The Cat Dancers

37

He saw two sheriff’s cruisers in front of the local Waffle House when he drove into town, so he pulled in. He’d quit going to Waffle House about five years ago, when’d he’d begun to watch his girlish figure, but felt right at home with the sudden aroma of cigarette smoke, hot grease, bacon, and road-grade coffee. Two bulky deputies were having breakfast at the counter, so he took a stool and ordered his usual. He nodded at the nearest deputy, who’d been in the Carrigan County Sheriff’s Office headquarters the day before.

“Y’all find White Eye?” the man asked, stubbing out his cigarette and lighting up a replacement. He was fat but muscular, with a round red face and a belly that strained his uniform shirt. His Glock looked like a toy gun in its side holster. His shiny green jacket looked to be a size fifty-two, if not bigger.

“Actually, he found me,” Cam said.

Both deputies nodded at that, as if confirming something they already knew.

“Get what you needed?” the second deputy asked. He was younger and thinner than the one right next to Cam, but he had the oversize forearms and biceps of a weight lifter. One of the waitresses came banging by behind the counter and refilled their coffee cups in three quick movements while calling in an order over her shoulder in Waffle House code to the grill man.

“No, I didn’t. He was agreeable enough, but said he didn’t know anything about what I was asking him.”

“And what was that, Lieutenant?” the big deputy said, eyeing Cam through a haze of cigarette smoke.

Cam hesitated but then thought, What the hell. “We’ve got us a murder investigation going back in Manceford County. A term has come up that we can’t figure out- cat dancers. This Mitchell guy supposedly knows what it means.”

The two deputies glanced at each other and then resumed work on their breakfast platters. Cam could hear a low mutter of operational traffic coming from their shoulder mikes.

“Y’ all ever heard that term?” he asked.

Both of them shook their heads at the same time.

“Manceford County,” the big guy said. “That’s a ways east of here. Who put you onto White Eye?”

“A suspect,” Cam answered. “Someone who’s no longer alive.”

The deputies absorbed this news with equanimity. There were always risks associated with being a suspect. Cats, Cam thought. He remembered the big paw print. “Are there any big cats up here in the Smokies?” he asked.

“There’s lots of stories,” the smaller of the two said. “Hikers and rafters come back saying they seen a mountain lion. Some ranchers on the edges of the park claim they’ve lost stock. But officially, the Park Service says they’re all gone in the East.”

“We’ve got bobcat, now,” the big cop offered. “Coyotes, some say wolves, even, and lots of bears, too.” The smaller one agreed.

“One couldn’t easily mistake a bobcat for a mountain lion, though,” Cam said.

They both agreed that was right. Cam asked if there were other guides in the area. The deputies told him yes but said most of them closed up their operations and headed south to warmer weather during the winter-not enough business.

“But White Eye stays?” Cam asked.

“White Eye does his own thing,” the big deputy said, stubbing his cigarette out on his breakfast plate. “He guides, but he’s picky. Likes to do unusual stuff, from what I hear. Take folks out to caves, or secret trout pools. I hear he’s kinda expensive, too. Picks and chooses his customers.”

“Is he really part Indian?”

“So they say,” the man answered. “But there’s lots of cons being run up on the reservation, especially around the casino. A lot of those so-called Indians came down here from New York City. But hey, as long as the tourists don’t care, we don’t care. If a hustle gets out of hand, we smack somebody down.”

The smaller deputy pulled his shoulder mike over to listen to something and then nudged the big guy. “MVA ‘with,’” he said. “Rock and roll.” They both threw some bills down next to their platters, nodded good-bye to Cam, and headed for their vehicles.

Cat dancers, Cam thought. Something definitely there, the way both of those guys had immediately denied it. No discussion, no asking him to repeat it, no back-and-forth between them, kicking it around. Just plain denied hearing the expression and quickly changed the subject. And White Eye, talking cryptically about conversation having to go two ways. It had to have been White Eye who left that paw print on the hood of his truck. Screwing around with him a little bit?

He was walking back out to his truck when the pager went off in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the number. There was a pay phone back in the Waffle House’s anteroom, so he went back in. The sheriff himself answered.

“You having any luck?”

Cam described what he’d seen and heard so far. “I think some people around either know what the term means or have heard it. But everyone’s being pretty closedmouthed.”

“Find a woman,” the sheriff said. “Someone who runs something up there. Isn’t there a casino? Find the hookers. They know everything, and women like to talk.”

“Hookers? Up here?”

The sheriff chuckled. “Hookers are everywhere, Lieutenant, despite your limited experience.”

Cam laughed out loud. “How’s it coming with the feds?” he asked.

“Had a brain fart,” the sheriff told him. “Asked the SBI to broker a meeting with the Bureau and the ATF. We’re calling it a ‘comprehensive case review.’ We’re getting together tomorrow in Raleigh. I used the fact that Marlor was dead to break the logjam.”

“So he really did the deed?”

“He did. Surry County found the body. One under the chin. Forty-five, like you said.”

Messy, Cam thought. Very messy.

“Kenny and the guys come up with anything more on the bombing or what happened at that warehouse?”

“He’s checking statewide to see if there’ve been any reports of ‘accidental’ shootings in any of the sheriffs’ offices,” Bobby Lee said. “Nothing yet. I have to tell you, he still doesn’t think cops are involved in what happened to the judge.”

“Well, it wasn’t Marlor,” Cam said.

“We have only his word for that. I need you to pull something out of the hat out there, Lieutenant, and sooner would be better than later.”

“All right, I’ll go find me some hookers,” Cam said, and hung up. He decided it was time to go on up to the casino at Franklin and check it out.

In fact, the casino and attached resort hotel were a total bust in the hooker department. The place was ultramodern, filled with families having a great time, and all the games were digital. He then drove out to some of the smaller strip towns on the approaches to Franklin, cruising streets lined with grease-burger joints, guide shops-most of which were closed for the winter-and motels with names like the WigWam Lodge and the Tee-Pee Campground. He drove around for a while, not quite sure what he was looking for, until he saw Carter’s Trading Post, which was a faux log building, complete with a porch lined with rocking chairs. Stone chimneys flanked each end, both of which were serving apparently operational fireplaces. He remembered the name from his little talk with Mitchell, so he pulled into the nearly empty parking lot, let Frack out, put him to heel, and went in. The store was exactly what he expected, filled with racks and shelves containing a few thousand tourist trinkets and featuring a sandwich bar in one corner. One of the plainest females he had ever seen was doing paperwork behind the main counter. There were no other customers in the store.

He wandered around, pretending to look at all the Indian souvenir junk, with Frack keeping station by his left hip. He finally went up to the counter and said good morning to the three-hundred-pound woman tending the register. She smiled at him, which positively transformed her face, returned his greeting, and then said hello to Frack, who just looked at her. She didn’t seem to be in the least bit disturbed by the huge black shepherd. He asked if he could get a cup of coffee, and she said, “Sure, honey,” and waddled over to start a fresh pot. She was wearing Indian garb of some kind that could have done double duty as an RV cover. The pine floor creaked wherever she went.

“It’ll be a couple of minutes,” she announced while making up the coffeepot. “Where you guys from?”

“Triboro area,” he said. “I’m a lieutenant with the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured you for a cop,” she said pleasantly. “My husband’s a sergeant with the reservation police force. Great-looking dog. He police-trained?”

“After a fashion,” Cam said. “Frack here’s more of a thinker than a fighter. The real deal is out in my truck.”

“Two are best,” she said. “Most bad actors give it up when they see one German shepherd. I don’t know why all cops aren’t issued a dog from day one.”

“Not enough dogs,” he said.

She checked to make sure the pot was going and then came back over to the counter. “So you’re up here out of season, which means business. Anything we can help you with?”

He was a little bit surprised at her overt friendliness, but then, her husband was a cop. He decided to play it straight and told her what he was after.

“Cat dancers,” she said. “Yeah, I’ve heard some stories, but they’re kinda out there, if you know what I mean.”

“I’d appreciate anything you could tell me, because right now I am in the mushroom mode.”

She laughed at that. “In the dark and everyone’s feeding you shit, right?” she said. “Haven’t heard that one since I worked for the state. Well, cat dancers. The way the story goes, there’s supposedly this secretive group of men who go up into the Smokies and track mountain lions.”

“I thought they were all extinct in up here.”

“That’s the official line at the Park Service, and they do have a point: No one has taken a picture of one for a long, long time. Lots of bar stories, tales of encounters-but not one instance of proof.”

“You’d think with all the electronics people carry around today, someone would have a video or a picture.”

“Exactly what the park rangers keep saying: ‘Bring us a picture that proves you saw it up here, and we’ll change our tune.’ Hasn’t happened. Anyway, these cat dancer guys supposedly draw lots and then one of them goes out and tracks a mountain lion to its hideout, while the others follow behind to see what happens.”

“Track how?”

“The old-fashioned way-on foot, nose to the ground. No dog packs. And then comes the hard part. The tracker has to get close enough to get a picture of the cat’s face, and then live to tell the tale.”

“A picture?”

“Right. Supposedly, that’s the whole point: The guy has to be a good-enough tracker to find a cat, find its hidey-hole, and then get a close-up picture of it without harming the cat and while living through the experience. Call it extreme wildlife photography.”

Cam shook his head. “Sounds absolutely nuts to me,” he said.

She shrugged. “So are those guys who scale the threethousand-foot vertical rock faces up in these mountains-without ropes, without a partner up top to catch their asses when something goes wrong. Or the guys who go snowboarding in the avalanche zone, you know? Nutcases, all of them. Thrill seekers. And most of ’em Yuppies from your part of the state-no offense-bored with making money and having to drive a Beamer.”

“Has anyone ever seen one of these pictures?” he asked.

She laughed. “No. Which is why most of us think this is total BS. Especially because a mountain lion is notorious for sensing when it’s being tracked, and turning the game around.”

“Damn. Well, how about that, then? Any incidents of people getting torn up by a big cat recently?”

She went over to check the coffee and poured out a cup, even though it wasn’t quite finished perking. The smell of charred coffee immediately filled the air from the metal burner. “Well,” she said, “not exactly. There have been some disappearances in the Smokies over the past ten years. Sometimes it’s a hiker who just doesn’t come back from some of the more remote wilderness areas. I’ve got some flyers over there next to the hat rack. We had two rangers get killed by some meth freaks, and we had that one unsolved rape and murder up on the Appalachian Trail five years ago. College girl, and they never caught anyone. Either way, none of that was tied to a big cat.”

“But if there are people doing this stuff with mountain lions, it would figure that somebody would get hurt.”

“If they’re alone-and that supposedly is the game-they wouldn’t just get ‘hurt,’” she said with a meaningful smile.

Cam thought about that for a moment and then nodded. Right, he thought. They’d get eaten. It was happening out west with increasing frequency-urban bicyclers, children straying from camp, pets, hikers.

“But then you’d have a disappearance. People coming around asking if anyone had seen Joe.”

She shrugged, nodded at the board with the flyers on it, poured herself a cup of coffee, and joined him back at the counter. “We get that, although the Park Service people are who you need to talk to. They handle disappearances in the park. But I’ll bet they don’t get folks coming up here asking after guys who said they were going to chase a mountain lion.”

“If there even are mountain lions up here,” he said. “You know a part-Indian guy named Mitchell?”

“White Eye? Sure. I’m not convinced he’s really part Indian, at least not Cherokee like me. But he seems harmless enough. Does some guiding. Supposedly a good tracker. Comes and goes. Doesn’t say much. The people who use him seem to know about him in advance.”

“What kind of people would that be?”

“White guys, your age. Come into places like this and say they need to get ahold of White Eye. I assume he finds them. But look, you should go over to the Twenty Mile Ranger Station for this part of the Smokies. It’s on Route Twenty-eight. You single?”

He was surprised by her question but said yes.

“Great. Ask for Mary Ellen Goode. She’s the official naturalist, and she’s a also quite a looker.”

“Well, that clinches it,” he said with a grin. Then he frowned and asked if Mary Ellen Goode had a large boyfriend or, worse, a husband. She shook her head. “Not anymore,” she said, a strange look on her face.