IN HIS OFFICE Truman went over the numbers again and again. Before he presented them to the zoo’s executive committee he wanted to be absolutely sure they were accurate. And once he was sure the figures were correct, he called his mother, Lavinia, and asked if she’d run them herself, which she did, appearing in his office in a pair of impeccably tailored wool slacks, a cashmere twinset, and what she liked to call her “weekend pearls.”
The numbers matched exactly. Seeing his face, she asked if he was all right.
“I’m fine, but I’m not looking forward to presenting this.”
“It’ll be fine, I’m sure. For heaven’s sake, Truman, they’re businesspeople. They’ll understand.”
“I know,” Truman sighed. “Still, it’ll complicate things.”
“Then your job is to keep it simple. Don’t let them get lost in the minutiae.”
“I know, Mother. But still. The bottom line is what it is.”
“Well, be strong,” Lavinia said, looking faintly amused.
Half an hour later Truman reported to his committee that in the nearly six months since Friday had arrived at the zoo, the total number of visitors had jumped by 700 percent from the same period the previous year.
“So why the voice of doom, bud?” Dink Schuler asked, clapping him on the back. “Hell, I thought somebody might have died.”
Truman took a beat and then said carefully, “There are people out there who think we took this animal in strictly to make money. And they’re people with loud voices.”
“Show me where it says we can’t make money,” said Dink dismissively. “Hell, we deserve it, after the last three years we’ve had—there’ve been a few times I’d have shut the place down if it had been up to me. I’m not kidding—show me where it says we can’t be successful. You can’t.”
“It’s more of an ethical issue than a fiscal one,” Truman said. “That is, it’s not about the money, per se; it’s more about what brought the money in, if you see what I mean.”
“Look, three years ago, who got rid of the single most popular animal in the zoo? We did! Because that was the right decision for that animal. Now this animal needed someone to help him, we were that someone, zip-zop, story over.” Around the conference table all the heads nodded. “We have absolutely nothing to feel ashamed of. And I’m pretty sure I speak on behalf of the entire board when I say our balance sheet could use a few more years of having this fish here.”
“Mammal,” Truman said.
“Whatever. Cash cow.”
Truman blanched. “Please be careful who you say that around.”
Dink leaned across the conference table to slap him on the shoulder. “Jesus, lighten up, buddy—don’t go all bleeding heart on us. It’s fine! Hell, the board will probably give you a nice fat raise.”
“I’m just saying we all need to be cautious. We don’t want to come across as exploitative and money-hungry.”
“But we are money-hungry.” Dink grinned. “Don’t know about the exploitative part.”
Truman smiled weakly. “Look, here’s what I’d like to recommend to you, and, if you agree with me, you can propose it to the full board. I’d like to take a percentage of the surplus revenue Friday’s bringing in and set up an endowment that will fund projects for the greater good. Say, for instance we could develop a large-animal rehab facility, or a terrific large-animal orphanage. Or we could establish a rehab facility for environmental disaster victims. We have the land—the orchard alone covers two-hundred square acres. I’m just tossing out ideas here—we’d need to do a lot of brainstorming and planning, but there are probably a ton of worthy projects. And that way, no one can say we’ve exploited Friday to fill our own coffers. In fact, we could call it the Greater Good Project and approach major donors for matching funds.” He ended somewhat breathlessly and looked around the conference table. The executive committee members looked back at him blankly except for Dink, who was tipping his chair back on two legs and shaking his head.
“Whoa! Easy there, cowboy. The fish just got here! We could just pad the operating budget, bankroll anything left over, and call it the Great to Have Money Project.” Dink was clearly getting a kick out of himself. “Just ease back, enjoy the cushion, and rake in the cash for a while.” He let the chair thump down on all four legs and sprawled toward Truman across the table. “In my mind that looks an awful lot like fiscal prudence.”
And loathe the man though he did, Truman had to admit that he was right. Or, as he put it to Neva that night, “He’s a Neanderthal, but I’ve got to admit the man is unnaturally gifted with horse sense.”
“So there’s been a nuclear war,” Neva replied in the dark, starting one of their favorite games, “and society as we know it is gone. Your only shot at survival is to find people who can lead you to safety. Name three people.”
“Easy,” said Truman. “My father and Gabriel Jump.” He always named Matthew first, because his father was the most gifted leader Truman had ever known, but the second and third spots were always up for grabs. Gabriel had been in the number two spot since coming to the zoo; Neva was number three. “But I have to admit that Dink Schuler might edge you out.”
In the dark, Neva backhanded him smartly across the chest.
THE NEXT DAY was one of Libertine’s days off, so Neva arrived at the pool at 5 A.M. to do fish house. She was paying for day after day of diving in the forty-degree water to clean the pool and play with Friday. Her energy level was at rock bottom, she had a splitting sinus headache, and every injury she’d ever sustained over her years as a zookeeper—and there were many, from a separated shoulder to a broken nose and torn meniscus—now ached. Music, wielded like a tactical weapon, was her only hope, so she put on a Black Eyed Peas CD, cranked the volume until the stainless steel counters were vibrating, and got to work.
When all the buckets were weighed and filled, she pulled up her hood, hoisted the first bucket of the day, and murmured a fervent prayer as she climbed the rain-slick steel stairs to the pool top: please, God, don’t let Friday have been sucking on a herring all night. He sometimes did. No one knew why.
A nasty little wind was blowing east from Puget Sound fifteen miles away and it was still as black as night. The concrete looked oily in the dim fluorescent lights. Friday was already waiting expectantly as Neva zipped up the last inch of her rain gear, lowered the bucket of fish, and went to the poolside to scratch the killer whale’s head.
He opened his mouth wide and there it was, despite her prayers: a foul, ruptured, sucked-upon fish. The smell could have killed a cow. Preventing herself from retching by the narrowest margin, she flung a fresh fish in with the old one so he’d swallow them both. Looking into his eyes, she was absolutely certain he was laughing.
Once she was sure he’d swallowed the mess she squatted beside him and petted his tongue, head, and jaw until his eyelids drooped with pleasure. She had never known an animal that craved interaction as much as this whale did. Even Hannah had contentedly spent hours by herself, puttering around her little yard while Neva and Sam had done their chores. Friday so desired her attention that Truman sometimes joked he was beginning to feel like he had competition, and there were times when Neva thought he might be right. The whale was in her thoughts constantly, whether she was at work or at home. During her first week at the pool, Gabriel had warned her that she would have to bring her A-game to work every single day. She had thought he was blustering a bit to shake her cage, but she could see now that he’d simply been stating a fact. No animal she’d ever worked with had been at once so hard to read and so exceptionally intelligent. Some of his inscrutability came from the fact that he had no facial muscles—he couldn’t smile, raise his eyebrows, grimace, frown, or do any other of the thousand and one things terrestrial mammals did to express a state of mind: essentially, he was masked. And while Gabriel could read minute clues the killer whale expressed through his body posture and eyes, Neva guessed she was years away from having the necessary experience.
She had found out just how hard it was to interpret Friday’s actions during a recent stretch of unseasonably clear weather, when sunbeams had streaked the water and dappled the whale’s head. He had feinted, parried, and threatened with an open mouth something invisible to the rest of them. Gabriel had challenged them to figure out what he was doing. All of them—including even Libertine, who, as an animal communicator, should have known—were completely stumped. Gabriel let them swing in the wind for a day and a half before giving them the answer.
Friday was boxing with his shadow.
He continued to spend hours and hours in the gallery windows, watching people watch him—acting up for them by waggling his tongue and blowing bubbles from his blowhole and tracking specific visitors as they made their way through the crowd.
Today he was in a contrary mood, either refusing to do what Neva requested or doing it in the sloppiest possible way. She finally broke when he responded to her speed-swim command with a halfhearted circuit around the pool that he abandoned altogether halfway around in order to inspect a piece of Styrofoam on the wet walk. She threw her arms in the air: what is it with you? To her astonishment, he immediately rose straight up on his tail and pushed himself backward through the water. Dumbfounded, she called Gabriel upstairs and repeated the gesture. Once more Friday stood on his tail and labored backward.
“What the hell?” she said.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Gabriel said softly.
“What?”
“Right at the beginning, when he first got to Bogotá, a friend of mine from Marineland went down to help them train him for his first show. They used that signal for a tail-walk, but he was never really good at it, so they stopped using it. I guarantee you he hasn’t seen that signal in eighteen years.”
When she told Truman the story that night, he said, “I think now I know how some husbands feel when their wives bring home a new baby.”
“What do you mean?”
“You almost never talk or think about anything anymore besides that whale.”
“Really?” She’d been dismayed.
“Luckily I’ve been through that, except it wasn’t Rhonda who was besotted, it was me, and instead of a whale we had Winslow.”
“I bet he’d love the comparison. How about we do this—I’ll have half an hour every day to talk about Friday and after that you can cut me off.”
“Nah,” Truman said. “That’s okay. I was probably like that with Miles when he was a piglet. There’s no denying love when it finds you.”
“And is that what this is—love?”
“If it walks like a horse and it sounds like a horse, it’s probably a horse.”
Neva said, “For the record, I’ve always hated that expression. In my business, sometimes it is a zebra.”
“Or a whale,” said Truman.
“Or a whale,” Neva agreed.
FOUR DAYS LATER any suggestion of good weather was a distant memory and the wind on top of the pool was blowing so hard it knocked Libertine off her feet. Even Friday stayed on the surface only long enough to breathe and then returned to the visitors in the gallery, which was packed in spite of the filthy weather. A TV crew from Germany was attempting to put together a five-minute segment using indoor footage exclusively.
Looking for something new and stimulating to give Friday on such an unpromising day, Gabriel recalled an offer from Winslow’s friend Reginald to bring his pet rat to the office for Friday to see. It was a Saturday, so he called Sam’s house, and soon Molly, a pretty little gray and white rat, was sitting on the office windowsill. She was young, even tempered, and entirely unconcerned about the killer whale looming inches away on the other side of the glass. She turned every bit of her small back on him and groomed her fur and whiskers. Friday didn’t leave the window for half an hour.
“Cool!” said Reginald, when Friday had left at last. “Let’s do a snake next time.”
“You got a snake I don’t know about?” Sam asked him.
“Not yet,” said Reginald.
“Then let’s just keep it that way. A rat’s bad enough, but a snake would put Mama right into an early grave.” Reginald subsided, and Sam continued, “What we should do is, we should bring in a power tool or two and run ’em.” He turned to Gabriel and said, “You got something you might want us to paint or drill holes in? He likes that.”
“Not that I can think of,” said Gabriel, “but here’s a thought. Do you by any chance have an extra television, or know somebody who does?”
“There’s that big one shug used to watch,” Sam said. “Don’t know where it is, but it stayed here at the zoo. Truman might know.”
“Excellent,” said Gabriel.
Later that day Truman came to the office and Gabriel asked the whereabouts of the set. “The nights alone get pretty long and killer whales don’t sleep the way we do.”
“No?”
“They’re voluntary breathers,” Gabriel explained. “If they slept in the sense that we do, they’d die. No one really knows how it works, actually. They may sleep with one half of their brain at a time; or they might only doze and not really sleep at all. In either case, the nights go on and on.”
“They did for shug, too,” said Sam sadly.
The television was quickly resurrected from a storage room, and two nights later Johnson Johnson pulled together a pizza and cookie dinner for everyone, to be held in the killer whale office. The TV was wheeled around so it faced into the pool from the office window. Neva set up a few folding chairs she and Truman had brought from Havenside’s conference room; Ivy brought Julio Iglesias and her knitting; Sam and Corinna brought the old lamp and armchair they’d used when they watched TV with Hannah in the elephant barn; Libertine transported the Oat Maiden pizzas and cookies Johnson Johnson had prepared.
“I should have brought some wine or beer,” said Ivy, smacking her forehead.
“It’s just as well you didn’t,” said Gabriel. “I’ve instituted a zero-tolerance policy for alcohol here.”
“At the zoo?”
“At the whale pool. Killer whales and alcohol don’t mix.”
“He’s behind a pane of glass, for god’s sake,” said Ivy.
“Acrylic,” said Gabriel.
“Whatever. He’s not going to come flying through the window, is he?”
“Doesn’t matter. You may have to go in the water with little or no notice, and believe me, booze plus whales is a bad idea.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense,” grumbled Ivy, “though you are a killjoy. Even Julio Iglesias appreciates a little beer from time to time.” The dog was on the floor, sniffing for crumbs. Neva fed him a piece of mozzarella.
“Oh, sure,” Ivy said, watching her. “Now you’re going to be the golden one.”
As soon as the pizza was gone they all settled into a screening of—what else—Free Willy.
“You think he’s going to get some bad ideas from this picture?” Sam said doubtfully. “What with Willy jumping over that jetty and all?”
“You know what actually jumped that jetty?” asked Gabriel, grinning. “A life-sized, neoprene-covered model. They catapulted it. Want to know how you can tell? There’s no genital slit. Censored for your family’s viewing discretion.”
Since Friday wasn’t even in the window anymore—and hadn’t been since the janitorial staff had arrived to buff the floor in the visitors’ gallery—they fast-forwarded the movie to the denouement. A great whoop went up as “Willy” indeed sailed over the jetty in the movie’s climactic shot, his underbelly smooth and featureless as a cue ball.
“You think Friday would recognize the ocean anymore?” Sam asked. “I always wondered with shug whether if you dropped her into that tea plantation in Burma she’d even know where she was, she’d been gone so long.”
“I bet he would,” said Reginald. “I bet he still gets homesick sometimes, too.”
“Just because he was born there doesn’t mean he can remember anything about it, son,” Sam said. “He was just a little bitty thing when he was captured.” He looked to Gabriel for confirmation. Gabriel nodded.
“Well, I bet he can still remember,” Reginald said stubbornly. “I bet he remembers and he misses it. Bet he misses his family, too.”
They all looked at Libertine. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”
Reginald folded his arms tightly over his chest, which was when Libertine realized they probably weren’t talking about the whale at all.
“I bet if you let him loose right now he could find his way back home,” Reginald said.
“Honey, it was a different ocean,” Ivy said gently.
“I bet he could anyways.”
Winslow spoke up. “If you let him go, would he survive, do you think?”
“No,” said Gabriel firmly. “I don’t.”
“Maybe he could, though,” said Winslow. “At least for a while.”
“Someone should try it,” said Reginald. “You could, like, put a whale-cam or something on him and follow him.”
“You’d radio-tag him,” said Gabriel.
“Yeah?” Reginald said eagerly. “You’d, like, suction cup it to him or something?”
“We’d attach it to his dorsal fin. It doesn’t even take that sophisticated a device. We track animals all the time.”
“See?” said Reginald. “That way you could get him back if he starts starving or something.”
“That’s probably a little simplistic,” said Truman, looking to Gabriel for confirmation.
“It is, but he’s got the basics. You track where he’s going, and if he stays in one place too long, you send a boat after him to see if he’s okay.”
“Theoretically,” said Truman.
“Theoretically,” Gabriel agreed.
“Could we do it?” said Reginald. “He’d probably really like that.”
Sam said, “It’s not that simple, son.”
“Yeah,” said the boy hotly. “But you could, if you wanted to.”
Sam gave the boy a look that said he’d gone too far. Reginald set his jaw and then they changed the subject.
AT FOURTEEN REGINALD Poole—now Brown, since Sam and Corinna had adopted him—was large in presence if not yet in stature. Evidently his father had been a big man, so Reginald was likely to become one, too. They had never met, but his mother used to talk about him all the time when Reginald was little and there was still a chance the man might come back. By the time Reginald was five it was clear he wasn’t coming, and his mother started dissing him big-time. “He’s nothing but a good-for-nothing, piece-of-shit freeloader. Don’t you go asking me about him ’cause he’s nothing, not even a gnat in God’s eye. I don’t even want his name in this house—not so much as his name.” But that was just pride talking.
And the truth was, if Reginald were his father, he wouldn’t come home, either. His mother was a hard-drinking, wild-haired, ramshackle, slack-mouthed woman who liked to tell anyone within earshot that Reginald was her ball and chain. “He a good looker, honey, but he be draggin’ me down. You wouldn’t know it now, but before he come along I was a fine-looking woman, made men run into each other on the street, they was so busy staring. In those days my legs reached right up to heaven, and the Lord gave me a fine ass to go with them.” She used to tell Reginald, “You got your looks from me, baby. You got your mama’s pretty mouth. When you grow up, girls gonna be all over you.”
A month before his eleventh birthday his Aunt Ella drove down from Bladenham to pick him up and bring him back home with her. On the ride back she told him, “You know, your mother always did have a screw loose, even when we were kids. Our mama used to say, ‘Ella, you better make something of yourself, because you’re going to end up taking care of your sister one day. That girl’s got less sense than God gave a goose.’ It used to make me mad when she’d say that, but even then I knew she was right.”
It took his mother three days to even realize he was gone, and as far as he knew there’d never been any talk about his going back. It took his mother three days to even realize he was gone, and as far as he knew there’d never been any talk about his going back. If anyone had asked him—and no one ever did—he’d have gone right back home. When she was straight he could make his mother laugh until she had to run to the bathroom to keep from peeing herself; when she was on crack—which, by the end, was most of the time—she let him do whatever he wanted, like go outside at two o’clock in the morning and talk to the old man who lived in a red sleeping bag on the sidewalk a couple of blocks away. At his aunt Ella’s he had a special place in his room, in the far corner behind his bed, where he liked to pretend he could time travel, go home to when home was still good. Not that he believed in that kind of kid stuff anymore, but still. He became the only black kid in his entire school, which on the one hand sucked, but on the other made him something of a celebrity.
Then he’d met Samson and Corinna Brown and Hannah, and Winslow Levy, and that’s when things started turning around, especially when he and Winslow were recruited to help Hannah escape from the zoo so she could go to California. Reginald’s picture had been in the paper for that, even though Martin Choi called him “Dillard” instead of Reginald. In his prior experience the only kids his age who got their pictures in the paper were kids who’d been collateral damage from gang shootings or who’d been kept locked in the basement or a closet for years and were eighteen years old and weighed forty-five pounds.
Right after Sam got back from the sanctuary in California, he and Corinna had had a long talk with Ella about letting the boy come and live with them, and once she’d been satisfied that they were good Christian people she’d said yes. “He’s a good boy, but he’s high-spirited,” Reginald had overheard Ella saying when he was supposed to be taking out the trash. “He needs a firmer hand than I’ve got the strength for, plus he deserves to be raised by someone who believes in him. I finished raising my own kids a long time ago and honey, I’m tired.”
After six months his grades were all As instead of Cs and Ds, and Sam asked Ella if she would help him find Reginald’s mother. She agreed, and when a month later they found her, she signed away her parental rights so Sam and Corinna could adopt him. Reginald was pretty sure money had changed hands, but he was also sure he wasn’t the first kid who’d been sold for crack cocaine. It didn’t matter to him: once he was adopted, Sam and Corinna couldn’t change their minds later on and make him leave, no matter what kind of stupid thing his reckless brain put him up to. Sam was even stricter than Ella, especially when his mouth got him into trouble, which was often; but all in all, that was okay with Reginald. Sam took him for walks in the orchard behind the zoo so they could talk about what it was to be a man, and Corinna was always hugging and loving on him, which he pretended not to like but really did because she was big, soft, and warm, and she smelled like a ton of different shampoos and other beauty products. Now, at fourteen, he had a home and a family, and he and Winslow were still best friends even though Winslow had that dopey pig that was always sniffing you in the behind and worse.
The day after the TV party, on his way home from school, Reginald had reached Bladenham’s main commercial street when he saw Martin Choi, the News-Tribune reporter, walking toward him from the other direction. Reginald had run into the reporter several times since Hannah’s departure, and the guy always said the same thing: “S’up, dude? You hear about anything interesting over there at the zoo, you let me know first, huh? You’ve got my number, right?”
Reginald loved being treated as though he could be in possession of confidential information, so he always said he would, but he never meant anything by it—at least not until today; in fact, not until this minute. Call it the devil, call it a wild hair, but Reginald ducked under the drugstore’s sagging canvas awning and blurted out, “If I tell you something, you’ve got to never tell anyone it was me who told you.”
The reporter looked surprised—as surprised as Reginald was at where his show-off self was taking him. “Yeah? Sure, kid, that’s what reporters do—we go to jail instead of giving away our sources.” He looked at Reginald with sudden excitement. “Hey, are they getting another whale?”
Reginald heard a high, whiney little buzzing in his ears, which was what always happened when his mouth outpaced his brain, but it just made him talk faster. “No, something way better.”
“What?”
“They might let him go.”
“What do you mean, let him go?”
“Home—back to where he came from.”
“Colombia?” said Martin.
“No, man. The wild. Like that whale in Free Willy.”
“Holy shit! You mean they might release him?”
Suddenly this conversation seemed like a bad idea, a really bad idea, but Reginald was in too deep now to deny it. Faintly he said, “Yeah. I mean, maybe.”
“Man—whoa!” Martin said eagerly. “So does anyone else know about this? You call anyone at a radio station or TV or Northwest Cable News or anything like that?”
“No.” Reginald was already wishing he hadn’t told Martin Choi, either.
“Keep it that way, okay, kid? I mean it.”
“Man, you better not rat me out.”
“Hey, take it easy. Your name’s Raymond, Reynolds, Remington, something like that, right?”
“Winslow,” said Reginald. “My name’s Winslow.”
THE FIRST HINT of trouble came in a phone call from Martin Choi. Truman was in his office working on a formal Greater Good Fund proposal to present to his full board of directors when Brenda put the call through.
“So, hey,” Martin said. “I hear the whale’s gonna swim home.”
“I’m sorry?” Truman could feel in his stomach that wherever this conversation was going, it wouldn’t be anyplace good.
“A little bird told me you’re thinking about sending him back there to Iceland or Norway or wherever.”
“Who told you that?”
“No can do, bud,” Martin said. “We’re all about protecting our sources.”
“Listen to me carefully,” Truman said, deepening his voice to its most forceful tonal range. “There is not one iota of truth to that, not one—it is completely and totally without merit. I can’t even imagine why anyone would say it, unless they were trying to make trouble for the zoo.”
“Right on, man,” said the reporter. “I hear you.” Truman had the sinking feeling that if Martin were in the room with him right now, he’d be winking. And with that, the reporter hung up.
Rattled, Truman searched for a reason why anyone would say something so baseless. Could it be an animal activist planting a seed that would turn into a toxic flower when debated in the press? Gabriel had warned him over and over how noxious the whale activism community could be. But why this story, and why now?
There had been a lot of people at the pool the night before last, but everyone except Gabriel, Ivy, and Libertine had been through the Hannah media blitz three years ago and had experienced firsthand the awesome power of an untruth if it was repeated enough times. He trusted them completely. That left Gabriel, Ivy, and Libertine. Why would any of them be talking to Martin Choi in the first place, let alone planting a false story?
Telling himself he was going to the three for insights, not to make accusations, he called Gabriel, who said, “The man’s an idiot. Hell, no, I didn’t talk to him.”
“But do you have any idea who might have?”
“I’ve always said Libertine shouldn’t be here. I’ll say it again.”
“All right,” said Truman. “Other than Libertine.”
“Nope,” said Gabriel. “Sorry, bud.”
Next Truman called Ivy’s cell and described his conversation with Martin Choi. “For heaven’s sake,” Ivy said. “He’s an idiot. You know that.”
And of course, he did know that. It just didn’t help. “Do you think this is something Libertine might have planted— maybe something she’d been planning since the day Friday got here? Gabriel warned us.”
“Shame on you,” Ivy said. “That woman is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met. There isn’t a nefarious bone in her body.”
“Normally I’d agree with you, but let’s face it, she’s also a little, hmm, unbalanced.”
“Why, because she claims to hear animals?”
“It’s not exactly normal,” Truman said drily.
“That’s mean, is what it is. She may be a little odd, I’ll grant you that, but she cares about that animal as much as any of us, maybe more. And anyway she’s said he’s stonewalling her, that she hasn’t ‘received’ anything or whatever from him since right after he got here. Plus she knows if it was her and she got busted, she’d have to leave the project. Isn’t that in her contract?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
Truman sighed. “If it wasn’t her, I’m stumped.”
“My advice is, let it go. The man’s an idiot. You know that. Everyone knows that. Maybe he made it up all by himself—maybe he’s trying to shake the trees a little and see if something falls out. Though I have to say I wouldn’t credit him with enough intelligence to actually do something like that, but it’s possible. No matter what, the story won’t have legs. No one’s going to back up whatever source he had, if there even is a source, which I doubt.”
The only person left was Libertine.
With the greatest reluctance he picked up the phone.
LIBERTINE AND IVY had a standing pizza date at the Oat Maiden every Thursday night. Libertine tried to back out—she’d been crying for hours, ever since Truman’s call—but Ivy wouldn’t let her. Fortunately one of the back tables was empty, because her face was swollen and blotchy. Once Ivy had ordered their customary pepperoni and onion pizza, Libertine described Truman’s careful questioning. “He was trying to be very fair, but he thinks it was me. They’ll all think it was me. If I were them, I’d think it was me.”
“Well, was it you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then just say so.”
“I did, but it’s almost impossible to prove that you didn’t do something. Plus I’ve never been very good at sticking up for myself.”
Ivy picked a piece of pepperoni off her pizza slice and popped it in her mouth. “I know. You’re worse at standing up for yourself than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Libertine looked at her plate.
“That’s all right. But what did he say—he didn’t fire you, did he? Because I’ll call him right now, if he did.”
“No—he just told me what had happened and then he asked if it was me, and I said no, which was when I started crying, and now I can’t stop.”
“I can see that,” Ivy said.
Libertine nodded. “I’d give a lot for a pair of sunglasses.”
“That’s all right, honey,” Ivy soothed, patting her hand. “They’ll just assume there’s been a death in the family.”
THE NEXT MORNING, too miserable to sleep, Libertine went out at five-thirty and drove around town until she found the News-Tribune in a vending box. Above the fold a huge headline blared, KILLER WHALE TO GO FREE. The story attributed the information to “an anonymous source close to the zoo.” It went on to state, “The Max L. Biedelman Zoo, which made the controversial decision three years ago to let its lone elephant, Hannah, move to a sanctuary, is now considering letting Bladenham’s favorite wild-caught whale go free.” It got worse from there.
At the pool, a copy of the paper was spread across the office desk. Neva and Gabriel avoided her. Gabriel didn’t even make eye contact.
By noon Libertine decided to go to Truman’s office and get the firing over with—she was still so unhinged she was a danger around the pool anyway. She told herself it was a blessing in disguise: she’d known for weeks that she was running out of money, and this way she’d be able to go home to Orcas Island and live in her own house and seek out a job that would bring in a little money. But while all that was true, it didn’t make her feel any better. She was relieved when Truman made time for her right away, indicating that she should sit in his visitors’ chair.
“Have you read the story?” he asked her without preamble. A copy lay faceup on his desk, its headline exposed.
Libertine nodded miserably. “I know you’re going to have to fire me. I came over here to say I won’t make any kind of fuss.”
To her surprise, Truman looked at her kindly. “Absolutely not. Whoever the source was, it certainly wasn’t you. I know you’ve had experience with the media in the past, and whoever this was, was a rank amateur. ”
Stunned, it took Libertine a moment to understand that Truman, at least, didn’t think she was the mole. She reached across his desk impulsively to press his hand. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Then she started to cry again. He held out a box of Kleenex.
“We do still have someone leaking information to the media, though,” he said. “Someone who’s trying to force an outcome. Do you have any ideas? Someone within the animal rights community?”
“No, but I’ll put my ear to the ground. It’s not that big a subset.” Libertine pushed herself out of the chair. “And thank you so, so much. I hope you know how much being here means to me. We may have philosophical differences, but I’d never do anything to jeopardize that. Or Friday.”
Truman smiled. “I know. And I think most of the other people around here know, too.”
ONCE LIBERTINE WAS gone Truman asked Brenda to hold his calls for a few minutes while he collected himself for the inevitable media onslaught. He attempted to calm himself, unsuccessfully, watching the unending line of visitors snaking out to the parking lot. The more popular Friday became, the more media scrutiny the zoo would come under, even over untruths and trivialities.
Then he took a strengthening swallow of coffee and told Brenda to open the floodgates. For the rest of the day he fielded calls from every regional newspaper, both daily and weekly; Northwest Cable News, Associated Press, Reuters, the Seattle Times, the Oregonian, Sky TV, and ITN. All the area television stations sent satellite trucks for live shots on the noon, late afternoon, and evening news. He appeared on every single one, refuting the rumor that, he quickly realized, everyone fervently wanted to be true.
WHEN HE FINALLY got home, Truman sat with Winslow at the kitchen table over a bag of potato chips and a copy of the News-Tribune he’d laid out. Miles snuffled around them ingratiatingly, waiting for Winslow to slip him a chip Truman pretended not to see.
“So what’s this?” Winslow said, looking at the newspaper.
“I wondered if you knew anything about it.”
Winslow pulled the paper closer, read the story, and then said excitedly, “Cool! We’re letting him go? That would be just like Free Willy!”
Truman was startled—he hadn’t made the connection before. “No. We never were. It would be the ultimate cruelty. He’d stand no chance in the wild.”
“He could learn, though. Couldn’t he?”
“He’s not just lacking skills, Winnie. He isn’t physically in any shape to be on his own. That’s why he came here in the first place.”
“So who said we were releasing him?”
“I was hoping you might have some idea,” said Truman.
“You mean did I tell him?”
“Did you?”
“No way!” Winslow said. “He’s an idiot.”
Truman couldn’t help a small smile. “I know, but even idiots can ask questions sometimes that are hard to avoid answering.”
Winslow shook his head adamantly and handed Miles a couple of potato chips which he crunched with piggy zeal.
“Let’s put him behind the gate.”
“He hates that,” Winslow protested.
“You do know Dr. Bly says he’s too fat, right?”
Winslow sighed. “He’s a pig. They’re supposed to be fat. Hey, did you show Neva that story? Maybe she was the one.”
“No.”
“No, you haven’t shown her the story, or no, she’s not the one?”
“Both.”
“You don’t think it was me, do you?” Winslow said, as the gravity of the situation apparently began to sink in.
“No, but you did raise an interesting point about Free Willy. Has Reginald said anything about sending Friday back to the wild?”
“No, and he wouldn’t talk to Martin Choi, either,” Winslow said loyally. “He thinks Martin Choi’s an idiot, too.”
“Well, if you do hear him talking about anything to do with Friday’s going back to the wild, would you let me know?”
“Yeah.”
But Truman knew he wouldn’t. Winslow was nobody’s snitch, which was exactly the way Truman had raised him.
ACROSS TOWN SAM had just finished reading the News-Tribune story with a sinking heart. Reginald was sitting across the table from him, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
“You read this story?” Sam asked him.
“What story?”
“This story about Friday.”
“There’s a story about Friday?” Reginald said disingenuously.
Sam sighed and pushed the newspaper across the table. Reginald didn’t touch it.
“Go on and read it.”
Reginald read it. When he was done, Sam asked, “Was it you who talked to him?”
“No. It could’ve been Winslow, though. I mean, he knows that reporter guy, Martin Choi.”
Sam studied him for a while before saying, “Son, I’ve been around a long time and over the years I’ve learned some things. One of them is when people talk about something that’s none of their business, it catches up to them. Could take a day, could take a year, but trouble’s going to find them one way or the other. The other thing I’ve learned is, your word is the only thing you really own—money, houses, jobs, clothes, cars, even family can come and go, but as long as you’re alive, you got your word. So you have to take good care of it, protect it from harm, and make sure people can always count on it. The day people start wondering if you’re telling the truth, that’s the day you squander the one thing you got that you can be proud of. Do you understand?”
Reginald nodded, avoiding meeting Sam’s eyes.
“Now, are you the one who talked to this reporter?”
“Yes, sir,” said Reginald faintly.
“And does it make you feel like a big man, pretending you know things no one else does?”
“Sometimes.”
Sam nodded. “There was a saying back during World War II: loose lips sink ships. You know what that means?”
“Keep your damn mouth shut.”
“Language, son,” Sam said, trying not to smile.
“It means keep your mouth shut,” the boy amended.
“That’s right. Any idea why that might still be important?”
“Not really. I mean, we don’t have any ships, and there’s no war, at least not in this town.”
“No, but now take family secrets. Every family has some things they don’t want the world to know about. Doesn’t mean those things are wrong, it just means they’re nobody’s business. You know how Mama does her friend Bettina Jones’s hair every Tuesday?”
“Yeah.”
“And every fourth Tuesday she weaves in a little extra to cover up a thin spot the poor gal has right on the top of her head, which is a shame since she wasn’t much of a looker to begin with. Now, Mama knows that secret isn’t hers to tell. It’s not dangerous or even real important, but it’s not hers to tell, just the same. You see what I’m saying to you?”
“You’re saying keep your damn mouth shut.”
Sam smacked Reginald lightly on the back of head.
“Ow,” said Reginald, but they both smiled.
“You just remember, son, someone else’s secret isn’t yours to give away. You keep that in mind and people will tell you things because they know you can be trusted. Violate that trust and you might as well call that friendship over. And ending a friendship’s a mighty sorry thing. Mighty sorry. You got that?”
“Yes sir.”
“Fine,” said Sam. “Now you’re going to call Truman and tell him it was you who talked to that reporter.”
Reginald protested loudly, but Sam was adamant. “When you do some wrong thing, it’s up to you to make it right, and sometimes the only thing you can do is admit what you did. If you step up and be a man, then take responsibility for what you’ve done, that’s what people will remember about you, and after a while that wrong thing you did just fades away.”