The Llama of Death Read online

Her usually pale face turned rosy red, but confident that God had her back, she soldiered on. “What’s going on over there is nothing decent God-fearing people should be subjected to, Teddy. Close that dirty place down!”

  “Pagans like zoos, too, so that would be religious discrimination, and the Ninth Circuit Court would make us open it right back up.”

  Her mouth moved a few times, but after no sounds emerged, she scuttled back to her booth, where Elvin Dade sat with his head in his hands. I’ll say this for Elvin; he was an idiot but he was no prig.

  After that, I was left in peace to finish my decaf. When six o’clock rolled around I ambled across the town square to the jail, where I found my mother in high spirits.

  “I’m learning so much from these girls!” she enthused, motioning toward two other inmates visiting with their families. “Now I’m trying to, you know, pay it forward, give of myself.”

  “By teaching Demonios Femeninos how to do manicures? Why not tell them to go back to school and get a degree? In law, preferably, seeing as they’re having so much trouble with it.”

  “Proper grooming is the pathway to success, Theodora, something it wouldn’t hurt you to remember. Just look at you. Baggy shirt, baggy shorts, unbecoming boots, hair a mess. When’s the last time you had a mani-pedi?”

  “Since I lived with you, probably, which was when? I forget.”

  “I don’t. It was when you came running home with your tail between your legs after Michael left you for another woman.”

  “Thank you so much for reminding me of that happy time.” I took a quick look around to see if other jailhouse visitors were enduring the same humiliations. From their expressions, many were.

  “Furthermore, Theodora…”

  About five minutes into her recital of my many shortcomings—no one can catalogue them like a mother—I stopped listening. I wanted to tell her Dad was back in town and pining to see her, but I didn’t dare on the chance the jail’s visiting areas were miked and videotaped. At the slightest hint that San Sebastian County’s biggest crook hid out right next door, so to speak, a flotilla of deputies would pile into their cars and tear toward Gunn Castle with sirens a-howl. I was also loathe to tell her that Elvin Dade was still trying to pin Victor’s murder on her because it would make her crazier than she already was. Instead, I merely sat there nodding my head like a bobble head doll until she wound down.

  “So remember that next time you dare to criticize me!” she finished up.

  “Duly noted. To bring up a sore subject again, it might be a good idea to cool it with the social consciousness bit until they cut you loose.”

  “I’m only exercising my right to free speech, which is guaranteed under the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

  “It’s the First Amendment, actually. The Third is the one that says we don’t have to quarter soldiers in our homes if we don’t want to.”

  “There you go again, Theodora, correcting your elders.”

  Did my youth-obsessed mother just refer to herself as an elder? If so, she must have been more upset about being in jail than she’d led me to believe. Maybe all that “Arise and revolt!” stuff was simply a front for her terror.

  “I’m sorry, Caro,” I said, meaning it. “You’re right. Freedom of speech is covered in the Third Amendment.” It sort of was, too, since we had the right to yell “Get the hell out of my house!” every time the Marines tried to bunk down in our master bedrooms.

  Once I began agreeing with my mother’s every pronouncement, the tension between us faded away. Nodding along gave me plenty of time to think about what my father had said to me in the Gold Bedroom: You’re more like me than you realize.

  He was wrong.

  He had to be.

  ***

  When visiting hours ended, a mollified Caro and I blew goodbye kisses through the Plexiglas barrier. She returned to her social work with Demonios Femeninos while I crossed the street to San Sebastian Liquors to pick up a bottle of Gunn Vineyards’ midlist chardonnay. Not for myself, but as an entree to Bambi’s cocktail party aboard the Runaround. I arrived back in Gunn Landing Harbor a half hour later, fed everyone, then took the dogs for a quick walk.

  Due to a southerly wind, the harbor was warm this evening, no jacket required. Hot nights usually didn’t roll in until July or August, but the temperature couldn’t have been below seventy. The fog held off, too, so as Bonz, Feroz, and I walked along the fence that separated the parking lot from the docks, we passed several boats where liveaboarders sat on deck enjoying this rare respite. Once the dogs did their business I took them back to the Merilee, grabbed the chardonnay, and headed to the north end of the harbor.

  Bambi’s party was still going strong. The Runaround’s deck was packed elbow-to-elbow with liveaboarders, Sunday sailors, and even a few landlubbers. Since the festivities had begun in the morning and it was now well after eight, people who weren’t flat-out drunk were at least buzzed, but Bambi acted sober. Odd, given her reputation as a hard-partier. After beckoning me onboard, she accepted my proffered chardonnay with a tight smile. Up close I noticed that her eyes were red. Maybe she’d had more to drink that I thought.

  “Considering everything that’s happened, I’m surprised to see you, Teddy,” she said, over the noise of a boom box blaring a Lady Gaga classic.

  My own smile felt as insincere as hers looked. “Despite our differences about a certain sixteenth century queen, neighbors have to get along. So. Welcome to Gunn Landing Harbor, and may all your barnacles be little ones.”

  “What’s a barnacle?”

  Another landlubber. “Nothing to worry your pretty little head about since your Runaround has a fiberglass hull.” But I wasn’t fibbing about the “pretty” part. Bambi’s body resembled that American icon, the Barbi doll. Her string bikini revealed most of her famous breasts, tiny waist, and impossibly long legs, but the frown lines bracketing her mouth made her look older than the age she admitted to.

  She gestured toward an ice-filled cooler. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks. Say, Bambi, what do you know about Victor…?” My attempt at quizzing her was cut short by Frank Turnbull, an attorney who specialized in family law. More than a bit overweight, he bore a startling likeness to yet another icon—Santa Claus. With a quick apology to me, he grabbed her around the waist and led her in a creaky fox trot to “Born This Way.”

  Biding my time, I plopped myself down on a deck chair, only belatedly recognizing the man next to me as Dr. Willis Pierce. “I thought you didn’t like noise, Willis.”

  “My Caliban’s berthed right next door and it’s not soundproof. The harbormaster came by an hour ago and told everyone to keep it down, but you see how well that’s working.” He shrugged. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Macbeth, Act II, Scene III.”

  At my expression, he added, “Just kidding. It’s from A Streetcar Named Desire. Ha ha, kidding again. But how about you? What are you doing here this lovely evening? Don’t try to convince me the noise was bothering you, because your Merilee’s berthed at the other end of the harbor and you couldn’t hear a cannon fired from here.” His face assumed a sly look as he lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. “Oh, I know. You’re detecting.”

  “And here I thought I was being subtle.”

  “Better leave the detecting to the experts.”

  “Experts like Elvin Dade?”

  He laid a light hand on my shoulder. “Teddy, this is a real, honest-to-God murder case, not The Mousetrap. Excellent play that, by the way. We performed it five years ago and sold out every seat. The thing’s evergreen, so I’m considering scheduling it next semester. What do you think?” Not waiting for my answer, he hurried on. “As I was saying, you shouldn’t do anything re the late lamented Victor Emerson that might put you in the line of fire.”

  “Given
Caro’s situation, there’s no other choice. Elvin’s still determined to pin Victor’s murder on her, and with Joe away…”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He looked glum, but let the subject drop.

  We sat in companionable silence, sipping cheap wine, listening to Lady Gaga and watching people who should know better fling their half-naked bodies around the deck. Given the confined space, the amount of liquor flowing, and the number of folks perched precariously on the gunwales, I half-expected someone to be knocked overboard. An hour later, that still hadn’t happened. Around the time Gaga was replaced by Usher, we were joined by handsome Yancy Haas, the stuntman who jousted as the Black Knight. A former San Sebastian resident, he had once dated Bambi, too. Come to think of it, who hadn’t? He didn’t flinch when she returned Frank Turnbull’s booze-fuelled attentions, but after remarking on the surprisingly warm night, he managed to get in a dig on Bambi’s current choice of suitors.

  “She’s obviously not into Frank for his looks,” Yancy sniped. “Can you believe that whale is wearing a Speedo?”

  Willis snickered. “When a whale has money, it wears what it wants.”

  And they say women are catty.

  Sitting on the gunwales were more people I knew including, surprisingly, Deanna and Judd Sazac. When I had talked to Deanna earlier in the day, she accused Bambi of having an affair with her husband, yet here she was, partying on Bambi’s boat.

  Dancing next to the so-called whale I spotted fellow zookeepers Phil and Deborah Holt, who lived with their five-year-old daughter on the Flotsam, a ratty houseboat they had built themselves. The two had been married at Victor’s wedding chapel with a Burmese python serving as Best Man and a pygmy goat for Maid of Honor. This set me to thinking about Joe, and our as yet unscheduled wedding. Winter? Next spring? Maybe we should wait until next summer so I could be a June bride. Running off to Vegas like Joe preferred to do sounded tacky to me, but when I had floated the idea of marrying at the zoo he balked.

  “Teddy,” he’d said, as we snuggled on the Merilee the night before he left for Homeland Security, “not that I don’t love all those animals, because you know I do, but if we get married within two hundred miles of Gunn Landing, Caro will demand to do all the planning herself. Frankly, the idea terrifies me. Since my father started off as a farm laborer, she’s not crazy about having me for a son-in-law, and I’m afraid that given her devious ways, she’ll find a way to sabotage the ceremony.”

  Seeing his point, I had curtailed the wedding discussion to snuggle some more.

  Yancy’s chuckle startled me out of my mental trip down Lovebird Lane. “Hey, Teddy, who are you thinking about? Moi, perhaps? Willis? Nah, must be your handsome Sheriff Joe. You’re positively glowing.”

  “Wool-gathering, that’s all. Say, Yancy, weren’t you camping out at the Faire when Victor was killed?”

  He nodded. “Me and about a hundred other medieval riffraff. For the duration of the Faire I’m sharing an RV with Billy Harris, the little guy who plays Sir Bedevere. We trailered our horses over together.”

  “Did you see anything suspicious that night?”

  He glanced at Willis, who merely shrugged. “Why are you asking, Teddy? Oh. This is about your mother, isn’t it? Poor woman. That judge is a creep, doing that to her. Sorry, I didn’t see or hear anything, and neither did Billy, I expect. We’d invited a couple of wenches over, and as a result were rather, ah, busy.”

  “Which wenches?”

  “I don’t wench and tell.”

  The look in Yancy’s eyes told me more questions weren’t welcome, so I turned my attention to Bambi, who had finally escaped Frank Turnbull’s pudgy clutches, and was headed our way.

  After giving me a conspiratorial wink, Willis stood and offered her his seat. “Perhaps the lovely mademoiselle wishes to take a load off.”

  I smelled expensive perfume, something more overt than my mother’s Je Reviens. Bambi still had lots to learn before she matched Caro. Good old Willis, for all his trepidation about my poking into the murder, had delivered her right into my hands. As Usher’s sexy baritone stopped in mid-phrase, replaced by tween idol Justin Bieber, Bambi sat down.

  “That should cool things off for a while,” she said, nodding toward the boombox. “If this thing turns into an orgy, which is the way it seems to be headed, the harbor master’ll throw us all in the brig.”

  “Other than that, how’s it going?” I asked.

  “Frank Turnbull just asked me out on a date.” She wiped at her red eyes. Allegies?

  “You go, girl. Not to change the subject, but did you see anything unusual the day Victor Emerson died?”

  She sniffed. “You mean like your mother sulking around like a spoiled child? Not that that would be unnatural for her. What a prima donna.”

  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. “Besides Caro.”

  “I dunno. There was a lot of freaky stuff going on. Women with no boobs trying to look busty.” She stared hard at my flat chest, then continued. “Makeout sessions between monks and female pirates behind the privies, lepers tripping over pigs…”

  “Besides that. Something really unusual, even for a Renaissance fair.”

  “You mean like Deanna and Judd Sazac screaming at each other near Ded Bob’s RV?”

  “They’re known to argue a lot.”

  “This was no argument. Deanna hauled off and slapped Judd so hard it knocked his sunglasses off. He was getting ready to hit her back when Ded Bob popped his head out of the RV and told them to put a sock in it.”

  “Ded Bob’s a ventriloquist’s puppet.”

  “He still told them to shut up.”

  “Could you hear what they were fighting about?”

  “Some woman, I think. Not that it had anything to do with me.”

  Of course not. “Victor Emerson officiated at their marriage, didn’t he?”

  Another sniff. “He married just about everyone in San Sebastian County.”

  I pointed to the Judds, who were dancing very, very close. “They look quite the happy couple now.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.” She took a tissue out of her bra and blew her nose.

  Once she’d finished, I asked, “Did you hear or see anything else? Other than the Sazac’s scream-fest? And the slap?”

  “Nosy, aren’t you, Teddy. Nah, that’s about…No, wait. There was something…Something…” She frowned, trying to concentrate. It looked painful. “I remember now. Before I headed back to San Sebastian after the Faire closed—you won’t catch me sleeping anywhere near those nasty RVs, especially not Ded Bob’s—I saw poor Victor talking to someone behind the Royal Armory. He looked angry.”

  “Who was he talking to?”

  “I couldn’t tell. The guy was in the shadows. I mean, I think it was a man but I can’t be sure because it was someone wearing a black cloak with a hood.”

  “One of the Keegans, perhaps? They both dress like Goths, and they run the Royal Armory.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry. Look, not that this hasn’t been nice and all, chatting like we’re old friends when we’re really not, but I need to get back and change that tweeny-bop crap for something adult. John Legend or Sinatra, maybe. Can’t let anybody get knocked overboard, can I?”

  Her hostessy concern arrived too late. I heard a shriek, then a splash. “Man overboard!” someone bawled.

  By the time I made it through the crowd to the gunwale, Willis and Yancy were already hauling a waterlogged but smiling Frank Turnbull out of the greasy harbor water.

  He’d lost his Speedo.

  Chapter Eight

  Frank Turnbull’s dip into the harbor signaled another visit from the harbor master. This time she brought the Harbor Patrol along with orders to clear the boat, so that was the end of that. At least no one was arrested, jus
t humiliated.

  It was after ten when I made it back to the Merilee, but from the greeting I received from Bonz, Feroz, and Miss Priss, you’d think I’d been gone a week. After playing with them a while, I fired up my laptop to find out more about Victor Emerson, real name Glenn Reynolds Jamison. Thanks to Google, it was plenty.

  On March 5, 1983, a young Jamison robbed a convenience store in Henderson, Nevada. When a customer tried to intervene, what had up until that point been a fairly peaceful armed robbery—if there is such a thing—went fatal. The customer, one Nicholas French, swung a six-pack of Diet Coke into Jamison’s cheek. Jamison’s .45 automatic went off, striking the customer in the mouth. The doctor who performed the autopsy said the man was dead before he hit the ground.

  Jamison ran outside where a dark-colored car waited with its engine running, but before he could climb in, a nearby group of teenagers tackled him. The getaway car drove off, leaving Jamison behind. He eventually took a plea deal to escape the death penalty, but steadfastly refused to name his accomplice. Twelve years later he escaped from Ely State Prison by hiding in a laundry truck. A nationwide manhunt ensued, but although he was said to have been spotted in states as far-flung as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Missouri, he was never captured.

  Now Jamison—a.k.a. Victor Emerson—lay dead on a slab, some other murderer’s victim.

  After learning all this, I might not have cared who killed Victor because his victim had been only twenty-four when he died. Nicholas French had only been picking up Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips and Diet Coke for his pregnant wife. As far as I was concerned, Victor reaped what he had sown, albeit belatedly.

  I stared at the image on my laptop. A young, clean-shaven man stared back from his booking photo. Other than the reddish-blond hair, the photograph looked nothing like the Victor Emerson I knew, but thirty years will make a big difference in a person’s appearance. Victor’s face rounded out when he packed on the pounds, and his hairline receded. When I squinted my eyes and paid attention to only the features, the resemblance became apparent. In Glenn Reynolds Jamison’s mug shot I could see Victor Emerson’s piggy eyes and his almost-feminine cupid’s bow mouth.