Chapter 3
THREE
Liam
When I walk out, Gabriel is talking to a young woman who looks just as confused as everyone else.
“That’s Greta,” Bill says, telling me that Gabriel must have asked the same question I did. “Can I ask what kind of detective you are?”
“Homicide.”
Bill slowly nods. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
I walk up to Gabriel. He’s deep in conversation with Greta, who evidently likes to talk using all of her emotions and both of her hands at all times.
“Yeah, we have five hyenas, and boy are they gluttons. But they kind of just wandered over and slowly chewed on the food I put out this morning like they were doing it just because it was there and not because they were hungry.”
“Has their pen been cleaned since last night?” I ask.
“With the chilly weather, we pull them in toward the end of the day and clean it as needed, so it hasn’t been cleaned at all today.”
“Can you send them in early, Greta?” Pat asks.
Greta shrugs. “Sure can do. I’d already wondered if the vet should give them a good look. They’re such handsome boys, but boy, oh boy, gluttons! And when gluttons don’t eat, there’s usually something wrong.”
“Would you have cleaned their pen tonight?” I ask.
“Honestly, probably not. It was cleaned yesterday morning. They have such a large area that we’d have waited on it, especially in this weather and with them only out for a limited amount of time.”
While we were talking, some techs from the department arrived.
I send them over to document and collect the knives and any equipment that could make such a clean cut.
They shoo everyone out of the area and set to work to see what they can find while Bill and the man who’d been pushing the cart stare at us and everyone else whispers about what might be going on.
Pat pulls us back outside and onto the golf cart.
She drives us over to the pen and takes us through an employee-only area before heading over to the door.
I watch as the hyenas trot through a small doorway that lets them into their indoor pen.
Pat radios to Greta who confirms that all of the hyenas are inside, and then she opens up the outdoor pen for us to enter.
“Do hyenas eat the bones of what they’re given?” I ask.
“Sometimes they do. Depends on how large of a bone it is. One of the males will eat anything he can chew on. Dens, wood, you name it. He’s been better since we started hiding the food and making him work for it.
He was caught in a trap, damaging his hind leg enough that he can’t be rereleased, so he’s with us now. ”
It’s a large area, but I’m prepared to walk it.
Before I do, I turn to Gabriel. “My theory is that the bones easiest for an amateur to identify as human are the bones in the head. So the killer decided to dispose of the head in a different way to avoid the possibility of those bones being discovered. I’m sure they didn’t expect that the bag would be opened on a necropsied animal that wasn’t having a private cremation. ”
Gabriel nods. “Since hyenas can consume bones, there’s a chance that the killer thought they would dispose of the evidence, or at least enough to clean up the following night once the hyenas were put away.”
“Right. We don’t know that this is the only area the body was tossed into, but there’s a high likelihood. See the camera there?” I ask as I point to it. A tree has completely obstructed the view of it, telling me that seeing into this area is probably impossible.
“Oh lovely.”
Gabriel stops in front of a bone and eyes it for a second before glancing at me. “Bone here, but it doesn’t look human. Let’s split off.”
I see another golf cart hurrying this way before it stops next to where Pat parked.
“Go see what she has. I’ll keep looking,” Gabriel says.
I head back to the gate where a woman with red hair is handing a stack of papers over to Pat before turning to me.
“Hi, I’m Lacey, I work in HR. The lady who deals with the scheduling is out today, so I broke into her computer and got what I could for you.
Wasn’t too hard; her password was her dog’s name,” she says.
“I’ve put a call into her but she’s not answering.
I wanted to verify what I could about the schedule.
I don’t have access to her program to see who clocked in and clocked out, sorry. ”
“This is very helpful,” I say. “Did the lady who does scheduling call in sick?”
“No. She just… didn’t show up. She’s not…” Lacey swallows hard. “Is she the one who…?”
I’m too busy looking over the names that mean nothing to me at this point to realize she’s near tears, so I’m a bit startled when I lower the folder and see them at the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry, what’s that?”
“Is it her? Is Nadine… dead?”
“No. It’s a male body. There aren’t any men who haven’t shown up, correct?”
“Everyone who was scheduled to work today is here,” Pat says. “I would…” She takes a deep breath. “I would be willing to look at a photograph to see if I recognize him.”
“Thank you.” I lift up the papers Lacey brought me before passing her a contact card. “Can you email me these?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. I’m going to send these to one of my coworkers. And then, Pat, we’ll talk about identifying the deceased.”
“Can I help you look in their exhibit?” Pat asks. “I can call a group of workers in here and we’ll have the place scanned in no time.”
I shake my head, trusting none of them at this point. I don’t believe anyone is innocent until they can prove it. “Thank you, but Gabriel and I will handle this part. What you could do is get a copy of this list and mark down everyone on it who has had training in butchering.”
“Okay.”
I return to the pen to join Gabriel, and when I get the email, I forward it off.
As I walk, I try to do some thinking. I’ve already met multiple people, but with a place like this, there are hundreds of them, and any one of them could have killed this man.
I feel like it has to have been an employee or someone who works the grounds for seasonal work.
It’s extremely unlikely that a guest did the killing since it would be more risk than it’s worth.
Yes, you have all of the equipment, but you have to go through so many locked gates to reach anywhere.
The person had to have known about the dead dog and when the crematorium picks up the bag. None of it fits for a guest.
The same goes for the victim. I’m sure men come to the zoo by themselves, but the likelihood is lower than with a group or family.
And there’s no family that just happened to forget a member and hasn’t said anything.
That’s not to say I’m writing anything off, it’s just that my focus is currently on those who are employed by the zoo.
“Figure out anything yet, Sherlock?” Gabriel asks as he starts making one of his passes back and passes me in the process.
“I figured out that you are mighty handsome.”
“You’re obviously quite focused, then,” he teases.
“Focused as they can get.”
“Sure, sure,” he says. “Lay it on me.”
“You lay it on me first.”
“My theory is that both the victim and killer are employees.”
I smile at him. “You are so sexy.”
“I knew you were thinking the same thing. It makes the most sense. We need to find someone to identify the body.”
“Pat volunteered, but she looks a bit… weak.”
“I bet her eyes work even when she’s weak,” Gabriel says.
“She gives me the creeps, Gabriel.”
“Oh lord. Why does she give you the creeps?”
“Just look at her… so eager to help,” I comment as I eye the woman still standing at the fence line, freezing just in case we need something. Instead of going back to her office to make the notes I’d requested, she’s doing it out in the cold. “Helpful people creep me out. I bet she’s the killer.”
“You are ridiculous,” Gabriel says as I grin at him. “Did you receive a picture of the head?”
“Still waiting on Matthew. He’s rather slow. Is that why you like him? Because if we were ever facing off with a bear, you know you’d outrun him?”
“Yes, that is exactly why I like Matthew… in case I run across a bear… you know… in this area that has no bears.”
“I assumed as much.” Right on cue, my phone beeps and I get the picture.
Matthew did a good job of making it not look too grotesque.
There’s no severed neck blatantly on display, so I assume Pat will be able to handle this picture alright.
So when I finish my pass, I head over to her.
“Are you prepared to identify the body?” Although… there’s not much body in this case.
“Yes, please, I would love to get you a name if I can.”
I show her the picture which she stares at for a long moment.
“He’s not one of my employees, but he looks familiar.
I can almost bet he works with the company that fixed the lights.
They’ve been here almost every day this week.
After that big wind over the weekend, they’ve been trying to repair things, but the big Christmas tree was giving us fits. ”
“Are any of them here today?”
“No, they finished yesterday. Let me call their supervisor and get him in, though, okay?”
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” she says.
I head back out to help Gabriel, who’s squatting down to look at something. I hurry over to see what he’s found.
“I’m not seeing anything apparent, but they sure do have a lot of holes,” I observe.
He runs a gloved hand over a freshly filled one.
“So you let the hyenas pick the body clean, eat what they’d like, and then you put them away, collect the bones and bury them.
But where? It’d probably be risky to take the bones to another exhibit to hide them, right?
But aren’t you at risk of the hyenas digging them up here? ”
“Let’s get a cadaver dog out here,” I say.
“I’ll call for one, but who knows how quickly we can get it out here.”
I wander back to the entrance with Gabriel and turn to Pat. “How hard is it to let the hyenas in and out?”
“Not hard at all. This lot is very easy to work with. You want them back out?”
“I do,” I say. “I want to see if they are overly interested in anything out there.”
She shrugs and tells Greta to turn them back out, and within moments, the hyenas come trotting out.
They go and search a few areas, likely expecting food to be waiting for them, before most of them head over to a rock that’s in the sun to sprawl out on.
While they’re busy resuming their naps, one goes out to one of his many holes and begins digging.
He’s very fixated on the spot and as I walk along the fence line, I realize that I can relate to that fixation.
That desire to reach something no matter what it costs.
“Can you put them back away?”
“Sure,” she says, and soon their doorway opens. It takes the banging of a bowl of food to snap the remaining hyena out of it, and he trots back to the door and disappears through it. Only after Pat checks are we allowed back inside.
I head over to the hole and stare down into it before kneeling.
“Guess we don’t need the dog after all,” Gabriel says as I carefully brush some dirt away from a very thin bone that’s been shattered.
“Sure don’t.”