The Koala of Death (25 page)

Before we headed to the rec room, I noted that the wall on Kate’s father’s side of the room was plastered with snapshots of boats. Some I recognized from Gunn Landing Harbor, others I didn’t. The largest photograph was of the
Nomad
. Standing in front of it, arms around each other, were Tyler Everts and the child who grew up to be Koala Kate. They looked happy.

The television in the rec room was turned to the Nickelodeon cartoon,
The Penguins of Madagascar
. Several elderly men and women sat facing it, their aged faces almost indistinguishable from each other. One man appeared at least two decades younger than the rest. He was holding something in his arms. A doll?

Mrs. Morthland pointed to him. “That’s Tyler. The fellow with the plush koala. It was a gift from his daughter.”

In a way, Kate’s father was still a handsome man, leaving aside the vacant look in his eyes and the thin vein of drool that escaped from his mouth. He had a straight nose, a well shaped, if slack, mouth, and broad shoulders, and he was wearing a blue Canaan Harbor tee shirt with a picture of a sailboat on it. He cradled the stuffed koala as if it were a child.

I showed Mrs. Morthland the picture I’d brought. “Will he recognize her?”

“It’s hard to say. Sometimes he’s with us, sometimes he’s somewhere else. This morning he was alert enough to remember the names of some of the food he was having for breakfast. Eggs. Toast. But he believed the sausage patty was a cookie and complained that it wasn’t sweet enough. That’s how it is with these Alzheimer’s patients.”

She gave me a kindly smile. “If you need me, I’ll be in the office filing medical records. But be sure and stop in to see me before you go. I have an envelope I meant to give Kate. She put it down on his night stand the last time she was here, then forgot to take it with her when she left. Since she’s passed over, you might as well have it. When the police told me what had happened to her, I looked through it and saw several receipts, including one from a funeral home and another for a double cemetery plot not that far from here. So you see, someone has to…” She trailed off.

“I understand. Let me know when Mr. Everts, ah, passes over. The zoo will take care of the arrangements.”

Mrs. Morthland thanked me and started to leave, then paused at the door. “When you talk to Tyler, don’t bring up what happened to Kate, okay? When the police first told him, he cried and cried, but now he’s forgotten all about it. Reminding him will just break his heart all over again.” Then she left me on my own.

Summoning up the skills I had learned when dealing with the elderly aunt who’d suffered from the disease, I approached him slowly. Stopping in front of his chair, I stooped down so as not too loom over him. “Hello, Mr. Everts. My name is Teddy, and I used to work with your daughter.”

He gave me a vague smile. “Are you my daughter?”

“No. Her name is Kate.”

His brow creased for a moment, then he shook his head. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name.”

It’s never a good idea to argue with an Alzheimer’s patient, so I simply said, “That’s a very nice koala you have there. What’s his name?”

“Wanchu.”

“Isn’t that the name of the koala your daughter takes care of?”

He beamed. “Yes! My daughter gave it to me, but I keep forgetting her name. Do you know her?” Just like that, his memory had snapped back.

“Oh, yes, we’re very good friends.” A stretch there, but a well-meaning one.

“Is she coming to see me today?”

Remembering Mrs. Morthland’s warning, I said, “She couldn’t get away from work, but she gave me this to bring to you.” I slid the framed photograph out of its manila envelope and held it in front of him.

“Wanchu,” he said. “And Koala Kate.”

“Yes, Wanchu. And Kate, your daughter.”

He beamed at the photograph for a few seconds, then the blank look slid across his face again. “Who did you say you are?”

“Teddy. I’m a friend of Kate’s.”

He turned to the television, where one of the penguins was upchucking a partially-digested fish. “I don’t know any Kate.”

A few minutes later, I realized he wasn’t coming back, so I left him to watch television with the other residents.

“How’d it go?” Mrs. Morthland said, looking up from her filing as I entered the office.

“As well as expected, I guess.” I handed her the photograph of Kate and Wanchu. “Can I put this up on his wall?”

“It’s against regulations to let visitors nail anything to the walls, but I’ll put it up myself as soon as I’m through here. Which reminds me, here’s that envelope I told you about. The one Kate forgot.”

She handed me an envelope. It felt thick enough to contain funeral arrangements for a hundred dying men.

***

I was in such a somber mood when I drove into the parking lot at Gunn Landing Harbor that I almost slammed into the big Mercedes taking up my reserved parking space. But there was no way I could miss the whirlwind of anger and recrimination that headed for me in the form of Caroline Piper Bentley Hufgraff O’Brien Petersen, otherwise known as Mother.

“Did you think I wouldn’t see this?” she screeched, shaking a newspaper in front of my face so violently that several seagulls flapped away in alarm.

SERIAL KILLER LOOSE IN SS COUNTY?
The
San Sebastian Gazette
bawled, in big red type.
SECOND VICTIM FOUND IN GUNN LANDING HARBOR
sobbed the lead.

“That paper’s two days old, Caro. And here I thought you kept up on current events.”

“I’ve been busy putting your party together!”

“It’s not my party, it’s yours,” I muttered, trying to sidle past her.

“Don’t get smart with me, missy.” She grabbed my sleeve and gave a yank, almost making me drop Kate’s envelope. “You’re coming home with me whether you like it or not. Whoever that killer is, he’s either going after people connected to the zoo or to that Koala Kate person. It says right here in the article that Mr. Liddell was a friend of Kate’s. And you were, too.”

Not really, but Caro had no way of knowing that. “Look, Mo…Caro, I can’t just move out of the
Merilee
and leave my animals behind. I have a new cat…”

“Bring them. Wait, did you say a new cat, it’s now
cats
, plural? Don’t you have just the one, that Miss Priss or whatever the fluffball’s name is?”

“My new cat’s name is Toby, and he belonged to Heck.”

“The second victim?” Her eyes widened. “Don’t worry, I can handle an extra cat. The only question will be, can Feroz? Since I took him to see Speaks-to-Souls, he’s a different dog.”

Change the environment, change the behavior. “If worst comes to worst, I’ll confine the animals to my room. I also need to bring some things, like my uniforms and my computer. I’m supposed to be working on the zoo newsletter.” The minute the words escaped my mouth, I realized that she was right. Despite my earlier defiance of Joe’s edict, I did need to leave the
Merilee
—if only to keep my mother from having a heart attack.

With my acquiescence, the tension left my mother’s face. “I’ll help you pack, Theodora.”

An hour later DJ Bonz, Miss Priss, Toby and I were ensconced in my old room at Caro’s house. For a woman addicted to serial marriage, she remained remarkably faithful to her memory of me as a teenager. The turquoise and lime green color scheme remained, as did the posters of Jon Bon Jovi, Gloria Estefan, and the Thompson Twins. Bonz and Miss Priss had holed up here before, but little Toby, having just started getting used to the
Merilee
, looked scared out of his wits. The Aztec warrior sniffing hungrily outside the door didn’t help, either.

I picked Toby up and cuddled him. “Don’t worry, I won’t let mean old Feroz get you.” Eventually, he relaxed enough to purr. I continued holding him and talking to him until Caro rapped at the door.

“Lunch time, Theodora! Grizelda’s made tuna salad.”

Grizelda was her new maid. Due to temperament issues coupled with an odd perfectionism about household matters, my mother blew through an average of six maids a year. She never fired them; they just disappeared, sometimes turning up employed by one of Caro’s friends.

I set Toby down, and without thinking, opened the door. A snarling Feroz headed straight for the little cat.

He never made it.

DJ Bonz, usually the most peaceful of dogs, placed himself between Feroz and Toby, teeth bared.

The Chihuahua slid to a stop. Hackles high, he froze in place on the lime green carpet, mulling over the situation. Bonz was twice his size, with teeth two times as long. Moreover, the three-legged mongrel appeared willing to fight to the death for the safety of his cat.

Even naked Aztec warriors know when a situation is hopeless, so with a face-saving growl, Feroz turned and walked out of the room with all the dignity he could muster.

“If that mutt of yours hurts Feroz, I’ll kill him,” Caro huffed as we walked downstairs to the dining room.

“Not if I kill you first,” I answered genially.

Formal lunches aren’t my thing but they are Caro’s, so I sat at the long dining table as Grizelda fussed about with a lace tablecloth made by French nuns, monogrammed linen napkins, old Bentley silver, and an irreplaceable pattern of Royal Doulton china.

For tuna frickin’ salad.

“What’s the big hurry?” Caro asked, as I speared the last pea.

“I’m late for work.”

She sniffed. “Surely you’re not going in today, not after everything that’s happened.”

“I’m as safe there as I am here, Mother.”

“
Caro
, dear. If I remember correctly, you were almost killed at the zoo once. That awful anteater tried it, too.”

After patting my lips with a napkin, I stood up. “Lucy is a perfectly reasonable animal, unlike a certain Chihuahua I could mention.”

“I thought you liked Feroz.”

“Not when he’s about to kill my cat.” Good deeds never go unpunished, do they?

As I headed up to my room, Caro’s voice followed me. “Don’t forget the party tonight. All the right people will be here.”

She was more correct than she realized. To make the evening bearable, I’d compiled a guest list of my own, and had been delighted when no one turned down my offer of free food and free booze. To make certain there would be enough, I’d also called the caterers and told them to double everything. When Caro received the bill she would not be pleased, but I figured her dream of marrying me off to a billionaire would help ease the pain. My only disappointment had come during my phone call to Joe, when he warned me that with two murder investigations going on, he’d arrive at the party late, possibly not at all.

Humming “Baby Elephant Walk,” I changed into my zoo khakis, grabbed Kate’s envelope, and sped out of the house. Fifteen minutes later I was hurrying through the zoo’s Administration Building to Zorah’s office, where I found her just hanging up the phone.

“How’d it go at the nursing home?” she asked.

“It was sad. Sometimes he remembered Kate, sometimes he didn’t. But at least he now has that picture of her and Wanchu to look at during the times he does. The director of the place gave me some papers that Kate left there by mistake. Apparently she’d already made plans for her father’s burial, so I need to contact Aster Edwina right away and let her know. Mind if I use your phone? I didn’t want to call from Caro’s.”

She shoved the phone across the desk. “On a happier subject, what time’s your mother’s party?”

“People will start arriving around seven.”

“What with all I have to do here, I doubt if I can make it that early, but I should be able to get there by eight. Speaking of which, I wondered how long it would take your mother to lure you back up to Old Town.”

“It wasn’t so much a luring as it was a kidnapping.”

When I reached Aster Edwina, she thanked me for the update on Kate’s funeral arrangements. For a moment I was tempted to ask if her own daughter had gotten in touch with her yet, but common sense advised against it.

After hanging up, I rose to leave, but Zorah waved me back down.

“We need to talk about your work schedule, Teddy.”

“Can’t it wait? I need to see to the anteater, then the koalas…”

“Robin Chase is taking care of Lucy as we speak, although she’s not happy about it, and Bill is with the koalas.”

“Joe released him!” I punched my fist into the air.

Zorah followed with a similar gesture. “With only one caveat. Sheriff Rejas made me promise to keep an eye on him. There’s irony for you.”

Considering Zorah’s past encounter with Joe, irony was the word. “I’ll call Joe and thank him.”

“You do that. Now sit down again. We have things to discuss.” Her smile vanished. “The job you did on
ZooNews
was terrific, and we posted it online without any changes. But, damn it, Teddy, you sent the thing into me at midnight, after putting in a full day’s work. You can’t maintain that kind of schedule.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with her, and once again put forth my argument that someone else should be hired to take over Kate’s duties. “Get a PR professional, not a zookeeper. We have other things to worry about.” A new idea occurred to me. “Hey, how about your executive assistant? I know Helen can write because she’s constantly fixing up your letters. And as for the
Good Morning, San Sebastian
segment, well, mature women are the new Big Thing on television now. They’re called cougars.”

“Forget it. You’ve gained quite the following from your appearances on KTSS-TV, and regardless of how much you hate it, you’re stuck. But we need to fix your schedule. Speaking of
Good Morning, San Sebastian
, AnnaLee Harris called and told me she got a new job as morning anchorwoman at the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. Thanks to you, she’s moving up in the world.”

A pang of guilt coursed through me, followed by a pang of relief. “What do you mean, thanks to me?”

“During her interview, the station manager at KTSF said she displays great calm under extreme circumstances. You know, such as continuing to broadcast with a pile of lemur poop on her head.”