To Die Fur (A Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Mystery) (20 page)

“No, thank you. I was just wondering if you’d seen anyone walk past here late last night.”

<“What, right past here? Late last night?”>

“Yes. They might have been carrying something, like a metal bar.”

The aye-aye appeared to consider this, blinking his large eyes several times. <”Well, let me see, let me see … I did see one fellow. Didn’t have anything with him, though.”>

“Can you describe him?”

<“I don’t know. I’ll try, though. I’d say he was … short.”>

“How short?”

<“
Quite
short.”>

That was no good; I needed a reference point. “Under four feet?”

<“Oh, I imagine he’d fit under all sorts of feet. He really was
very
short.”>

My turn to blink a few times. I saw my error and tried to fix it. “No, I didn’t mean he was underfoot, I meant how
tall
was he?”

<“He wasn’t tall. He was short. Didn’t I make that clear?”>

“My mistake. Was he shorter than me?”

<“Oh, my, yes.”>

I saw another potential trap and quickly added, “I meant shorter than the human who’s standing right here, not me.”

The aye-aye gave me a dubious glance before replying. <“Aren’t you the human that’s standing right there? Am I missing something? Maybe you should have some grubs.”>

Ever get that sinking feeling? And then realize you’re standing in a hole? And you appear to have a shovel in your hand, but no idea how it got there?

“Okay. Shorter than me. Was he
this
short?” I held my hand level with my nose.

<“No. Shorter.”>

I frowned and dropped my hand to my chin. “This short?”

<“Shorter.”>

“How about this?”

<“Shorter.”>

“This?”

<“Shorter.”>

“This?”

<“Still shorter.”>

By this point my hand was down to the level of Whiskey’s head, and since I really doubted our suspect was a leprechaun, I didn’t know what to think.

Then a sudden thought struck me. It rebounded off my extraordinarily thick skull, circled back for another try, and this time it made it through. “How many feet did this person have?”

<“The usual number—four.”>

“Did he have a tail?”

<“Yes.”>

“I see. Was this person a mouse?”

<“No, a rat. I tried to engage him in conversation, but he was too busy to stop and talk.”>

I sighed. “How about a human being, walking on two feet? Did you see anyone like
that
last night?”

I was expecting the answer to be no or to veer off on another useless tangent, so I was pleasantly surprised by his response: <“Hmm. Actually, yes. He had much darker skin than you, and those shiny things over his eyes you humans like to wear. Come to think of it, he had some kind of stick in his hand, too.”>

There was only one of the suspects that fit that description.

Abazu Chukwukadibia
.

*   *   *

The aye-aye had nothing else to tell us, or at least nothing useful. I thanked him, turned down one final offer of grubs, and let him go back to bed. He cheerfully waved his extremely long middle finger at us as we left, which Tango told me meant something very different in Aye-Aye.

[Soldiers don’t salute with their guns. And I thought you didn’t know that much about aye-ayes.]

care
about knowing much about aye-ayes.>

I was barely listening to Whiskey and Tango do their usual back-and-forth. I had a much bigger problem on my mind: Now that I knew who’d broken into the clinic, what did I do about it?

I couldn’t prove it, that was the problem. My only eyewitness was one I couldn’t produce without being sent straight to a psychiatric ward, and I had no other evidence. What the heck was Abazu planning on doing when he got the body out of the clinic, anyway, rolling it down the highway with his thumb out?

[Now that we know, what are you going to do?]

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I could confront him, but what will that accomplish? All I have is the word of a lemur. And not a very descriptive word, at that.”

know
we know.>

I made a decision. “You know what? Instead of pondering this information, I say we deliver it. Let’s go tell Eli what we’ve found out and see what he makes of it.”

[I agree. Relaying this to our superiors is the proper course of action.]

We headed straight for the graveyard. I was a little worried that Augustus might have already made his choice and the graveyard would now be preparing for war, but everything looked normal when we arrived. Well, as normal as the Great Crossroads ever looked.

We found Eli over by Davy’s Grave. He was perched on one of the benches around the site, looking like he’d been waiting for us. As soon as we showed up he flapped his way over and landed at my feet.

“Foxtrot! About time. Do you have any idea of the havoc Augustus has been wreaking? I’ve been fielding complaints from a dozen different afterlives. Wasn’t Tango supposed to be keeping an eye on him?”

“Er—yeah. She was. I mean, she did. Sort of.”

The white crow fixed a stern eye on Tango, who blinked at him innocently. “What does
sort of
mean, exactly?”

“I mean she was right there by his side the whole time. Believe me, if she
hadn’t
been there, things would have been much worse. I’m not even going to mention how bad the Hedgehog Incident could have been.”

“Really? It could have been
worse
? That’s hard to imagine. Of course, that poor flamingo is never going to be the same, either…”

The best way to derail your boss when he’s about to reprimand you is to drop a different problem in his lap. “Something’s happened. One of our guests, Abazu Chukwukadibia, tried to break into the facility where Augustus’s body is being stored.”

“Why?”

“To steal it, presumably. For what purpose, I couldn’t say—I don’t even know how he planned to get away with it.”

Eli launched himself into the air and flapped his way to the back of another bench. “That’s an African name—which suggests that our lion god is behind this.”

“He
was
the first to show up. You think Abazu is his agent?”

“It sounds possible. Possession of the body would grant Apedemek a certain amount of legitimacy. And cats are notoriously disdainful of human laws.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

Eli hopped from the bench to the seat. “For now, nothing—we have more immediate concerns. Is the Thunderbird ready?”

I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Ben after dinner. “I don’t know. He seemed pretty together the last time we talked, but—”

“Good. We need him, and now. I’ve set up meetings with both parties. I was going to use Ambrose to go get him, but it’s probably better you do it.”

“What? Now?”

“Yes. Immediately. I’ll explain the details to him when he gets here.”

And then Eli did that boss thing where he just stared at me until I turned around and left. It’s amazing how effective that technique is, even when used by a snow-white crow.

As we headed back for the house I muttered, “This is not going to go well. Ben’s not anywhere close to ready … stupid dead undecided liger. What’s the big deal, anyway? He was a trophy animal for a drug dealer. His main claim to fame is that he had unusual parents. If it’s that easy, me and most of my friends should be superstars.”

[I think I can speak to that, if I may? I have a story that might illustrate the point.]

“Sure. Once-upon-a-time me.”

[The Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea is two and a half miles wide and one hundred and sixty miles long; it is split exactly down the middle by the Military Demarcation Line. It is the most heavily armed, contentious border in the world, and has been so since 1953. The armistice agreement that was signed then detailed many things, including who could enter the zone and how they could be armed.

[There was, however, nothing in the agreement about axes or crowbars.

[This didn’t become relevant until the South Korean side—which was heavily supported by US troops—noticed that a poplar tree on their side was blocking the view between two of their observation posts. They filed the necessary paperwork with the other side to trim the tree to improve visibility, which was approved.]

Tango snorted.

Whiskey ignored her and continued. [On August eighteenth, 1976, a group of nineteen men—five workers carrying axes, three officers, and a security detail of eleven soldiers—went into the zone to trim the tree. Shortly after they started, a unit of a dozen North Korean soldiers and their lieutenant appeared. They watched for fifteen minutes or so, and then demanded the work stop. They claimed the tree had been planted by Kim Il-Sung himself and was growing under his direct supervision.

[The US officers considered this unlikely. They ignored the North Korean lieutenant, and work continued.

[A truck carrying twenty more North Korean soldiers arrived. They carried crowbars. They demanded, once more, that the work stop. And again, the other side refused.

[The North Koreans attacked.

[By the end of the fight, one US officer had been beaten to death and the other so severely wounded he died on the way to the hospital. The North Koreans claimed the South were the aggressors and they were simply defending themselves.

[The tree remained.

[Three days later, at seven in the morning, the United States and South Korea responded to the killings by returning to the site. They informed the North—very politely—that they were there in order to peacefully finish the work left undone.

[This time, they brought sixteen US Army engineers. With chain saws.

[The engineers were accompanied by two platoons of thirty US soldiers each, armed with ax handles and sidearms.

[The platoons were backed up by a South Korean special forces unit, carrying M16s and grenade launchers.

[Behind them were twenty helicopters carrying an infantry unit.

[Behind the infantry unit were seven heavily armed Cobra attack helicopters.

[In the sky over the helicopters were B-52 bombers.

[The bombers were escorted by F-4 and F-5 fighter jets.

[The aircraft carrier
Midway
was now anchored just offshore.

[And behind the DMZ itself were the Second Battalion, the Seventy-First Air Regiment, and twelve thousand additional troops that had just been ordered to Korea.]

Whiskey paused.

“Wow,” I said. “That must have been one helluva tree.”

[The North Koreans rushed two hundred soldiers into the area and began setting up machine-gun nests. They watched, but didn’t try to stop the engineers.]

“I’m guessing there wasn’t much left of the poplar afterward.”

[Actually, they left it standing. When they were finished it was no more than an ugly, twenty-foot stump—but an important one.]

“A symbol.”

[Yes.]

“Much like the ghost of a white liger. Okay, I get it. The cat gods are North and South Korea, and the Crossroads is the Demilitarized Zone. This isn’t so much about Augustus himself as it is about flexing muscle and refusing to back down. So why are Apedemek and Waghai Devi so pissed at each other? What’s the history between them?”

We reached the gate and went through. “Yeah? So do
you
know anything about those two?”

“Ah, if only our world leaders would do the same. Seems like a much more peaceful course of action.”

Tango gave me an incredulous look.

Most of the time, I saw Whiskey and Tango in human terms. But every now and then, they reminded me they weren’t human, and had very different points of view. “And did they?”

It was Whiskey’s turn to snort. [At least my story made sense.]

Tango paused.

“So what happened then?”

[That’s not a story. A story has a
point.
]

We’d reached the swimming pool beside the mansion, and I switched my voice from audible to internal.
Or at least you do if you’re a cat. So you think those two cats might have been Apedemek and Waghai Devi?