Endangered: A Zoo Mystery Part 21

He shook his head. "My home." A reasonable request. Impossible.

It turns out a person can feel adoring, anguished, and murderous in the same instant. My hands ached to choke the life out of the Tiptons.

When Robby was settled in bed, I came downstairs and picked up toys. Now what? Read a book, check email, call Linda...none of that would help my problems. I walked the dogs and returned just as full of frustration. I needed a fresh approach before I started punching the walls or snarling at innocent bystanders. Such as my parents.

I put on my grownup self and sat down at the dining room table next to the most impatient person I know. Papers were scattered over the table in some system only she understood. She held a yellow highlighter in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

"Mom, can I interrupt? Here's a chance to hand out advice."

She frowned at me.

"No, really. I'm not being snippy. I don't know what to do, and I can't stand sitting around."

She leaned back and focused on me. "You want to go home, and you can't because the Tiptons might show up."

"You and Dad are more than hospitable. You're wonderful. But you deserve some peace and quiet, and I need to get back to being an adult in my own home. I can't sit around and wait for problems to solve themselves."

"We both like having you here. I think you should sit tight. You haven't given it very long."

"Could you try to put yourself in my shoes? You would never sit and wait." I could see her start to argue, then her mouth closed.

She sat a few seconds, tapping the tea cup with the highlighter. "Safety first, of course."

I didn't argue. She stared into s.p.a.ce. I thought I could follow the train of thought: What can I suggest that won't lead to more trouble?

She pointed the pen toward me. "What is it the fishermen say? 'Be the fish.' Something like that. What's the other one? I heard it on a spy show. 'Walk back the cat.' Examine each step in the crime." She sighed. "Your dad and I, we lead a quiet life, except for you. I'm not much good at this."

"No, that's good. Thanks." It was good. Not a flurry of suggestions and warnings, not a pile of expectations. Just a reminder to stop and think. I'd rather she had waved her magic highlighter and solved all my problems, but this would do.

I got up to leave her to her work. Her eyes followed me, concerned. I found myself continuing down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. My father wore his coat of many colors, a white lab coat speckled with decades of paint spots. He gave me a nod and focused on a banner he was making for a friend. His brush traced a thin red line around each elegant purple letter of Happy Birthday, a fancy script on pale yellow vinyl.

I sat on a stool and watched his sure, skilled hands at work. His real sign shop was several miles away. The bas.e.m.e.nt shop was mostly for house projects, but now and then he knocked out a small sign at home. A window fan sucked painty air out into the night. A little of it lingered.

I sat and watched him work and tried to follow my mother's advice. Where to start? The middle seemed as good a place as any.

An unknown, secretive person had helped the Tiptons with bail. It apparently wasn't Pluvia. A friend of Jeff or Tom, perhaps. I tripped over that. Ken knew them from years ago, when he was a kid. No, he was too nice a guy to be entangled in the Tipton enterprises.

I considered a business a.s.sociate, someone I didn't know, someone Jerome trusted enough to tell where to find the bail money.

Maybe someone who knew how to set up a meth lab and fence stolen animals.

Who arrived about three months ago.

Who kept a very low profile. No hint of anyone other than the four Tiptons and Liana living at the farm. No other vehicles. I recalled the beige car my neighbor and Denny's neighbor had both seen. Both reports were vague. I set them aside.

What had Wanda said? Jerome bringing her a daughter was good, but she didn't want another son. She said Jerome had ignored her wishes.

I was inventing a young man, then. Someone Jerome found, as he'd found Liana. A man who was at the farm now and then, but didn't live there. Who hadn't been there when the bust came down or he would have been arrested with the rest of them.

Jerome brought him into their lives, and Wanda hadn't liked it. What had Jeff and Tom thought of it? Didn't matter. They did whatever their father told them to. And Liana? She was more independent, according to Pluvia. She might side with Wanda or she might be keen on more profit-making ventures.

What did I actually know about Liana? Almost nothing. She might have helped the Tiptons with the logistics of bail, or she might have been dead already. If she had just sprung them, why would they shoot her? So maybe someone else had killed her. She was the best candidate for hiding the plastic bag. A gla.s.s with a dirty bit of paper inside it hiding...what? Given the mud surrounding the Tiptons, perhaps the smear was no surprise. But she was the neat one. I couldn't picture any of the men keeping house that carefully and Wanda was too debilitated. Dirty facial tissue didn't seem to be Liana's style.

Of course.

Denny's cut thumb when we were moving the macaw cage.

What she hid was the gla.s.s itself and the tissue itself, not anything inside.

It wasn't dirt on the tissue, and Jeff and Tom hadn't taken that bag from the van at the zoo parking lot. Someone else had.

Someone who had to keep it away from the police at any cost.

I'd walked the cat partway back. Pluvia really was the key. She and Wanda.

Chapter Twenty-six.

As best I could tell, the small town of Battle Ground has three supermarkets: Albertson's, Fred Meyer, and Safeway. I hopped from parking lot to parking lot, scrutinizing aisles and check-out lines. On my third pa.s.s at Safeway, I found Pluvia studying tomato cans in the canned fruits and vegetables aisle. She looked unarmed and a little fuddled.

"Hey, there," I said. "How's the shopping going?"

Her brow furrowed as soon as she looked up. "You again. How'd you find me? Never mind, I don't care. I don't want any more of you."

"Too bad. You don't have your firearm, and you're going to have to deal. We've got things to talk about."

"The h.e.l.l we do."

"Yup. The h.e.l.l. It's got nothing to do with gold, either. What kind of tomatoes do you need?"

She glowered for a minute and gave it up. "There's too many kinds. I can't decide. Plum or not? Salt or not? Whole or diced? Why do they make everything so difficult?"

"You must have bought tomatoes before."

"I never do. But I took a notion to make a stew and I want tomatoes in it. I'm tired of soup and toast."

I picked up a can of diced tomatoes in juice. "Use this."

She looked at me and then the can with suspicion. "Why this one?"

"Just try it. Let's go get a cup of tea."

"Leave me alone or I'll call for help and have you arrested."

"Go right ahead. I know all the deputy sheriffs by first name. Your ride won't show up for hours. You've got plenty of time, and I'm not going away."

"You don't know anything about my ride."

But she let me herd her toward the deli section.

She sat at a round metal table with her back stiff and her jaw clenched. I sat across from her on the hard chair and started in. "I apologize for saying you helped the Tiptons with bail. I guessed and I was wrong."

She sat immobile, holding her paper cup of tea, her mouth grim.

I said, "Remember the smuggled tortoises in the smaller barn? You saw us packing them up to take to the zoo. They're worth thousands of dollars. Two nights ago, men who looked like Jeff and Tom kidnapped my friend, the zoo keeper who was with me on the farm, from his house. They forced him to break into the zoo and stole some of the tortoises."

"Is this another one of your guesses?" Pluvia's face stayed mulish and resentful.

"No, it's not. It's all over the papers. There was a scuffle, and they shot my friend. It's not clear he'll survive."

"Sweet Jesus." Pluvia slopped tea from her cup. She put her hands in her lap. "There must be some explanation."

"Pluvia, Tom and Jeff need to be in custody."

She looked away and was quiet for a moment. "I can't help. I don't have any way to reach them. Even if I did, I can't talk them into turning themselves in. Jerome filled them with crazy ideas about the government, and Jeff hates me. Why, I don't know."

"I know they won't turn themselves in. You need to tell me where they're hiding out."

Pluvia pushed her chair back and stood up. "I don't know anything about their bail or their money or where they are. Leave me alone." She looked distraught and determined.

I leaned back. "Okay, I believe you. We're going to do something else. I'm taking you to see Wanda."

That frightened her. "You can't kidnap me. There's no point anyway. She doesn't know where they are either." She looked around for an escape route.

I stood up. She was so short and small. So stubborn. "Pluvia, she's your friend. I'll take you to visit her, and then I'll bring you back here. It's safe."

She shook her head, jaw set again. "I'm not going to do it."

I closed my eyes and breathed in and out. In a tight voice, the best I could manage, I said, "We are going to talk to Wanda together. I'm in danger and so is my child. They shot Denny." I was ready to grab her arm and shake her until she came to her senses. This could not be another dead end. I had nowhere else to turn. "Pluvia, buy your d.a.m.ned groceries. We are going to the hospital."

She did what I said because she was afraid of me. I'd bullied an old woman into my car. It took an effort not to apologize.

At Legacy Hospital, I led her to Wanda's room. Wanda lay on the bed asleep, which was a relief. It had occurred to me that she might have been discharged.

I stood aside while Pluvia shook her arm. "Wanda, wake up. I've come to visit."

Wanda's eyes opened and she struggled to sit up. She pushed a b.u.t.ton to raise the head of the bed. "Pluvia! You are the last person on earth I expected."

Pluvia drew back a little. "What a thing to say! Why wouldn't I visit you?"

Wanda adjusted herself awake. She was wearing sweats again, gray ones, but she looked better, not so pale and lumpy. "I'm just surprised, that's all. Have you heard about my troubles?" She seemed to be close to normal speed as well. Now that she had a little energy, she didn't look so old. She must be about my mother's age, years younger than Pluvia.

I stayed out of it while they caught each other up, holding my questions until they were settled and could focus.

Wanda said she was scheduled for discharge the next day. "I guess I'll go home. Will you come with me? I can't face it all empty."

Pluvia promised. I wondered how they were going to get there.

Wanda finally noticed me. "What's she doing here?"

"She brought me," Pluvia said. "She found me at Safeway and brought me."

"Well, that was kind," Wanda said.

"She wants to find Jeff and Tom and see them back in prison. They've been causing a lot of trouble."

That dumped everything out on the table.

Wanda sank back in the bed. "I was hoping they'd go far away. They could settle in Canada and send for me later. That's what I was hoping."

Pluvia glanced at me. "They don't seem to be leaving."

Wanda sat up straight. "They are good boys, both of them. I don't believe all this nonsense I'm hearing about them. The truth will come out." Her voice trailed off at the end, drained of conviction. Pluvia patted her hand.

I stepped forward. "Jeff and Tom think the cops will shoot them, but the cops had the chance to do that while they were in jail, and they didn't. So they should drop that paranoid nonsense and face the music. This will be much worse for them if they don't surrender."

"I can't help you," Wanda said. "I don't know where they are."

"They aren't at your house. What about friends and family?"

"Oh, Jerome cut us off from everyone years ago. I can't imagine who would take them in. Except..." She stopped.

"Well, I haven't," said Pluvia. "I saw Liana the day all the trouble started, but she left that afternoon, and I never saw any of them after that. I've been watching."

"Did you see who drove the green van away?" I asked.

Pluvia shook her head. "I just saw that it was gone."

This was going nowhere. "Look. Jeff and Tom broke into the zoo to steal tortoises. My friend Denny was shot during the robbery. He's in a trauma center a few miles from here, and he may not survive."

"Jeff would never hurt anyone," Wanda protested.

Pluvia glared at her. "Tom-"

I cut her off. "Here's the question: is there someone else involved in this? Either Jeff or Tom is a killer or someone else is."

They looked at each other, then at me. I could see hope rise in their faces. Had I led them into a lie?

Pluvia waited for Wanda, who pursed her full lips and looked away. "I don't want my boys in prison. Either one of them. You have to understand. I can't talk to you."