“Help me,” he hollered as he sagged under the weight. Together the two men managed to carry the chimp back into the facility.
The pig had mysteriously disappeared, though most of the other animals had been rounded up or coaxed back inside.
“Is this normal?” I asked innocently.
No one answered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lexi
A few minutes later, another car entered the lot and parked off to the side, away from the flashing police cars. I immediately recognized Mr. Whiny, one of Dick’s minions. As he started walking toward the building, he abruptly looked over his shoulder, started screaming, and sprinted full speed toward the gate.
Behind him, with an evil look on its face that gave me flashbacks to Hawaii, was the pig. Fortunately, the gate was still open, and when Mr. Whiny got there, he was able to slam it shut just as the pig barreled into it. The gate wobbled but held.
Mr. Whiny stumbled in the main entrance with a harried look on his face. “Oh my God. What’s going on?” he asked. “Why are there police and a pig in the parking lot?”
Dick pushed aside a policeman and grabbed Mr. Whiny by the shoulders. “The dog is gone again,” he hissed. “Find it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Out there somewhere.” He pointed to the parking lot.
“I’m not going out there,” Mr. Whiny said. “There’s a pig patrolling the fence. If you want that damn dog, you find it!”
He turned toward the exit as if to leave, and Dick followed, but a cop blocked them. “Sorry, guys. No one’s leaving until we have everyone’s statements and figure out what’s going on here.”
As the staff took the animals back to the containment area, Dick led the officer in charge and me toward the security room, which was just off the lobby. We went inside while everyone else crowded around the door.
The security room itself was larger than I expected. It was windowless, lit by fluorescent lights, and humming with electronics. One wall was covered in monitors arranged in neat rows, each showing a different angle of the facility, including the hallways, doors, and exterior views of the parking lot and the fenced yard. A metal desk sat beneath them, with a stained coffee mug and a laminated checklist titled Night Operations Protocol resting on it.
Dick pushed his way to the front, chest puffed out like a man about to be vindicated. “This is the heart of our operation,” he said. “State-of-the-art surveillance.”
The lead officer crossed his arms. “Who was on duty tonight?”
Dick waved a hand dismissively. “There’s no physical guard overnight. We don’t need one. We have eyes and ears everywhere.”
That drew a surprised look from the policeman.
“The building is fully secured,” Dick said. “Cameras, motion sensors, alarms, and access controls. Everything is automated. We’ve never had a break-in. Not once. This place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox.”
I glanced at the monitors. “So, no one actively watches the feeds at night, either?”
Dick scoffed. “That would be redundant. The system flags anomalies automatically. If something trips, we’re immediately alerted.”
“And did it alert you?” the officer asked.
Dick opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Well, yes. Eventually. As soon as the alarms went off.”
“After the animals were already loose?” the officer asked.
Dick bristled. “I…I don’t know.”
The officer gestured to the screens. “Okay, well, let’s review the footage.”
Gray, Gwen, and Barbie sidled up next to me. Basia was still in the car with Tootsie. We all watched as Dick rolled the footage back until about closing time.
Dick skimmed through a few hours of staff members walking the halls, going to the bathrooms, or checking on something. But there was nothing out of the ordinary. The footage covering the animal area showed no one going in or leaving it after seven thirty in the evening. I spotted something just as Dick started scrolling forward again. My breath caught.
