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  The Peacock’s Poison

  Madigan Amos Zoo Mysteries

  Ruby Loren

  Copyright © 2017 by Ruby Loren

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  British Author

  Books in the Series

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  1. Curiosity Caked the Cat

  2. The Body in the Barn

  3. A Lucky Escape

  4. The List of Names

  5. Turkey vs Peacock

  6. Pride and Prejudice

  7. Feral Friends

  8. The Conservatives Hit Their Targets

  9. The Missing Links

  10. The Snow of Sussex

  11. Next in Line

  12. A Logical Puzzle

  13. Chocolate Fudge Cake

  14. Bad Decisions

  15. Elves Behaving Badly

  16. Nightmare Before Christmas

  17. Digging up the Past

  Epilogue

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  Books in the Series

  A review is worth its weight in gold!

  Also by Ruby Loren

  British Author

  Please note, this book is written in British English and contains British spellings.

  Books in the Series

  Penguins and Mortal Peril

  The Silence of the Snakes

  Murder is a Monkey’s Game

  The Peacock’s Poison

  A Memory for Murder

  Whales and a Watery Grave

  Chameleons and a Corpse

  Foxes and Fatal Attraction

  Monday’s Murderer

  Prequel: Parrots and Payback

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  Grab your FREE copy of Parrots and Payback, Madigan’s first mystery.

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  1

  Curiosity Caked the Cat

  Autumn always seems to pass too quickly, I reflected.

  I was sitting in the Gigglesfield church, listening to the reverend recap Mr Avery Senior’s long and interesting life, when the thought popped into my head. Thinking about it, life was much the same. You spend forever wanting to get to the destination you have in mind, and when you’re finally there, you realise winter is just around the corner.

  I shivered and tried to focus on what the reverend was saying. This service was a memorial for Charles Avery, not a personal pity party for me.

  Mr Avery Senior had inherited the farmland the zoo had been built on when his father had died. Prior to setting up a zoo, the family had specialised in rare cow breeds. Even to this day, Avery featured an interesting selection of cows. The reverend mused aloud about what a challenge it must have been to change the pathway of a family business that had been going for generations, and try something new. What courage he must have had! I nodded in agreement along with the rest of the large congregation.

  The entirety of Avery Zoo had turned up for Mr Avery’s funeral. Due to the predicted scale of the occasion, it had taken a while to organise his funeral and memorial service. We were now close to the end of November, with Christmas beckoning. I hoped that Auryn Avery, Mr Avery’s grandson - the new owner of the zoo - would be feeling a little more festive in the month to come.

  I patted Auryn’s hand and he managed to smile back at me. With Mr Avery Senior gone, Auryn didn’t have any close family left. His father had apparently requested permission to be permitted out of prison to attend the funeral, but for whatever reason, the request had been denied. To be honest, I thought that wasn’t a bad thing. Auryn’s father had been an accomplice to murder and attempted murder. He’d also been caught selling zoo animals on the black market. All in all, there were few people who would have been pleased to see him at Charles Avery’s funeral.

  The reverend continued his sermon, asking us all to wish Auryn the very best in continuing to make the same brave decisions his grandfather had done, when he’d first taken that risk and started Avery Zoo. To my surprise, Auryn reached for my hand and held it tightly. I realised the emotion of the situation was getting to him, so I held on tightly in return. I hoped that no one would see us holding hands and be foolish enough to think it was anything more than the solemn nature of the occasion.

  My best friend, Tiff, had developed feelings for Auryn, whilst I’d been working on my last animal consulting job in Cornwall. She’d told me that during a planning session for a special arts and crafts day at the zoo, they’d ‘accidentally’ kissed. Unfortunately, since then, Tiff claimed that Auryn had been avoiding her. She’d hypothesised that he might be regretting getting too close to someone he worked with, but I knew Tiff was wrong about that. When I’d had my own ‘accidental’ kiss with Auryn, he’d been only too happy for us to do it again.

  I felt a warm blush rise to my cheeks and lowered my head a little further, hoping my cloud of wayward hair would conceal my strange reaction from Auryn. I also hoped that my hand wasn’t getting too hot, or sweaty, as I mentally revisited our past together.

  Technically, I still had a boyfriend.

  Lowell and I may not have left each other on brilliant terms, but we’d never said that we were permanently breaking up - just taking a break. I’d hoped that time away from him would make my feelings clearer, but after spending nearly a month apart, I still wasn’t sure what to think.

  Lowell had lied to me.

  He’d claimed the lies were necessary, due to the classified nature of his job, working as a part time secret agent. I’d been able to understand the initial secrecy, but after I’d figured out the truth, he still hadn’t wanted to confide in me. I didn’t have a huge problem with him keeping the details of his current assignments secret, but I still had my suspicions that Lowell’s meeting me hadn’t been by chance. I knew it sounded like paranoia, but my life had been pretty quiet until Lowell had come into it. Since then, there’d been bodies galore. Was it simply a coincidence, and the world was just on its way to becoming a more violent place? I wasn’t convinced. That was why I had some big trust issues with Lowell. I wasn’t even convinced that our relationship wasn’t a sham for the sake of some mission. Time will tell, I thought, trying to forget about it for now.

  It was easier to not focus on Lowell when Auryn was sitting next to me. The twenty-year-old zoo owner was a few years younger than me, but I’d noticed he’d matured what felt like years over the past few months. I was sorry that he’d had to grow up so fast, but I was also proud of my friend. His father had claimed the zoo could never be a success without his black market antics to support it, but Auryn had already proved him wrong. He’d asked the zoo staff to come together and share their ideas, in the hopes of making the running of the zoo a more creative and democratic process.

  It had worked brilliantly.

  There were now so many exciting events taking place at Avery Zoo, I found it hard to keep track. Visitors were returning more regularly, revenue was up, and Auryn had a strong debt repayment and business plan for the future.

  I glanced at Auryn’s intense grey eyes, blond hair, and beautiful face and bit my lip. I still wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision when I’d told Auryn I didn’t want to risk our friendship by taking things further. Since then, I’d thought I was happy and settled with Lowell… but all of that had changed.

  I silently shook my head. I was not about to do anything rash. Lowell and I had some things to work out, but there was still hope, I told myse
lf, firmly. Now wasn’t the time to fling myself at my friend and surely risk a lot more regrets than Mr Avery Senior had risked when he’d first started the zoo.

  In his younger years, Mr Avery Senior had gained quite the reputation for being a party boy. It had only seemed right that the zoo he’d founded sent him off with a big one!

  I returned to the zoo that evening, after the afternoon’s closure for the funeral, dressed in a sparkly skater dress. I hoped it wouldn’t be too much, but Auryn had specifically requested that everyone dress as they would for a normal party. This wasn’t another memorial, it was a celebration.

  I brushed my dress down and hoped no one would notice that I was late.

  Lucky was now getting to the age when he’d soon be allowed to run free outside the house, but as a domestic cat, he was still just a touch too young to be neutered by a vet. I knew the dangers of letting him run free unsupervised better than most! Unfortunately, he was also at that curious age, and he had managed to escape from the house I rented. What should have been a quick change of costume after the service had turned into a wild goose chase across fields and through hedgerows. I’d finally found Lucky, being far too curious about a herd of cows.

  After what had happened next, I doubted he’d be as curious again.

  Only a boy cat would stand too close to a cow when it needed the loo! I thought, and surreptitiously sniffed my hands, hoping that they were now cowpat free. Lucky had also been subjected to his first ever bath. I had a strong feeling that it wouldn’t be his last…

  As the restaurant was still out of bounds after the structural damage caused by an explosive device going off, we’d decided to throw the party in the play barn. The late November weather was seasonably cold, but the high ceilings of the barn and the open doors meant that the multiple braziers set up weren’t in any danger of filling the place with smoke

  I paused by the entrance to the barn and smiled when I took in the result of the hard work of the commercial team. Tiff’s underlings had been tasked with making the place look beautiful - something they specialised in. You wouldn’t have known it was a play barn, if it weren’t for the rope swings attached to the ceiling. Even they had been tucked away, up at the top of the jumping platforms on either side of the barn. I noticed that the crash mats had also disappeared and wondered if that was such a smart idea, given the amount of alcohol I could see people quaffing. A bunch of adults with plenty of drinks in a barn with rope swings… it wasn’t hard to see where the night might end.

  I shook my head and continued to admire the autumnal room with the open fires and tables full of chestnuts and marshmallows, ready for toasting. Some of the staff had suggested a cocktail bar, and as Auryn was doing his best to listen to suggestions, he’d told them that if they set it up and ran it, they could have it. I’d been expecting vodka with a splash of juice, but looking over, I could see some really interesting concoctions being made.

  “What are you going to go for?” Tiff said, coming to stand next to me.

  I inclined my head at my beautiful best friend. She was dressed in a simple crushed velvet dress, but she made it look like it had cost a million dollars. I wasn’t the only one who had noticed, either, I realised, noting that several pairs of eyes had followed her pathway across the room to speak with me. That was just the way it was with Tiff, but I’d never felt jealous. She attracted the good and the bad in equal measure.

  I felt a stab of guilt when I remembered that, if anything, Tiff might be jealous of me, if she knew the truth about my past with Auryn.

  “What have you got there?” I asked, looking at the blue and green drink in the martini glass she held.

  “All of the cocktails have been named after animals. This one is called The Peacock’s Poison.” She shot me a knowing grin.

  “I wish someone would poison them,” I muttered.

  A few things had changed since I’d been away from Avery, working as an animal habitat and breeding consultant for other zoos and parks. Some of the changes, I loved. The new events and additional members of staff were mostly brilliant. However, there was one brand new change I despised. And judging by the name of Tiff’s cocktail, I wasn’t alone.

  Someone had suggested to Auryn that adding peacocks to the zoo would be a great idea. Avery Zoo didn’t have any animals running loose, so why not shake things up a bit and allow some real one-on-one animal interaction?

  After two weeks of patching up victims of peacock attacks, I had a pretty good answer as to ‘why not’. I’d hoped that Auryn had got the peacocks on some sort of trial basis, but when I’d dug a little deeper, he’d actually purchased them as a favour to a friend, who’d claimed to be ‘downsizing’ their estate. I suspected they’d just wanted a way to dispose of their problem peacocks without having to pluck them.

  To make matters worse, as an animal behaviour specialist, it had fallen to me to try to fix the problem of the highly aggressive peacocks. At the moment, I was flummoxed. Birds were hardly my specialty, but the truth of the matter was, I couldn't find anything wrong with them. Usually there was a reason for an animal to behave aggressively, or out of character, but I’d quickly concluded that the peacocks liked behaving the way they did. They enjoyed terrorising small children.

  While I agreed that certain small children probably deserved everything they got from the peacocks, I could hardly tell that to their parents! As a result, the peacocks’ bad attitude was still a work in progress.

  “Have you spoken to Auryn?” I casually asked Tiff.

  She gave me a mournful look and shook her head. “We’ve spoken about work, really briefly, but that’s it. He always cuts the conversation off as soon as the business part is over.”

  “I still don’t see how anyone could ever not be interested in you,” I said, loyally.

  It was true though. As far as I could see, Tiff had everything going for her. She was stunning, successful, and mostly importantly, she was kind.

  “Oh, Madi… you’re too sweet,” Tiff said before throwing me an anxious look. “How’s…?”

  I shook my head.

  She bit her lip and nodded. “How’s the publishing going?” she asked, trying for a happier topic.

  “I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’ve actually been putting it off while I think about it. Jordan has five publishers interested, but I’m not sure about being in the limelight in order to promote the comic. I don’t want people to think the stories are real. I’m really worried it might affect the zoo.”

  “Have you spoken to Auryn about it?” Tiff asked.

  “No, I’ve been putting that off, too. I just don’t want to bother him when he’s so busy…”

  She rolled her eyes and took a big sip of her cocktail. “Well, there’s no time like the present,” she said, nodding in the direction of where Auryn stood, talking to one of the new zookeepers, Adam.

  I threw her a look that I hoped conveyed I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Then I walked over there. He looked up before we were even within talking distance and I saw every single feeling he still had for me, written in his eyes. I tried not to wince, knowing that Tiff had probably seen the same thing. How cruel life sometimes was.

  I was still five metres away when it happened.

  As one, the partygoers fell silent and turned to see the couple in the middle of the room. I recognised them as Harry, from the reception team, and Julia, who worked in the shop.

  Harry got down on one knee and pulled out a ring. Julia turned red and a smile spread across her face, as Harry presumably told her all of the reasons why he believed they should spend the rest of their life together. We all watched as she nodded her head furiously, and the room broke into spontaneous applause.

  Auryn moved past me, aiming to be one of the first to congratulate the newly engaged couple. I didn’t mind a bit. We had all the time in the world to chat, and he was already doing his part as the zoo owner by being there for his staff.

  Tiff was suddenly at my side
again. “Never mind,” she said and inclined her head in the direction of the cocktails table. “Uh-oh… Harry’s one of Jenna’s past conquests.”

  We exchanged a look.

  Jenna had a history of disrupting engagements. Before I’d been close friends with Tiff or Auryn, she’d held an author to ransom in an effort to block his engagement. I hoped that she’d mellowed a little since then. Judging by the way she angrily tossed back the remnants of a dark purple cocktail and clicked her fingers at the staff behind the makeshift bar, we might have to keep an eye on her.

  “Hopefully, she’ll find someone unsuspecting to pounce on, and all will be forgotten,” Tiff said.

  “Is there anyone left?” I asked. It sounded harsh to judge another woman’s character, but I wasn’t joking. It was a well known fact that Jenna liked her men, and she only liked them for a very short length of time. With such a high turnover, her pickings at the zoo were surely looking slim.

  “She’ll have some new victims to prey on soon,” Tiff said with a smile. “Remember, Auryn’s hired a big events company to do the Winter Wonderland this year.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I still had my doubts about this recent announcement. In the past, the wonderland had always comprised of a few sparse Christmas trees, some hired reindeer, and the soberest Santa that could be had on a budget. It was an afterthought that had never particularly brought anyone to the zoo. Hiring an external company was a big risk, but it was one that I thought the late Mr Avery might just have approved of.