Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

Dar sighed again. “I don’t know…” he said.

“Come on,” urged Syd. “You’ve seen the depositions from Dallas Trace and Constanza and that surviving Russian…”

“The one you saved with the belt tourniquet,” said Dar nostalgically.

“Yep,” said Syd. “Anyway, you’ve read their testimony. This fraud group—the Alliance—is even bigger than we thought. We’re going after the New York boys and girls next…and then the Miami area.”

“You don’t need me,” said Dar. There were police cruisers at the open gate to the zoo. The patrolman glanced in, saluted Dar, and waved them on.

“No, we don’t need you,” agreed Syd, “but now that this is a joint NICB/FBI operation, nationwide, it would sure be fun to have you along. Just try it for a year.”

“I hate handguns,” said Dar, turning in to the parking lot. He could see the Stewarts’ Isuzu Trooper parked by a coroner’s ambulance and five more police vehicles.

“You wouldn’t have to carry just because you’re on the task force,” said Syd. “Just stay home—wherever that will be—and work on your analyses and computer reconstructions while I’m out in the field. And then, in the evening, I’ll hang my shoulder holster on the headboard and we’ll make love before dinner—”

“You don’t wear a shoulder holster,” pointed out Dar.

“Damn it, Dar. You can be such a pain sometimes.”

Dar parked and they got out into the warm July air and began walking toward the distant glare of yellow accident-scene tape.

“Syd,” he said softly, “why didn’t you tell me that I almost fucked up the whole investigation for you guys?”

Syd drank the last of her coffee, tossed the cup in a receptacle, and looked at him. “The photos, you mean? And tracing the Russians’ phone number? It doesn’t matter, Dar. The photograph of Constanza that Lawrence used to identify Esposito’s killer was taken by the FBI guys in their observation post across from Dallas Trace’s place.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about that and—”

Syd touched his arm. “It doesn’t matter, Dar,” she said softly. “The defense could use that if it had been a real factor in the arrests, but they’ll never hear about the illegally taken photos or the phone number. The FBI got all the same stuff legally anyway—”

“But I almost screwed everything up…”

Syd stopped. Dar was surprised to find her smiling at him. “Look at it this way, Dr. Minor. Now you don’t have to testify in any of these trials…just send a few reconstruction videos to Lawrence. That means you’ll be free to head back east with the task force and me in August.”

“New York in August,” said Dar, realizing as he said it that he was deciding to go.

Syd squeezed his hand and they walked past the yellow tape and through the door to the large-animal enclosure where the police were gathered.

The zoo’s assistant curator was trying to explain. “Carl’s taken care of Emma for fifteen years…more than fifteen years,” she said between sobs. Her face was red and she kept wiping the mucus from her reddened nose. “Carl really loved Emma. He’s been so worried about her the last two weeks. Constipation in an elephant can be fatal, you know…”

“Emma’s the elephant,” confirmed Lieutenant Hernandez.

“Of course Emma’s the elephant!” said the assistant between sobs. She was wearing long, yellow rubber gloves. In the next enclosure, the elephant in question gave a trumpet that sounded as sad as Dumbo’s mother calling to her baby. “And now…now…they’ll probably have to destroy her,” said the assistant, her shoulders heaving with sorrow.

Hernandez patted the distraught woman on the back.

Lawrence, Trudy, Dar, Syd, and half a dozen uniformed police officers were gathered around the three-foot-high and seven-foot-long heap of elephant excrement. A pair of human legs protruded from the near end of the heap. The trousers were well creased and the same khaki green as the other zookeepers’ uniforms.

“It reminds me a little bit of that scene from the first Jurassic Park movie,” said one of the cops in soft but amused tones.

“It reminds me of the ‘Chuckles the Clown’ episode of the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, ” said another cop, hitching up his gunbelt. “What did Murray Slaughter say in that episode? Something like…‘We’re lucky nobody else died. You know how hard it is to stop with just one….’”

“That’s because Chuckles was dressed as a peanut in a parade when the elephant shelled him,” said the first cop. “This zoo guy wasn’t in a peanut costume.”

“No, but…” said the second cop, lamely trying to save his joke.

“Shut up,” said Dar. To the kneeling medical examiner, who so far had studied only the deceased’s feet and legs, Dar said, “When did this happen?”

“We think a little after midnight,” said the ME.

“And how could it happen?” asked Syd.

The medical examiner got to his feet with a groan. “Ms. Haywood there says that Carl—that’s Emma’s keeper here—had been worried about the elephant’s constipation for days. Evidently, last night about three hours after closing time, he mixed Emma a serious laxative mixed with oats and various grains. He overdid it on the laxative part, though.”

“Boy, did he,” said a third cop.

“Jesus,” said the youngest cop. “I’ve heard of projectile vomiting, but I’ve never seen a case of projectile—”

“Shut up,” Dar said again. All of the cops glared at him. They were having a good time.

Trudy was shooting photographs. Lawrence was measuring the long trail of dung. “Seven feet and eight inches long,” he said as if reading off skid marks. “Five and a half feet wide. A little over three feet deep in the middle.”

Dar went to one knee near the two legs protruding from the heap. Syd looked at him curiously. Dar touched the dead zookeeper’s polished shoe. “He must have been pushed backward hard enough to be knocked unconscious when his head hit the concrete,” Dar said dully. “Then asphyxiated. He probably just never regained consciousness.”

“Better for him, probably,” said the young cop with a grin. “Imagine having this on your record…”

Dar moved so fast that the young cop took two steps back and actually set his right hand on his pistol in alarm.

“I told you to shut the fuck up and I mean shut the fuck up, ” snarled Dar, his finger almost in the young cop’s eye.

The officer tried to show a smile of contempt, but the effect was spoiled when his lips quivered.

“No more pictures, Trudy,” said Dar. “Not yet. Please.”

Syd watched as Dar walked over to the sobbing assistant curator, borrowed her long, yellow gloves, came back to the pile of dung, and begin digging carefully, almost reverently, at the far end.

Dar was weeping silently. Tears coursed down his cheeks and his shoulders were shaking.

The cops looked at one another and then took several steps back in embarrassment. Lawrence looked at Trudy.

“Larry, would you give me that hose, please?” said Dar, his shoulders still shaking slightly. His fingers were visibly trembling in the yellow gloves.

“Lawrence,” said Lawrence, but he brought the trickling hose.

Dar used the water and his fingers to wash the dung off the dead man’s face as best he could. Syd stepped closer. The dead zookeeper had been a very handsome man, in his late fifties. His graying hair was short and curly. He looked asleep—more natural and simply at rest than most corpses laid out in funeral homes for public viewing. Dar ran more water over the face and gently brushed away the last of the dung.

“Ms. Haywood,” he said to the assistant curator, “what was his name?”