“Most of us left a little after it opened at four, but about five people stayed to work on the tree until, oh… six or so.”
“Six?” Liam asks, interest piqued.
Six is a pretty busy hour to kill someone, especially when all of the employees were here and none of them were reported as having left their position for a long period of time.
“Did those workers leave together?” I ask.
“I’m not certain but I can put a call out to the ones who were here and see what they say.”
“Thank you,” I say.
He steps out of the room, and I look over at Liam now that we’re alone for the first time in hours.
“Did Zach hang around and get killed later in the night? Did someone kill him earlier and hide the body until they could dispose of it later?”
“I want to know what Nadine was doing around six o’clock,” Liam states.
“You think she did it?”
“I think it’s peculiar that she is missing and this man is dead.”
“Why run if you’re going to go to all of this work to hide the body and your involvement? By not showing up to work, you pretty much make yourself stand out.”
Liam taps a pen against the desk as he thinks. “That is the question. I’m not sure if she’s the killer. I do question how she would have moved the body. As we saw in the security feed, she’s a petite woman, though there are a lot of utility carts and golf carts, but with such big items, you’d have to stick to the walkways, which puts you at a higher chance to be shown on camera. I just…” He leans back in his chair. “I don’t think she’s the killer. Let’s see if George can help us identify Zach’s vehicle. See if it’s still in the parking lot. I want to know if he left and came back, stayed, or if the killer tried to dispose of it. Pat saidthat Nadine takes the bus? I want to check with the bus driver to see if she got on.”
“Seeing if his vehicle is here should be easy; I bet there are cameras on the parking lot. Let me get Pat on that.”
The day stretches on with minimal answers. What’s left of the body was found buried quite deep in the hyena’s pit, only discovered because of oneverypersistent hyena. There were no cars left in the parking lot overnight, and the last few cars were gone by eleven. The final cars to pull out belonged to Pat and Bill. The bus driver doesn’t remember whether Nadine got on or not and doesn’t have a camera to check.
The workers said that Zach left with them at six o’clock, and one even stated that he remembered following his car out.
Because of the murder, they close the zoo to the public for the day. We continue trying to piece together what happened until well past dark when Michaels sends us home.
I’m hungry and tired and cold and feel like I’ve figured out very little.
The second I get into the car, Liam blasts the heat onto me and turns my heated seat up as high as it’ll go.
“There are so many variables,” I say.
“There truly are,” Liam agrees. “But don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. This person isn’t going to get away. I have two thoughts on this. Number one, Nadine is involved, but I’m not sure how. I actually think there were two people involved in the disposal of Zach’s body.”
“Two killers?”
“I’m not sure. The issue is that all of the employees were supposedly accounted for. Of course, you have a few people who are kind of on their own and might not be noticed if they’re missing for a short period, but all of this would have taken a significant amount of time. However, it seems like a lot of it was completed by ten when the hyenas were let out. They hadto cut off the head. They had to transport the body and dig a significant hole, which they couldn’t have done while the hyenas were eating. I think there were two involved.”
“So Nadine might have been the one who helped and not the one who killed him?”
“Possibly.”
Liam reaches over and takes my hand that I’m struggling to heat up and sticks it between his thighs before cupping his hand over it, using his body heat to warm my fingers back to life. “I’m going to call that wretched diner of mine and have them feed us. What would you like, my love?”
“I would eat anything right about now.”
“Alright, anything it is,” he says before he calls them and orders us both mushroom Swiss chicken sandwiches. My mouth waters at the very idea of it.
My work phone beeps and I see that it’s a text from Matthew. “Matthew said that he got a video of Nadine and Zach interacting,” I say then press play.
I watch as Zach works on hammering something to the fake tree when Nadine starts by. He pauses and steps down the ladder before saying something to her that we can’t hear. She hesitates, shakes her head, and continues on her way.
