“Film away,” I said. “And make it as much of a tearjerker as possible—the poor helpless animals, orphaned by the savage murder of their protector, abandoned to the mercies of anyone generous enough to volunteer to care for them.”
“Sounds much more interesting than the protest,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just use the SOBs as local color in a report on the plight of the animals. I think I’ll head over there now.”
“You’re not staying to lunch with the protesters?” I asked.
“I’m not much on tofu and bean sprouts,” he said, grimacing. “And Shea gets on my nerves after a while. A really short while. See you later.”
“Oh, one more thing,” I called after him. “Is Shea his first name or his last name.”
“First,” the film student said. “Or maybe middle. He goes by Shea Bailey. Sounds more like a fancy restaurant than a name to me. You checking up on him?”
“Why, you know any dirt on him?”
“No,” he said, handing me a card. “But if you find any...” “I’ll keep you in mind,” I said.
He returned to his car and drove off a minute later. I glanced over at Shea and the other protesters. Most of them seemed to have eaten, but now they were lying about, sipping their water and enjoying the sunshine. Perhaps they were waiting for an other news crew, or another, more sympathetic passerby, to renew their demonstration.
“Are we going into the zoo now?” Eric asked.
“I think we should come back when they’re not here,” I said, indicating the protesters. “We don’t want them following us in and spoiling our visit, do we?”
Eric shook his head. I started the engine, managed a tight three-point turn without squashing any demonstrators, and headed home.
I was tempted to try sneaking into the zoo by a back way. There were a couple of dirt roads that looked promising, but since I had no idea where the zoo property began, I decided not to wander off into the woods yet. Better to find a map.
“You want to go to the library for story hour?” I asked Eric. The Caerphilly Library had a nice collection of county maps.
“That's for little kids,” Eric said, wrinkling his nose. “I’d rather go back and see what new animals we’ve got.”
So I went by the house to drop off Eric. Call me an uncaring aunt, but I hoped he’d be disappointed. However, a lot more cars had arrived during our unsuccessful scouting expedition to the zoo. Most of them probably belonged to relatives, showing up much earlier than expected, but there might be a few disgruntled animal foster parents in the lot.
As Eric ran off to inventory the livestock, I spotted Mother through the living-room window. From her gestures, I deduced that she was still giving orders to her volunteer movers. I decided to sneak in the back door for a cold drink before setting out again.
As I strolled around the side of the house, I found myself wondering if the relatives held a solution to the animal problem. Surely given the hosts of family members who’d be showing up today, tomorrow, and Monday, we could find a few willing to foster the various animals until the future of the Caerphilly Zoo was assured. Especially if I got Mother to talk them into it. For that matter, knowing my family, odds were I could find permanent homes for many of the animals if I just— “Mwah-ha-ha!”
I jumped as a sinister black-cloaked figure leaped out from behind a hydrangea, baring long, bloodstained fangs and flexing fingers armed with impressive clawlike fingernails.
“I vant to drrink your blood!” he intoned in a deep, guttural voice.
“Oh, very impressive, Dr. Smoot,” I said. “I see you and Rose Noire are working hard at overcoming your phobia. How's it going?”
“Very well, thank you,” he said, in a more normal voice. He grinned, which looked peculiar in a face painted fish-belly white, except for a few streaks of flesh color where he’d rubbed the makeup off scratching his nose. And he had trouble talking through the fangs without lisping. “I confeth,” he went on, “I thought it wath a crathy idea at firtht, but I’m really thtarting to get into it. It’th—very empowering.”
“That's good,” I said. He not only lisped—he drooled slightly. I started to sidle away, hoping to avoid hearing much more. It always made me nervous when people in therapy wanted to tell me about their psychological problems. Wasn’t that one of the main reasons for doing therapy—being able to talk over your problems confidentially with a trained mental health professional? Someone whose first reaction wouldn’t be, “Whoa, he's a few ants short of a picnic”—or at least someone with a vested interest in not blurting it out loud. If just talking to any old passerby would help, why do therapy?