I glanced over and saw Spike. Someone had tied his leash around a pillar, and he had pulled the leash taut, straining to get closer to Salome’s cage. He seemed oblivious to anyone else in the room.
“Anyone goes near her, he barks his head off,” the keeper said. “Freakin’ weird if you ask me, but not my problem.”
Salome lifted her head again, and when he saw her move, Spike began straining even harder and whining pathetically.
“And what happens if the knot slips, or he breaks the leash?” I asked.
“Beats me,” the keeper shrugged. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you had had him fixed.”
“He’s been fixed,” I said. “This is as good as it gets.”
“She probably wouldn’t eat him, anyway,” he said. “Too much fur. She hates getting fur stuck in her teeth, especially for so little meat. So, I hear you found the old dragon’s body. Why didn’t you tell me when you were here earlier?”
“Is it just me?” I said. “Am I too hung up on appearances? Or doesn’t anyone else think maybe it might be a good idea not to seem all that cheerful about Miss Wynncliffe-Jones’s death? Just while the police are hanging around looking for a murderer and all.”
The keeper shrugged.
“Way I see it, they’re probably more apt to find it suspicious if you walk around moping as if you’d just lost your best friend,” he said. “Nobody liked her; some of us are just as happy she’s dead; and the rest aren’t all that upset.”
He might have a point, I thought. But I felt like playing devil’s advocate.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Do you mean to say you don’t think anyone will be upset by her death?”
“Well, Caroline Willner, my boss. She won’t be pleased, but it’s not as if you could call it upset. And I’m definitely not upset. At least now Salome is safe.”
“Safe? How?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not likely a dead person’s going to buy her, is it?”
“The QB was the private owner buying Salome?”
“Yes,” he said. “Can you imagine?”
I made a noncommittal noise and wondered if he realized he had just added himself to the suspect list. My suspect list, anyway.
“The woman had no understanding of what’s involved in keeping a big cat,” he went on. “No real interest in Salome. She just wanted to keep her in a cage in her garden to impress her guests. You can’t do that with an animal that’s been socialized by humans. If you suddenly deprive them of any real contact with people, it traumatizes them. The mental anguish can make them psychotic and violent.”
Way to the top of my suspect list. But I had to admit, as Salome turned her inscrutable golden gaze in my direction, that if he turned out to be the murderer, I’d feel a lot more sympathy for him than I would for some of the others.
I had a hard time believing that anyone would have killed the QB because of creative differences over Porfiria scripts, comic books, or even the whole TV show. Not that I doubted that it might have happened, but if it did, I’d never really understand the murderer. Financial motives I could understand a little more easily—misguided people often killed for gain, or in a desperate attempt to prevent a loss. But if Salome’s keeper genuinely believed that she would be mistreated in the QB’s hands, and could find no other way to stop the sale—that I could understand. Maybe not condone, but understand.
I heard a voice from the doorway. Maggie West.
“I just want to look in here for a minute,” she was saying, popping out from the tangle of vines.
“Miss West!” the keeper exclaimed.
“Hello, Brad,” she said. “How’s she doing today?”
“Just fine,” he said.
“So you like tigers, too?” she said to me, smiling.
“From a respectful distance, yes,” I said.
She laughed, and walked up to Salome’s cage. Salome padded eagerly over to meet her and began rubbing her head against the bars. Spike barked a couple of times, and then returned to whining. Some watchdog.
“Oh, that’s a pretty little girl,” Maggie cooed.
“Little?” I echoed.
Maggie laughed.
“She’s on the small side for an Amur, even for a female,” she said. “What does she weigh, Brad? Maybe two hundred and fifteen pounds?”
“Only a little over two hundred,” he said.
“There, you see?” Maggie said. “I’ve got two big boys at home who are easily three times that.”
“You have two tigers?” I said, looking at Brad to see how he felt about this revelation.
“Eleven, actually,” she said. She reached in and began scratching Salome’s head.
“Miss West runs an animal sanctuary,” Brad explained, “Jungle West.”
“Miss West!”
An Amazon guard was peering into the room, apparently unwilling to enter.
“Yes, I’m coming,” Maggie said.
Brad, the keeper, watched with adoring eyes as Maggie ducked under the trailing vines and left the room.
He didn’t seem to notice when I followed her example—after first checking the knots holding Spike’s leash and reassuring myself that he was in no danger of getting loose.
Chapter 25
As I passed through the lobby, I saw people clustered around the closed door of the hotel restaurant. Shouldn’t it be open for lunch by now?
I pushed closer, and saw a sign taped to the door: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Below that, in bright red letters, someone had added, “BY ORDER OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT.”
The fans were already responding to the health department’s action, in a variety of ways. Several rude remarks in felt-tip pen already graced the margins of the sign. A few people were organizing parrot-and monkey-catching squads. A few more were organizing fast-food runs. And most were milling around, grumbling.
“I was getting to like the animals,” I heard one fan say.
“Yeah, only I was thinking we should have more of a variety next year,” another replied.
“And bigger ones,” a third suggested. A murmur of general approval followed. I made another entry to my growing mental list of reasons to avoid next year’s Porfiria convention. Assuming there even was a next year’s convention.
I headed for the dealers’ room. Not that I expected much to happen there. The only vendor doing much business was the enterprising owner of the Undiscovered Treasures booth, who’d bought a case of cheap, brightly colored umbrellas and was selling them as “parrot-sols.”
I’d begun to regret taking the booth. Of course, when I’d signed up for it, I hadn’t expected having a murder to distract me and, more important, my potential customers. Maybe business would pick up later in the day, but for the moment, when the convention-goers weren’t in panels, they were out in the lobby and the halls, watching the reporters outside, trading rumors, and getting underfoot whenever the police tried to do anything. Judging by the crowds that followed him, Detective Foley was fast becoming one of the most popular guests at the convention, though he wasn’t going to stay popular if he kept refusing to autograph programs.
I found Harry from Blazing Sabers loitering near the booth, talking to Steele.
“Chris said to remind you that we’re doing another demonstration tonight,” Harry said. “Doesn’t look like we’ll get much rehearsal time, so we’ll just do the same bit as yesterday.”
“Do they really think anyone wants to see it twice?”
“Why not?” he said, shrugging. “Twice is nothing; this crowd’ll watch the same Porfiria episode twenty times and come back for more.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” I said. “Hey, sign my nephew’s program, will you?”
“Sure,” he said, taking the pen I handed him and flipping neatly to the center spread. “I love these things; only time I ever get asked for my autograph. Of course, from what I hear, fans have started asking the police for their autographs now, so I guess I shouldn’t get too stuck up.”