The Bass Wore Scales (19 page)

Nancy put her pad away and was reaching for her gun when we heard another shriek come from inside the office.

“
Wait a second,” said Mr. Shipley, “before you do that.” He picked up a hymnal from a side table and smashed the stained glass. Then he reached through the opening and found the lock.

“
The key’s in it,” he said, fumbling for a moment longer. Then we heard a distinct click and the door swung open onto a startling and terrible sight.

* * *

Brother Jimmy Kilroy’s huge office had been a tribute to his expansive ego. Bootsie Watkins told me later that his wife, Mona, had taken complete charge of the decorating. It had been a study in extravagant opulence. The seating area at one end of the room incorporated a gas fireplace, a leather sofa and two armchairs. In the center of the office was a desk that would have put Father Barna’s monstrosity at St. Barnabas to shame. It was constructed of black walnut and matched the built-in bookcases that surrounded the room. I recognized Amish craftsmanship when I saw it. There were a few Persian rugs lying on the hardwood floors. On the other side of the room was a grand piano. It might have been a beautiful office except for one thing. All the furniture had been smashed to kindling.

The sofa had been ripped open, and the cushions (which had been down-filled) were empty, the feathers now spread across the room. The heavy oak frame of the sofa had been crushed, broken in half and thrown up against the fireplace. The chairs had fared no better. Across the entire room were pieces of books, yanked from the shelves, torn apart and scattered across the officescape.

The desk had managed better than the sofa with the minor exception that it was now in two pieces. It looked as though a wrecking ball had been dropped directly in the center, smashing through the top and breaking it exactly in half. There were pieces of a computer on the desk—at least I suspected it was a computer.

The grand piano was lying on its side, the top torn from the hinges, piano wire snarling around the soundboard and two of the three legs snapped off. I looked around and saw one of these legs protruding lewdly from one of the bookcases.

What was left of the rugs was strewn across the wreckage of the furniture. Behind the upended piano were double doors standing open and looking in on a bathroom spa that would be the envy of any five-star establishment in the Carolinas. Nancy and I both pulled our guns and picked our way through the debris toward the bathroom.

We peered into a room almost as large as the office itself and then moved gingerly across the marble tile. To our right was a vanity with two sinks and gold-plated fixtures—to our left, an open Roman shower, also with golden fixtures. Straight ahead of us, dropping into the floor, was an expansive, ten-foot-sqare, built-in tub. Behind the tub stood a marble modesty wall, five feet tall, but it was the tub that interested us now. It was full of brownish water and contained—along with a torn chair cushion, a telephone, and several books—Brother Jimmy Kilroy, floating face down. Bootsie screamed from the doorway.

“
Is that Kilroy?” Nancy asked. “I can’t tell.”

“
Yes. I think so,” Bootsie sobbed.

“
Go outside and wait for the rest of the police,” I said to Bootsie. “They’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” She nodded and left. Mr. Shipley stood silently at the door of the bathroom, wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, and followed Bootsie out of the office.

Nancy and I inched around the tub, both of us holding our weapons in front of us, and headed toward the wall, determined to look in the last place left to us. When we came around the side, our leveled guns were pointed directly at Kokomo, sitting on the toilet.

He knew we were there, of course—we hadn’t intended to surprise him—but when he saw us, he leapt off the toilet with a roar that shivered every hair on my head. The floor shook and tiles broke when he landed—four hundred eighty pounds of pissed-off gorilla—and then he roared again, stretched to his full five-foot-eight-inches, showed me fangs that made my blood run cold, and pounded his hands on his massive chest just like every King-Kong movie I’ve ever seen. Nancy and I both froze. We were still twelve feet away, but twelve feet wasn’t nearly enough.

“
This little gun isn’t going to stop this gorilla,” I whispered to Nancy. “If he gets it in his mind to eat us, I mean.”

“
Nope,” agreed Nancy, also in a whisper. “Did you just wet your pants, too?”

“
Yep. Can we agree that Jimmy Kilroy is dead?”

“
Oh, yeah,” whispered Nancy.

“
Then let’s just back out of the room and wait for Dr. Pelicane.”

“
That’s a plan,” said Nancy.

Chapter 11

Dr. Pelicane and Kent Murphee arrived thirty minutes after I’d spoken with Kent on the phone. The two officers from the Boone P.D. were already on their way to Jimmy Kilroy’s house and beat them by fifteen minutes. I knew them both. The older fellow, a sergeant, was an experienced officer named Todd McKay. The other one, a new recruit named Burt Coley, had sung in the St. Barnabas choir when he’d been a student at ASU.

“
Hayden,” he laughed, “did you know your pants are wet? What’d you do, spill some coffee?” Nancy had taken off her jacket and tied it around her waist, but I didn’t have the luxury.

“
One more crack out of you, and I’m sending you in there to get the monkey,” I snarled, not at all amused.

“
Sheesh, if it’s just a monkey, I’ll go get it,” said Burt. “Gimme a net or something.”

I looked at him, then at Todd.

“
I haven’t told him yet,” said Todd, grinning. “Go ahead and give him a net.”

“
Let’s just wait on Kent and the handler,” I said. “The pastor’s not going anywhere.”

* * *

When Dr. Pelicane arrived, she was in a state of near panic. Kent had her by the arm, or she would have raced right past us and into the church.

“
Where is Kokomo? What has that
idiot
done with him?” Her voice was high pitched and frantic.

“
Calm down,” I said. “The gorilla is fine, but we have to figure out what to do next.”

“
What do you mean, ‘what to do next?’ Give me my gorilla!
This instant!”

“
I understand your concern,” I said. “But take a few deep breaths and calm down.”

“
Hey,” said Kent, looking at my pants, “did you…”

A look from me shut him up.

“
Did you bring a tranquillizer gun or something?” I asked.

“
I don’t use them.” Dr. Pelicane spat out the words. “There’s no need. Kokomo is very gentle.”

“
There’s a need now,” said Nancy. “That gorilla is madder than a wet badger, and the minister is dead.”

“
What?”
exclaimed Dr. Pelicane, panic once again rising in her voice.

I nodded. “He’s dead, and the place looks like a tornado hit it.”

“
Two tornados,” added Nancy.

“
Give…me…back…my…gorilla!”
said Dr. Pelicane, slowly, with emphasis on every word of her demand.

“
It’s not that easy now,” said Sergeant McKay. “If that gorilla’s killed someone, he’s got to be quarantined and destroyed. That’s the law.”

“
What?!”
yelled Dr. Pelicane, her voice rising close to hysteria. “He didn’t do it. I’m sure he didn’t. And if he did, there’s a perfectly logical reason. You can’t just kill an intelligent animal!” She looked in desperation to Kent and then to me.

“
Look,” I said. “One problem at a time. We’ve got to get Kokomo out of there and somewhere safe.”

“
He can come back with me,” said Dr. Pelicane, desperation evident in her voice. “I can lock him in the motor home.”

“
That’s not an option,” said Sergeant McKay. “No offense ma’am, but if he’s killed someone, he’s got to be under the control of the Fish and Game Commission until he’s put down.”

“
I’m sure it wasn’t his fault!” cried Dr. Pelicane. “I’ve had him for twenty years! He’s never harmed anyone!”

“
We’ve got a dart gun in the trunk,” Burt offered. “We use it for black bears, but it should take down a gorilla. How big is he? I can set the dosage by his weight.”

“
Five hundred pounds,” I said. “You still want that net?”

Burt smiled, shook his head and went over to the trunk of the squad car.

“
Let me talk to Kokomo!” demanded Dr. Pelicane. “He’ll listen to me!”

Sergeant McCay ignored her. “The Fish and Game Commission has an office in Greensboro. I’ll call over there and find out what they want us to do.”

I nodded glumly and turned to Dr. Pelicane. “Even if Kokomo did listen, he wouldn’t be allowed to go with you. You understand that, right? He’d have to go with the Fish and Game Commission, and I’m not sure that he’d be too keen on that right now.”

“
Do something!”
Dr. Pelicane yelled at Kent.

“
Penelope…I…” Kent was at a loss.

“
First things, first,” I said. “Look, if we can’t get him tranquillized and out safely, he’s likely to have to be shot, so why don’t you sit down over there, and let these officers do what they have to do. The dart won’t hurt him, and we’ll be able to move him safely. Then we can get Kilroy’s body out of there and figure out what to do next.”

* * *

Kokomo was sitting in the corner of the bathroom spa with his eyes closed when the two Boone officers, Nancy and I inched our way back into the room. I could see that the officers were as stunned by the carnage as we had been. Sergeant McCay had the dart gun loaded. Nancy, Burt and I had our service pistols drawn and ready in case we had need of them.

“
You’re going to have to hit him where he can’t reach it and pull it out,” I said.

“
And where’s that?” asked McCay.

“
I have no idea. Take your best guess.”

McCay’s dart went into Kokomo’s arm. I expected that he’d yank it out, but he just grunted, kept his eyes closed and didn’t move. After ten minutes of watching him, we walked up toward what we hoped was a sleeping gorilla. It was.

We called Dr. Pelicane and Kent into the spa. She saw the sleeping form in the far corner and ran across the tile, ignoring the body, still floating face down in the water.

“
Is he okay?” she said.

“
He’s fine, I think,” said Sergeant McCay. “Just sleeping.”

“
What’s the word from Greensboro?” asked Nancy.

“
They said the animal has to be quarantined for seventy-two hours to see if it shows any signs of being infected. Then, if the death was an accident, like maybe getting kicked in the head by a horse, there’s some leeway. But if it was an attack, like a pit-bull or a bear attack, the animal is destroyed.”

“
Oh
no
!” said Dr. Pelicane. “This can’t be happening.”

“
But it may be,” said Sergeant McCoy, “that if the family of the victim doesn’t want to see the gorilla destroyed, we can talk to Raleigh and see what they say. This is a famous gorilla, after all.”

“
Really?” said Dr. Pelicane, a modicum of hope retuning to her voice. “With whom do I have to speak?”