Endangered: A Zoo Mystery Part 28

I swayed and s.h.i.+vered where I stood. I said to Craig's body, "You forgot the part about defending the cubs." I took a deep breath, no fainting allowed. "You shot Denny and Liana and abused those animals." It didn't work-the rage had burned out, leaving me with nothing but nausea.

I had to get out of here, wherever here was, and find help. The kettle shrilled in the kitchen. I hobbled to the stove and shut it off. I rinsed the blood off my hands and tied a dish towel around my leg. The back door was open, letting in an icy breeze. Tom was out there somewhere.

Tom had driven. Therefore he had the keys. How was I going to get out of here? I looked around for a phone. None. Craig had a cell phone. I'd have to touch his body to get it. If I called someone, what would I tell them? I didn't know where I was.

It was all too hard.

Two men turned into carrion, one by my hand. Hap wouldn't call me a sheep ever again. A leaking leg that began to blind me with pain. This was what Craig's dreams and schemes had brought about.

I sat down in the dining room and tried to think, then limped back to the kitchen and stuck my head out the door. The cold was a slap in the face, helpful. Trees and a shed were pale shapes in night air gone still. "Tom? Tom! He's dead. Get in here. I need help." And so did he. I made it back to the dining room and sat down again. The gun was on the table beside me. I moved it to the seat of the chair next to me, out of sight, where it was handy but wouldn't scare him.

Tom crept in a few minutes later and knelt next to Jeff. He looked at Craig and stood up.

I moved the gun to my lap. "Where is this place?" He looked at me empty-faced. I asked again. "Where are we?"

"My grandma's."

"She doesn't live here?"

After a pause, "They've been gone for years."

Jerome had steered his business partner to an abandoned place he knew well. "Tom, sit down." He did and I tried to pull myself together. "We need to make a plan." His eyes held no flicker of intelligence. "Tom, wake up. You are done running. We have things to figure out." No reaction. "Go into the kitchen. Make us some coffee. Right now."

That worked. He followed orders and came back with two mugs of instant coffee. He sat there staring at the mug until I told him to drink it. Then he gulped half. When he set the cup down, his face didn't look as absent. He said, "I guess I should go."

"Nope. No more running. You are going to help me, and I am going to help you."

He had enough wit to look puzzled. I drank some of the hot liquid. It tasted like pollution.

He said, "They're dead, aren't they? Jeff's dead. They're all dead now."

"Not your mother." The pain in my leg was unabated and blood had soaked through the dish towel. "Can you turn on the heat?"

He shook his head. "We're out of wood."

I was going to die of hypothermia. But not before I was done here. "Did Jeff go with your father to pick up those tortoises and parrots or was it you?"

He swallowed.

"Tom, you saved my life. You and your brother. I can help you. Tell me."

He looked at his hands on the table, his head bowed. "Me."

"Tell me about it."

He kept his head down and spoke in a mumble. "Jeff always went. This was my first time. We had the crop in the van."

"You delivered the weed and Craig...Ethan sent you to some new places to pick up the animals."

He nodded and his head came up. "He said it was our next step. When we were good at that, then guns. He knew how to get stuff. The meth stuff, too." A flash of resentment. "We was doing just fine until that got started. Liana knew. She said he was bad for us."

Step by slow step, I led him through what would happen and what his options were. It took maybe ten minutes, and I was shuddering with cold and reaction when we were done. Every time I looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y dishtowel I came near fainting. Time to get out of here. He'd have to drive me to the hospital. If he panicked, I still had the gun. Why didn't these things have an indicator showing how many bullets were left?

My heart nearly stopped when the front and back doors slammed open. Tom and I leaped up as men boiled in. I nearly shot one before I registered their uniforms, and possibly one of them nearly shot me. I dropped the gun as fast as I could, heart racing, and sank back into the chair, hands in the air. While they searched the house and handcuffed Tom, another wave of people entered, ignoring loud, insistent orders to keep out.

"Ken," I said, amazed and stupid.

"h.e.l.lfire! Are you all right?"

"Not really."

Pluvia inched in through the door and looked at me and then Tom, her face full of questions.

Wanda knelt on the floor and stroked Jeff's hair and cried.

Ken scanned the scene, looked at my leg, and picked me up. He carried me out to a pickup truck and tucked me into the pa.s.senger seat. When a deputy blocked him from turning the truck around, Ken said, "I'm taking her to the hospital. She's bleeding."

"Mr. Meyer, sir, you need to wait for the ambulance. The medical technicians can help her. They'll be here soon."

"Sir, you need to get out of the way. We're going to the ER right now."

The deputy had the choice of moving or shooting him. The tires crunched in the gravel as Ken wrestled the truck toward the road.

I had enough presence of mind to note that low-key Ken seemed more than slightly agitated. I leaned against his shoulder the whole way, content to nod in and out of awareness.

The little room in the urgent care ward was crowded. I had the bed and the really good pills. Ken perched on a stool alongside me, holding my hand. Actually, I held his hand. It was a good hand, strong and still. I didn't see any reason to let go. If I did, the shaking would start. My leg hurt and hurt, but I cared less and less as those pills kicked in. The world had slipped a little out of focus. The image of dead men lying in blood was fading, the feel of the gun bucking in my hand was fading. Later I would have to deal. Not yet. Not yet.

A neat bandage had replaced the dish towel. Gil Gettler wandered in and out with questions when the nurses weren't tormenting me.

"You found me," I said to Ken and gave him my best smile. "Uh, it was you who found me. Wasn't it?"

He said, "You didn't show up to get the dog. You didn't answer your phone. I went with the worst-case scenario. That meant the Tiptons had you. So I drove to their house."

"The farm? Wanda was there."

"And Mrs. Whitley. She was my sixth grade math teacher."

"Wanda Tipton was your math teacher?"

"No, the other one."

A man in scrubs pushed an empty gurney past my little room. In the next room over, a woman was saying, "He just does these things. I don't know why."

I tried to focus. "Pluvia? Those women told me they had no idea where Tom and Jeff were. But you show up and they decide to tell all? You must have been really hot at math."

"I was pretty good. But they'd been thinking about it. Mrs. Whitley-Pluvia-made Wanda tell me. Jerome Tipton's parents used to have a place about twenty miles farther north. He wouldn't pay the taxes on it. The county sold it years ago, but no one ever moved in. Wanda thought he might have told Ethan about it. So we all crammed into my truck. I called the sheriff and they followed. We never would have found the place without those two women."

I raised my head toward Gettler. "You'll check Ethan's-Craig's-fingerprints? I'm sure he's on the run from something."

"I sure do appreciate the suggestion," Gettler said. "That's a great idea."

"Sorry. Sorry."

Ken's free hand brushed my cheek.

"Gil-can I call you Gil?-about Tom..."

Officer Gettler looked at me narrowly and didn't answer.

"He saved my life, him and Jeff. Well, Jeff only sort-of. More Tom, really. And he knows where he and Jerome picked up the smuggled animals. He can turn-whatchacallit-state's evidence and then he won't have go to jail so much. Right?"

Gettler said, "Those could be factors."

I made a sad, puzzled face. "Is that the best you can do?"

He said, "That is the best anybody can do. You, lady, are stoned on pain pills."

I'd ask him again tomorrow. "Ken, my leg feels like Tasmanian devils are chewing on it. Can I go home?" My voice didn't sound much older than Robby's. Home, what a concept. "Oh. Strongbad. I need to pick him up."

Ken said, "I left him with a friend. He's fine."

"Where are my dogs? Oh. Right, Pete and Cheyenne have them." Good. "Ken? We have to get the Doberman and give her to Pluvia. Don't let me forget. She was Liana's."

"You can stop now. All this can wait until tomorrow."

"Neal. I have to tell Neal." I remembered most of his number and got it on the second try. Maybe the third. He was pretty worried and thought it was a rotten idea for me to go home. "They're all dead or in jail," I told him. "All of them." He wasn't having it. "I've got a friend with me. He's really strong. He picked me up. He'll take me home and stay." I raised my eyebrows at Ken. He nodded. Neal still protested. I giggled and handed the phone to Gettler.

Somehow I was in a wheel chair floating out of the hospital into the glistening night. The moon was a pale circle in the clouds. Every surface was frosted with ice over snow. A fairyland in white, where wishes could come true. "Ken, will you help me get my college degree? You're good at math. Please?"

He took me home.

Epilogue.

It took months for the wildlife traffickers to be busted, but it finally happened, with Tom Tipton's help. A few people were out of the sordid business for a few years. I was glad of it, but I didn't exaggerate the impact.

Tom's lawyer told me that my testimony at his trial helped reduce his sentence.

Neal and Hap settled on a good sanctuary for the macaws. I had a few days notice before Ken and I drove them to the facility. At home alone, I petted them and fed them popcorn. When they were okay with the pliers I held, I pulled open the blue bands on their legs and took them off. Jerome wasn't a totally rotten father. He did think of his family when he knew he was dying. Not "look after Stridder" but "look at Stridder." He'd hidden the GPS coordinates where only he could get at them. I put the bands in a dresser drawer.

Pete and Cheyenne took Strongbad and Denny's reptiles when they moved into their new house.

Denny stayed at Marcie's. She was always too busy to get together with me. When Denny came back to work, he was quiet and distant. I missed him almost as much as I missed Marcie. One day at lunch, he fell into a ramble about American bank executives, their underground connection to the Russian mafia, and the implications for missions to Mars. My heart soared. Linda and I b.u.mped fists under the table. Even Marion refrained from rolling her eyes.

When Linda kicked off Bowling for Rhinos, I decided it was time to seek my fortune. I bought a GPS unit and took the bird bands and a shovel on the road. I had better luck than the gold hunters that roamed the Tipton farm. Much better. After my trip, small, heavy packages traveled from several post offices. I sent one to Wanda Tipton and a dozen to conservation organizations.

That took care of half of what I'd dug up. I went to the Internet and found companies that would sell gold for cash and sold the rest. I set aside enough to pay off my credit card debt and buy a new cell phone. That was all. I'd pay off the house and save for Robby with my own clean money.

I didn't tell Ken about any of this. If I got caught, I didn't want him implicated.

I told Linda that an anonymous donor had picked up my name somewhere and was routing his Bowling for Rhinos contributions through me. She gave me the fish-eye, but let it lie. Laundering drug money through wildlife sanctuaries-very satisfying. I made three big donations, then I was out of the hidden treasure business and the Bowling for Rhinos campaign was off to a great start.

Ken stayed for a week while I healed up and the nightmares tapered off. One night after Robby was in bed, he told me he didn't want to overstay his welcome. "I'd better move out. You're okay now. I don't want to take advantage of you being hurt and upset...and a.s.sume..." He looked everywhere but at me. "I mean, we could see each other...if you want to."

He was right, of course. We'd skipped eleven of the twelve steps from Building a Healthy Long Term Relations.h.i.+p, or however many steps there are-I hadn't a clue. Robby and I would be all right without him, I knew that. My problems were the kind with solutions.

I said, "I suppose we could step back and start over, take it slower. If you want to."

"You bet I do," he said, finally meeting my eye.

Or we could do it my way.

I closed in on him and undid a few s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.tons. I tugged on his t-s.h.i.+rt until I could run my hands under it and across the skin of his chest and back. "I know you don't like to rush," I murmured. "You leave whenever you want," and I kissed him with the best kiss I've got.

Author's Afterword.

Endangered is a work of fiction, but the pet trade in illegal exotic animals is real. The parrots and tortoises in this mystery find a (relatively) happy ending. If only that were always true in the real world.

The United States is the world's largest importer of wildlife, with 90% of these animals intended for sale. The majority of this trade is perfectly legal. It generates billions of dollars in profits and provides interesting and delightful pets to many. But my focus here is on the downside. This trade sometimes entails breaking national as well as international laws that are intended to protect wildlife. Aside from exterminating local species through over-collecting, the pet trade in wild animals also spreads diseases among humans (especially salmonella poisoning) and among native animals when the pets escape or are released.

The majority of wild-caught pet animals die prematurely due to the stresses of captivity and poor care. Even captive-bred exotic animals can be unwise choices. After all, they evolved to succeed in a specific habitat that likely bears no resemblance to your living room or back yard.

If you feel you must have an exotic pet, please do the research. Talk to other people who have this kind of animal, use the internet, look for resource books. Don't rely on the person who will profit from the sale to be fully accurate about the amount of time the animal will require or the expense of caring for it. Consider whether this animal will live for decades. When you can no longer care for it, who will? Do not expect a zoo to accept it. Do not expect to dump it on a rescue organization and walk away guilt-free when, for example, your child leaves home and you tire of the responsibility-these private facilities are over-full and desperate for money to feed their charges. And don't turn your pet loose-it will die or it will succeed all too well, as with Burmese pythons breeding in the Florida swamps.

If you decide to go ahead, please be as certain as possible that the animal was bred in captivity and not wild-caught. Be thorough in this, especially with reptiles and amphibians. Then do your best to set up a proper habitat and provide the right food and mental stimulation.

Do not kid yourself that you are contributing to conservation by providing a home for a rare animal. Contribute to conservation by discouraging the trade in wild animals, by showing your children the natural world, by moderating your own life style, and by supporting organizations that protect wild habitats from destruction by human activity.

The author's profits from Endangered will be donated to non-profit organizations dedicated to preserving natural habitats.