Zero at the Bone

By Mary Walker

WINNER OF THE AGATHA AND MACAVITY AWARDS FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery

In Mary Walker's Zero at the Bone, Katherine Driscoll is just three weeks away from disaster: foreclosure on her home and dog training business, even the sale of her beloved golden retriever, Ra. She has no hope of raising the $91,000 she so desperately needs--until the father she hasn't seen for thirty years writes to her, offering her enough money to solve her problems...if she will do one thing in return.

But Katherine may never learn what that is. When she arrives in Austin, she is hours too late: her father has died in a bizarre accident at the zoo where he worked. As she sifts through the cryptic notes he left behind, she finds herself caught up in terrible family secrets--and a deadly illicit trade. The more she learns, the more determined she becomes to prove her father's death was no accident. In doing so, Katherine will make a bitter enemy--one desperate enough to kill...and perhaps, kill again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Apr 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781466893436

Book preview

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Copyright

For my father, a lifetime devotee of the

fine art of reading in bed

Several of Nature’s People

I know and they know me

I feel for them a transport

Of cordiality.

But never met this Fellow

Attended or alone

Without a tighter Breathing

And Zero at the Bone.

—EMILY DICKINSON

Prologue

THE pointman waited until dusk to take the hunk of rotting meat out of the toilet tank where he had hidden it three days before. Raising the dripping bag, he caught a whiff of spoiled meat through the plastic. Yes, three days in the heat was perfect for aging a beef brisket to just the right putrescence. Lucky this place smelled so bad no one had noticed the stench.

He tied the bag to the left side of his belt to balance the one on his right and padded to the lavatory door. He eased the door open and looked through the gathering darkness over Bird Lake, past the huge brick reptile house toward the Phase II section. Amazing how quiet this place was with visitors locked out and animals confined to their holding cages for the night. He preferred it like this. Only he, the pointman, was at large, free finally to do what had to be done.

A quiver of pleasure rippled from his scalp to his toes. This first one was going to be so easy. Too easy. After the years of anticipation, the act itself might not be enough.

No matter. Pleasure wasn’t the point. Justice was the point. He had been training for this all his life and now, finally, the time was right. Nothing could go wrong. The time was auspicious—he liked that word—auspicious. It made his mouth water with anticipation for what was coming, the work of the night and dawn.

He stepped out into the open. The night watchman—that plump, pale, grinning fool—would be sitting at his station sipping coffee from his stainless-steel thermos. No sweat. No threat.

Wearing only black Reeboks, black spandex pants, and a black jersey, he moved soundlessly along the path. His good-luck piece, which had never failed him, even in the most desperate times, swayed on its cord under his shirt, stroking his chest, its scales catching a hair occasionally, like the caress of a woman with jagged fingernails.

As he neared the carnivora complex he sniffed the air, trying to separate Brum’s smell from the rest of the animal odors. A full hundred yards away, the sharp acidic scent filled his nostrils. Brum. It was the big male’s turn to spend the night outside. He would be ready. Just like the pointman, it was Brum’s nature to be ready for the kill.

Opportunity’s about to knock on your door, brother, he whispered, breaking from a walk into an easy lope. Approaching the high wire mesh fence that surrounded the quarter-acre exhibit, he spotted Brum, sprawled on his side, half-concealed behind an artificial boulder on the bank of the recycling stream.

As if he had been waiting, the tiger leapt to his feet and glided toward the fence on huge spongy paws. The last rays of the setting sun transformed each hair of his thick orange coat into a glowing electric wire. As he walked his nose seemed connected to the bag at the pointman’s waist by an invisible thread of scent. When he was a few feet from the fence, the tiger stopped and hissed through his yellowed fangs.

The pointman jumped the guardrail to approach closer to the high fence. Smell good, don’t I, Brum-boy? You ready for me? You better be. He pressed his palm against the fence and felt a ripple in his groin when the tiger rubbed his body along the other side of the fence, dragging his coarse fur against the pointman’s skin.

Seeing the tiger at twilight like this, against the backdrop of grass and trees and rocks, it was easy to imagine away the fence and picture Brum as a wild tiger. A solitary hunter in the forest at night. Senses honed by hunger, forced by the void at his center, the tiger would scent the prey and his stomach would shudder at the smell of warm blood pumping beneath thin skin. He would hold a crouch, listening, his small rounded ears twitching. Here the pointman laughed aloud, remembering he had read that Indonesian hunters shaved their nostrils because they were certain tigers could hear a man’s breath rustling through his nose hairs. He believed it. Brum would hear every breath, every blink, every tremble. And slowly, silently, eyes riveted on the prey, he would creep into range.

Then would come the best part, the part the pointman had imagined so often, asleep and waking. He saw it now: the cat launching his body into the air, hooking his claws deep into the flesh of the right flank, pulling the shrieking prey to the ground. And then … the tiger’s teeth knowing just what to do. Like a guillotine falling, his four yellowed saber teeth clamping shut on the throat, cracking the neck. Merciful and elegant. Maybe too merciful.

While the pointman stood dreaming, Brum paced the high fence, staring at the bag. When the man started to walk again, Brum glided along beside him, only thin strands of wire separating them.

At the door concealed behind the fake rock wall, the pointman reached inside his jersey for the cord around his neck. His good-luck piece. He pressed his thumb against one of the sharp fangs until a single drop of blood beaded up. Then he gripped the whole rattlesnake head in his fist and held it tight for a few seconds.

He pulled his keys from their secure place inside his pants and unlocked the door, his breath coming faster now. Inside the keepers’ area, he relocked the door, nodding at Brum’s empty holding cage.

His hand trembled as he unlocked the door to the tiny closet-sized room where it would all happen. He stepped inside and locked the door behind him. Good zoo procedure. Always.

He smiled.

Then he sat on the floor of the tiny room, his back propped against the wall, and studied the steel door leading out to the exhibit. It was several inches thick, locked and bolted, with an observation window at eye level. The window was made of heavy wire-reinforced glass, two and one-half feet square—just big enough—he’d measured carefully.

He sighed with pleasure and untied the two plastic bags from his belt. He worked out the knots in the first bag and reached in to pull out the brisket. The slimy feel on his fingers made him grunt and the stench prickled his sinuses. It was intolerable. Simultaneously he sneezed and heaved the offending bloody slab against the metal door. It hit with a smack and fell to the floor.

The pointman couldn’t hear him, but he knew for a certainty that Brum was there, right on the other side of that door, probably with his nose pressed to the crack underneath. Hungry, big boy? You cats like your meat at blood-heat, don’t you? Well, just wait and see what I have for you. It’s what you’ve been wanting all your life.

From the other bag, he took a pair of soft cotton gardening gloves, a piece of beef jerky, and a brand-new pair of wire-cutters.

With his front teeth he grabbed the jerky and pulled hard to rip off a piece. He could take his time now. He had all night and very little work to do.

He wanted to make it last as long as possible.

1

IT would be Higgins, that wretched pug, yipping his way into her dreams.

Through closed lids, Katherine Driscoll felt the first light filtering through the east window of her bedroom. If she kept her eyes squeezed shut, maybe she could regain that blessed state of unconsciousness for just a few more minutes.

But no. The other boarders were joining in now—first the ancient basset hound with her basso-profundo baying. Then Jack Reiman’s German shepherd with his wolflike howling, and then the rest, sixteen of them at last count, all joined the cacophony. And the peacocks from their roost on the kennel roof screeched their accompaniment.

She crossed her arms over her eyes and pulled her knees up tight. Always before, the entire eleven years she had lived in this house, she had relished getting up in the morning. She loved the rosy color of the early morning light. She loved feeding the animals and planning her schedule for the day. She loved being her own boss.

But not now. God, how could she cope with everything? The problems were too much. After all the years of coping alone, finally, just too much. Chaos was closing in on her.

She rolled over on her stomach and buried her head in the pillow. What was it she had been dreaming? If she kept her eyes closed and her mind empty, she might recapture one thread of it, and that thread she could grab on to and use to pull up the rest of the dream. If she could only have a few more minutes of peace.

Awake, there was that long list of dreads to face up to.

Listening to the edge of pain in Higgins’s incessant yapping, she allowed one of the minor dreads to float to the surface—Higgins. His owners, two elderly sisters who were her closest neighbors and best boarding customers, were returning from their annual trip to Europe. Today. They had sent Higgins a postcard from Rome promising to fetch him on their way home from the airport. There was a postscript for Katherine reminding her to make sure he got plenty of exercise.

Oh, God.

She could visualize their reunion now. The two hulking sisters would arrive in their yellow Cadillac, their faces puckered up, ready to ask if their little Higgins wiggins had had a nice visit with his Aunt Katie. But instead, they would look at their beloved pet in horror and demand to know what had happened to him. And then she would have to explain the bizarre business of the garbage bag and the beer bottle. They were going to be horrified. Well, could she really blame them? When they were paying twice the going rate for Higgins to have extra-special, personal attention.

Katherine groaned.

Now that she had admitted one of the demon-dreads, the others seeped under her eyelids with the morning light and began to swarm the inside of her head. Her body clenched in defense.

But then a single sound made the muscles relax and the demons flee: Ra’s nails clicking on the bare oak floor. Eyes still closed, she listened to the dog’s approach—the heavy breathing, the jingle of his tags; then his moist, pungent breath tickled her face and his cold nose poked into the hollow of her neck. She inhaled the warm earthy odor of him and reached out her fingers to bury them in his thick coat.

Finally she lifted her head and opened her eyes. Taking his head in both hands, she kissed the golden retriever on his long muzzle and swung her legs out to sit on the edge of the bed. He rested his head on her knees and gazed up with wide-set almond eyes. She sighed with pleasure at the weight of the big head.

Dual Champion Radiant Sunrise’s Amun-Ra—son of champions, sire of champions—need to go out for a tinkle, baby? she said.

In response, the dog lifted his head and pranced in place, his signal from puppyhood that he wanted to go outside. Katherine rose and padded barefoot toward the kitchen, with the dog high-stepping beside her.

She measured some coffee into a filter and plugged in the percolator. While she did it, she glanced out the window across the yard to the kennel—twenty-five rectangular dog runs under a long shingle roof. Her boarders were pacing their enclosures, impatient to be fed. Higgins, still yapping, was hurling his plump body against the chain link. Katherine hoped his stitches would hold.

She slipped her feet into a pair of old moccasins, opened the door for Ra, and went out after him into a clear October morning. The sun was already heating up; it would be a warm fall day, perfect for taking the new black Lab to the pond to work on some water retrieves.

She surveyed the pasture behind her house; the switchgrass was dotted with Viguiera goldeneyes and sunflowers. Even now she took pleasure in her isolation, her privacy, in not being able to see another house from where she stood. She loved going outside in the morning in her nightgown, working alone in tattered shorts, answering to nobody. It made all the sacrifices worthwhile.

The twenty acres surrounding the house, from the rural road to the west as far as the creek on the east, were hers, all hers, what she’d always wanted. A piece of Texas. A home she had worked hard to create for herself. And a business that had made her comfortably self-sufficient. Until last year.

When the dogs saw her approach, they began to mill furiously around their narrow enclosures. She called out to them. Okay, you beasts. Calm down. Breakfast’s coming.

She entered the shed at the end of the kennel and began to set out seventeen plastic feeding bowls. From a huge garbage can full of Science Diet Extra, she dipped varying amounts into sixteen of the bowls. First she put down a bowl for Ra, who had been dancing around her feet as she made the preparations. Then she delivered the food two at a time, opening the cage doors with her elbows, sliding the bowls in as she greeted each dog by name.

Higgins was last, since he was on a special diet that took some time to concoct. For him she mixed two cups of Canine CD Maintenance Life, for the older dog, a quarter cup of oat bran, a thyroid pill, two Ascription tablets crushed up for his arthritis, and some garlic compound for his coat—just as Hester and Judith had instructed. She turned her head away as she opened his door so she would not have to see the shaved gray skin with the long jagged cut in his rotund flank and the fifteen stitches the vet had used to close it. She rubbed his silky black ears without looking at him once. When Joe arrived, she’d ask him to apply the antibiotic salve to the wound.

As the dogs ate, she dragged the hose from cage to cage, filling the water containers, fortifying herself with the familiar routine. By then the cats, all four of them, were winding around her ankles mewing. She dipped into a smaller garbage can of dry cat food and spilled a tiny portion into each of their four bowls. This is all you get, guys. No complaints. The rest you have to earn yourself. Go out and catch those damned snakes the way you’re supposed to. And you, too, she called out to the pair of peafowl on the roof.

This comforting morning ritual over, she and Ra walked back to the house. When she heard Joe’s old Chevy pickup in the driveway, her stomach gave one huge churn. How was she going to pay him? She was already a week behind and he lived close to the margin. It wasn’t fair to keep him waiting. She had a responsibility to him.

The dreads were back in full force.

Can’t put it off any longer, can I, Ra? she said.

Well, she’d sit down and look at the numbers one more time. Maybe an idea would come to her, a solution. Sure. And maybe the bank would decide to forgive her loan. And maybe her rich uncle would die and leave her some money. And maybe Higgins’s cut would heal up before noon. And maybe her life would return to normal, as it had been before all this trouble.

Back in the kitchen, Katherine poured herself a cup of coffee and slouched into the chair at her desk where she did her paperwork. For several minutes she sat unmoving, staring at the shoe-box full of unpaid bills, last week’s registered letter from the bank topping off the pile. Her coffee steamed untouched in front of her.

Finally she took a sip to fortify herself, opened the lower right-hand drawer of the desk, and drew out that other letter—the one that had come on Friday, plunging her into a weekend of inner turmoil such as she hadn’t ever experienced as an adult. After reading it several times in disbelief, she had stuffed it in the drawer and slammed it shut so hard the knob fell off. For forty-eight hours, it had alternately drawn and repelled her. She had resisted its gravitational pull, making a wide berth around the drawer every time she passed it. Until now.

Just feeling the paper between her fingers kindled an angry flush of heat in her chest. Goddamn him. Why now? How can he think I would ever respond to this? The man must truly be insane.

Coffee forgotten, she spread the letter out on the desk and looked at the four careful folds in the yellow legal paper. Without reading the words yet, she absorbed the handwriting. Done in black ballpoint, it was big, bold, aggressively slanted and looping—the handwriting of a man who could drive his wife and daughter away and then ignore them for thirty-one years. Her anger burned higher; the flames leapt from her chest up through her neck into her cheeks, scorching the skin from the inside. God, the contempt she felt for that man was beyond words.

Taking two deep breaths to get her through it, Katherine read the letter once more.

37 Wirtz Ave.

Austin, TX

512-243-9080 (Home)

512-338-6712 (Work)

October 11

Dear Katie,

You’ll probably be surprised hearing from me suddenly like this, after so long. But I heard you were having some financial difficulty and I have a proposal to help you out.

Katie, sorry I missed your birthday. Every year when October 2 rolls around I think about you and what a cute little girl you were. It’s hard for me to write this, real hard. I hope you don’t hold against me the things that happened when your mother and me were having our difficult times. Now you are an adult yourself you understand these things. Anyway you probably don’t remember much since you were so young at the time, only a baby really.

About your problems, Katie. I don’t want to discuss this in a letter. It is confidential, but I want you to know the full amount you need is available in cash immediately so there will be no foreclosure on your property. What you would need to do in return is something only you can do. It would not be difficult for you, I’m sure. You might even enjoy it. So if you could come to Austin SOON, in the next few days, we could discuss it. It is really in your best interests to come, so I hope you’ll let bygones be bygones. These are hard financial times in Texas and it is good if families can help each other out.

I hear you are the best dog trainer in central Texas. That makes me real proud and doesn’t surprise me at all since our family has always had a way with animals. Remember Pasha? What a good watchdog he was? Be sure to remember him just in case something should happen to me.

I’m still at the zoo, have been all this time. Never really regretted it. For the past eight years I’ve been senior keeper in charge of the large cats. I’d love to show them to you.

I was sorry to hear your mother died.

You are my only living relative in the world since my parents died two years ago (both in a six-month period) and my sister, your Aunt Julia, died last December. Of course, I don’t count your mother’s family as mine since we have been divorced so long.

Your Dad,

Lester Renfro

P.S. Please keep this receipt and key in a safe place for me and bring them with you when you come to Austin. I’ll fill you in on everything then.

P.S. #2 No need to let anyone else know about this.

Katherine felt the flames engulf her face and lick at her brain now, her head swelling with the heat. Like a dragon forced either to breathe fire or explode from the heat buildup, she jerked up from the chair and began to pace circles around the kitchen, puffing little bursts of hot air from her cheeks.

It was almost like an infantile rage. Yes, she felt like a baby beginning to choke from fury. But why? This was so extreme—not something a realistic, independent woman should feel. She had gotten over this thing with her father long ago.

I might be surprised to hear from him after all this time, he says. Uh-huh. It is a bit of a surprise to hear from a father who hasn’t even recognized my existence for the last thirty-one years. Let bygones be bygones, he says. Uh-huh. Sure. It’s as easy as that. Families can help each other out in hard times. Oh, yes. Good idea, Lester Renfro. He hopes I don’t hold what happened against him? Well, he’s right about one thing: I was too young to remember. But, oh, how I wish I could remember!

Katherine stopped pacing and pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. She had no memories, none at all, from her first five years. It was as if the time in Austin when the family was together had never happened.

She knew only what her mother had told her, again and again and again, as if in the telling she could exorcise her anger: Don’t expect anything from your father. Ever. He’s a crazy man, a certifiable maniac. We dropped his name so we never have to hear it again or have anything to do with him. Ever.

Leanne had certainly kept that vow to her death.

But in spite of the stories told and retold, for years Katherine had not accepted the idea of her father as maniac and tyrant. It hadn’t felt right to her and she had yearned for him.

Throughout her childhood, she had waited and hoped and fantasized about what it would be like when he came to claim her. She remained faithful to the idea of the father who would come to rescue her and help her. She had a recurring fantasy of his taking her to work with him at the zoo. She’d help him feed the animals and clean up and make his rounds. He’d see how good she was with animals and he’d say she could be his number-one assistant. It had been a sustaining vision during difficult years.

Ridiculous.

What a fool she’d been. But by the time she was fourteen she had finally accepted reality. Her mother was right. She realized he wasn’t ever coming and she didn’t even care anymore. It was the most important lesson, one she would never forget: She had only herself to depend on. And that was all right with her. She loved being on her own. And she’d done pretty damned well.

Until this bad economy. And she sure wasn’t the only one caught by it.

A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to walk the earth, Katherine said aloud, waking Ra, who was snoozing at her feet. The son of a bitch just assumes I’ll come running. Never. I’d die first.

She began to pace again, in quick, furious steps around the small kitchen. When she got back to the desk, she forgot about the open drawer and walked right into it, whacking her left shin against the sharp edge. The impact dislodged the white knob again and sent it rolling under the stove. The hell with Lester Renfro. Let him stuff his financial help.

She leaned over and looked at her throbbing shin. A red knot was puffing up right on the bone. She sat down, fighting back tears, and returned to a question that had nagged her all weekend: How does he know I’m in trouble? How does he know I’m a dog trainer? How does he know my address?

It was more than passing strange. She was not in touch with anyone in Austin and her mother hadn’t been either for several years before her death last year. So how did he know?

From the still-open drawer she drew out the envelope the letter had come in. From it she removed the key and the small square of paper he had sent along with the letter. She held the key in the palm of her hand and examined it for the first time. It was a small round-headed brass key. On one side it was blank; on the other, the word ABUS was engraved in small capitol letters, and under that, Germany.

The pain from the bruised shin seemed to absorb her anger for a moment. She closed her eyes and squeezed the key tight. The metal felt warm; it had taken on the temperature of her skin. My father touched this key. He put it in the envelope and sent it to me. It’s important to him. It unlocks something he wants me to have. Something he thinks could help me.

She looked at the tiny receipt. At the bottom it said, Lamar Boulevard Self-Storage, 1189 Lamar Blvd., Austin, Texas. It also said, $23 received on October 11, 1989, for unit 2259 for one month.

This was so bloody melodramatic. If he had money he wanted to give her, why didn’t he just send her a check, not make her come begging to him. You wouldn’t keep money in a storage unit, anyway, would you? And what was it he had in mind for her to do? Something that only she could do. Ridiculous. Anyway, how could a zoo keeper accumulate enough money to help her out of this mess? Did he know she needed more than $90,000?

She opened her hand and stared at the key again. Well, it was possible. Maybe those relatives of his who died left it to him. Or maybe he’d been thrifty and saved it over the years. It was just possible that he had enough.

She shook her head violently. Christ, what a fool she was! The same credulous child who kept expecting him to come. Why was she even dignifying this with her attention when she had important issues to deal with? She tossed the key onto the desk. It hit and bounced off to the brick floor.

With the sudden noise, Ra leapt to his feet from a deep sleep, as if it were a gunshot. He was ready to go to work.

Absently, she rested her hand on the familiar bony ridge down the middle of the sleek head as she leaned over to pick up the key. She slipped it into the envelope and stuck it back in the drawer. Her stomach contracted as she caught sight of the box of unpaid bills. Oh, Ra, who could even imagine a situation where we might lose everything we’ve worked for? It’s just not possible.

The dog looked up at her and began to prance in place.

Okay. She picked up the notice from the Bank of Boerne. Don’t worry. Today’s the day. I’m going to do whatever it takes—beg, borrow, or steal. Since I’ve already borrowed, I guess it’s time to beg.

She picked up her cup and took a sip of coffee. It was stone cold. She set it down again and looked at her watch. Two hours until my appointment at the bank, Ra. Just enough time to put that new Lab through his blind retrieves.

She looked down at him and tried to smile, but her lips trembled with the effort. "Someday we’re going to look back and laugh at all this,

Reviews for Zero at the Bone

[carol420 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The heroine in this one is unusual as she is smart, funny and much older than generally portrayed in this type of book. As we meet Katherine her world is coming down around her ears. About the time when she is at her wits ends, she gets more bad news...her father, who she hasn't seen or heard from in years, has died. She next discovers something that will set her off on a journey destined to change her life. I really liked the writing style of this author and the fact that she takes a job in the Austin Zoo....a fellow "Zoo Enthusiast:) The story has everything that came together to make it a 5 star rating. Lots of action... a great story line with enough mystery & suspense...a little romance thrown in... and a more than satisfying ending.

[mazda502001 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book by this author that I have read and have enjoyed reading it. She has 3 other books available and I have bought all 3 which much say something. Not a bad read.Back Cover Blurb:It's feeding time at the zoo. Who's for dinner?Katherine Driscoll hasn't heard from her father since she was a baby -over thirty years ago. She's deeply suspicious when he writes her a letter. How does he know she is in desperate need of help? Although she's the best dog trainer in Texas, she must find $90,000 immediately or lose everything, including her beloved golden retriever, Ra.But when she tries to take her father up on his offer, she finds that he is already dead, mauled by a tiger at the zoo where he was a keeper. Katherine resolves to investigate, drawn to uncover long-buried family secrets which appear to be entangled with events at the zoo. Grimly repressing her fear of snakes, she joins the staff of the reptile house. Only to realize that the tiger isn't the only killer around.

[donkeytiara · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

...a fabulous unsung mystery writer. Runs circles around Patricia Cornwell and Jonathan Kellerman.