Lady Killer

He drew a put-upon breath. “I already did. It was just like I said.” He closed his eyes and went on in a singsong voice. “I got home, and I came in the house, and I got myself an ice-cream sandwich, and I heard Hilda barking, so I went out to see what was wrong, and I took the cell phone, because you told me I should always take it when I go out to the animals in case I need to call for help. And I saw…what I told you.”

Forcing herself not to look at the fine blue veins in his eyelids or the bright spots of pink in his otherwise pale cheeks, Brooke persisted. “Honey, I’m sorry. They’re going to ask you these things. Did you, um, look at your dad? Did you see any…” But she couldn’t bring herself to ask him about the wounds. She didn’t want to know about the wounds. Instead, choosing her words carefully, she said, “Daniel, did you see Lady bite your dad?”

He shook his head violently, and she saw him press his lips together hard for a moment before he answered, “No! I told you. She was just crouched down beside him, and she sort of…sniffed him, and then she pushed at him with her head—like this.” He demonstrated. “Then she saw me, and she jumped back and started snarling and making that screaming noise and batting her paws at me. It was like—” He stopped, and the pink in his cheeks deepened.

“What, honey? It’s okay. You can tell me.”

He looked up at her at last, almost defiantly. “It was like she didn’t want me to come in there, okay? Like she was trying to make me stay away. I know it sounds weird, but it was like she was trying to protect me. Like she didn’t want me to see—”

“Oh, Daniel.” Brooke wanted to smile at him, but the ache in her throat and in her whole face made it impossible. She could think of another reason for the cougar’s behavior, of course, one more in keeping with the nature of a predator. She was probably trying to protect her “kill.” Sweetheart, don’t you see that?

But she didn’t say it. So what if her son had found his own way of coping with the awfulness of what had happened? She’d let him keep whatever comfort he could for as long as he could.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Daniel said as he scooted back his chair and carried his juice glass to the sink.

He was heading out of the kitchen, probably going to his room, but at that moment there was a knock on the kitchen door—the back door, the one they and nearly everyone who came to visit always used. Brooke could see Al Hernandez standing on the porch steps, looking off across the yard, where the CSI van and the medical examiner’s wagon had joined the two sheriff’s department SUVs. Thank God, she thought. That meant Lonnie would be out overseeing the processing of the crime scene and the…victim, and she was relieved not to have to deal with his anger and hostility. This was going to be difficult enough without that, she was sure.

When she went to let the deputy in, she saw that he had Hilda with him, on a makeshift rope leash. The dog was panting and grinning, interrupting herself frequently to lick her chops, a sure sign she was agitated. She’d been sitting quietly at Al’s side, but when Brooke opened the screen door, she bounded past her, into the house, and Brooke could hear the scrabbling of toenails on the linoleum as she streaked across the kitchen, making, no doubt, for her favorite refuge, Daniel’s room. She heard Daniel talking to the big dog in quiet tones as she nodded at the deputy and said, “Come on in, Al.”

“Sorry about that,” Al said, with a nod of his head in the general direction Hilda had taken. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep her in here until we’re…uh, everything’s done out here. She’s been raising quite a ruckus.”

“I can imagine,” Brooke said, with a small huff of laughter—the nervous kind—and she wished she hadn’t done it and made a note to herself not to do it again. She took a quick breath and added, “It’s fine. I should have thought to bring her when I came in.” She gestured toward the chair Daniel had been sitting in. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”

“No, ma’am. I am gonna need to talk to the boy, though. Is he—”

“I’m right here,” Daniel said, coming into the kitchen. To Brooke, he said, “I put Hilda in my room, Mom. She’s pretty upset.”

“Daniel—” She held out her arm to bring him close, but he evaded her and instead pulled out another chair and sat down.

“I know. You want to ask me questions about what happened to my dad.”

Brooke felt an unexpected urge to cry and clamped a hand over her mouth to stop it. Al Hernandez said, “That’s right, son. I need you to tell me everything you can about what happened out there. Can you do that?”

Daniel said, “Sure,” and went on to tell his story again, without the smarty-pants tone he’d used with Brooke, while Al jotted notes in a notebook he’d taken out of his uniform pocket.

“So, that’s the first you knew anything was wrong?” Al asked when he’d finished. “When you heard the dog barking?” Daniel nodded. “And you didn’t see anybody around the place? Hear anybody? Any cars?” Daniel shook his head. “And your dad—he didn’t come here, to the house?”

Daniel shook his head again, rapidly this time, and began to fidget in his chair. “No, I didn’t see him. I haven’t seen him for a while, actually. Next weekend’s his weekend to have me. I don’t usually see him otherwise.” His face was very pale, so that the freckles across his nose and the tops of his cheeks stood out like sprinkles of sand.

Al must have noticed it, too, because his eyes and voice were kind as he said, “Okay, son, that’s fine. I think that’s all. You did fine.”

“So,” said Daniel, “can I go now?”

“Sure, go on. Take care of your dog.” The deputy waited until Daniel had disappeared down the hall and they heard the thump of the closing door. Then he leveled a look that was considerably less kind at Brooke and said, “Okay, now I’ll ask you the same thing. Tell me exactly what you saw and did. Your son said you were gone when this happened?”

She cleared her throat and nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I’d gone to town for feed and groceries, and I was late getting back because—” she gave that nervous laugh she’d promised herself she wouldn’t “—well, I guess you don’t want to know all that.”

Al just looked at her and waited for her to go on. She told herself she had no reason to be nervous, but she was. So nervous her mouth felt like dust. She clasped her hands together in front of her on the tabletop and tried to make them look relaxed. Natural.

“Um…anyway, when I got home, the first thing I saw was Duncan’s SUV parked on that back road, the one that goes around the property. I thought—” She paused, but Al just nodded and didn’t interrupt. “I thought it was strange, him being there, but I came on to the house, and then I thought it was strange that Hilda—that’s the dog—and Daniel didn’t come running out to meet me, like they usually do. It wasn’t until I turned off the motor and was getting out of the truck that I heard the noise.”

“What did you hear, exactly?”

“I heard Hilda barking, and then I heard Lady—the cougar—scream. And that’s when I ran.” Her voice had begun to shake. She fought to control it while the deputy waited patiently, staring down at the notes he’d made.

She wished she could get up and get a glass of water. She wished she could run to her bedroom and crawl under the covers and pull a pillow over her head.

After a moment, she drew a quivering breath and went on. She described everything that had happened, and when she was finished, she was surprised to discover she’d been crying. For some reason, that embarrassed her, and she tried to wipe the tears away surreptitiously while Al was still looking down, writing in his notebook. She waited for him to ask more questions, and when he didn’t, she cleared her throat again and said, “Al, can I ask you something?”

He glanced up, frowning.

“What did he—I mean, how did he look? You know, were the wounds…” She touched her lips with her fingertips, and more tears rolled down her cheeks. This time she didn’t try to wipe them away. “I just really need to know. Did Lady kill him?”

“Ma’am, I can’t make that kind of judgment. That’s up to the ME.” He paused, then seemed to relent. “I will tell you there’s some blood on Dunk’s clothes, and some—not a lot—on the ground. We’ll just have to wait for the autopsy to determine how he died. Now, if you don’t mind, I have just a few more questions…”

He asked her about the compound, the gate, how it was locked up and who had a key. He asked her how she thought Duncan might have gotten into the pen with the cougar, and why.

“That’s what I can’t imagine,” Brooke said in a whisper. “Duncan was deathly afraid of that cat, although he’d never have admitted it. He always wanted to get rid of it. When I told him I wanted to start a refuge for big cats—you know, like, animals people take as pets, then can’t take care of when they get big and dangerous—he thought I was nuts. He even insisted on buying a tranquilizer gun, just in case, because he said he knew I’d never be able to shoot her, if it came to that.” Her voice broke, and as she paused to control it, a thought occurred to her. “I wonder why he didn’t—Duncan, I mean. Didn’t he have his gun?”

Al gave her an unreadable look. “It wasn’t on him, no, ma’am. We found it in his vehicle.”

He tucked his notebook and pencil back in his pocket and rose. “I guess that’s all—for now. We’ll be in touch once the medical examiner’s done.” He thanked her, nodded a farewell and left the way he’d come, through the back door.

Brooke sat where he’d left her, with one hand covering her mouth and her eyes closed, listening to the sounds of vehicles coming and going outside in the yard, and the distant mutter of men’s voices. She didn’t want to listen to the voices rumbling around inside her own head, but they kept intruding, anyway.

Something isn’t right about this. I can feel it. Something’s not right. It doesn’t make sense.

Either Daniel wasn’t telling her the whole story, or…or what? She didn’t know. Only that something was wrong.

After a while—she didn’t know how long—she realized the noises outside had stopped. That all the official vehicles had gone. Finally. The sun had gone down. It was past time to feed the animals. Only her ingrained sense of responsibility made her get up and go outside and throw some hay to the two horses, six goats and two alpacas, and close and bar the chicken-house door. She didn’t go down to the far end of the corrals, where Lady’s compound was. The cougar was in her holding cage and would be all right where she was until tomorrow.

Back in the house, she went to check on Daniel and Hilda and found both in Daniel’s bed, sound asleep on top of the covers. Daniel had one arm thrown across the dog’s body, and Hilda had her muzzle resting on the boy’s chest. She went to her own room and got a comforter and spread it over the softly snoring pair. Then, after a moment, she lifted the edge of the comforter and lay down, stretching herself out beside her son. With her arm across his body and her face nestled in his damp hair, breathing the salty, small-boy smell of him, she fell asleep.

In the morning, she was in the kitchen, making blueberry pancakes—Daniel’s favorite breakfast—when the knock came. Not on the kitchen door, the one everyone always used, but on the front door. Her hands shook slightly as she wiped them on a dish towel and went down the hall and through the living room to answer it.

Sheriff Clayton Carter stood on her front porch. He was wearing his brown Stetson, and his arms were folded across the front of his unbuttoned Western-style jacket. He didn’t smile or remove his hat when Brooke opened the door, and she didn’t smile and say that it was a nice surprise to see him and ask if he would care to come in for coffee.

“Ma’am, would you step out here please?” the sheriff said.

Moving as if in a dream, Brooke did, and two uniformed deputies she didn’t know came up the steps behind the sheriff, and one of them took her arm and turned her around.

“Brooke Fallon Grant,” the sheriff said, “I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Duncan Grant. You have the right to remain silent…”

Then Brooke’s head filled with the sound of high winds, and for some time she didn’t hear anything else. Not until she was in the sheriff’s car and being driven out of the yard, and she looked back and saw Daniel being restrained by one of the uniformed deputies. She heard his shrill and stricken cry.

“Mom! Mama…”

Chapter 2

The last thing Holt Kincaid had expected to encounter when he drove into Colton, Texas, was a traffic jam. According to the information he’d gotten off the Internet, the population still hadn’t topped seven thousand, probably due to the fact that the town was just outside reasonable commuting distance from both Austin and San Antonio, and its residents hadn’t yet figured out how to capitalize on its Hill Country charm and local history to bring in the tourist trade. From what Holt could see, the town’s two main industries appeared to be peaches and rocks, and while there was still an apparently endless supply of the latter—in spite of the fact that nearly all the buildings on the main drag were constructed out of them—the season for the former was pretty much over. And it didn’t seem likely the excess of vehicular traffic was due to rush hour, either, since it was mid-morning and, anyway, in his experience in towns like this, what passed for “rush hour” usually coincided with the start and end of the school day.

Also, it didn’t seem likely that local traffic, no matter how heavy, could account for the high number of vans and panel trucks he was seeing, with satellite antennas sprouting out of their tops and news-station logos painted on their sides.

During his slow progress through the center of town, Holt was able to discern that the excitement seemed to be centered around the elaborate and somewhat oversized Gothic-style, stone—of course—courthouse, which was located a block off the highway, down the main cross street. A crowd had gathered on the grassy square in front of the courthouse, everyone sort of milling around in the shade of several big oak trees, the way people do when they’re bored to death but expecting something exciting to happen any minute.

The sense of anticipation—almost euphoria—with which he’d entered the town, certain he was almost at the end of what had been a long and often frustrating quest, was replaced now by a sense of caution, developed over his long years of experience as a private investigator with a specialty in finding people. While it didn’t seem likely this unexpected gathering of news media could have anything to do with his reason for being here in the town of Colton, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to know exactly what he was getting into the middle of.

A few blocks past the courthouse, the traffic thinned out considerably, and Holt pulled off onto a side street and found a parking spot across from a diner, the inauspicious kind frequented by locals rather than passing-through motorists looking for a familiar franchise.

On his way into the diner, he dropped a quarter into a box dispensing the local newspaper, which he folded in half and tucked under his arm as he made his way past empty booths to take a seat at the counter—also empty, except for a waitress taking her mid-morning coffee break. Holt had an idea the usual denizens of the place could probably be found among the crowd down at the courthouse.

As he was taking his seat on one of the cracked red vinyl and chrome stools, the waitress wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, slid off her stool and swept, with a flourish, around the end of the counter to present herself behind the section he’d just occupied.

“Hi,” she chirped. “My name is Shirley, and I’ll be your server today. How may I help you?” And then she gave a throaty chortle to show she was just putting him on, and said in what Holt imagined was her natural Texas twang, “What can I get for ya, hon?”

Shirley was a heavyset woman in her forties, probably, with Day-Glo red curls piled on top of her head and laugh lines radiating from the corners of her vivid blue eyes. She had a nice smile, so Holt smiled back and said, “Coffee, for starters.” He tilted his head toward the glass case behind the counter. “And maybe a piece of that pie there. Is that peach?”

“Sure is,” Shirley said, beaming. “Local, too. And the season’s ’bout over, so you hit it just right. Can I put a scoop of ice cream on that for ya?”

“No thanks—got to watch my waistline.” He patted himself in that general area, and Shirley gave him a severe look and what could only be described as a snort.

“Oh, sure, like you need to worry. Mister, you turn sideways, you’d just ’bout disappear.” While she was saying this, she was efficiently dishing up a slice of pie and placing it in front of him, with a fork and a spoon beside it.

Holt waited until a mug of steaming coffee had joined the pie, then picked up the fork and said, “Where is everybody?”

Shirley made that same inelegant noise as she leaned against the stainless-steel counter behind her and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “Down at the courthouse, probably. Along with just about ever’body else in this town. It’s where I’d be, too, if I wasn’t stuck holdin’ down the fort here.”

Holt dug into the pie, which was delicious, maybe the best fresh peach pie he’d ever eaten. “I saw the media trucks as I was coming through. What’s all the excitement about?”

Shirley tipped her head toward his left arm. “Well, you could read all about it in that paper you got propping up your elbow there. One of our local deputy sheriffs got killed a couple days ago—by a mountain lion, it looked like. And then they went and arrested his wife—ex-wife, I should say—for murder. Biggest thing to happen around here in a while, I’ll tell you. The whole state of Texas seems to have caught it now, too—because it was a cop that got killed, I guess. Or the lion angle, maybe. Anyway, it sure is a shame. They had a kid, too, a little boy. I guess he’s been staying with the preacher at their church.”

Holt didn’t hear anything more. While the waitress had been talking, he’d unfolded the newspaper and spread it out next to his pie plate. There was the headline, pretty much the way she’d summed it up: Local Deputy Killed By Lion, Ex-wife Arrested, and under that a was photo of the deputy in his dress uniform, complete with Stetson. Holt had started skimming the article and had got as far as the name of the woman who’d been arrested and charged with murdering her ex-husband, Duncan Grant. The name jumped out at him, and it was about like having a rattlesnake coil up and strike right at his chest. Brooke Fallon Grant. Shirley’s voice faded into a soft roar, and hot coffee slopped out of the mug and burned his hand.

“Oh—my goodness. Here let me…” Shirley was there with a towel, mopping up. “Hope ya didn’t burn yourself. Coffee’s pretty hot. Just made a fresh pot…”

He frowned distractedly at her, then relinquished the coffee mug, and she whisked it away and brought him a new one while he tried to absorb the words printed on the newspaper page in front of him.

Mrs. Grant was arrested at her home Thursday morning after an autopsy revealed the presence of large amounts of a tranquilizer in the victim’s body. According to sources at the medical examiner’s office, the drug had evidently been administered by a tranquilizer dart gun, the type used to subdue large animals.

Deputy Grant’s body was discovered by his young son Wednesday afternoon in an animal enclosure on his ex-wife’s ranch. The enclosure had been used to house a mountain lion allegedly hand-raised by Mrs. Grant. The animal was found in close proximity to Deputy Grant’s body and was assumed to have killed him. However, in light of the new evidence revealed by the autopsy, it is not clear now what part the animal might have played in the deputy’s death.

According to information received by this reporter, Mr. and Mrs. Grant had recently been involved in a dispute over custody of the couple’s nine-year-old son.

Arraignment and bail hearing are set to take place Friday afternoon at the courthouse in Colton. A hearing to determine the fate of the mountain lion has not been scheduled, pending further investigation. As the county lacks facilities to house the animal, the mountain lion remains in its compound on Mrs. Grant’s ranch.

In the absence of any known relatives, the couple’s son is being cared for by the pastor of Mrs. Grant’s church pending the outcome of Friday’s hearing.

“Yeah, it sure is a shame.” Shirley was shaking her head. “I used to see Duncan in here now and again. All the deputies like to come in for the pie, you know. I didn’t know him all that well, though—I was a few years ahead of him in school. Never met his wife…I don’t know, though…seems like a pretty heartless thing to do, doesn’t it? I mean, raise a cougar from a cub—or whatever you call a baby one—and then try and blame it for killing somebody? And letting your little boy find his daddy’s body? Hard to imagine a mother doing something like that.”

“Sounds like the paper’s got her pretty much tried and convicted,” Holt said dryly as he slid off the stool and reached for his wallet.

Shirley made that sound again. “Yeah, well, this is kind of a small town, and the local law is real…visible, if you know what I mean. So…you’re not plannin’ on stayin’ around to see how it comes out?”

“Actually, I might stay around for a bit.” He laid some bills down on the counter and picked up the paper and tucked it under his arm. “S’pose you could recommend a nice, quiet motel for me? Or have all these media people got everything booked?”

“Seriously.” She gave him a wry smile as she scooped up the bills with one hand and the dishes with the other. “They’ve been pouring into town all day. I’d say you’d probably have to go a ways to find a room.”

“Yeah, I figured. Thanks, anyway. Great coffee, by the way. And the best peach pie I ever ate.” Holt gave her his nicest smile and turned to go.

“Wait.”

With one hand on the door, Holt turned. Shirley was gazing at him in a speculative way and chewing her lip.

“Okay, look, I don’t know why, but you strike me as a nice guy. There’s a motel just west of here, just off the main drag. It’s called the Cactus Country Inn—it’s not a chain or a Best Western, or anything, but it’s nice. My brother and his wife manage it. They usually keep the room next to their apartment empty, on account of the walls are kinda thin, if you know what I mean. But if you tell ’em I sent you, they’ll probably let you have it. Just don’t throw any wild parties, though, okay?” “I think I can promise that,” Holt said.

An hour or so later, he sat on the edge of one of two neatly made-up twin-size beds in a fairly decent room—he couldn’t remember if he’d ever been in a motel room that had twin-size beds before—in the Cactus Country Inn. He punched a number on his cell phone speed dial and while he listened to it ring, imagined it ringing in a room far away, in South Carolina, on the shores of a small lake. It rang four times before a machine picked up.

“Hello. You’ve reached Sam and Cory’s place. We’re both away from home right now. Leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you.…”

He disconnected and sat for a moment with the phone in his hand, thinking. Then he pulled the laptop that lay open on the bed closer to him, found the page he was looking for, scrolled down the list of phone numbers on it until he came to the one he wanted. Dialed it.

Several minutes and several different numbers later, he’d learned several things. One, his employer was on assignment in the Sudan, and there was no way in hell to reach him. Two, his employer’s wife was also on assignment; only God—and the CIA—knew where.

Three, he was on his own.