I’d swear I could see steam coming out of his ears. “He was putting the moves on my girl. And what the hell are you wearing a dress like that for? Do you know what it makes you look like?”
“A tart. Mrs. Wexford-Smythe already told me. You look good, too, in that new suit.”
That stopped him. “I do?”
“Good enough to get you somewhere alone so I can…”
“
Theodora Esmeralda Iona Bentley!
” Caro bore down upon us.
I gave her a big smile. “Joe was just telling me what a lovely party this is, weren’t you, Joe?”
“If you say so.”
Caro drew herself up in a belated attempt at dignity. “While I’m happy that you are enjoying my party, Sheriff, we can’t have Theodora neglecting the guest of honor, now, can we?”
“The hell we can’t,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.
“I’m happy you agree, so I’m going to march her right back over there. In the meantime, if you must stay, why not mingle? There must be someone here who enjoys tales of cops and robbers. Theodora’s friends from the zoo, for instance. Or those—what are those people called?—
liveaboarders
down at the harbor.”
With a studiedly blank face, Joe said, “I was just about to get myself a ginger ale. Talk to you later, Teddy.” When he made a beeline for the bar, only Caro’s grip on my arm prevented me from following.
Bronson’s eyes danced with mischief when Caro hauled me back to him. “Ah, the lovely lady of the manor returns with her dutiful daughter.”
“I know you’ll take good care of her, Ford,” she cooed. Her voice took on a grittier tone when she said to me, “Don’t you dare leave his side, you naughty girl. Trying to make our guest of honor jealous like that!”
This time Bronson laughed outright. “Girls will be girls, won’t they, Mrs. Petersen?” Then he winked at me.
He obviously understood my situation, so I winked back.
Caro noticed, but ever hopeful, misinterpreted the exchange. “Well, how nice! I’ll leave you two love birds alone now.” Throwing a triumphant smirk at Joe, she sailed off into the crowd.
“She’s rather obvious, isn’t she?” Bronson chuckled.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Under Joe’s watchful eye we chatted until Mrs. Wexford-Smythe, herself the mother of a divorced daughter spotted the guest of honor and headed his way.
“Buckle up your chastity belt,” I warned. “She’s worse than Caro.”
Upon reaching us, Mrs. Wexford-Smythe immediately began to extol the charms of her daughter, whom I knew to be a spoiled college dropout who, ten years later, remained unemployed because she was trying to “find herself.” Zoning her out, I began to pay more attention to the conversations around me.
To my right, Aster Edwina loudly congratulated herself on quadrupling the Bowling for Rhinos raffle ticket sales in a single day. “By the time of the drawing I wouldn’t be surprised if sales jumped to the high five figures.”
“That all-inclusive African safari for two is quite a draw,” the Mayor said. “Did you by any chance bring any tickets along, Aster Edwina? I’d like to try my luck.”
When Aster Edwina said that she, by chance, just happened to have an entire roll of tickets, several hands delved into pockets and handbags, Senator Harrison Hedley Grainger’s among them. After all, he was going to have a lot of free time in the future.
Behind me and just in front of the hors d’oeuvre table, Zorah was telling the zoo staff about an upcoming memorial for Kate. “We’ll have it at the zoo, but the actual internment will take place in Oakland, not far from her father’s nursing home. Teddy drove up there this morning and visited with him. Apparently he didn’t make much sense—Alzheimer’s, you know—but at least she was able to come away with some papers Kate left there.”
A collective murmur of sympathy spread through the group.
On the opposite side of the table, several denizens of Gunn Landing Harbor were huddled together. They were also talking about death, but the subject this time was Heck, not Kate. “Why did I let him stay by himself that night?” Linda moaned to the Grimaldis. “I knew something wasn’t right.”
“I don’t understand,” said Doris Grimaldi.
“Don’t you remember what Heck said about Kate’s father? That Tyler…”
Suddenly a woman’s strident voice pierced the air. “Why, you
bitch
!”
The string quartet stopped in the middle of “Memory.”
I turned to see Robin Chase, her face swollen with anger, push Myra Sebrowski. Myra pushed back. Robin lost her footing and fell onto the hors d’oeuvres table. Caviar splattered, and capers rolled. As Robin tried to struggle to her feet, she clutched at the front of Myra’s dress, pulling her down on top of her. With that, the fight was on.
Zookeepers don’t fight like most women. Instead of such relatively harmless endeavors as scratching, biting, and pulling hair, they slug. Myra landed a hard right to Robin’s cheek. Robin retaliated with an uppercut to Myra’s jaw. Both then punched each other in the nose. Myra’s aim proved superior to Robin’s, because blood spurted at the moment of contact.
The blood flow didn’t slow Robin down. As the two rolled around on blood-spattered paté de foie gras, she gouged at Myra’s eyes, yelling, “I told you to stay away from him!”
The table, never designed to hold both a full spread of hors d’oeuvres and two full-grown, fighting females at the same time, gave a sharp crack and collapsed onto the floor. Prosciutto-wrapped figs and crab bruschetta flew everywhere.
The entire room, silenced at the first curse, erupted into shrieks and shouts.
“Stop them!”
“They’re killing each other!”
“Somebody call 9-1-1!”
“My beautiful table!”
“Is this great or what?”
Joe, Bill, Bronson and I reached the struggling women at the same time. Pushing me aside, Bill leaned over and hauled Myra up by the hair, tearing her away from a death grip on Robin’s neck. “What ya think yer playin’ at, ya silly sheila?”
Hearing the contempt in Bill’s voice, all the fight went out of Myra and she began to cry.
Joe helped Robin up a bit more gently and passed her over to me. “Hang onto her and don’t let her anywhere near that other one. I have to call this in.”
Robin, as stunned as Myra, began to weep, too. “Dy node. I dink id droden.”
As Joe reached for his cell, Caro rushed toward him. “No, you don’t! I absolutely forbid it!”
“You can forbid all you want, Mrs. Petersen, but I’m getting a squad car and an ambulance down here right away. Ms. Chase needs medical attention.”
“You can’t…”
“Shut up.”
Caro’s jaw dropped in shock. “How dare you speak to me like that, Sheriff!”
“That’s my title, all right, and you’d be wise to remember it.” With that, he turned to Myra and informed her that she was under arrest.
“But she hit me first!” Myra blubbered. Her pretty pink dress was smeared with food.
“That was a shove, not a hit. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll be arresting Ms. Chase, too. Just as soon as she’s released from the hospital.”
At the sound of Myra’s voice, Robin began to struggle in my arms. Since she was covered in caviar, capers, and curried eggs, some of it rubbed off on my red Valentino. Oh, well. I hadn’t liked the thing anyway.
“Hold still, Robin,” I said, looping one arm around her waist and the other around her neck, the standard hold for a recalcitrant howler monkey. “If you bump your nose, you’ll just make it worse.”
“Da ditch dook Dill daday dud de,” she said, which I translated as
The bitch took Bill away from me
.
Deciding that even the sight of Myra would serve to keep Robin infuriated, I frog-marched her down the hall into the powder room and leaned her against the sink. “Breathe through your mouth. I’m going to clean you up.”
Robin gave me a wild-eyed look. “Dutch dy node ad I dit doo!”
“Hit me and I’ll hit you back. On your nose.”
The threat, which I would never have carried out, settled her down enough for me to wash the blood and food off her face. It would not only make things easier for the Emergency Room physician, but would also return some of the dignity she’d lost in the brawl. Despite the tension between us, I recognized real heartache in Robin’s eyes, and I knew from my own experience how deeply it hurt to be passed over for another woman.
“He’s not worth it,” I told her, the standard comfort on such occasions, but which in this case, had the added benefit of being true.
“Id too.”
“Id not.”
She stared at me for a moment, then managed a weak grin. “Doan do dock de.”
“I’m not mocking you, Robin, I’m sympathizing.” After giving her face a final pat with the washrag, I blotted her dry with a guest towel. “Bill doesn’t have it in him to be faithful to anyone. Before you, there was Kate. After Myra, there’ll be someone else. And another, and another, etcetera.”
She sniffed. “Den Id ad ass.”
“When it comes to love, we’re all asses. Now, can I trust you to go back out there without trying to kill anyone?”
“Des.”
“Promise?”
“Dodise.”
My arm around her more for moral support than anything, we exited the powder room just as the ambulance arrived, trailed by a squad car. I handed Robin over to the EMTs. She gave me a grateful wave as they trundled her off on a stretcher.
The next group to leave was a handcuffed but struggling Myra Sebrowski, two deputies, and my boyfriend, looking official.
He didn’t wave goodby.
I was loading up Caro’s dishwasher when an early morning phone call from Zorah informed me that while both Robin and Myra had been released on their own recognizance, Robin’s broken nose meant that she wouldn’t make it to the zoo until noon, and even then, wouldn’t be feeding the big cats.
“No point in letting the cats smell human blood and get ideas,” she said. “She’ll be working with the hoof stock for a couple of days. In the meantime, you’re taking over the ocelots.”
“Who’s getting the other cats?” I asked.
“Myra gets the lions, and if one of them eats her, that’s fine with me. Bill’s taking the rest of the cats, which means you’re back on Down Under duty.”
I almost cheered, then remembering Caro’s black mood—she was sitting across from me at the breakfast table reading the account of last night’s party on the Mean Streets page of the
San Sebastian Gazette
—kept my glee to myself. “I’ll get to them as soon as I finish with the giant anteaters.”
“Teddy?” Zorah sounded hesitant.
“What?”
“Uh, considering the circumstances, should I send your mother a thank-you note? You know, for the party?”
I glanced at Caro, who after putting the newspaper down, looked as if she was planning a murder: mine. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“First your father, now you,” Caro said, as soon as I hung up. “I’m getting tired of this family being mentioned in the crime reports. By the way, I’m billing you for the damage.”
“Of course you are.”
She shook the paper at me. “Your friends are hooligans!”
“Unlike Senator Grainger, for example?”
“At least he didn’t create a scene in public.”
“He might, once the Ethics Committee gets through with him.”
“Theodora, the very least you could do is help me finish cleaning up. Since Grizelda worked so hard setting up for the party, I gave her the day off. But…” She motioned toward the wreckage in the other room. “Even though I just called and humiliated myself by begging her to help out, she turned me down flat, saying something about taking her grandchildren to the zoo. As if that could be more important than this.”
Good for Grizelda. “Unfortunately, I’m expected at work within the hour. You can forget this evening, too, because I’m pulling registration duty at Bowling for Rhinos. Tell you what. Considering the fact that two of my coworkers started the fight, I do feel a bit responsible, so I’ll foot the bill for Maids R Us.” At Caro’s continued glare, I added, “Oh, all right, I’ll pay for the table’s repairs, too. By the way, before Ford Bronson left last night, he told me he couldn’t remember a more fun party. He meant it, too.”
With her mood considerably brightened, I left.
It being a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon, the zoo was crowded. Families wandered by the various enclosures, fascinated by some animals, bored by others. Observers were three deep at Lucy and Little Ricky’s enclosure. Baby Boy Anteater showed promise at matching Lucy’s stardom when he lifted his snout and snaked out his long tongue toward the crowd, making them ooh and aah. The ocelots were strutting their stuff, too. Smaller than leopards, yet every bit as wild, the mated pair prowled the perimeter of their enclosure, snarling and snapping at one another like an old married couple.
By ten o’clock I’d worked my way to Down Under, where Wanchu and Nyee were both sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Neither looked up when I tied fresh eucalyptus browse to their trees. Like the koalas, the wallabies were napping, too, although Abim did rouse himself enough to hop over, possibly in hopes I would sing a few stanzas of “Waltzing Matilda.” Being a pushover for big brown eyes, I indulged him.
I had just finished the first chorus when he gave a start at some noise and fled. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Robin’s zoo cart headed toward us. She was such a fearsome sight with her two black eyes and nose splint that I was tempted to flee, too, but once she braked, she lifted both hands in the universal sign of harmlessness.
“Thank you for taking care of me last night,” she said, her voice trembling. “I can’t apologize enough for my behavior.”
Anxious to smoke the peace pipe myself, I exited the enclosure and walked up to her cart. “These things happen at parties.” But rarely at Old Town’s parties.
Sniffling, she handed me an envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Some money toward the furniture repair bill. I’ll give you more as soon as I get paid.”
Knowing how little zookeepers make and how much the banquet table would cost to fix, I gave the envelope back. “In case you didn’t notice, Robin, my mother’s loaded, and fixing the table won’t put so much as a blip in her budget.” I’d already promised to pay for the table myself, but didn’t tell Robin.