Day Shift

“When I called you and told you to follow Lewis, this is not what I expected,” Olivia said to what was left of Bertha.

It hadn’t been hard to incite Lewis into tearing over to Midnight. Not hard at all, especially after she’d told him about the newscast. She’d pretended to be a reporter, and she’d repeated everything Manfred had said, and embellished some. And once he’d threatened to confront the fiend who’d ruined his life, Olivia had called Bertha. The result had been pretty damn near perfect. Except, of course, if the body is found and the law starts looking for tigers. Boy, the Rev won’t like that at all. . . . And this thought, which she admitted she should have had much sooner, worried Olivia quite a bit.

Okay, the body wouldn’t be found. And Bertha’s car wouldn’t be, at least for a while. Olivia hoped she had another shower curtain and extra duct tape stockpiled in her apartment. They were the handiest tools for body disposal. And she’d have to keep a close watch out for the tigers, not a hazard at any body disposal site she’d ever attended. She went down to her apartment, humming.

When she came back out some twenty minutes later, Olivia was pleasantly surprised to find that the body was gone. Only a bloody patch showed where it had lain. In the interest of tidiness, she attached the Rev’s hose to Manfred’s outside water faucet and spent ten minutes hosing down the evidence. There was still a chance of rain, but better to get the process started.

She thought, At least he can pay for the water.

35

Joe went out to exercise the next morning for the first time since he’d hurt his ankle. He couldn’t run, but he could walk. He turned east instead of west because he wanted to check on the death site. He and Chuy had heard the scream the night before, and they’d hugged each other. After a short time, he’d observed one of the tigers dragging something across the street and through the gate into the pet cemetery. And he’d seen Olivia cross the street to fetch the Rev’s outside hose, so he figured she’d watered down the ground.

Joe was willing to bet that the Rev was in the pet cemetery now, digging a deep grave. There were several deep graves in the burial ground. The Rev put the illicit bodies very far down and buried the pets on top of them. It was his technique. “The exercise is good for me,” he’d told Joe, back when he was talking more. As the years had gone by, the Rev spoke more and more seldom.

Before he’d gone far out of town, Joe heard someone ru

Joe turned around a few minutes later, because he was feeling an unpleasant ache in his injured leg. When it began to nag at him, he slowed still more.

By and by, he heard footsteps behind him. The sun was begi

“You may be thinking what a terrible father I am,” he began.

“Let’s stop by Fiji’s. Maybe you should tell her this story,” Joe said. “She’s taken great care of your boy, more than any of us.” After that they proceeded in silence.

Though it was early in the morning and her store had not yet opened, Fiji was dressed and working in her garden when they strolled up. She didn’t seem surprised when Joe called to her; he thought perhaps she had seen both of them set out on their run, and put herself in their way. She rocked back on her heels and stood up, putting her hand over her eyes to look up at the two men. Though Fiji smiled, at her feet Mr. Snuggly glared up at the tall man.

The tall man squatted down. The sun gleamed on his bald head as he held out his hand to Mr. Snuggly. “Little brother, you have nothing to fear from me,” he said. “And neither does Miss Fiji.” The cat stared at the man’s hand. Then he turned and strolled away, his tail straight up in the air. Giving the cat version of the finger, Joe figured.

After a moment, the man straightened and stood. He looked from Joe to Fiji, and Joe noticed his eyes were purple, like pansies. Like his son’s. “I’m Qui

“Just Fiji will be fine. Diederik’s a cute kid,” she said slowly, as a preliminary. Joe thought she wasn’t sure how to put what she wanted to say. “Really, we all helped to take care of him. The Rev . . .” She paused. Then she decided to be blunt. “What the hell,” she said. “You gotta know, Mr. Qui

“We wonder what the story is,” Joe said, simplifying.

“I deserve that,” Qui

“She seemed healthy and so did the cub inside her. I felt I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t force her, wouldn’t force her, to do what I wanted. I’d been forced to do a lot of things myself, and I didn’t want that for her. Tijgerin was a proud woman. A proud tiger.”

Mr. Snuggly had crept out from the bush to look up at Qui

Joe closed his eyes to guard himself against Qui

“She delivered him by herself, in human form, as we two-natured do, in case you don’t know that. She called me to tell me everything went well, that we had a son. I was so excited and started out to see him,” Qui

Joe turned away. He pulled out a handkerchief and used it to mop his face. He was sad and burdened, and he longed for his apartment and Chuy. But he was here to bear witness.

“So you had the raising of the boy,” Fiji said.

He nodded. He seemed intent that Joe and Fiji understand his story. “I had Diederik, and I did the best I could. I have a traveling job, so sometimes I had to leave him with my sister. She’s human, and she’s married. Soon she had her own baby on the way. She told me that she would find it hard to take care of Diederik and her own baby at the same time. I could understand that, especially when he began growing. Once out of infancy, the growth really accelerates, until—well, you saw. So I started taking him with me, which wasn’t ideal. But I couldn’t leave him with someone who wouldn’t understand.”