Endangered: A Zoo Mystery Part 8

Pete gave Cheyenne a quick glance.

"It wasn't that good," she said. "We went shopping afterward. I'm off to bed."

I shut down the computer, checked that all the doors were locked, and grabbed the first shower. I lay in bed and sought calming thoughts to encourage sleep, something to override smuggled animals. I revisited Birds for the new aviary. Would Demoiselle cranes need to be kept separate from visitors? I'd read that they could be aggressive...The date with Ken rose to the surface. Why was I so skittish about a dinner date? Not just loyalty to Rick-worry about how dating would affect Robby, concern about finding the time and energy. I fell asleep wondering whatever happened to the Iris who leapt into relationships without a thought.

I was off work the next day as well. Marcie did not call. In the afternoon, Hap showed up in a huge black pickup that he'd borrowed. He lugged wire panels into the bas.e.m.e.nt and banged around installing them. When he presented the results with a beer-bottle flourish, I found that I had a pa.s.sage to the washing machine and dryer and access to the bas.e.m.e.nt door. The rest of the bas.e.m.e.nt was a ginormous macaw palace, as long and wide as the foundation walls permitted. The birds still had their old cage, with one door wired open for access to the new structure. They stuck tight to their familiar perch, looking alarmed and outraged.

Hap inserted branches strategically to encourage them to move around. "When they get used to it, pull out some of these so that they have to fly to get from one end to the other."

I hung a nice fruit kabob in the new s.p.a.ce. "Come on, guys," I said to the birds. "Be happy. It's new and a little scary, but it's better. Truly." We left them to adjust.

I considered telling Hap about my date and decided I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I did give him a six-pack of his favorite beer, and he had another wild romp with Robby.

When I clocked in on Wednesday, my Monday, I found out I was scheduled for Primates instead of Birds. That was unexpected, but not unprecedented. Kip Harrison, the senior primate keeper, was already chopping fruit in the primate kitchen. Small, skinny, and tough, built like a strip of jerky and just as salty, she grunted a greeting and cut to the news. "Violet popped last night." Violet was a female mandrill monkey who had been bulging as if she were gestating a litter.

"All good?" I asked. "Just one?" Mandrill twins are rare, but they do happen.

"Just one, a big boy, but not so good. When I came in, it was on the floor. She sat next to it, but she didn't hold it."

Bad sign. Humans are unusual among primate species because we put our newborns down. As a rule, ape and monkey mothers carry their babies twenty-four/seven for months, until the baby is ambitious enough to let go and try moving around on its own. "And now?"

"She's still in her own night den. Dr. Reynolds is coming by to check her out."

"This is her first, right? Has she ever been around a baby?"

Kip shrugged. "Maybe when she was little, before she came here. Maybe not."

I didn't say what we were both thinking, that Violet had better pull this together or we'd be hand-raising a baby monkey. Or mourning one. Motherhood isn't as instinctual as we'd like to think. Experience matters.

I fed the new father, Sky, and Carmine, the troop's other female. The mandrill mom had already received her breakfast. With Kip's permission, I dropped by to pay my respects. Violet looked exhausted. Never as vivid as her mate's, her blue muzzle with a pink stripe seemed even more faded today. She sat with the baby draped face-down over her thigh, the infant making an effort to hang on. He was doing his part in the tricky interplay of mother and infant, where if one doesn't follow the script of normal behavior, the other won't either. Violet glanced at him now and then without touching him. I offered a bite of cantaloupe through the mesh. She took it in her dark, delicate fingers and sucked on it, watching me with distant brown eyes. "I know how you feel," I told her. "Trust me, it gets better. It's never easy, but it gets better. Put him on your chest, girl, that's where he belongs." She looked away, and I left her to rest.

Kip set me to work cleaning the Diana monkey exhibit while the animals ate breakfast in their night quarters. I swept and bagged straw bedding in the tall, narrow exhibit, doing a careful job because I'd learned the hard way that little bits of straw would gang up and clog the drain when I hosed. The work was peaceful in a mindless way.

After lunch, I found Kip and asked if I could check on Violet and her baby again before I started fixing the afternoon diets.

"Leave her alone for now. Dr. Reynolds wants her separated in the night den for tonight. I saw the baby try to nurse, but she doesn't like it. She better get with the program soon-we can't keep her separated for very long."

"You're worried Sky will beat her up when she goes back in."

"Or Carmine. Carmine was a real b.i.t.c.h to her when they were first together."

Kip had to attend a senior keeper meeting at 2:30, so she was forced to ask me to do what she clearly would rather have done herself. She handed me a little deli container of blueberries. "When you're done with the diets, go sit by Violet and give her one of these when she lets the baby nurse."

Fresh blueberries in January? Kip must have spent her lunch hour at a grocery store, not to mention five or six bucks.

The baby was hanging on to Violet's belly-progress. I didn't mind spending an hour sitting on cold concrete with my b.u.t.t going to sleep, handing her a treat whenever he managed to suckle a little. She seemed too out of it to notice why she was being rewarded-tolerating suckling-but the fruit did distract her from pulling the baby off. Poor mom. I felt her pain. Her rear end hurt, she hadn't gotten any sleep, and this weird little creature was messing with her. The baby sported a dark cap, a wrinkled little muzzle, and big, dark, liquid eyes. His pink skin shone through a thin fuzz of gray hair. When he gave up trying to nurse and fell asleep, Violet's head sagged and her eyelids drooped. The baby woke up and started suckling again while his mother slept sitting up. I sat still, afraid to move.

If she wouldn't let the baby nurse enough, we'd have to remove him. Bottle-raising would produce a monkey that knew more about humans than about mandrills, a monkey that would be the rejected loser in the troop.

When Kip returned, Violet woke up and pulled the baby off her teat. "Honey, do not do that," I said, creaking to my feet.

"She'll get the hang of it," Kip said without conviction. "I'll drop by tonight to check on them."

I expected this-that was the sort of thing she did. That was the sort of thing I did, before Robby.

Kip said she had to catch up on animal records, and I should scrub out the rest of the night dens. That's what I get paid the big bucks for.

Chapter Eleven.

Thursday I was a.s.signed to Birds, but I dropped by Primates to visit the mandrills and see how Violet was doing. She looked a little perkier. She was back with her troop, Sky and Carmine. Kip gave the new mom a pa.s.sing grade. The baby was nursing and being carried properly. Kip didn't say anything about naming the baby. Usually the director, Mr. Crandall, made a big hullabaloo over that. He liked naming baby animals after big donors or city councilmen or letting one of them choose the name. This wasn't happening yet, which might imply that he and Neal and Kip weren't all that confident about the baby surviving.

On morning break, I watched the group from the visitor area, staying quiet and a little back so that the animals wouldn't worry about my uniform. They know that regular visitors are irrelevant to their lives and treat them like television or ignore them. Keepers are a different matter, especially if they aren't behaving normally, which to them means the daily routine.

The inside exhibit was fairly roomy, with lots of rocks and a concrete tree. Their outside yard was closed off due to the weather. Violet huddled in a corner with her baby. Carmine puttered around foraging in the straw bedding. Sky, over twice the size of the females, sat above them on a tree limb. He yawned at me, displaying his huge canine teeth, and closed his mouth with care, fitting those choppers into his gums just right. Kip said that his yawn was a threat or sometimes just a sign he was feeling tense.

After a few minutes, he climbed down and approached Violet, moving slowly. She didn't notice him until he was about ten feet away. The instant she saw him, she pulled the baby off her nipple, held him to her belly with one hand, and scooted away on three legs. I could hear the baby's eh-eh-eh of protest. Sky stared hard at Violet and slapped the ground with a hand, a clear threat. He backed it up with a head bob. Violet crammed herself into a high corner as far away from him as she could get and shot nervous glances his way. Sky walked to where she'd been sitting, lowered his ma.s.sive muzzle, and sniffed at the spot. He climbed with hands and feet back up the artificial tree to his perch on a broad limb. Violet scrambled down and tried another corner.

I didn't like the looks of this interaction-threatening the mother and baby-and described it to Kip. "He's always cranky," she said, "and he's never seen a baby either. Probably just curious. I don't think he'd hurt the baby."

She knew them far better than I did.

Calvin and I expected a busy day at Birds. Dr. Reynolds had scheduled physicals for the penguins. We'd wrangled penguins for her many a time, and it went smoothly. Which is to say, after it was over, I stank of fish, had a swelling lump on my knee where I'd fallen in the slippery exhibit, and was bleeding from a chomp on my left thumb courtesy of Mr. Brown/White. Mr. B/W was a youngster with a two-tone band on his wing because we'd run out of colors and had to double up. He wasn't any more resentful of physical restraint than the other birds, I just got careless. Under Dr. Reynolds' watchful eye, I'd rinsed and ointmented and bandaged my wound. The smart money said I'd survive.

The birds had donated blood samples, been vaccinated, and endured a fair amount of poking and prodding. Nothing serious had turned up, and we'd soon know the gender of the three uns.e.xed chicks thanks to the blood work. Calvin had a.s.signed Mr. or Miss to each of them, based on intuition, and I was eager to see how accurate he was.

The Penguinarium was a beneficiary of the bond pa.s.sed a few years earlier by the good citizens of Vancouver, Washington. The "island" in the pool was resurfaced to seal it against bacteria and reduce abrasiveness on tender penguin feet. An expensive new air filter system slightly improved the tang and greatly improved the chances of avoiding fungal diseases. Neal muttered about tearing down the whole building and starting over, but Calvin and I saw little hope of that. Other areas of the zoo had more pressing needs. Other areas of Birds had more pressing needs, such as the decrepit walk-through aviary that would be replaced someday with the glorious one I envisioned.

The exams put us behind schedule. I was striding toward the Children's Zoo to tend to the birds that lived there when I ran into Neal. It was too soon to lean on him again about the macaws, so I meant to smile, nod, and go about my business.

But he stopped in front of me. "Okay, okay," he said. "I've got a deal cooking to try and get those Amazon parrots sent back to Mexico, but it's complicated as h.e.l.l. It might not work. Especially not if they turn out to be full of viruses."

"Mexico as in a zoo or as Mexico as in free in a forest?"

"Not yet established."

"Still, that's great. When?"

"Also not yet determined."

"How about the smugglers?"

"Like I said before, I have to read it in the papers like everyone else. We look after the animals until the court case is settled, then the agencies tell us what to do with them."

"Right," I said to be polite.

"I've got no juice with these people. I just wish I did. Doc Reynolds is looking into where those tortoises were stolen from, and that's about all we have the resources for."

"Got it," I said. Good news about the parrots, no news about the smugglers. Did I dare bring up the macaws? But he was off.

I stopped by the mandrill exhibit again after work and found Kip there. We studied the monkeys in silence. Sky yawned, flashing his canines, and watched us out of the corner of his eye. He wandered around the exhibit poking his fingers into clumps of straw. Violet kept getting up to stay out of his path, yanking the baby off the nipple each time. "Stop that," I muttered. "Does the baby seem weaker?"

Kip shrugged. "Not really."

"Violet's not getting any rest, and the baby's not getting to nurse much."

Kip shook her head. "Can't tell what's going on when we're here for just a few minutes."

"What if we got one of the Education volunteers in civilian clothes to hang out and take notes for a few hours?" I should have taken longer to think about it. Kip was quick to conclude that her inferiors were trespa.s.sing.

"Either it's working or it isn't and we have to pull the baby. We'll know in another day or two."

I pushed my luck. "Right now, Sky's reacting to us, and Violet's reacting to him. Couldn't hurt to see what they do when we're not around."

Kip looked unconvinced. "Those volunteers aren't trained in behavioral observation."

"Some are. They watched the clouded leopards for Linda. We know which ones have the most experience."

Kip looked irritated, which was not unusual. We watched the monkeys for a few more minutes, but nothing much happened. I was surprised when she said, "Go ahead if you want to. Can't do any harm."

I took this as a sign that Kip was more concerned than she was letting on. I left a message for Karen Belsky, the head of the Education Department.

At home, I found Pete immersed in a cloud of spicy scents and steam rising from a wok. He loved Thai and Chinese food and used to cook four or five nights a week, although he and Cheyenne had been eating out most nights lately. I cooked on my days off-meatloaf or spaghetti or roast chicken. Cheyenne cleaned up the kitchen, and I did the rest of the housework, which suited us all reasonably well.

"Where's Cheyenne?" I asked, looking in the fridge for a snack for Robby. I washed his hands and gave him a chunk of string cheese.

"She's returning some stuff she bought at the Jantzen Beach mall. She should be here soon."

Pete was a good-looking guy, tight-curled black hair and complex tattoos on his dark skin. He looked like he'd be a player at a bar or music scene, but he was steadfastly domestic. Cheyenne was the risk taker, and I worried that she'd get bored with Pete. I liked them as a couple, liked the idea that their relationship had lasted for years, through jobs at several zoos, travel in Thailand and Cambodia, and living with a child who wasn't theirs. They were affectionate with Robby, but I knew better than to use them as live-in babysitters. I might be the landlord, but Cheyenne had a sharp tongue and a clear idea of who was responsible for what.

I called Marcie, who didn't pick up, and left another message apologizing and asking her to call me. After feeding the dogs, I spent a little time with the macaws, who were edging into their new s.p.a.ce one perch at a time. They let me reach into their cage and swap out three toys I'd bought, replacing them with three others. Toys get stale when they're available all the time. I tossed in some Brazil nuts in the sh.e.l.l. "Put those beaks to work," I suggested.

I hadn't yet read their scratched-up bands. I'd need to be close, maybe with the bird perching on my hand. With luck, I could use the codes to trace them back to their breeder and maybe learn how old they were and what gender. I sighed. The birds needed more attention and hand-fed treats to learn to trust me and tolerate handling. Where was the time for that?

"Dinner's on," Pete called and I washed up and came to the table.

Cheyenne showed up before we were finished, in high spirits. She smooched Pete and filled her plate, talking non-stop about cool shoes she'd seen at the mall and plans for the new elephant barn and news about Ian-the strange and silent keeper she shared Elephants with. "I think he's got a girl friend, can you believe it? She came to Elephants today and he managed to introduce her. Bridget. Tough looking chick, but she acts like she owns him. That's what he needs, he's got no initiative whatsoever. He just pines after unavailable women." Ian was inarticulate and socially incompetent. I had to admit that he came across as a little creepy.

I glanced at Pete, who seemed puzzled by the ebullience. Normally Cheyenne was a little on the dour side. Whatever, her mood was contagious. I was glad to hear that Ian had found a legitimate romantic interest. If he took to mooning over Cheyenne, Pete had made it clear he would either flatten the guy or else they would pull up stakes and head for another zoo. None of us wanted that.

Robby was asleep and I was brushing my teeth when Cheyenne hollered up the stairs, "Iris, get down here. The news is going to have 'startling Tipton developments.'"

I stood behind the sofa where she and Pete sat and heard about a near-miss airplane incident, a gigantic mud slide in Honduras, and another impa.s.se in Congress. The local news finally came on.

The woman newscaster announced, "The Clark County sheriff's department has released information about the girl initially identified as Liana Tipton." With wide eyes expressing shock and amazement, she said, "The teenager found dead at the Jerome Tipton residence during a recent drug arrest was not the Tipton's daughter as believed. Fingerprints have identified her as seventeen-year-old Shelby Adamson, who ran away from her home in Fort Dodge, Iowa, when she was fifteen." A quick shot showed a stubby, weary couple with expressionless faces-her parents.

"And now this word from the sheriff's department." A uniformed spokesman said in a flat voice that Shelby/Liana had died from a gunshot fired between twelve hours and thirty-six hours after the Tiptons were arrested. Moreover, she was killed somewhere else and moved to where her body was discovered outside the Tipton home. Back to the newscaster, who flashed the mug shots of Jeff and Tom Tipton and a phone number to report any sightings. Cut to a commercial for a drug that would make a depressed woman laugh and square dance. Cheyenne shut the sound off.

"You thought she was their daughter," Pete said.

Liana, Liana-how did you end up with the Tiptons? "Everybody did. The Tipton mother was asking for her daughter. A neighbor said she was missing. She lived there. How did she get from Iowa to the middle of nowhere in Washington? This is unbelievable."

Cheyenne said, "The killed-elsewhere-and-staged part is what I think is unbelievable. Lugging her body around? Sick."

I stood up and paced, wide awake. "I saw the spot after they took her body away. No blood on the ground. There should have been a lot of it if she'd been left where she'd fallen. Somebody shot her and tried to blame it on the bust." This didn't make sense. "How could anyone expect something that dumb to fool the cops? Anybody who's ever seen a crime show would know it wouldn't work. The cops must have kept quiet about it while they tried to find the Tiptons, maybe so they wouldn't run as far."

The Tiptons didn't have a television set. Did Tom or Jeff have a clue about forensics? Maybe they were the last two Americans who didn't. That pale freckled face..."Why would they murder her? She was just a kid." But not their sister.

Cheyenne clicked the set off. "Maybe they think she turned them in."

I considered. "One of the cops at the farm said Tom sold meth to the wrong person and that's what got them busted. But Jeff and Tom might not know that. They might have thought it was her." Shooting a girl..."A neighbor said the mother was really dependent on her. She was part of the family."

"Maybe the sons fought over her, or she two-timed one of them."

I couldn't come up with anything better. All I knew was that the Tipton ugliness had touched her and she'd died.

Cheyenne got up and stretched her arms up and back. "The media will milk this dry."

Chapter Twelve.

Cheyenne was so right. The radio on the way to work was abuzz with Tipton news. I didn't hear my name, which was heartening. I had slept badly and could barely cope with Robby and Cheyenne, much less the media. It was Pete's day off and he slept in.

I was a.s.signed to Birds, but interrupted my routine to rendezvous in front of the mandrill enclosure with three Education Department volunteers Karen had rounded up on short notice-after I had explained and apologized to her for hogging the Education van for three days. If school children never became conservationists, it was the Tiptons' fault, not mine, I insisted. Karen said she'd be big about it and contact her group.

I told the volunteers what we wanted them to look for. Three female heads nodded-two gray-haired women and one college student. They had clip-boards and pens and a hastily constructed checklist. They seemed delighted to help out and were concerned but not emotional about the situation. Perfect. I confirmed their schedules-two hours each, six hours total today-and turned away to leave them to it.

And found myself facing the photographer in the black jacket.

"Iris, it's Craig. You remember?"

"I do." He'd stuck in my brain as the only appealing feature of the Tipton calamities. He and Ken.