A man asked, “Why do you think it’s Chinese medicine? Seems to me more likely that it might be anti-zoo activists.”
Virgil said, “We’re looking at those people, but there’re not many of them, and whatever they say in their literature, they don’t have a record of doing things like this. They’re more likely to chain themselves to the entry gate. We think somebody did this purely for the payday. The only way there’ll be a big payday is if the animals are processed for medicine.”
There were a few more questions and some grumbling and Virgil finished by asking for tips at the BCA website: “There’s a click-on link at the top of the page that says, ‘Select a popular function.’ If you click on that, you’ll find a link called ‘Provide a tip.’ You can do it anonymously. Mention my name or the tigers. At this point, we’d appreciate any help we can get.”
Landseer took the microphone back and said, “We need to get this done in a hurry, people. If you know anything at all, or even suspect something, please, please call Agent Flowers or leave a tip.”
–
When everybody had shuffled out of the meeting room, Landseer asked, “What do you think?”
“Hard to tell. Not a lot of enthusiasm, but all I need is one guy who saw something,” Virgil said.
8
Virgil didn’t expect any immediate response to the tip line, so he got out the list of contacts that he’d gotten from Ho in Seattle.
One of them, Carolyn C. Monty-McCall, PhD, lived nearby, and he decided to go with her first.
He wasn’t very familiar with Apple Valley, other than having slid off a highway into a ditch the winter before, on his way to St. Paul after a snowstorm. The town turned out to be a pleasant and fairly standard middle-class suburb, quiet streets lined with trees, basketball nets beside the driveways, three-car garages everywhere.
Monty-McCall lived on Fossil Lane in an area where all the street names began with F, which Virgil found annoying, for reasons he couldn’t quite nail down. His nav system took him off 145th Street-perfectly good name for a street, in his opinion-onto Flora Way, then onto Freeport Trail, past Fridley Way, onto Flagstone Trail, down Footbridge Way, and then onto Fossil Lane. It all seemed unnecessary and maybe stupidly precious.
Monty-McCall had a two-story cocoa-colored house with yellow trim and a stand of paper birch trees in the small front yard. A discreet sign under a front window said, “Monty-McCall, PhD,” hinting that she might take clients-patients?-at the house.
She was home.
–
Virgil rang the doorbell, heard a thump, and a moment later, Monty-McCall, wearing a quilted and belted hip-length housecoat and turquoise-colored capri pants, came to the door and peered out at him. He held up his ID and she opened the interior door and through the screen said, “Yes?”
Virgil identified himself, told her that he was looking for the stolen tigers. “I’m told you have some expertise in traditional Chinese medicine, and we’re looking for contacts in that… er, community,” Virgil said.
“Well, I didn’t take them,” she said. She was a woman of average height, perhaps forty, with heavy dark hair and a single thick eyebrow that extended across both eyes.
“I didn’t think you did,” Virgil said. “I have a list of prominent experts on traditional Chinese medicine and your name was on that list. We have some questions about that, uh, community, and we’re looking for help.”
“I don’t know what I can tell you,” she said, “but I’ll answer questions. Come in.”
Inside, she pointed Virgil at a couch and asked, “You want a glass of white wine?”
“Can’t, thank you,” Virgil said. “I’m on duty.”
“Well, I haven’t had lunch, so I’m going to have one, if you don’t mind,” Monty-McCall said.
“That’s fine,” Virgil said. She went away to the kitchen, and Virgil took a furtive look around. Not much to see: a couple of commercial semi-abstract landscape paintings, one above the couch and the other on the wall near the entry, plus the couch he was sitting on, an easy chair, a coffee table, and wall-to-wall carpeting in pale green. The room was opaque, without real personality, and maybe, Virgil thought, by design, if she dealt with clients in her home.
–
Monty-McCall came back with a frosted beer mug and a bottle of white wine. “What can I do for you?” she asked, as she unscrewed the top on the bottle.
“All I got was your name… What kind of work do you actually do?” Virgil asked.
“I’m a psychotherapist with a subspecialty in traditional medicines,” she said. “These are not prescription medicines, but rather nutritive distillations, supportive potions that help clear the body of unnatural poisons. Not drugs.”
“Are any of them derived from animals?”
“Some, but nothing that would ever come from tigers, or rhinoceros horns, or anything like that.” She poured the beer mug full of wine. “Most of the animal-based tonics come from standard meat-processing plants, as I understand it. Some kinds come from suppliers of game meats and fur processors. The few that I use I buy premade, standard, brand-name things. I don’t actually get involved in any animal processing myself.” She took a long swallow of wine, as though she were drinking a Pepsi.
“All right. What I really need to know is whether you suspect any suppliers or manufacturers of the animal products of selling illicit products-like tiger or rhinoceros parts.”
“No, although I’ve never given it much thought. They’re all pretty commercial-there’s not a big demand for the products, so you have a few small retail suppliers nationally, most of them selling through the Internet. I know anecdotally that there’s a demand for some tiger products, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an underground Internet thingy that sold some of it. I do know there is a man here in Minnesota who collects bear gallbladders and ships them to China,” she said.
Toby Strait, Virgil thought. “I’ve heard about him and I’ve got him on my list to talk to,” Virgil said. “Do you know either a Dr. Winston Peck, MD, in St. Paul, or India Healer Sandra S. A. Gupti-Mack in Minneapolis?”
The corners of Monty-McCall’s mouth turned down and she said, “Where did you come up with those names? They can’t be on your expert lists-they must be suspects.”
Virgil leaned back. “I’d prefer not to say… but if you have any information?”
She’d already drunk half the mug of wine and now took another gulp and did a fake shiver as she swallowed. “Winston Peck is a creep. Believe me, I know. He did a seminar on traditional medicines, oh, five years ago, where we met. I was talking to him afterward, and one thing led to another, you know, and he asked me out. We went out a couple times… To cut it short, he’s a sex freak. I would have nothing to do with him.”
“Violent?” Virgil asked.
“Not… dangerously. He didn’t try to drug me or anything. He didn’t try to rape me. He’s simply creepy.”
“Do you want to define ‘creepy,’ or do you want to pass?” Virgil asked.