To Die Fur (A Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Mystery) (9 page)

I parked and got out. There was a new car in the small lot beside the house, a white, late-model Dodge. I noticed the rental sticker and wondered which one of our guests had decided they needed their own wheels.

Rajiv Gunturu was in the dining room, spreading marmalade on a piece of toast, with Jaro Karst opposite him drinking coffee.

“Good morning,” I said. “I hope everyone slept well.”

“Like a baby,” said Karst with a grin. “Woke up every few hours crying and badly in need of a bottle. How about you?”

“Just fine, Jaro. What about you, Rajiv?”

Rajiv scowled. “How do you think I slept, knowing a violent criminal was under the same roof? He could have murdered us all in our beds.”

“I’ll make you the same offer I made Zhen. If you feel you’re unsafe here, we can move you to a hotel at our expense.”

Rajiv’s frown deepened. “And did she take you up on this offer?”

“No.”

“Then neither shall I.”

Zhen walked into the room a moment later, nodding at me and taking a seat. Her hair was still wet from the shower. “Good day,” she said. “I would like breakfast, if possible.”

“I’ll have Astoria bring you out a plate,” I said.

Abazu, I was told, had already eaten and had gone to visit Augustus. Rajiv and Karst were going to do so once they’d finished eating, and Zhen informed us she had already been; she was in the habit of jogging in the morning, and had stopped by Augustus’s enclosure during her run.

“How’s the big fella doing?” asked Karst.

“He was asleep,” said Zhen. “But still most impressive.”

[Ask her if there were four black-and-white paws sticking out from underneath him.]

Quiet, you
.

Augustus wasn’t the only one who liked to sleep in; ZZ wasn’t much of an early riser, and Oscar rarely rose before the crack of noon. I had no idea of Luis Navarro’s habits, but I had a hard time thinking of him as lazy. It was much easier, in fact, to picture him wide-awake and fully dressed, sitting on the edge of his bed and cleaning a very large handgun with a smile on his face …

I told everyone I’d be on-site and available all day, and then Whiskey and I went to see Shondra.

I found her in her office, tapping away at her keyboard. She looked up when I knocked on the door frame and said, “Foxtrot. Mr. Navarro is still in his room.”

“You’re sure?”

“He was there five minutes ago when I knocked.”

“You talked to him?”

Shondra smiled. It was not a nice thing to see. “I felt I needed to introduce myself.”

I winced. “How many of his teeth does he still have?”

“Please. I simply wanted to make him aware of my presence.”

“Just your presence?”

“I might have touched on my experience in the military.”

“And?”

“The subject of my extensive gun collection may have come up.”

“And?”

“My personal understanding of the word
defenestration.
That’s about it.”

I frowned. “Defenestration? That sounds like—removing someone’s fern?”

She went back to staring at her laptop and tapping at the keys. “It means to throw someone out a window. Usually with lethal consequences.”

“Uh-huh.” Normally I’d disapprove of giving one of our guests that sort of treatment, but Luis Navarro would seem to be an exception. Something told me it wasn’t the first time he’d been talked to like that. “Well, I guess it had to be done. Are we on a war footing now? Do we need to start rationing chocolate and rubber?”

“There’s not going to be a war. He’s going to behave until ZZ makes her decision, and then he’s going to go away.”

She said it with a finality that meant any further argument was useless. Since I happened to agree with her anyway, I didn’t even try. “Terrific. I’m going to go check on Augustus himself, make sure nobody tried to steal him during the night.”

She nodded without looking up, and I left.

[She’s upset,] Whiskey told me as we walked down the stairs.

“She seemed pretty calm to me.”

Whiskey snorted. [How do you survive with a nose like that? She reeked of anger. And fear.]

I stopped in mid-step. “Wait. She was afraid?”

[Yes. Not terrified, but definitely scared.]

That shook me a little. Shondra had seen combat—the kind where bullets zinged past your head and stuff blew up and people died right in front of you. She didn’t scare easily … not as far as I knew, at least. But maybe she was just good at hiding it from the rest of us poor, olfactory-challenged apes.

Or maybe a brief conversation with Luis Navarro had revealed to her just how dangerous he was.

We went back outside, into a bright, sunny day. I started calling for Tango in my mind as we walked toward the menagerie and got an almost immediate reply.

Whiskey and I started in that direction. I could see that Rajiv, Zhen, Abazu, and Karst had all arrived at the enclosure and were having some sort of intense discussion outside the pen. I angled away from them, down another path and toward the honey badger habitat.

I found Tango crouched under a bush. “Morning. How’s the boyfriend?”

[Anything unusual happen during the night?]

Tango shook her head, an oddly human gesture.

“And how are you two … getting along?”

Tango glared at me. She could teach a university-level course in glaring.

[I detect an additional bitterness to your usual sarcasm. Romance not going smoothly?]

“What happened, Tango?”

[Ah. By “not making much sense,” you mean he was showing no interest in you?]

“That … doesn’t sound good,” I said. “Maybe he’s sick. We should talk to Caroline—but first, I want to talk to Augustus himself.”

[Now’s your chance. The guests seem to be leaving.]

Stomping off in all directions would have been a better description. Zhen and Rajiv seemed the angriest, while Karst just strolled away shaking his head. Abazu watched all of them go, turned to give Augustus one last look, then walked off himself, his head down. He seemed sad.

I waited until all of them were out of sight, then walked up to the wire fence of the enclosure with Whiskey and Tango at my side.

Augustus was lying in the shade, his mouth slightly open. He looked fine to me—maybe a little hot. But it was a warm day, and he was covered in fur.

“Okay, Tango, time to translate. Hello, Augustus. My name is Foxtrot.”

Tango opened her mouth and produced a series of guttural growls, coughs, and grunts. Liger was apparently the feline version of German, or maybe Klingon.

Augustus stared at me curiously before replying in the same kinds of sounds. There was also a lot of ear flicking, blinking, and head twitches; animal languages, according to Tango, are as much about movement as they are about sound. Apparently this can cause major problems when you’re trying to communicate with someone who has appendages you don’t have.

Tango listened carefully.

I studied Augustus carefully. His head was still twitching, like he was being bothered by an invisible fly. His eyes were restless, too, moving back and forth in his sockets like he couldn’t decide where to look. More animal language, I guessed. “What’s he saying now?”

With no warning, Augustus threw up.

“Something’s very wrong,” I said, and then I was running to find Caroline.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

“I think he’s been poisoned,” Caroline said.

Whiskey and I were just outside the wire fence, peering anxiously at Augustus. Caroline was inside the enclosure, examining the liger. He was lying on his side, breathing heavily and looking groggy.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“The head twitching, the vomiting, the rapid eye movement. They’re all classic symptoms of feline ethylene glycol poisoning. Unfortunately, it’s extremely common.” Caroline straightened up with a grim expression on her face. “And often fatal.”

“Ethylene glycol?”

“Antifreeze. It has a nasty aftertaste, but initially tastes quite sweet. Many manufacturers have started adding a chemical to make it bitter, but not all of them.”

[I can’t smell anything.]

It might not have a smell. Not everything does
. “Can you save him?”

“I can try. It all depends on how much he’s ingested and how recently.”

“Go.”

Caroline ran to get what she needed. I called ZZ and told her the bad news.

“What?” She was horrified. “How could this happen?”

“I don’t know. Maybe during transport—if the truck stopped somewhere along the way it might have gotten into his cage by accident. But that seems unlikely.”

“Could he have had it in his system before he was put in the truck?”

“I don’t think so. It was a long drive, and I seem to remember antifreeze poisoning acts a lot faster than that.”

She was quiet for a second, then reached the same conclusion I had. “So it happened here. Which means it was deliberate.”

“We don’t know that for sure. But it’s starting to look that way, yes.”

“For God’s sake,
why?
Why would anyone do this?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I do know that Shondra’s had this place locked down ever since she arrived last night. No one could have gotten past the perimeter cameras without her knowledge. Which means the poison must have come from someone inside.”

“That makes even
less
sense. Every one of our guests has a vested interest in keeping Augustus alive!”

“I know, I know. But who did it isn’t important right now—we have to focus on treatment. Caroline says cats can recover from this, if it’s treated early enough. If anyone can save him, she can.”

I saw Caroline coming back and told ZZ I had to go. She said she’d be there as soon as she’d gotten dressed.

Tango was twining anxiously around my legs.

Ssshh. It’s not your fault. He’s going to be okay. Caroline will take care of him.

Caroline rushed up with an aluminum case in one hand and a really large plastic bag full of clear liquid in the other. “Foxtrot, can you lend a hand?”

“Yes, sure, whatever you need.”

Caroline handed me the large liquid-filled bag and motioned me to follow her. She unlocked the door to the enclosure and stepped through. I followed, and Whiskey tried to come with me. “No, Whiskey,” I told him gently. “I’ll be fine. I don’t want Augustus getting upset.”

[Are you sure? A large carnivore in pain is a dangerous creature to be locked up with.]

I’m sure. Stay outside with Tango.

I closed the door behind me. Augustus didn’t even look up, though his eyes were open and he seemed conscious.

Caroline knelt and opened the case. “Okay, I’m going to insert an epidermal saline drip. Essentially what we’re going to do is try to help his own kidneys flush the poison out of his system. The IV has to be higher than his head, so I need you to hold the bag while I put the needle in.”

I swallowed. “Is he going to be … all right with that?”

She was attaching a length of tubing to the bottom of the bag. “He’ll be fine. It’s minimally painful, and this kind of poisoning induces torpor. He probably won’t react at all.”

“Have I ever told you how much I hate the word
probably
?” I muttered under my breath.

“Probably.” Caroline attached a long, nasty-looking needle to the other end of the tube. All needles look nasty when they’re about to go through skin.

But she was right; I flinched more than Augustus when she stuck the needle in. Caroline fiddled with a little plastic dial to adjust the saline flow, then grabbed a large plastic syringe and a glass bottle from her kit. A bottle of—

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is that
vodka
?”

“Yes.” She filled the syringe from the bottle. “I don’t have a large quantity of medical-grade ethanol on hand, so I’m going to use this. Ethylene glycol is metabolized by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase; we’re going to get it to bond with ethanol, instead. Gets the patient loaded, but might just save his life.” She pumped the contents of the syringe into a little port jutting from the side of the IV tube.

“Okay. What now?”

“Now I need you to stay here until I get back. I have to rig a way to keep that IV elevated and I didn’t have time to grab anything. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

And then she sprinted out of the enclosure, leaving me alone with a very large, very sick liger. I hoped he wasn’t a mean drunk.

I looked down at him. He was so big he made me feel like someone had hit me with a shrinking ray. His massive chest moved up and down slowly, and his panting sounded like some enormous, ancient bellows trying to keep a fading fire burning. Any fear I had for my own safety vanished; now I was just afraid that chest would stop moving.