Joe was still on voice mail, not that I was surprised. Homeland Security could be ruthless in their phone confiscations.
But my old friend Deputy Emilio Gutierrez was on voice mail, too.
There being no other choice, I called Acting Sheriff Elvin Dade. He wasn’t on voice mail and sounded more than happy to talk to me.
“Ready to confess to the murders of Bambi O’Dair and Victor Emerson, Teddy?” he asked. Without waiting for my answer, he continued, “Good for you! Hey, I’ll send a car over right away to bring you in so’s you can give your statement. We’ll even brew up a fresh pot of coffee. Or do you want tea? I’m sure we can find a bag around somewhere. There’s a nice clean cell waiting for you, right next to your mother’s! Ya know, Teddy, offenders are always relieved once they confessed, like weight has been lifted right off their shoulders.”
“There’s no weight on my shoulders,” I snapped, then proceeded to tell him what I’d found out.
Before I finished, he began to laugh. “You think I’m stupid or something?”
Yes, I did think Elvin was stupid or something, but admitting it would be foolish. I started all over again, walking him slowly, very slowly, through the timeline, even giving him the URLs of the web sites I found so he could double-check my information. The only thing I left out was my break-in at Victor’s wedding chapel and trailer.
Elvin still didn’t get it.
“You think I have time to play these games? I’m warning you, Miss Theodora Bentley. If you keep pestering me or any of my deputies, I’ll have you arrested again.”
“On what charge?”
“I’ll think of something.”
There’s nothing worse than the combination of stupidity and smugness. It’s brought down many a politician and was now in danger of letting a double murderer go free. I swallowed my pride and asked if he knew when Joe would be back.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“How about Emilio?”
“Your old buddy? His mother wound up in the hospital last night, something to do with her heart, I think, or maybe it was her gall bladder, I can’t remember, so Emilio and his family flew down to L.A. to be with her. My guess is that they’ll stay for a couple of days, keep her cheered up and stuff like that. They say happy people live longer. Come to think of it, why do you need to know where Deputy Gutierrez is? Gonna complain about me? Don’t think I’m not aware of what goes on around here, all the bitchin’ and carpin.’”
The man was beyond stupid. Instead of a brain he had a vast echo chamber where one was supposed to be.
He was still talking. “…and if you and your mother would behave yourselves and stop poking into other people’s business, San Sebastian County would be better off. The both of you are a disgrace to decent, God-fearing people.”
He paused and I heard a man’s voice in the background saying something about a car. Coming back on the line, he said, “Gotta go. Some idiot’s parked in a fire zone over at City Hall. Anyways, I got more important stuff to do than listen to your crank calls. If you know what’s good for you, Teddy Bentley, you won’t call me again.”
Click.
It took me several minutes of heavy breathing and clenched fists before calming down enough to think rationally. Not that it did any good. Due to Dade’s intransigence, there was nothing I could do until Joe—an eminently sane, intelligent man—came back from Virginia.
Or Homeland Security returned his cell phone and he saw all his messages.
Glancing at my watch I saw there were still a couple of hours left before I was due at the zoo, but given everything that had happened, I decided to start work early. Aster Edwina wouldn’t pay me for it, but working with the animals would take my mind off my frustration with Elvin.
On second thought, leaving the safety of Caro’s house might not be a good idea. Maybe I should call in sick.
I was reaching for my cell to call Zorah and tell her I wouldn’t be coming in before remembering that this was the day of the Great Escape. The press would be there. So would ex-Marine Ariel and a mob of cameramen, plus every zookeeper and park ranger on the Gunn Zoo payroll. Despite Bucky’s trusty baseball bat, today the Gunn Zoo would be the safest place in San Sebastian County.
After making another call—this time to New Jersey—I put on my zoo uniform and headed to work.
***
Once at the zoo I became so immersed in caring for the animals that the hours flew by. It seemed like only minutes before I found myself in Zorah’s office, slipping my lion costume over my zoo khakis and two-way radio. The lion head was heavy, but it looked authentic, at least from a distance.
“Fits great,” Zorah announced as I pranced and preened in front of the mirror. “Just comb that mane and straighten out that tail.”
I combed my mane and flipped my tail. “Meow.”
She laughed. “Try to sound more like a killer, Teddy.”
No laugh from me, the word “killer” having a vastly different connotation.
“Ready to hit the trail, girlfriend?”
“ROAR!” I was getting in the mood.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She took me by the paw and led me out the door.
Ariel, mike in hand, was waiting behind the big cats’ night house. Being interviewed by the anchor was Aster Edwina, dressed in Renaissance finery for some reason. She wore a long gold and purple gown studded with so many jewels it was a wonder she didn’t fall over. To add to her grandeur, a large bejeweled crown rested atop her white hair.
I hated to admit it, but she looked fantastic.
Behind Ariel and Aster Edwina stood a full complement of park rangers with their nets and tranquilizer guns held at the ready. Gary, one of the rangers, assured me they were unloaded and no one would shoot me.
“We’ll just pretend to shoot,” he said, keeping his voice low enough so it wouldn’t be picked up by the mike. “They add to the reality of the event, don’t they?”
They sure did. So did the portable lion cage standing nearby. When Zorah led me in, I prowled around, snarling, threatening the camera’s red light with a flurry of paws.
“Run fast, but not too fast,” Zorah whispered, as she partially closed the cage door. “You have to make the escape last for a half hour, the time slot allocated for the TV coverage. That includes your ten-minute rest stop near Down Under. In that outfit you can’t check your watch, so I’ll radio you when it’s time to start again. When you come running past Monkey Mania, the cameras will pick you up and follow you all the way to the night house. Act feisty. We don’t want our runaway lion coming in looking half dead. It needs to be full of piss and vinegar so it can put up a big fight when it’s netted.”
“You want the media to pass me while I’m taking my break?”
“No, silly. By the time you reach the bottom of Africa Hill, they’ll be traipsing across the middle trail on a shortcut to Down Under. The media will get some nice shots of the wallabies, the koalas, and that crazy bowerbird. He’s started two new piles—one turquoise, the other orange. His display will look great on camera. After that, everyone will head for the animal cafeteria to see the bugs.”
Zorah continued giving me tips until Ariel’s interview with Aster Edwina ended, then left to join the rangers.
“As I was saying in my introduction earlier,” Ariel said, smiling at a camera, “this year the role of escaped lion is being played by our old friend Theodora Bentley, the zookeeper who weekly brings us the delightful segment, Anteaters to Zebras. While animals seldom escape their enclosures, staged escapes such as the one we’re about to witness help train emergency personnel in case such a problem ever occurs. Ms. Bentley, do you have anything to say to our viewers before the chase begins?”
She stuck the mike through the cage bars into my lion face.
I was so startled at the glowing introduction that at first I didn’t respond. Wasn’t my television program supposed to be on hiatus until my innocence was proven? Or had some figure more powerful than the station itself—Aster Edwina in all probability—intervened in my behalf?
“Roar, for cryin’ out loud!” Ariel hissed, breaking my train of thought. She shoved the mike so close it bopped me on the nose.
“ROOOARRR!!!” I replied.
I tried to bite her, too, but my lion head didn’t have teeth.
“You see how dangerous these big cats can be,” the anchorwoman said, after making a big show of jumping out of biting range. “If that had been a real lion, I’d have lost my hand.”
“ROAR!!!” I swiped at her again.
With a satisfied smile, she continued, “And now a word from our sponsor, the Gunn Landing Renaissance Faire. Have a good time and help the San Sebastian County No Kill Animal Shelter grow, because all of the proceeds from the Faire go to benefit homeless animals until they can either be fostered out or adopted into forever homes. For a few dollars, you can have a great time and save an animal’s life. Huzzah!”
Aster Edwina rushed over and grabbed the mike. “Faire-goers who arrive in costume get in free, but donations will be gratefully accepted,” she said. “Huzzah!”
Close on the heels of Aster Edwina’s huzzah, I heard the faint sound of a lute, its strings plucking a revved-up version of that Renaissance favorite, “Greensleeves.”
Huh?
“Since we are covering the entirety of the Great Escape,” Ariel said, grabbing the mike back, “and the event will last a full half hour, we’ve asked several featured entertainers from the Faire to showcase their talents until the lion gets netted. Here they come!”
A blast of trumpets and then, to my horror, a full contingent of Renaissance Faire actors came trooping up the hill. Leading the throng was Willis Pierce, in full King Henry the Eighth regalia, followed by his entire Royal Court. A jester danced behind them, every now and then and then bumping into the twig-bedecked Green Man, who underneath all his greenery looked much different than the actor I’d first seen portraying him at the Faire. A substitute? Also in the crowd were Deborah Holt and her reptile keeper husband, Caro’s friend Jane Olson and her Gold King, comedians Ded Bob and the Silly Slatterns, crossbow vendors Melissa and Cary Keegan, the battling Sazacs, Speaks-To-Souls with three leashed greyhounds, Yancy Haas in his Black Knight armor, and a gaggle of monks and peasants. Even Howie Fife, no longer limping, had put his court minstrel costume back on.
They looked spectacular, but the killer outshone them all.
Because of my lion mask, no one noticed my alarmed state. Actors all, they played to the cameras, tossing around “thees” and “thous” and “zounds” and “forsooths” like so many beach balls.
Cameras!
My panic eased somewhat when I remembered the media was present. Television hosts, radio announcers, print reporters, bloggers, everyone. No matter how desperate, the killer would not dare try anything now. Besides, the killer had no way of knowing I had figured everything out. For the next thirty minutes, at least, I was safe.
After that, I would hurry back to Caro’s house and not emerge until someone, anyone, listened to my story. Maybe the State Police, maybe the…
“Escaped lion!” Zorah bawled, nearly deafening me. “Code Red! Code Red!”
With an adrenalin-charged roar I sprang out of the cage and charged down the path toward the steep hill alongside Africa Trail, cameramen and park rangers in full pursuit.
Encumbered as I was in my lion suit, I wasn’t as fast as usual. The rangers weren’t so hampered, and as we rocketed along it looked like they might catch up to me and bring the chase to a premature end. Just before they caught up, I picked up the pace.
The descent down the Africa Hill worked to my advantage, and by the time I made it to the huge giraffe and Watusi cattle enclosure, my pursuers were left far behind. Giraffes, gentle but curious creatures, wandered over to the fence to see what was going on. I looked like a lion but I didn’t smell like a lion, so as far as they were concerned, I didn’t count. The Watusi cattle didn’t care, either, and merely kept grazing. Far to the back of the enclosure, Big D, our cantankerous male ostrich, stuck his head up and gave me the once-over, but when he saw the fake lion wasn’t the bearer of food, he went back to doing whatever he’d been doing.
The zebras weren’t as relaxed. As soon as the male Grevy’s zebra saw me speeding along, he rounded up his harem, stood protectively in front of them, and sent me a challenging bray.
“Don’t have time to fight right now,” I huffed back. “Take a rain check.”
On and on I ran, cutting across the big central plaza and turning into California Habitat, where the coyotes were interested enough to stop yipping at each other as I crossed the lane bordering their enclosure. By the time I reached the border of Down Under I could no longer hear my pursuers. Good. After my mile-long sprint, I needed a rest.
Zorah had told me to take a ten-minute break once I reached this point, so I halted. If everything went according to plan, my pursuers had already cut across the middle of the zoo to get some fuzzy-cute photographs of the koalas and wallabies in Down Under, and were now moving on to the animal cafeteria to take video barrels of termites and worms. My watch was hidden underneath my costume, but she had promised to radio me as soon as it was time to head for Monkey Mania, where the cameras would pick me up again. I patted my rump to make sure my radio was still secured to my belt. An answering hiss told me it was.
Now all I had to do was wait.
The perimeter of the Gunn Zoo is ringed by a wide paved trail, the better for visitors to walk along pushing strollers or wheelchairs, but the zoo’s interior is forested with eucalyptus and live oaks, interspersed with colorful exotic plants. Hidden by the heavy undergrowth are the narrow keepers’ paths leading to the back of each species’ night house.
Knowing the temperature would be cooler in the shade, I moved away from the main trail and onto a keeper path. I was just about to take off my lion’s head to breathe the fresh air when someone stepped out of the undergrowth.
The killer.
This time, the killer had a gun.