The Penguin Who Knew Too Much(49)

“Possible future charges,” I said. “And temporary charges at that.”

Blake barked his staccato laugh and strode off.

“Where are you going?” Eric called after him.

“To inspect the lagoon,” Blake said. He turned around and fixed his hawklike glare on Eric. “Want to see if Patrick got all the animals out of it or if he left a few alligators behind?”

“Alligators?” Eric echoed. “Meg, can we go see the alligators?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to take the time, and I wasn’t in the mood to spend more time in Blake's company. But I had just led Eric into serious danger, and I felt guilty about it.

“If you’re too busy, he can come with me,” Blake said.

I liked that idea even less.What did we really know about Blake? Quite apart from the usual worries one would have about entrusting a child to a stranger, Blake seemed to care more about animals than people. If the alligators were starving and saw Eric as a tempting tidbit, would Blake find their point of view reasonable?

“Aunt Meg, can I go see the alligators? Please!” Just then a solution appeared.

“There you are.” My brother walked around the corner of a nearby building. “Hey, Meg, what are you doing here?”

“Like Dr. Blake, I’m investigating,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“He drove me out here,” Blake said. “Confounded doctors took away my license two years ago. Don’t see how they expect a body to get around without a car.”

“Please,” Eric whined.

“Yes, Eric, you may go with your uncle Rob and Dr. Blake to see if there are any alligators in the lagoon,” I said. “And your uncle Rob will bring you safely back afterward.”

I glared at Rob, attempting to communicate that I expected to get Eric back without any bite marks or missing parts.

“Alligators!” Rob said. “Cool!”

“Come on, then,” Blake said. He strode off, with Rob trailing after him. Eric started to follow, then turned back and frowned. “Aunt Meg? It was really weird what happened with Spike.” “What do you mean?”

“I had to go, so I found the bathrooms—they’re down by the lion's cage. That's why I went down there. And I didn’t think I should take Spike inside, so I tied his leash really tight to a railing. And while I was inside, he started barking, and I went out and he was gone. And I’m pretty good at knots.”

“You think someone untied him?”

Eric shrugged.

“I don’t know, but it sure was weird,” he said. “And I could hear him barking, and I followed the sound, and he was already down in the cage. How do you suppose he got down there?”

“Through the bars.”

“Yeah, except there's this screen—I guess it's to keep little kids out. I didn’t think he could jump high enough to get over the screen.”

“Never underestimate Spike's ability to get himself in trouble,” I said. “After all, he thought there was a lion in there. He probably jumped higher than he’d ever jumped in his life!”

Eric thought about this for a second, then smiled.

“Yeah, I guess he was in a hurry to fight the lion.come on, Spike.”

He turned and ran off, with Spike scampering along beside him. I returned to the lion's cage and examined the fence. Yes,

there was a heavy wire screen covering the bottom three feet of the fence. Unlike some parts of the zoo, the screen was in good repair—I could find no holes or gaps in it.

So there was no way Spike could have fallen in by mistake. And although I’d pretended to think it possible, to reassure Eric, I also didn’t think Spike could possibly have jumped over the wire screen, even with the promise of a lion on the other side. And how had he managed to fall so far without hurting himself?

Someone had deliberately put him in the lion's cage.

Though I often joked about strangling Spike, the idea of someone actually trying to harm him sent me into a cold fury.

Of course, it might not have been Spike they wanted to harm. Anyone who knew us or had been spying on us might have guessed that Eric would try to rescue Spike—and would certainly have expected me to go in after either of them.

Suddenly the day didn’t seem nearly as warm and bright, and the silence and emptiness felt ominous.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I muttered. Throwing an eight-and-a-half-pound dog into a cage was one thing. Tackling me was quite another.

I’d ask Rob later how he came to be separated from his passenger, and whether they’d seen anyone else at the zoo.

For now, I decided to retrace my steps to the car.

On my way, though, I scoped out the area near the lion's cage—the last part of the zoo I hadn’t inventoried. Apparently this was where Lanahan had kept his more dangerous guests. I found the spotted hyenas’ cage. It didn’t make me feel one bit fonder of them to know that their names were Winken, Blinken, and Allan. I found myself closing the door to the cage marked “Bobcat (Felis rufus): Lola.” Lola clearly wasn’t there, but it still made me nervous, seeing the door to her former lair hanging open.