Adieu at the Zoo_A Jefferson Zoo Mystery Read online

  “That question didn’t deserve a response,” I told her, “but it reminds me we need to update our severe storm procedures, especially with the new animal barns,” which, against my recommendations were situated at the top of the highest point of land in the county.

  Despite my fifteen-plus years in zoo work, I hover near the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to decisions involving the siting of animals whether on or off display, even though my staff works as hard as anyone on the design, layout, and ecology of every exhibit. I try to work around it, but I admit to being annoyed when animal keepers with a year or two on the job have more say than I do.

  It makes no sense to me. If keepers can make decisions about plants, why can’t the Hort staff have more input into the placement of animals? After all, plant and animal interaction is a huge part of the definition of ecology, and we do claim to be an ecological zoo. I blame Nate Olson, our General Curator, who blatantly promotes an animalist, if that’s a word, culture.

  I set aside my grievances and tried to relax while waiting for Dan’s arrival, by concentrating on the beauty of the Wetlands exhibit. I admired my staff’s handiwork—the spiky purple flowers of the Pickerelweed, the swaying bulrushes, and the large clumps of Water Canna waiting to bloom. The bucolic scene radiated a sense of inner peace, and I could feel myself growing calmer. Here and there, water lilies poked through the vegetation displaying their showy blossoms and broadcasting the message that lowly plants can be stunning too.

  Who would anyone deface this beautiful place by dumping a body here? I could feel the anger welling up inside me at the indignity heaped upon the dead person, as well as on our delicate marsh.

  “Dan’s here,” Jodie announced, as Jefferson Zoo’s Security Jeep signaled its arrival with a set of flashing lights. “I hope he took your hint and came alone.”

  I stood up in time to see Dan Saunders extricate his lanky frame from the driver’s side door. I knew Jodie was trying to keep her heart from fluttering as she hid behind me whispering to the back of my head. “He’s such a hunk, isn’t he, Sam?”

  “Try to control yourself, and remember, he’s half again your age and divorced.”

  The Head of Security sauntered up the boardwalk alone, both Jodie and I relieved he’d interpreted my message correctly and left Andy LaRue back at the office.

  “We have a situation here,” I said, in response to Dan’s raised eyebrow.

  He looked around for the problem. “A situation?” He grinned at me. He had a great smile. I had to admit I liked Dan, probably a little more than I chose to acknowledge, particularly to Jodie. I pointed down at the catch basin.

  Dan leaned over the rail and just as quickly snapped upright. “Oh, my God, there’s a body down there. How did that happen?”

  “We’re wondering the same thing,” I said.

  “Who found it?”

  “I did,” Jodie said. “I called Security, but nobody answered, so I called Sam and she came down, and then she called you.”

  Dan stared at Jodie. “What were you doing down here alone after hours?”

  In my current emotional state, his question sounded like the beginning of an interrogation.

  “It was Jodie’s turn to clean out the catch basin,” I said. “We perform that task after hours so visitors don’t see the glop we scoop out of the Wetlands, most of which they tossed in.”

  Jodie took up the narrative. “I did some weeding when I first got here, and then I went over to clean out the basin because the water level looked a little high and I thought something was stopping up the overflow. That’s when I found this—this—”

  “Corpse,” I said, completing her sentence for her. “We’re wondering if we’ve uncovered a murder victim.”

  “Sure looks like it to me,” Dan replied, in a matter-of-fact policeman-like tone. If he was affected by the presence of a dead body in the marsh, he was good at hiding his feelings. Most men are, I’ve noticed.

  “So, what now?” Jodie asked, “because I’m sure as heck not going in there to drag out a dead body.”

  “Nobody expects you to,” I said, turning to Dan. “Besides, now that you’re here and can take over, do you mind if we leave? It’s way past our dinnertime and we’ve had an exhausting day.”

  Dan came back with, “Of course you can’t leave. I’m calling in the sheriff and he’ll want to talk to you two as soon as he arrives. You may be material witnesses to a murder.”

  Really? I thought, keeping my skepticism to myself.

  Chapter 4

  I wasn’t interested in stepping on Dan Saunders’s toes because I liked him a lot, but he was totally forgetting protocol here, and I’d be the one to pay. I couldn’t afford another run-in with our General Curator Nate Olson, who would take advantage of any opportunity to zap me whether or not I was at fault.

  “We can’t call the sheriff until we notify Nate,” I said, “and he contacts Bob, who will want to contact the authorities in his own way. A death on zoo grounds could have serious consequences for the zoo, and for us as well, if you think about it. Our attendance figures can’t take another hit or we’ll all be facing layoffs.”

  Bob Anderson was Jefferson County Zoo’s Deputy Director. He basically ran the place, since our esteemed Director, Sally Ann Monroe spent much of her time pursuing her hobbies—hobbies that included hobnobbing with pals like world-renowned chimp expert Nancy Lyons, and traveling the world on her various fund-raising and conservation missions saving the lives of zoo animals in foreign lands while many of her own zoo exhibits languished for want of necessary resources. Fortunately for me, since it’s my favorite exhibit, the Wetlands went in before the money started drying up.

  Before Dan could respond to my reasons for not involving the sheriff immediately, I hedged with, “You know how rumors spread these days. If this isn’t handled absolutely by the book, people will think there’s a killer lurking on zoo property.”

  Dan looked at me as if I failed to comprehend the gravity of the situation. “I understand, but we’ve got a dead body here, probably a murdered body. We could have a crime scene on our hands, which is a matter for law enforcement.”

  I grimaced. “Our unwanted corpse is stuck in the spillway. It’s not going anywhere. And even if it breaks loose, it can’t float away because it would fall into the catch basin. I’m not suggesting some kind of cover-up here, only that we follow institutional procedures first.”

  Dan took out his cell phone. “I’ll call Nate.” He hesitated, as if a new thought occurred to him. “So, why did you call me instead of contacting Nate yourself?”

  “Following procedures,” I replied, sounding more unctuous than I intended. “Besides, any time I can avoid a conversation with Nate, I do,” I said, “particularly when it involves a member of my staff. I thought I could follow regs and remain in the clear by contacting you instead.”

  I gave Dan my best smile, which wasn’t a match for his, but seemed to do the trick, taking the edge off for him and making me feel better too. “Once you make the call,” I added, “let’s hope Nate has the good sense to turn the matter over to Bob, which is another reason for you to call instead of me. If I suggest he call Bob, he’ll interpret it as a challenge to his manhood.”

  “In other words, you called me first so I could do your dirty work for you.”

  “Something like that,” I admitted, beaming him another happy face.

  “Also,” Jodie put in, “we were scared to death to be here by ourselves in case the murderer was still on the prowl.” Her comment provoked an eye-roll from me and brought another great smile to Dan’s lips.

  Contrary to how I felt about Dan’s smile, I’m not a sucker for a pretty face. If I’d been looking for a new man in my life, which I wasn’t, at least not actively, I’d have been in the market for a man who was considerate, smart, and loving, like my former husband. Dan had the first two qualities, and his good looks didn’t hurt, but so far I was clueless about the loving part.

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p; Jodie looked back and forth between the two of us, painting a comical picture with her eyes. “It’s true. Or at least it was true for me. I was totally freaked out down here alone with a murdered corpse and nothing but this dumb landscape rake for protection.”

  “The way you were going after that poor turtle,” I said, trying to maintain decorum, “I think you could have frightened off an attacker with ease.”

  “I was only trying to protect the integrity of a human body,” she said, sounding aggrieved, which I chalked up to the presence of Jefferson Zoo’s local heartthrob. Despite the number of female keepers who flirted outrageously with him, he wasn’t dating anyone from the zoo, at least that I knew about or wanted to know about.

  “Which was admirable on your part,” I told Jodie, in an attempt to appease her.

  “Okay,” Dan said, returning the conversation to business. “Time to see what our beloved General Curator has to say.” He took out his cell and walked to the end of the boardwalk out of earshot.

  I felt a little offended, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Despite his choice of occupation, he wasn’t the stereotypical badass pretend cop. He once worked as a detective in a big city police department, but then his wife left him for one of his colleagues, and after a few years of trying to live with his past he made a decision similar to mine, arriving at the Jefferson County Zoo two years ago.

  I’d made my escape seven years before Dan, the year after my husband died. I was twenty-five and distraught, but the Jefferson Zoo provided a safe haven for me and I owed them. Depression is a horrible thing and I was seriously depressed when I arrived.

  Since then, I’ve made more than my share of good friends who fill the emotional needs in my life, even if they sometimes accuse me of being married to my work, which isn’t strictly true. In fact, I’d recently had lunch with Dan, and shared my reasons for leaving Pittsburgh and heading south.

  “Best to move away from bad memories,” he told me, and I had to agree with him.

  Chapter 5

  “Let’s go sit in the cart while Dan talks to Nate,” I suggested to Jodie, “and you can stop harassing that poor turtle. It doesn’t know any better. It’s just looking for dinner.”

  Jodie screwed up her face. “Ewww, Sam.”

  As the two of us waited in the golf cart darkness, an eerie haze settled over the waters of the marsh. The hovering mist sent spirals of steam into the already muggy air. I could picture the scene in a horror movie, or maybe a psycho thriller like the old Alfred Hitchcock movies—The Birds, being my favorite. My thoughts returned to the Aviary fundraiser, and wondering who the Toucans were pestering now.

  “What are they yakking about?” Jodie asked, interrupting my contemplation with a display of her usual impatience.

  Jodie was a doer not a thinker, which made her particularly valuable to me because I have a tendency to over-think everything. Jodie craves activity and she’s terrible at sitting still, a trait that forces me to keep staff meetings short, or at least not overly long otherwise Jodie’s nervous tics start driving me crazy like they were doing right now.

  “Let’s wrap it up, Dan,” she muttered, as I tried to ignore her jiggling right foot.

  Dan continued to pace the boardwalk. By this time, I assumed he must have ended his call to Nate and moved on to a conversation with Bob. He was taking forever, or at least longer than I expected. Nate would do that, I thought, ask Dan to phone Bob with the bad news.

  Nate and Bob weren’t on the best of terms, lately. Bob was a detail person to the extreme, often amazing me with the number of questions he could ask about any given topic. Just the opposite of our General Curator, who preferred to leave details to his subordinates, primarily, I suspected, so they could shoulder the blame if things went wrong, but also to free up his time for his principal preoccupation—self-promotion.

  He particularly loved filming TV spots, where he could drag in one or another of the zoo’s animals in order to wow the audience and the program’s host. Watching him perform, I was amazed at his charm and wondered why he couldn’t save a portion of that charisma for the workplace, but then he wouldn’t be the Nate we all love to hate.

  To the delight of most of the staff, Nate’s foibles were catching up with him now that Sally Ann had taken over as Director. Unlike Bob, who allowed Nate to get away with everything this side of murder, Sally Ann had his number. And unlike Nate, she had Jefferson Zoo’s best interests at heart, even if her decisions sometimes suffered from a lack of timeliness. She could delay a ruling longer than Congress.

  “What time do you suppose we’ll get out of here tonight?” Jodie asked, re-crossing her legs for about the hundredth time.

  “I wish I knew.” I pressed on the sides of my stomach to contain the noises coming from the vacant space inside, wishing I’d been able to snag a few more hors d’oeuvres before Nelson Farthington cut me off. I decided to double the amount of my next request to the Farthington Foundation.

  I felt a jab from Jodie’s sharp elbow. “What did Dan mean about us being material witnesses, anyway?”

  “He’s stretching his smattering of legal knowledge,” I said, with more authority than I felt. “A material witness is a person who has some significant information that can affect the course of a criminal case. I doubt we qualify.”

  Jodie nodded. “I think he just wanted to keep you down here with him. How come you don’t give him a chance, anyway? Half the keeper staff is in love with the guy, and all you do is brush him off. You have to admit he’s awfully cute, and he seems to like you a lot.”

  “I don’t have to admit anything of the sort. Besides, he’s not my type.”

  “Not your type, sure.” Sarcasm oozed from Jodie’s pores. “You’re looking for a guy with a bad case of the uglies, right? When you find him, let me know and I’ll take Dan off your hands.”

  I knew Jodie was trying to get a rise out of me. I tried to change the subject and leave the topic of Dan Saunders for another day. I had my own suspicions about his intentions lately, since he’d taken to visiting my office on the flimsiest excuse, and seemed to turn up almost anytime I left for a tour of the park.

  Not that I gave him the least bit of encouragement. Well, not consciously, anyway. My job keeps me too busy to entertain thoughts of a romantic relationship. Besides, he really isn’t my type—a divorced man with one failed relationship behind him and all the baggage that entails? Not for me. What I need is a stay-at-home spouse, who’s a good cook and enjoys housework. I had difficulty picturing Dan Saunders in either role.

  “I’d say you’re welcome to him,” I finally told Jodie, “except I stick with my warning. He’s almost twice your age and divorced. You owe it to yourself to do better. Good looks don’t last. Twenty years from now when you’re his age and he’s just signed onto Medicare, you’ll wonder what the heck you were thinking.”

  I fully intended to follow my own advice. I’d gotten along for the last ten years without a man, why borrow trouble now?

  “I hear you,” Jodie said, “but maybe you could give a listen to me, too. He’s a nice guy and he seems to have a case on you.” I detected a sigh of resignation in Jodie’s voice as Dan Saunders reached the end of the boardwalk and headed in our direction.

  “Called Nate,” he reported, “and of course, he wanted me to call Bob. They’re both on the way here now, and Bob said he preferred to be the one to call the sheriff. Thanked me for how I handled the matter. I owe you, Sam. You probably saved my butt on this one.”

  “So, we’re free to go?” Jodie asked, reaching for the rake lying on the ground next to the cart.

  “Sorry,” Dan replied, giving me an apologetic shrug. “Bob says we all need to wait here until he arrives. If the sheriff shows up first, we’re to cooperate and answer his questions.”

  “Like good material witnesses?” Jodie asked, grinning at the opportunity to rib Dan.

  I couldn’t keep the smile from my face, either. I enjoyed Jodie’s imperti
nence even when it was directed at me, which it was most of the time. Well, I might not always enjoy it, but I’m good at pretending.

  Dan Saunders never flinched. “I had to think of something to keep you two from leaving and that seemed to work,” he offered, shrugging and sending a wink in my direction.

  I knew exactly what Jodie was thinking.

  Chapter 6

  Nearly twenty minutes passed before Nate, Bob, and Sheriff Joyner’s crew arrived. Their vehicles traveled in tandem with Bob’s black SUV leading the way. A red and white ambulance followed a few car lengths behind.

  I assumed they’d all met in the zoo’s upper parking lot in order to discuss their approach. Bob left nothing to chance and he hated being caught off-guard. I sympathized with Dan having to phone him about the body. Few surprises could be worse than news of a dead body in one of the zoo’s exhibits.

  As the men exited their respective vehicles, I couldn’t help but wonder how much time would pass before I was on my way to Chuckie Chun’s for Chinese takeout because my fridge was emptier than a banker’s heart. Instead, there I sat in the dark with Jodie watching two sheriff’s deputies haul a waterlogged corpse out of our Wetlands marsh.

  I shuddered each time the deputies labored to lift the body onto the stretcher, which rested over the catch basin, only to have the bulky mass slide back into the water with a resounding splash.

  “If a snake swims by they’ll drop that body right in the lake and never find it,” Jodie said, clearly unsympathetic to the deputies’ struggles.

  I’m not a fan of snakes so I tried not to think about it. “The corpse is pretty bloated,” I told her, “and heavy. I wonder how long it’s been down there and why the heck the feet are bare? Do you suppose the guy waded into the Wetlands trying to escape his pursuer?”

  “I thought about that too,” Jodie said. “Someone should check the shoreline in the morning, see if the shoes turn up. I hope he’s dressed.”