Half-Off Ragnarok
Page 48
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“The man at the gate wasn’t Lloyd, but he was still turned partially to stone,” I said. “So was Andrew. So was Mr. O’Malley. I don’t think you can stay out of this one, Dee. Will you come to my house, or do I need to find yours?” The unspoken threat hung in the air between us, only Shelby’s politely puzzled expression keeping it from turning truly menacing. If Dee wasn’t on our side, if she wasn’t an ally, there was every chance she was an enemy. I couldn’t afford to take that chance.
“I . . .” Dee hesitated. Then her shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “I’ll be there.”
“All right. Shelby? You want to head back to the big cats? Maybe it’s best if the police don’t find us together again.”
“Aye-aye,” she said, snapped a sloppy, mocking salute, and jogged back out the door to the zoo. In a matter of seconds, it was me, Dee, and the reptiles, alone again.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, with a mistrustful glance. Then she walked away, heading for the closet where we kept the lizard food.
I grimaced and followed. Even if the zoo was being shut down for the day, even if we had a petrifactor to stop, the animals still needed to be fed.
The police arrived while I was tossing trout into Crunchy’s tank. The big alligator snapping turtle was still full from the night before, and took his time making the fish disappear. The officer responsible for taking my statement didn’t look happy about that. It could have been worse; he could have been talking to Dee, who was feeding our rattlesnakes.
The time line I’d guessed at from Chandi’s arrival was confirmed by the interviewing officer: Dee and I were among the last people to enter the zoo before the man at the gate had died. Not, I was relieved to realize, the very last—we were getting the same treatment Shelby and I had received the day before, and I doubted that would have been the case if either of us had been a prime suspect.
“Where can we find you if we need to ask additional questions?”
“I’ll be at home,” I said. If I wasn’t, well. There would be one or more cuckoos at home, and that would keep any policemen who showed up from walking away thinking I’d been uncommunicative.
“Your girlfriend, Shelby Tanner, works here at the zoo, does she not?”
“Yes, in the lion house. She’s a visiting researcher from Australia.”
The officer nodded. “You’re a visiting researcher yourself, aren’t you? California?”
“Yes. I’m on loan from the San Francisco Zoo.” My credentials would check out. The reptile house there was operated by one of the rare dragons who had chosen to go into something other than professional money-making. The rest of her Nest tolerated her bizarre interest in research because it gave them easy access to heated sand for incubating their eggs. “I’m doing a survey of the native amphibians of Ohio.”
“Fascinating stuff,” said the officer, flipping his notebook closed. “We’ll call you if we need anything.”
“Thank you,” I said, and tossed another trout into the tank.
The officer who had interviewed me walked toward the door, beckoning the officer interviewing Dee to follow him. My assistant stayed where she was, freezing with one hand still halfway in the timber rattler enclosure as she waited for the door to close behind the two blue-clad men. I was privately glad she hadn’t frozen like that until their backs were turned. There was something impossibly static about her stillness, a reptilian quality that screamed her inhuman origins more loudly than anything else about her disguised appearance.
Only when we were alone did she relax and start breathing again. She replaced the lid on the rattlesnake enclosure, stepping down from the stool she’d used to reach the opening, and said, “Alex, I don’t know how much of this I can take.”
“You’ll take as much as you have to.” I threw the last of the trout in with Crunchy and closed the hatch above his tank. Hopping down from my own stool, I grabbed it and carried it back toward the closet. “We’ll get through this, Dee. I promise.”
“You don’t honestly think I had anything to do with this, do you?”
I hesitated before shaking my head. “No. I admit, I had a few moments of doubt when we saw the puncture marks I showed you, but there’s no way you’d kill all these people. They’ve all been harmless so far. There’s nothing they could have done to you.”
“They could have found out where my community was located and threatened to expose us,” said Dee. She opened her lips wide enough to let me see the fangs that had unhinged from the roof of her mouth. They folded again before she said, “Because anyone who threatened my family would find themselves between a rock and a bad place.”
“I understand the sentiment,” I said.
“Do you really expect me to come back to your house and talk about this in front of your girlfriend?”
I allowed myself the thinnest stripe of a smile. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
Ambulances and emergency response personnel clogged the front plaza of the zoo as Dee and I walked out and past them. No one looked our way. They all had their own problems to worry about and their own jobs to do; we were just so much moving background noise. I walked smoothly but with the appropriate amount of hesitation as I passed the place where I knew the body had been found, trying to mirror the normal responses of a human male in my situation. The last thing I wanted was for someone to remember me in this moment, or to remark upon my behavior as having been in any way odd.
The upbringing I shared with my sisters didn’t make us monsters, any more than someone like Dee or Chandi was inherently a monster. It just instilled us with a different set of priorities and responses. The man I was pretending to be, Dr. Alexander Preston, had probably never seen a dead body. He worked with his snakes all day and went home to a normal life, a normal world, one that didn’t have anything nasty lurking in the shadows. I was normally pretty good at pulling Dr. Preston across me like a mask, but here and now, I itched to examine the body for clues that might have helped me determine my next move.
Dee was parked across the lot from me. I paused before separating from her, asking, “You’re sure you remember the address?”
“I’ve got it,” she said. “You’re sure you want me to come over?”
“I . . .” Dee hesitated. Then her shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “I’ll be there.”
“All right. Shelby? You want to head back to the big cats? Maybe it’s best if the police don’t find us together again.”
“Aye-aye,” she said, snapped a sloppy, mocking salute, and jogged back out the door to the zoo. In a matter of seconds, it was me, Dee, and the reptiles, alone again.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, with a mistrustful glance. Then she walked away, heading for the closet where we kept the lizard food.
I grimaced and followed. Even if the zoo was being shut down for the day, even if we had a petrifactor to stop, the animals still needed to be fed.
The police arrived while I was tossing trout into Crunchy’s tank. The big alligator snapping turtle was still full from the night before, and took his time making the fish disappear. The officer responsible for taking my statement didn’t look happy about that. It could have been worse; he could have been talking to Dee, who was feeding our rattlesnakes.
The time line I’d guessed at from Chandi’s arrival was confirmed by the interviewing officer: Dee and I were among the last people to enter the zoo before the man at the gate had died. Not, I was relieved to realize, the very last—we were getting the same treatment Shelby and I had received the day before, and I doubted that would have been the case if either of us had been a prime suspect.
“Where can we find you if we need to ask additional questions?”
“I’ll be at home,” I said. If I wasn’t, well. There would be one or more cuckoos at home, and that would keep any policemen who showed up from walking away thinking I’d been uncommunicative.
“Your girlfriend, Shelby Tanner, works here at the zoo, does she not?”
“Yes, in the lion house. She’s a visiting researcher from Australia.”
The officer nodded. “You’re a visiting researcher yourself, aren’t you? California?”
“Yes. I’m on loan from the San Francisco Zoo.” My credentials would check out. The reptile house there was operated by one of the rare dragons who had chosen to go into something other than professional money-making. The rest of her Nest tolerated her bizarre interest in research because it gave them easy access to heated sand for incubating their eggs. “I’m doing a survey of the native amphibians of Ohio.”
“Fascinating stuff,” said the officer, flipping his notebook closed. “We’ll call you if we need anything.”
“Thank you,” I said, and tossed another trout into the tank.
The officer who had interviewed me walked toward the door, beckoning the officer interviewing Dee to follow him. My assistant stayed where she was, freezing with one hand still halfway in the timber rattler enclosure as she waited for the door to close behind the two blue-clad men. I was privately glad she hadn’t frozen like that until their backs were turned. There was something impossibly static about her stillness, a reptilian quality that screamed her inhuman origins more loudly than anything else about her disguised appearance.
Only when we were alone did she relax and start breathing again. She replaced the lid on the rattlesnake enclosure, stepping down from the stool she’d used to reach the opening, and said, “Alex, I don’t know how much of this I can take.”
“You’ll take as much as you have to.” I threw the last of the trout in with Crunchy and closed the hatch above his tank. Hopping down from my own stool, I grabbed it and carried it back toward the closet. “We’ll get through this, Dee. I promise.”
“You don’t honestly think I had anything to do with this, do you?”
I hesitated before shaking my head. “No. I admit, I had a few moments of doubt when we saw the puncture marks I showed you, but there’s no way you’d kill all these people. They’ve all been harmless so far. There’s nothing they could have done to you.”
“They could have found out where my community was located and threatened to expose us,” said Dee. She opened her lips wide enough to let me see the fangs that had unhinged from the roof of her mouth. They folded again before she said, “Because anyone who threatened my family would find themselves between a rock and a bad place.”
“I understand the sentiment,” I said.
“Do you really expect me to come back to your house and talk about this in front of your girlfriend?”
I allowed myself the thinnest stripe of a smile. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
Ambulances and emergency response personnel clogged the front plaza of the zoo as Dee and I walked out and past them. No one looked our way. They all had their own problems to worry about and their own jobs to do; we were just so much moving background noise. I walked smoothly but with the appropriate amount of hesitation as I passed the place where I knew the body had been found, trying to mirror the normal responses of a human male in my situation. The last thing I wanted was for someone to remember me in this moment, or to remark upon my behavior as having been in any way odd.
The upbringing I shared with my sisters didn’t make us monsters, any more than someone like Dee or Chandi was inherently a monster. It just instilled us with a different set of priorities and responses. The man I was pretending to be, Dr. Alexander Preston, had probably never seen a dead body. He worked with his snakes all day and went home to a normal life, a normal world, one that didn’t have anything nasty lurking in the shadows. I was normally pretty good at pulling Dr. Preston across me like a mask, but here and now, I itched to examine the body for clues that might have helped me determine my next move.
Dee was parked across the lot from me. I paused before separating from her, asking, “You’re sure you remember the address?”
“I’ve got it,” she said. “You’re sure you want me to come over?”
