Part 6 (1/2)
Chapter Eight.
The next day, grat.i.tude coursed through my veins as I clocked in at the Commissary, as welcome as caffeine. I was back to being a mom and an animal keeper, in my own world where the worst problem I would face was a toddler tantrum or a penguin refusing its vitamin-enhanced fish. If both roles meant cleaning up doo-doo, well, that was what I signed up for. Ordinary routine suited me fine. I looked for Hap to thank him again for his help loading the macaw cage the day before, but he wasn't around.
”Iris! You're back.” My friend Linda, senior feline keeper, smiled at me. St.u.r.dy and solid, she had let her thick hair grow out to its natural color, an enviable red. ”I thought you were on a one-day boondoggle and now I hear all kinds of stories.”
”I am totally behind on everything, and I don't want to repeat the same story a dozen times. I'll tell all at lunch. What's been happening here? Quick version.”
”That's not fair.” She fake-pouted for thirty seconds before bringing me up to date.
We walked and talked. I'd started as the feline keeper and could never entirely let go of the cats. ”Have you put Losa and Yuri together yet?” I asked. Our clouded leopard pair had bred successfully two years ago, and we were eager for a repeat.
”It's the right time of year, but so far she's not interested. Maybe in a month.”
”And the tiger girls?”
”Fat and sa.s.sy. Come by on break. They'll be out.”
Nadia and Katrina were Amur tigers, two-year-old sisters. They lived where my old tiger buddy, Rajah, now deceased, had resided for his long life.
What a pleasure to talk with a friend about the ordinary joys of my job.
This was a Sat.u.r.day. I was always a.s.signed to Birds on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, when Calvin Lorenz, the senior bird keeper, was off. I usually worked Birds with him two or three additional days a week as well. Pete had filled in while I dealt with crises at the Tipton farm.
Linda's path diverged from mine and I headed for the Penguinarium kitchen. No ice storm had materialized nor had snow, aside from a light dusting, which was being eradicated by the rain.
Underfoot was asphalt, not mud, and there wasn't a law officer or crime technician in sight. An ordinary day at the zoo. Perfect.
Except that I remembered my first task was reporting to Neal, which wasn't routine. I swerved off to his office.
My boss was a little taller than I, maybe five-foot-nine, but he projected six-foot-six worth of impatience. Short brown hair, piercing blue eyes, great posture with square shoulders. His background was a complicated history of military, corporate, and zoo positions. I'd seen him laugh, but never relax.
”The macaws are settled in my bas.e.m.e.nt,” I said. ”Mission really accomplished.” Then I had to tell him about the stolen bag in the parking lot, which made me look like an idiot. I couldn't keep it a secret-he'd find out eventually.
His reaction managed to combine alarm and disbelief. ”I'm going to have Maintenance search that van again. This makes no sense.”
I dodged further discussion by asking where I should take the macaws. He ma.s.saged the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. ”I'm working on it. It should come in for a landing soon.”
”They're close-banded, so I'm pretty sure they're pet birds.”
”Agreed. They aren't part of the parrot and tortoise hairball that's giving me ulcers. Every agency in every form of government for miles around has a stake in one or the other.”
”And where is it that you want the macaws to end up, exactly?”
He tapped his fingers on his desk. ”I appreciate that you went the extra mile in a really tough situation. I know I can count on you to manage the gap for now.”
The bulls.h.i.+t was a signal he was stumped-he hadn't a clue where he could park the macaws other than my bas.e.m.e.nt. I felt duped. That gave me the right to press him a little. ”Everyone agrees that the Amazon parrots are illegal, right?”
”I'm told there's no record of any permits to import them.”
”So what's happening to catch the smugglers? Is Fish and Wildlife tracking them back to the source?”
He made a little tent with his fingers resting on the desk. ”You may be surprised to learn that law enforcement doesn't copy me on their internal reports of investigations. We don't meet for coffee and bran m.u.f.fins. I'm just supposed keep the birds alive until they decide what to do with them.”
”But are they going after these guys or not?”
”The Tiptons, the surviving ones, are in hot water up to their red necks already. So maybe not. But I have no idea. Aren't you a.s.signed to Birds today? If you don't have enough to do...”
I plowed on. ”The Tiptons were the middlemen. There's no reason to think they went to Mexico and caught the birds and brought them across the border themselves. Someone else did that and sold them to someone who sold to the Tiptons. That's a chain that needs to be broken.”
”I couldn't agree with you more. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do and so do you. And, by the way, those tortoises are the big deal. They're worth a wad to collectors, some of them are from Madagascar, and it's pretty strange that they ended up with a family that never made a blip before with Fish and Wildlife.”
”They'd been selling weed for years and no one noticed that.”
I left in a sulk, depressed about the smugglers and sullen about the macaws. I had nothing against the macaws personally, but they were noisy, their cage was guilt-inspiring, the feather plucking was dismaying, and Robby had to be kept away from them lest they nip off a hand. Not my first choice for house guests, and I seemed to be stuck with them.
I ran into Marion, the veterinary technician, on the way to the Penguinarium. She was young and round with ruddy cheeks and looked like she should be herding geese with bows around their necks through some bucolic, sun-lit pasture. She wore a standard brown uniform accessorized with a dozen enamel pins on her chest, mostly big-eyed baby animals. This demure exterior often misled the unwary.
”How are the parrots in quarantine?” I asked.
”Eating like there's no tomorrow. There's ca-ca everywhere in that room.”
”What about the tortoises? Is that little one any better?”
”Still sick.”
A little more of my delight in a normal day faded.
She wanted to know all about the Tiptons, and I told her, ”Details at noon.”
Marion chose not to pa.s.s up the opportunity to b.i.t.c.h as we stood with our arms wrapped across our chests in a chilly wind. ”Denny is driving me nuts about those tortoises. Dr. Reynolds says no way can he hang out at the hospital, which he knows perfectly well, the idiot. Can he spell 'quarantine'? No, he cannot. He's fixated on substrates and humidity and UV light, nagging at me nonstop. They're all eating now. He should go be happy someplace and get off my case.”
I backed away making sympathetic noises.
At the Penguinarium, I spent half an hour reviewing the notes Calvin left for me plus the standard records of each minor event or anomaly from the previous three days. One penguin had declined her vitamin fish two days running, but ate fine otherwise. The Bali mynahs were not happy about the new low-iron pellets. The female nene, or Hawaiian goose, in the aviary was limping, but her foot looked fine. Calvin's guess, and mine, was arthritis since she was a geriatric bird. All of this was wonderfully normal and my spirits lifted again.
I stood at the baby gate set across the door between the kitchen and the African penguin exhibit and examined each bird for a few minutes. n.o.body limped or bled or sat hunched up. I set to work stuffing vitamin pills into fish as the penguins brayed orders to hurry it up. Even the heavy scent of fish eaters was a comfort.
After the morning feeding, I scrubbed the aviary pond and wondered what was in that wretched bag and why the Tiptons thought it was so important. Was there a connection to Liana's death? For the life of me, I couldn't see one. Or a connection to the smugglers, either.
At lunch time, I ducked into the administration building and down the steps to the bas.e.m.e.nt. This was the new employee break room-”new” as in newly designated for our use. The zoo cafe manager had wearied of us cl.u.s.tering at the indoor tables all winter, leaving his ”real” customers, the visitors, to eat their hot dogs while standing. Worse, they could overhear our discussions of fecal matter, insects, and s.e.x habits of exotic species. Now the keepers were privileged to eat in this bas.e.m.e.nt at a table next to the copy machine. The room was airless and the decor dispiriting, but it was warm and dry, characteristics we all valued highly in winter. And no one interrupted lunch to ask us where the bathrooms were or why we didn't have pandas.
Denny and Linda, the feline keeper, were there already. My housemates Pete and Cheyenne were eating also, as was Marion with her Bambi jewelry, so the little room was nearly at capacity. Pete was working Primates today. Cheyenne was always on Elephants because it was so specialized, although Elephants included the giraffes and other hoof stock.
Ian, the lead elephant keeper, and Arnie, the bear keeper, rarely joined us. Ian was shy to the edge of catatonia, and flaky Arnie long ago discovered that he'd had used up my tolerance as well as Linda's.
Denny had already shared most of the disasters at the Tiptons' farm to a fascinated audience. I wasn't eager to revisit Jerome and Liana Tipton's deaths, but there was no escaping it. Hearing Denny describe how I'd found Liana's body depressed me all over again. It also reminded me that the circ.u.mstances didn't make sense.