Faye Kellerman - Predator

“Tiki wasn’t chained up?”

“Oh … so when you came over to visit, Penny chained her up?” Decker asked.

“At first, she was chained up … for sure.” Vignette thought a moment. “Slowly we started to trust each other until we both felt comfortable being around each other. Tiki’s a very gentle soul. Not much of the wild in her.”

“So she got used to your presence?”

“Yeah, pretty quickly, too. We used to knock her out before I gave her the shots so she wouldn’t realize that someone was hurting her. You always take a chance when you knock a big animal out. Even if they remain healthy, when an animal comes out of anesthesia, it’s always unpredictable.” Again Vignette seemed lost in thought. “Hobart had a collapsible cage in the closet. Maybe Tiki was caged when the murderer came in.”

“We didn’t find a cage in the apartment. She did have about a six-foot-long chain around her neck.”

“The chain makes sense.” A pause. “Maybe Penny got rid of the cage. Initially we used it so I could give Tiki her shots. Then she got wise to us—that the cage meant shots and she wouldn’t go in. That’s when we started to knock her out with drugs.” Vignette sighed. “She never held it against me. She’s just a real nice tiger.”

“But she’s still a tiger.”

“Yes, of course. But even among wild animals, there are different dispositions.” She hesitated. “Was it a robbery? He didn’t keep a lot of stuff in his apartment.”

“From our observations, I would agree with you.”

“Who on earth would want to hurt an old man?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“Talk about wild animals.” The woman shook her head with woe. “I’ll take my beasts over your beasts any day of the year.”

The descent seemed faster than the ascent: standard in travel as well as in life. Decker hardly remembered driving down the mountain, each twist of the wheel on autopilot as his brain fired one idea after another, none of which would explain why Global Earth Sanctuary had anything to do with Hobart Penny’s death. As soon as the car hit the bottom of the foothills, his Bluetooth sprang to life.

Marge’s voice. “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last half hour. Where were you?”

“Out of cellular reach,” Decker told her. “What’s up?”

“Hobart had an interesting past, more than the usual sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It seems our guy liked to go to sex clubs all over the country, dressed up like a tiger and screw women from behind.”

Oliver added, “Sometimes it was a lion or a leopard … just for variety’s sake.”

Decker glanced at Gabe. The boy had his head tilted back with his eyes closed. He appeared to be lost in his music. “Who told you this?”

“The ex,” Oliver said.

“And you believe her?”

Marge said, “We found the snapshots in a few leftover boxes in the storage wing of Sabrina Talbot’s house.”

“Storage wing?”

“Yep. Her house is big enough for an entire storage wing. The bigger question is why she kept the pictures. She certainly didn’t need them for blackmail. Sabrina Talbot is filthy rich.”

“Filthy, filthy rich,” Oliver added.

Marge said, “Sabrina told us that in the recesses of Hobart’s mind, he actually thought he was a tiger in a man’s body. Sabrina said it got to the point that when they screwed, he used to claw and bite her on the neck.”

Oliver said, “Then she came across pictures of Hobart fucking young girls, all of them in tiger masks. Even with that, it still took her a year to make the divorce final.”

Decker shot a quick look at Gabe. The teen still had his eyes closed but was doing something to the volume of his iPhone. Decker said, “Turn that thing up.”

“What thing?” Marge asked.

“I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to Gabe.”

Gabe opened his eyes, a slow smile spread on his face. “Excuse me?”

“What’s Gabe doing with you?” Marge asked.

“I’ll explain later.” To the boy, Decker said, “Stop eavesdropping.”

“You’re talking very loud.”

Decker said, “Let me call you back.”

Marge said, “When will you be back at the station house?”

“About an hour.”

“Okay. We’ll see you then.”

Decker was about to sign off. Then he said, “How old were the pictures?”

“Penny looked to be in his fifties. The pictures were Polaroids. ’Memba them?”

“I do. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You never told me what Gabe is doing there with you.”

“Sorry you’re breaking up.” Decker cut the connection.

Gabe took out his earbuds. “What’re Polaroids?”

“Not important.”

“I can look it up on my iPhone.”

Decker said, “Way back in the Pleistocene era, before mankind as we know it went digital, you took pictures with film.”

“I know that.” Gabe was offended.

“Polaroid camera delivery system was a way to instantly print out pictures. It meant you didn’t have to take your rolls of film into the drugstore to have them processed and turned into pictures, which usually took around a week. Later they came up with photo shops that could turn your film around in twenty-four hours. And then those went out when digital went in. But Polaroids were good because of privacy: no one would see your pictures unless you showed them around.”

“Ah. So you could take like porno shots and not be worried about it.”

“Yes, you could and yes, people did.” Decker smiled. “You can always tell what new technology is going to take hold. If it has potential for pornography, it’s a winner.”

Gabe smiled. “I know I shouldn’t have been listening, but if you want to find out about sex clubs, you should talk to Chris.”

“It was over thirty years ago. Chris was around six.”

“So you’re saying that a kinky old man hasn’t been to a sex club in thirty years?”

“He was almost ninety when he was murdered.”

“So? He was rich, and there’s Viagra. You should see some of the relics that my dad caters to.” When Decker didn’t answer, Gabe said, “Besides, my dad owes you.”

“He doesn’t owe me.”

“He dumped me on you and Rina.”

“You got a bullet in your ribs under my watch. I owe him.”

“That’s only because you were doing him a favor in the first place.”

“Maybe at first, I was doing him a favor. Maybe now, he’s doing me the favor.” Decker gave him a gentle whack on the back of his head. “I appreciate your thoughts. They’re good ones.”

“I’m just sayin’ …” The car was quiet. “Do you want to hear what Everett James had to say about Global Earth Sanctuary?”

A quick glance to the boy. “You’re just full of information.”

“With a father like Chris, you learn to listen a lot.”

“You’re just a little ole fly on the wall, aren’t you?” Decker laughed. “What did you and Everett James talk about?”

“He does the accounting for the sanctuary pro bono. Ninety-nine percent of what we talked about was accounting. Basically, he told me how much money it takes to maintain the animals. When he heard about the old guy’s death, Hobart Penny, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Penny is an odd name for a gazillionaire.”

“Irony abounds.”

Gabe smiled again. “Everett did say that it was gonna be hard to keep the place going without Penny’s checks. Even with Penny’s donations, the place would get behind in their payments.”

“Payments to whom?”

“He didn’t specify, but he did say that the sanctuary got some of the food gratis: the meat in particular. You know, hamburger beyond the expiration date but probably still good to use. But even so, tigers and lions had big appetites. Also, many animals had very specific dietary needs. And then there were all the supplements and vet care. He asked me if I wanted to make a donation.”