I nodded.

“Back in middle school, all the kids called her Mad Hen Wilson.’’

I leaned in close. “That’ll be our secret, Linda-Ann.’’ I didn’t tell her that Maddie was not only aware of the nickname, she embraced it.

“There’s something else I want to tell you.’’ She touched one of her dreadlocks to her lips. “How well do you know that good-looking cowboy who just left here?’’

“Pretty well. We used to date, a long time ago.’’

“Then you might want to ask him what he knows about the guy who owned this place.’’

I got an uneasy feeling in my gut. “Why’s that, Linda-Ann?’’

“That cowboy’s been in here a lot in the few months I’ve worked here. He always went back into the office to talk to Mr. Albert, and they’d always shut the door.’’

An old Ford rumbled into the drive-thru. I waited while Linda-Ann served a woman with three screaming kids, two of them still in diapers. I’d be buying booze too, if I had that brood.

As the Ford backfired and pulled away, the stench of burning oil filled the little store. Linda-Ann continued her story. “The last time the cowboy came in, they were back there yelling so loud I could hear their voices coming through the concrete wall.’’

“Could you tell what they were saying?’’

“I couldn’t make it out.’’ She folded a dreadlock in two and let it spring back. “But when the cowboy left, he slammed the office door so hard it about came off its hinges. Then he kicked over a whole display case of beer. Mr. Albert came out to the counter a couple of minutes later and told me to clean it up. I thought he’d be angry.’’

“He wasn’t?’’

“His face was ghost-white and he was shaking. He didn’t look mad. He looked scared to death.’’

I barely had time to process what Linda-Ann revealed about my one-time boyfriend.

I had to rush to work, where I was past late for an after-school event. Two third-grade classes were scheduled to visit the makeshift wildlife center I maintain at Himmarshee Park. A teacher from the last group of kids who came by sent me a letter, saying her students were still talking about the injured fox and scary snakes.

This latest group of kids was already there. I didn’t want to disappoint them by not showing up.

I could hear the din of thirty-one third graders as I crossed the little bridge over Himmarshee Creek and turned into the park. When I walked in the office and dropped my purse on the desk, Rhonda, my boss, shot me a relieved look.

“Thank God, you’re here, Mace. Those little monsters are tearing the place apart.’’

Within ten minutes, I had the students gathered in an outdoor amphitheater, ooohing and aaahing over the contents of a half-dozen cages. The star of the show, a bull alligator missing an eye and most of one foot, was waiting in the wings in his outdoor pool, ready to wow the kids for the show’s grand finale.

“Does anybody know what this is?’’ I held the first cage aloft. Two dozen hands shot into the air.

“A skunk!’’ cried a little boy in a red shirt who couldn’t wait to be called on.

“That’s right. But we don’t talk out of turn, do we? Anyone with the right answer today will get a special award. But you have to wait ’til you’re called on to get the prize,’’ I said.

“Now, this skunk I trapped because it was eating up the tomatoes in some lady’s garden. She definitely didn’t want it around because when she invited her friends over for cards, seeing a skunk freaked them out. It was probably somebody’s pet, because it had been descented. Who knows what that means?’’

Fewer hands went up this time. I called on the red-shirted boy so he wouldn’t feel bad.

“It means he don’t stink no more,’’ he said.

“Doesn’t stink anymore. Very good. Now, it was wrong to buy this skunk as a pet, and then let it go in the wild,’’ I said. “You know why? Because skunks use that stinky smell as a defense against bigger animals. Without it, this little guy was as helpless as a kitten.’’

And so it went for the next thirty-five minutes. A demonstration with something furred or slithery; a lesson about environmental responsibility. Finally, I herded the kids to the pool holding the seven-foot-long Ollie. There, I lectured them about staying away from alligators in the wild.

“Never, ever feed an alligator, or tease it in any way,’’ I said. “If they get too comfortable around people, it’s dangerous—not just for you, but for them. That’s when gators become what our state laws call a nuisance animal. And that means that someone with a trapper’s license—like my cousin, Dwight—can kill them and sell them for their meat and hide.’’

I thought of my stuffed-head key holder at home. It wasn’t that gator’s fault someone built a house with a pool in his territory. But once they did, it wasn’t safe for him to make himself at home there anymore. So now his head graced my coffee table, like a trophy buck on the basement wall of a deer hunter up north.

I pointed over a low concrete wall at Ollie, lolling in his pond. “Now, that gator’s here because he became a nuisance to people who like to play golf. But we didn’t kill him. We got special permission to keep him for educational purposes. Does anybody know what that means?’’

Hands shot up. I picked a little girl in a yellow sundress.

“Teaching?’’

“Right,’’ I told her. “Now, I’ll educate you a little about Ollie.’’

Thirty-one small bodies crowded toward the pond. “Careful, now! You may peek over, but you may not climb onto that wall.’’

When they’d chosen their spots, I continued, “A gator’s jaws are about the most powerful thing in the animal kingdom,’’ I told them. “If Ollie were to clamp down on your arm or leg, the pressure in his bite is more than sixteen times harder than your average big dog. His jaws are even stronger than a lion’s.’’

At this point, I tossed a whole raw chicken into Ollie’s gaping mouth. Some of the girls screamed when the gator’s jaws snapped shut over his meal. I took my bow.

Handing off the kids to one of their teachers, I collapsed on a park bench. I was staring up at the sky through the green-needled branches of a cypress tree when I heard a tentative voice.

“Excuse me, Ms. Bauer?’’

A pretty redhead peered at me from the end of the bench.

“I’m here with the kids,’’ she said. “They’re going to want to know: How’d Ollie get hurt?’’