so close to her that their elbows touched.
“There’s nothing you or anyone can do. My life is over.” Her tone was dull.
Fearing Jeanette was at risk for suicide, I put my arms around her and began to list all the beauties remaining in the world: sunrises, sunsets, birds, otters, the Pacific lapping at Gunn Landing Beach. I babbled on until she pushed me away.
“You are every bit as crazy as Aster Edwina says you are. I don’t care anything about that stuff— you do.”
At least she was talking. “Tell me what you care about.”
“Grayson.”
“Besides him.”
She lowered the ice bag to her temple, then grabbed the gin bottle by the neck and took a long drink. Ever the polite hostess, she held it out toward me. “Want some?” When I shook my head, she took another slug and set it back down. “What do I like? I never really thought about it. Well, I like winter. There’s not as much ragweed then. Ragweed kicks up my migraines.”
“Winter, good. How about skiing? You like to ski.” Oops. Before they’d become so insular, she and Grayson used to ski St. Moritz every winter. “What else?”
“Horses?” She picked some lint from her pink peignoir. “Grayson and I rode together every morning until their dander started setting off my migraines.”
Noting that she had always been a bit plump, I tried something else. “How about Lobster Newburg? Beef Wellington? Fritos?”
“Lobster Newburg was Grayson’s favorite dish. He wasn’t a beef person. And he said Fritos had too much salt, that they weren’t good for me.”
It was hopeless. She referenced her husband at my every suggestion, so I decided to just go ahead and ask my questions. “The night of the fund-raiser, why didn’t Grayson come back to the castle with you?”
Her brain was so muddled with grief that she actually answered. “He said he needed to talk to the zoo director about something so I drove home alone. Difficult as that was. You know I always liked to have him with me.”
She was as dependent on Grayson as he was on her. More so, lately. “The conversation with Barry Fields couldn’t wait until the next morning?”
She screwed up her blotched face, which made her look plainer than ever. “He said it couldn’t wait. Something he’d heard about, the…what was it? Oh, that independent vet study. He’d just received a copy of the preliminary report.”
I failed to control my gasp. Fortunately, she was too far gone in her misery to notice.
After several high-profile animals, including two red pandas and three Asian elephants, had died at a high-profile zoo, some of the more radical animal rights groups had begun lobbying for all zoos to close down and return their animals to the wild. The fact that most zoo animals are born in captivity and could not fend for themselves did not sway them. The radicals believed that as soon as animals smelled fresh African tundra or pure Amazon River water, instinct would take over and they would revert to type.
More likely, the animals would starve to death.
But I didn’t judge the radicals harshly because sometimes they had a point. A necropsy proved that the red pandas died from rat poison which accidentally made its way into their food, and that the elephants, although elderly, probably would have lived longer if they’d been given larger quarters and a better exercise regimen.
In a bid to counteract the ensuing bad publicity, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association had asked several zoos to open themselves to inspection by a committee of independent veterinarians from the National Academy of Sciences. To our horror, the Gunn Zoo had been chosen as one of them.
For several weeks, it seemed no one could go anywhere in the zoo without tripping over a vet collecting feces or staring up some mandrill’s snout. Like my fellow keepers, I had breathed a sigh of relief when they finished their study and left, but now we were all waiting for the other shoe to drop: their report.
I
“There’s nothing you or anyone can do. My life is over.” Her tone was dull.
Fearing Jeanette was at risk for suicide, I put my arms around her and began to list all the beauties remaining in the world: sunrises, sunsets, birds, otters, the Pacific lapping at Gunn Landing Beach. I babbled on until she pushed me away.
“You are every bit as crazy as Aster Edwina says you are. I don’t care anything about that stuff— you do.”
At least she was talking. “Tell me what you care about.”
“Grayson.”
“Besides him.”
She lowered the ice bag to her temple, then grabbed the gin bottle by the neck and took a long drink. Ever the polite hostess, she held it out toward me. “Want some?” When I shook my head, she took another slug and set it back down. “What do I like? I never really thought about it. Well, I like winter. There’s not as much ragweed then. Ragweed kicks up my migraines.”
“Winter, good. How about skiing? You like to ski.” Oops. Before they’d become so insular, she and Grayson used to ski St. Moritz every winter. “What else?”
“Horses?” She picked some lint from her pink peignoir. “Grayson and I rode together every morning until their dander started setting off my migraines.”
Noting that she had always been a bit plump, I tried something else. “How about Lobster Newburg? Beef Wellington? Fritos?”
“Lobster Newburg was Grayson’s favorite dish. He wasn’t a beef person. And he said Fritos had too much salt, that they weren’t good for me.”
It was hopeless. She referenced her husband at my every suggestion, so I decided to just go ahead and ask my questions. “The night of the fund-raiser, why didn’t Grayson come back to the castle with you?”
Her brain was so muddled with grief that she actually answered. “He said he needed to talk to the zoo director about something so I drove home alone. Difficult as that was. You know I always liked to have him with me.”
She was as dependent on Grayson as he was on her. More so, lately. “The conversation with Barry Fields couldn’t wait until the next morning?”
She screwed up her blotched face, which made her look plainer than ever. “He said it couldn’t wait. Something he’d heard about, the…what was it? Oh, that independent vet study. He’d just received a copy of the preliminary report.”
I failed to control my gasp. Fortunately, she was too far gone in her misery to notice.
After several high-profile animals, including two red pandas and three Asian elephants, had died at a high-profile zoo, some of the more radical animal rights groups had begun lobbying for all zoos to close down and return their animals to the wild. The fact that most zoo animals are born in captivity and could not fend for themselves did not sway them. The radicals believed that as soon as animals smelled fresh African tundra or pure Amazon River water, instinct would take over and they would revert to type.
More likely, the animals would starve to death.
But I didn’t judge the radicals harshly because sometimes they had a point. A necropsy proved that the red pandas died from rat poison which accidentally made its way into their food, and that the elephants, although elderly, probably would have lived longer if they’d been given larger quarters and a better exercise regimen.
In a bid to counteract the ensuing bad publicity, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association had asked several zoos to open themselves to inspection by a committee of independent veterinarians from the National Academy of Sciences. To our horror, the Gunn Zoo had been chosen as one of them.
For several weeks, it seemed no one could go anywhere in the zoo without tripping over a vet collecting feces or staring up some mandrill’s snout. Like my fellow keepers, I had breathed a sigh of relief when they finished their study and left, but now we were all waiting for the other shoe to drop: their report.
I
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