“Oh, it’s perfectly safe down there,” he said. “Jerry spared no expense when he designed it. Basement walls are sand-filled blocks, ceiling’s pre-stressed concrete, topped with four inches of steel. He’s got fully enclosed bullet traps, and the underground exhaust system vents all the smoke and residue to the outside. I’m telling you, it’s the best of the best. You gotta take a look.”
Jane and Frost put on the ear protectors and followed him down the stairs.
Under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, Jerry O’Brien stood with his back turned to them. He was dressed incongruously in blue jeans and a garish aloha shirt, which generously draped his barrel-shaped torso in flowered fabric. He did not immediately acknowledge his visitors, but kept his focus on the target of a human silhouette as he fired repeatedly. Only when he’d emptied his magazine did he turn to face Jane and Frost.
“Ah, Boston PD’s here.” O’Brien pulled off his ear protectors. “Welcome to my little corner of Paradise.”
Frost surveyed the array of handguns and rifles displayed on the table. “Wow. Quite a collection you have here.”
“Trust me, they’re all legal. No magazine with more than ten rounds. I keep them all in a fully secured storage locker, and I have a Class A CCW permit. You can check with my local police chief.” He picked up another handgun and held it out to Frost. “This one’s my favorite. Care to try it out, Detective?”
“Uh, no thanks.”
“Not even tempted? Probably won’t get another chance to fire one of these babies anytime soon.”
“We’re here to ask you about Leon Gott,” said Jane.
O’Brien turned his attention to her. “Detective Rizzoli, right? So are you into guns?”
“When I need them.”
“You hunt?”
“No sir.”
“Ever hunted?”
“Only people. It’s more exciting ’cause they shoot back.”
O’Brien laughed. “My kinda gal. Not like any of my frigging ex-wives.” He removed the magazine, checked the chamber for any remaining bullets. “So let me tell you about Leon. He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. Given half a chance, I know he would’ve blown the fucker’s brains out.” He looked at Jane. “So did he get half a chance?”
“How deaf was he?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“He wasn’t wearing his hearing aids.”
“Oh. Well, that changes the picture. Without his hearing aids, he wouldn’t have heard a moose clomping up the stairs.”
“Sounds like you knew him pretty well.”
“Well enough to trust him as a hunter. I brought him out to Kenya twice. Last year he took down one hell of a nice buffalo, one shot. Didn’t hesitate, didn’t blink. You get to know a lot about a person when you go hunting with him. You find out if they’re just talk and no action. If you can trust ’em enough to turn your back. If they’ve got the spine to face down a charging elephant. Leon proved himself, and I respected him. I don’t say that about many people.” O’Brien set the gun on the table and looked at Jane. “Why don’t we talk about this upstairs? I keep coffee brewing twenty-four seven, if you want any.” He tossed a key to his personal assistant. “Rick, you wanna lock up these guns for me? We’ll be in the den.”
O’Brien led the way, moving slowly and ponderously up the stairs in his garish tent of a shirt. By the time they reached the hallway, he was wheezing. The den was where he’d said they were headed, but the room he led them to was no mere man cave; instead it was a two-story cavern with massive oak beams and a fieldstone fireplace. Everywhere Jane looked she saw mounted game animals, the taxidermied evidence of O’Brien’s skill as a marksman. Jane had been startled by Leon Gott’s collection, but this room made her jaw drop.
“You shot all of these yourself?” asked Frost.
“Almost all,” said O’Brien. “A few of these animals are endangered and impossible to hunt, so I had to get ’em the old-fashioned way. By opening my wallet. That Amur leopard, for instance.” He pointed to a mounted head with one badly tattered ear. “It’s probably forty years old, and you won’t find them anymore. I paid good money to a collector for that sorry specimen.”
“And the point would be?” asked Jane.
“What, you never had stuffed animals as a kid, Detective? Not even a teddy bear?”
“I didn’t have to shoot my teddy bear.”
“Well, this Amur leopard is my stuffed animal. I wanted it because it’s a spectacular predator. Beautiful. Lethal. Designed by nature as a killing machine.” He pointed to the wall of trophies facing them, a gallery of heads bristling with fangs and tusks. “I still take down the occasional deer, ’cause there’s no better eating than deer tenderloin. But I really prize the animals that scare me. I’d love to get my hands on a Bengal tiger. And that snow leopard was another one I really wanted. Frigging shame the skin’s gone missing. It was worth a lot to me, and obviously worth it to the asshole who killed Leon.”
“You think that’s the motive?” asked Frost.
“Sure. You police need to watch the black market, and if a pelt comes up for sale, you’ll have your perp. I’d be glad to assist you. It’s my civic duty, and I owe it to Leon.”
“Who knew he was working on a snow leopard?”
“Lots of people. Very few taxidermists get to handle such a rare animal, and he was crowing about it on Internet hunting forums. We’re all fascinated by big cats. By animals who can kill us. I know I am.” He looked up at his trophies. “This is how I honor them.”
“By hanging their heads on your wall?”
“No worse than what they’d do to me if they got the chance. That’s life in the jungle, Detective. Dog eat dog, survival of the fittest.” He looked around his trophy room, a king surveying his conquered subjects. “It’s in our nature to kill. People don’t acknowledge that. If I so much as take a slingshot to a squirrel here, you can bet that my loony granola neighbors will squawk. Crazy lady next door yelled at me to pack up and move the hell to Wyoming.”
“You could,” observed Frost.
O’Brien laughed. “Naw, I’d rather stay and be a thorn in their side. Anyway, why should I? I grew up in Lowell, right up the road. Crappy neighborhood next to the mill. I stay here because it reminds me how far I’ve come.” He crossed to a liquor cabinet and uncorked a bottle of whiskey. “Can I offer you some?”
“No sir,” said Frost.
“Yeah, I know. On duty and all that.” He poured a few fingers’ worth into a glass. “I own my business, so I get to make the rules. And I say cocktail hour starts at three.”
Frost moved closer to the display of predators and studied the full-body mount of a leopard. It was poised on a tree branch, its body coiled as if ready to pounce. “Is this an African leopard?”
O’Brien turned, glass in hand. “Yeah. Shot that a few years ago, in Zimbabwe. Leopards are tricky. Secretive and solitary. When they’re up in the branches, they can take you by surprise. As cats go, they’re not all that big, but they’re strong enough to drag you up a tree.” He took a sip of whiskey as he admired the animal. “Leon mounted that one for me. You can see the quality of his work. He also did that lion, and that grizzly over there. He was good, but he didn’t come cheap.” O’Brien crossed to a full-body mount of a cougar. “This was the first one he did for me, about fifteen years ago. Looks so real, it still gives me a start when I see it in the dark.”
“So Leon was your hunting buddy and your taxidermist,” said Jane.
“Not just any taxidermist. His work is legendary.”
“We saw an article about him in Hub Magazine. ‘The Trophy Master.’ ”
O’Brien laughed. “He liked that piece. Had it framed and hanging on his wall.”
“That article got a lot of comments. Including a few pretty nasty ones, about hunting.”
O’Brien shrugged. “Comes with the territory. I get threats, too. People calling in to the show, wanting to stick me like a
pig.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard some of those calls,” said Frost.
O’Brien’s head perked up, like a bulldog hearing a supersonic whistle. “You listen to me, huh?”
What he wanted Frost to say was, Of course I do! I love your show and I’m your biggest fan! A man who lived this large and flamboyantly, a man who seemed to delight in extending his middle finger to all who despised him, was also a man starved for validation.
“Tell us about these people who’ve threatened you,” said Jane.
O’Brien laughed. “My show reaches a lot of people, and some of ’em don’t like what I have to say.”
“Any of those threats worry you? Say, from the anti-hunting crowd?”
“You saw my arsenal. Let ’em try and take me down.”
“Leon Gott had an arsenal, too.”
He paused, whiskey glass at his lips. He lowered it and frowned at her. “You think it was some wacko animal lover?”
“We’re looking at all angles. That’s why we want to hear about any threats you’re getting.”
“Which ones? Every time I open my mouth, I piss off certain listeners.”
“Any of them say they want to see you hung and gutted?”
“Oh yeah, that’s so original. Like she’d ever come up with anything new.”
“She?”
“One of my regular dipshits. Suzy something, calls all the time. Animals have souls! Humans are the real savages! Blah, blah, blah.”
“Anyone else make that particular threat? About hanging and gutting?”
“Yeah, and it’s almost always gals. They go into great bloodthirsty detail, like only women can.” He paused, suddenly struck by the significance of Jane’s question. “You’re not saying that’s what happened to Leon? Did someone gut him?”
“How about keeping track of those callers for us? Next time you get a threat like that, give us a log of the phone numbers.”
O’Brien looked at his personal assistant, who’d just walked into the room. “Rick, can you take care of that? Get ’em names and numbers?”
“Sure thing, Jerry.”
“But I can’t see any of those weirdos following through on their threats,” O’Brien said. “They’re just a bunch of hot air.”
“I’d take any threat seriously,” said Jane.
“Oh, I’ll take it dead seriously.” He tugged up the edge of his billowing aloha shirt to reveal a Glock in his under-the-waistband holster. “No point having a CCW if I don’t keep one on me, right?”
“Did Leon say he was getting any threats?” asked Frost.
“Nothing that worried him.”
“Any enemies? Any colleagues or family members who might profit from his death?”
O’Brien paused, lips pursed like a bullfrog. He’d picked up his whiskey glass again and sat staring at it for a moment. “Only family member he ever talked about was his son.”
“The one who passed away.”
“Yeah. Talked about him a lot on our last trip to Kenya. You sit around a campfire with a bottle of whiskey, you get to talking about a lot of things. Bag your game, dine on bush meat, talk under the stars. For men, that’s what it’s all about.” He glanced at his personal assistant. “Right, Rick?”
“You said it, Jerry,” Dolan answered, smoothly refilling his boss’s whiskey.
“No women go on these trips?” Jane asked.
O’Brien gave her a look usually reserved for the insane. “Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good time? Women only screw things up.” He nodded. “Present company excepted. I’ve had four wives, and they’re still bleeding me dry. Leon had his own lousy marriage. Wife left with their only son, turned the boy against him. Broke Leon’s heart. Even after the bitch died, that son went out of his way to piss off Leon. Makes me glad I never had kids.” He sipped his whiskey and shook his head. “Damn, I’m gonna miss him. How can I help you catch the bastard who did it?”
“Just keep answering our questions.”
“I’m not, like, a suspect am I?”
“Should you be?”
“No games, okay? Just ask your questions.”
“The Suffolk Zoo says you agreed to donate five million dollars in exchange for the snow leopard.”
“Absolutely true. I told ’em I’d allow only one taxidermist to do the mounting, and that was Leon.”
“And the last time you spoke to Mr. Gott?”
“We heard from him on Sunday, when he called to tell us he’d skinned and gutted the animal, and did we want the carcass?”
“What time was this call?”
“Around noon or so.” O’Brien paused. “Come on, you guys must already have the phone records. You know about that call.”
Jane and Frost exchanged irritated looks. Despite a subpoena for Gott’s phone records, the carrier hadn’t delivered. With nearly a thousand daily requests from police departments across the country, it might take days, even weeks, for a phone company to comply.
“So he called you about the carcass,” said Frost. “What happened then?”
“I drove over and picked it up,” said O’Brien’s assistant. “Got to Leon’s place about two P.M., loaded the animal into my truck. Brought it straight back here.”
“Why? I mean, you wouldn’t want to eat leopard meat, would you?”
O’Brien said, “I’ll try any meat at least once. Hell, I’d chomp down on a juicy human butt roast if it’s offered to me. But no, I wouldn’t eat an animal that’s been euthanized with drugs. I wanted it for the skeleton. After Rick brought it back, we dug a hole and buried it. Give it a few months, let Mother Nature and the worms do their work, and I’ll have bones to mount.”
And that’s why they’d found only the leopard’s internal organs, thought Jane. Because the carcass was already here on O’Brien’s property, decomposing in a grave.
“Did you and Mr. Gott talk when you were there on Sunday?” Jane asked Dolan.
“Hardly. He was on the phone with someone. I waited around for a few minutes, but he just waved me away. So I took the carcass and left.”
“Who was he talking to?”
“I don’t know. He said something about wanting more photos of Elliot in Africa. ‘Everything you’ve got,’ he said.”
“Elliot?” Jane looked at O’Brien.
“That was his dead son,” said O’Brien. “Like I said, he’d been talking about Elliot a lot lately. It happened six years ago, but I think the guilt was finally getting to him.”
“Why would Leon feel guilty?”
“Because he had almost nothing to do with him after the divorce. His ex-wife raised the boy, turned him into a girlie-man, according to Leon. The kid hooked up with some wacko PETA girlfriend, probably just to piss off his old man. Leon tried to make contact, but his son wasn’t too keen on staying in touch. So when Elliot died, it really hit Leon hard. All he had left of his son was a photo. Had it hanging in his house, one of the last pictures ever taken of Elliot.”
“How did Elliot die? You said it happened six years ago.”
“Yeah, the kid got it in his fool head to go to Africa. He wanted to see the animals before they got wiped out by hunters like me. Interpol says he met a couple of girls in Cape Town, and the three of them flew off to Botswana for a safari.”
“And what happened?”
O’Brien drained his whiskey glass and looked at her. “They were never seen again.”
Ten
Botswana
Johnny presses the tip of his knife against the impala’s abdomen and slices through hide and fat, to the greasy caul that drapes the organs beneath. Only moments ago he brought down the beast with a single gunshot, and as he guts it I watch the impala’s eye cloud over, as if Death has breathed a cold mist across it, glazing it with frost. Johnny works with the swift efficiency of a hunter who’s done this many times before. With one hand he slits open the belly; with his other he pushes the entrails away from the blade to avoid puncturing organs and contaminating the meat. Th
e work is gruesome yet delicate. Mrs. Matsunaga turns away in disgust, but the rest of us cannot stop watching. This is what we have come to Africa to witness: life and death in the bush. Tonight we’ll feast on impala roasted over the fire, and the price of our meal is the death of this animal, now being gutted and butchered. The smell of blood rises from the warm carcass, a scent so powerful that all around us, scavengers are stirring. I think I can hear them now, rustling closer in the grass.
Above us, the ever-present vultures are circling.
“The gut’s full of bacteria, so I remove this to keep the meat from spoiling,” Johnny explains as he slices. “It also lightens the load, makes it easier to carry. Nothing will go to waste, nothing goes uneaten. Scavengers will clean up whatever we leave behind. Better to do it out here, so we don’t attract them back to camp.” He reaches into the thorax to tug on the heart and lungs. With a few strokes of the knife, he severs the windpipe and great vessels and the chest organs slide out like a newborn, slimy with blood.
“Oh God,” groans Vivian.
Johnny looks up. “You eat meat, don’t you?”
“After watching this? I don’t know if I can.”
“I think we all need to watch this,” says Richard. “We need to know where our meal comes from.”
Johnny nods. “Exactly right. It’s our duty, as carnivores, to know what’s involved in getting that steak to your plate. The stalking, the killing. The gutting and butchering. Humans are hunters, and this is what we’ve done since the beginning.” He reaches into the pelvis to strip out the bladder and uterus, then grasps handfuls of intestines and tosses them onto the grass. “Modern men have lost touch with what it means to survive. They go into the supermarket and open their wallet to pay for a steak. That’s not the meaning of meat.” He stands up, bare arms streaked with blood, and looks down at the gutted impala. “This is.”
We stand in a circle around the kill as the last blood drains from the open cavity. Already the discarded organs are drying out in the sun and the vultures grow thicker overhead, anxious to rip into this ripening mound of carrion.