Never Sorry: A Leigh Koslow Mystery by Edie Claire

a mortal enemy, even one with macabre tendencies. The idea of a serial killer being in their midst, however, was too disturbing to contemplate.
    Tanner looked distinctly uncomfortable. "We'd better get started, Charlie," he said evasively.
    The keeper nodded and led them down the narrow corridor that ran behind the exhibits. "I got him by himself in the back. He ain't too happy about it."
    Leigh leaned in close to Tanner as they walked. "Why would Frank be questioning him ?" she whispered.
    Tanner looked back at her, and his eyes seemed sad. "He's questioning everybody Carmen worked with. He's been here all morning."
    Leigh found that revelation comforting. Carmen had to have enemies—plenty of them. Frank was merely ferreting them out. That was, after all, the logical way to find the real killer. And she hoped he succeeded—soon.
    The corridor widened out into a small U-shaped room that surrounded a cage made of steel bars. A door with a sliding gate connected the cage with the public part of the exhibit, a ten-by-twelve-foot concrete run with a front wall of glass. Ollie, the two-hundred-pound patriarch of the zoo's orangutan collection, took one look at Tanner and began to snarl and grunt frantically. He retreated to the far corner of the cage, his eyes shooting daggers at the hated vet.
    "That's the trouble with intelligent animals," Tanner said sadly. "They remember you." He loaded the anesthetic into the blow dart and aimed. The orangutan's cries escalated in pitch, and he covered his head with his long arms. "Watch out," Tanner warned Leigh, behind him.
    "Why?" she asked playfully. "I thought you had good aim."
    "I have great aim," he answered proudly. "But Ollie's not half bad either."
    Leigh put herself on alert. Tanner shot the dart with a puff of air, and it landed in the muscle over Ollie's left shoulder. With an ear-piercing screech, the orang pulled out the dart and flung it straight back towards the vet.
    Luckily, Tanner and Leigh had both ducked, and the missile collided harmlessly against the wall behind them, its needle bent from the force of the impact. "Get that, would you?" he asked.
    Within a few minutes, the indignant orangutan lay sleeping peacefully, and Charlie opened the cage door to let them inside. "I got the extension cords ready, Doc," he offered.
    Leigh plugged in two pairs of electric clippers, and she and Tanner went to work. It was a messy business. In the absence of normal wear and tear, Ollie's coat grew unusually long, and personal hygiene was not high on the old ape's priority list. Leigh shaved off huge mats of stiff, fecal-coated orange hair, happy she had remembered her gloves. Tanner watched the ape closely to make sure he was deep enough under, and Leigh worked fast—having no desire to be nearby when a perturbed Ollie started coming out of it.
    Fifteen minutes later, they were almost finished. Charlie swept away the vile piles of hair while Tanner got on ground level to attack a stubborn mat under Ollie's chin. Leigh watched him. Tanner was the kind of guy she'd always wanted—intelligent, sweet, fun-loving, handsome. And for whatever reason, he seemed fond of her. Few men did, and they were always the ones she wasn't interested in. But with Tanner, everything seemed to be going right. It was scary.
    With an evil gleam budding in her eyes, she put her arms under Ollie's armpit and levered the huge, limp arm above Tanner's toiling form. She then lowered it just enough that the orangutan's long, dangling fingers brushed the vet's cheek. Tanner sat up like a shot, eyes wide, and Leigh burst out laughing.
    "You're a sadist, you know that?" he chided good naturedly. He picked up a shock of filthy hair and threw it at her. "Get to work, you!"
    When the job was done and a trimmer, cleaner Ollie was starting to stumble around, Tanner and Leigh headed back toward the hospital. On the way, the vet pulled her off the trail into the wooded area beside the aquarium and led her to a bench.