Gator Aide
bathroom. Chained to the leg of an iron clawfoot tub was a ten-foot alligator. Looking like a giant handbag with black and beige bands, the gator, like the girl, was dead. Grateful for the distraction, I knelt down beside the reptile. It was the closest I’d ever been to one. My only other hands-on experience was with a gator skeleton I’d seen in New York with Harry Milsus, the local forensics expert used by the FWS office there.
    “Took five shots to the head.”
    The sight of the gator helped to ground me, momentarily taking my mind off the girl in the other room. I used to watch Harry Milsus click into his “forensics” mode and tried to copy him as best I could now. Running my fingers over the skull to probe the depth of each bullet hole, I appreciated the training I’d had at Glynco. But even more importantly, I said a silent prayer of thanks to Harry. He’d been of the belief that both agents and inspectors should know a lot more than what we were taught. He was right. He also knew what I was up against in a male-dominated Service, determined not to lay out the welcome mat for the few women trying to kick in its doors. Becoming my ally, he’d taught me all he knew.
    By convincing me that, unlike wildlife inspectors, agents got all the interesting undercover work, along with job promotions and pay raises on the way, Harry was one of the main reasons I’d decided to become an agent. When he had learned I was being sent to Louisiana, he insisted that I bone up on reptiles. Harry would be happy to know that his many hours of work with me were paying off now.
    All five bullets had gone in at an angle and were shallow. One of the facts Harry had made a point of was that gators’ skulls are extremely thick. Whatever had killed the critter, my guess was it hadn’t been five bullets that had barely nicked the skull.
    “At least his death was quick. He wasn’t sliced and diced like the girl in there.” Santou leaned against the doorjamb, watching carefully as I tried to think of what else Harry would have told me to do.
    I found myself glancing over my shoulder at the soles of my shoes. Caked with Valerie Vaughn’s blood, the heels were slowly drying to a dull shade of red. Feeling woozy, I brought my focus back to the gator, though there wasn’t much else to examine at this point. The rest would have to be kept for a forensics expert. The problem was that we didn’t have one down here, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Charlie would send the gator out to Fish and Wildlife’s National Forensics Lab in Oregon. Though the lab and its work were world famous, it didn’t set well with Charlie.
    “That damn thing’s nothing but pork-barrel politics, soaking up money we need out in the field.” That was his mantra whenever there was a budget crunch. It also saved Charlie from ever having to defer to anyone’s judgment other than his own.
    Though this wasn’t yet a fully grown, fifteen-foot gator, I found it hard to digest the fact that someone had been crazy enough to keep it as a pet in the middle of the Quarter.
    “I don’t think my office received any complaints about an alligator being kept here. Do you know if N.O.P.D. ever had anything reported on this?”
    “We don’t get reports on this kind of stuff,
chère
. Too many other strange goings-on happening here. This gator death probably doesn’t mean much of anything. There are lots of weirdos working the strip. Keeping a gator as a pet was probably a kinky turn-on for some of her johns.”
    My mind wandered, trying to imagine what sorts of kinky things one could possibly be involved in with a gator. I must not have been creative enough. My mind drew a blank. Glancing up, I caught Santou’s stare, along with the impression that if I couldn’t figure it out, he certainly could.
    “I’ll arrange to have the gator picked up. My boss will probably want to check this out for himself. I don’t suppose you found the key to unlock this

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