Claw Back

CHAPTER TWELVE

The smell wasn’t strong but it was enough to take him back decades. Suddenly, he was eleven years old again and staring at a lion.

It was a very old lion but a lion nonetheless and he had been scared, hiding behind his foster father Phillip’s leg. It was his first trip to the Detroit Zoo and the smell of the lion house was heavy in his nostrils, like nothing he had ever smelled before, like nothing he would ever smell again.

Until now.

Louis stood at the entrance of the room, his eyes roaming over the line of large cages to his left. All four were occupied by panthers, two lying down, two pacing. He wondered which one was Bruce but there were only numbers on the paperwork hanging on each cage and he couldn’t remember Bruce’s.

A door banged open at the far end and Katy came toward him. She was wearing a plastic apron over her uniform and a look of derision on her face.

She stopped before him, hands on hips. “You should have called me,” she said.

“I know. Did you see it on TV?”

“No, Gary called me not long after he left you.” She shook her head. “What the hell were you thinking going out there alone?”

“Look, Katy, I had reason to believe those guys at the hunting camps — ”

“No you didn’t!” She took a deep breath. “Those guys would never hurt a cat,” she said. “They hunt, yeah, and they’re a little off the grid, yeah. But they know more about the Glades and care more about the Glades and the animals there than any half-assed tree-hugger. Gary and his guys helped us get the panthers declared endangered, for God’s sake.”

She fell quiet. Louis noticed the two panthers had stopped pacing and were watching her.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said. “I made an assumption about — ”

“Yeah, cops tend to do that a lot about people they don’t know.”

“I’m not a cop, Katy.”

She was quiet. He was wondering how he was going to bring up going to the reservation. Wasn’t that another assumption about people he didn’t know much about?

“How’s Bruce doing?” he asked finally.

“Come see for yourself.” She led him to the last cage. Bruce was lying in the corner, his back leg splinted. The cat raised his big head to look at Louis then put it down again, closing his eyes.

“Is he okay?”

“Turned out it’s just a bad sprain,” Katy said. “But he’s depressed. He wants to get out of here and go home.”

Louis thought of his six hours in the emergency room last night waiting for the pimple-faced intern to send him on his way with a pain prescription and the pronouncement that there was no cure for his two bruised ribs except rest.

“I know how he feels,” Louis said.

Katy looked up at him, eyeing his swollen lip. “Gary says they roughed you up pretty good.”

Louis just nodded.

“You’re damn lucky Gary came by.”

Louis nodded again.

Katy let out a sigh and waved a hand. “Come on. Let’s go to my office and talk about where we’re going next.”

Her office was a corner of a cramped room with file cabinets, four desks — all vacant right now — and walls covered with maps, photographs, and notices about the panther conservation program. One bulletin board showed photographs of school kids posing with a panther and the kids’ hand-written notes and drawings of cats.

Katy moved a pile of files and motioned for Louis to take the chair next to her desk. She scanned a stack of message slips, tossed them down and swiveled her chair to face Louis.

“So what’s our next step?”

Louis pulled in a breath so deep it hurt his ribs. “You aren’t going to like it.”

“I want Grace back. Try me.”

Louis told her what Gary had said about the man breaking into the camp, adding the detail about the cigarettes with no tax stamp and the physical description Gary had provided. He watched her expression go from comprehension to a sort of weary sadness.

“You aren’t thinking of going out to the rez alone, are you?” she asked.

“No.”

Her eyes stayed on him for a moment then drifted off to something on the left. Louis saw it was a photograph of a panther. He couldn’t be sure but he thought it looked like Grace. Katy blew out a long breath and rose, taking off the plastic apron and picking up her ball cap.

“Let’s get going,” she said.

The Seminole Indian reservation was located just off Alligator Alley — the old name for Interstate 75 that everyone used for the highway that cut an east-west slash across the Everglades.

The tribe had turned their access to the interstate into a profitable oasis that offered the only gas, food and reliably clean bathrooms for anyone traveling the hundred and fifteen miles between the South Florida coasts. If you wanted some entertainment, the Seminoles also provided airboat rides in the swamps, a tour of an authentic Indian village, a museum and an alligator wrestling show.

A couple miles north of that lay the real reservation. It was a simple grid of concrete block houses and trailers interrupted by the occasional store. Black-haired boys in t-shirts and Nikes played soccer in a dirt yard, chased by dogs. A knot of women, arms draped with plastic bags from Walmart and Publix, talked on a corner. Two men stood outside the open door of a cinderblock Baptist church smoking cigarettes. It looked like any of the hard-scrabble little towns that dotted the southwest Florida landscape.

“How’s the tribe doing?” Louis asked.

Katy gave him a glance as she swung the Bronco down a side street. “Better than most, worse than some. They’ve made some money on cigarettes and bingo but the chief is pushing hard for a real casino. And I wouldn’t bet against him.”

Louis knew that Indian tribes all across the country were talking about casinos now. A mega-resort was planned for the lush Connecticut countryside and he had heard a Michigan tribe was also fighting to build one. Seeing the humble houses made him think that a business that employed a couple thousand people with benefits could do nothing but good for a place like this. But from the tone in Katy’s voice, she didn’t sound as if she approved.

“You don’t want to see a casino here?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Katy said. “It’s sort of like winning the lottery. It doesn’t always bring what you expect.”

“Unemployment is high here, right?” Louis asked.

She nodded. “And too many of the kids drop out of school.” She was quiet for a long time. “I was lucky. I got a scholarship from the tribe to FSU. But the money’s dried up.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I think they’re afraid the kids won’t come back.”

Katy swung the Bronco around a corner and stopped in front of a one-story brick building with a colorful tribal seal mounted near the glass doors. They climbed from the Bronco but before Louis even closed the door, a man emerged from the building. He was well over six feet with the build of a wrestler and the posture of man ready to defend his territory. Short cropped black hair framed a face that told Louis he was close to forty and had sent a good part of his life in the Florida sun.

“Katy Letka,” the man said.

Katy stopped a few feet in front of him. “Hello, Moses.”

“It’s been a long time. You look well.”

“I am. You look well, too.”

His black eyes shifted to Louis. “Who is this?”

“Louis Kincaid,” Katy said. “He’s working with the sheriff’s office to help locate a missing panther. Louis, this is Moses Stanton, the tribal chairman’s executive assistant.”

Stanton studied Louis for a moment then turned back to Katy. “You are also looking for this panther?”

“Yes, I’m still with the Fish and Game department,” she said. “And yes, I still love it.”

“Your skills could be useful here.”

Louis glanced at Katy. She suddenly seemed very stiff, staring at Moses Stanton with a hard squint. He suspected there might be more history here than just a tribal member who had left the flock.

“I’m useful where I am,” Katy said.

“Then why are you here?” Stanton asked.

“The missing panther is a female,” Katy said. “She has been gone four days now but she wasn’t the only cat involved in whatever is going on. Before she was taken, a male panther turned up wounded. We think whoever took Grace tried to take the male panther but lost him.”

“Capturing two large cats. Not an easy task.”

“You’re right,” Katy said. “He would have to be someone who knows the Glades and is familiar with the panthers.”

“He also has access to animal tranquilizers,” Louis added.

Stanton gave Louis a dismissive glance before his eyes moved back to Katy. “So I ask you again, why are you here?”

“We have a description of a man who has been seen in the hunting camps,” Katy said. “Long dark hair, brown skin, good at eluding the hunters.”

“An Indian,” Stanton said.

“Yes.”

“No Indian would harm the panthers.”

“I’m not sure he’s looking to harm them,” Katy said. “I believe he may be trying to mate them.”

“For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. I can only guess he thinks a cub will somehow bring him something he cannot otherwise obtain. Peace. Happiness. Some kind of special power maybe.”

“He sounds like a crazy man,” Stanton said.

“Most criminals are,” Louis said.

This time Stanton didn’t even look to Louis. His eyes drifted away from Katy to the street. He was quiet for a long time before he looked back to Katy.

“You have not been here to see your great aunt Betty in a long time,” he said.

Katy looked suddenly stricken. She took a step toward Stanton as if trying to cut Louis off from hearing. “Does Betty ask about me?” she asked softly.

“No. She recognizes no one now. Your cousins sit around her bed and sing for her soul.”

Katy pulled the brim of her ball cap lower and looked to the ground.

“The Alzheimer’s is bad,” Stanton said. “Her body is giving up. She is giving up.”

Katy looked up. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

“No one should have to.”

Katy’s face was slick with sweat. Louis could almost feel the heat of shame radiating off her.

“Katy,” he said, “I’ll go wait in the truck.”

“No, wait,” Katy said, grabbing his arm. She turned back to Stanton. “I will go to see Betty today, Moses. But right now, I need to talk about the panther. Please. I need, we need, your help.”

Stanton didn’t move a muscle. Then he looked over Katy to Louis, meeting his eyes. Louis had the weirdest feeling suddenly, like the man could almost read his thoughts. Like he could almost sense that the missing panther wasn’t important to Louis, that it was just a means to an end. Louis forced himself to hold Moses’s Stanton’s eyes.

“Moses,” Katy said, “you know everything that goes on here. I need you to tell me if anyone has been acting strangely. Has anyone moved away and taken a home in the swamps? Have you caught anyone stealing supplies or drugs from the clinic?”

Moses finally broke his stare with Louis and crossed his arms. “I know no one who would interfere with the panthers. And I am not sure I would tell if I did.”

“Moses,” Katy said softly. “You know what they mean to me.”

For the first time Louis detected a crack in the man’s façade.

Stanton looked away toward the knot of kids kicking a soccer ball. “All right, Katy Letka,” he said quietly. “I will help you. I will conduct my own investigation and if I find you are right, I will let you know so you can find the panther and take her back where she belongs.”

He looked back to her. “But I will give you no names and you will not walk through these streets looking behind doors. If I find someone here is involved in this, we will deal with it ourselves.”

Katy said nothing but Louis could tell from the sudden sag of her shoulders that she knew she would get nothing else. She said a brisk goodbye and started back to the Bronco. Louis hurried to catch up with her. Moses Stanton stayed in front of the tribal headquarters doors watching them.

Katy remained silent as she drove around the corner and down a street, pulling up in front of a small stucco house with a concrete porch cluttered with folding chairs. There had once been flowers in the window boxes but they were wilted now, victims of the searing summer sun and neglect.

The front door was open. There were three women on the porch and three men standing in the sparse shade of a tree smoking cigarettes. The women were dressed in cotton blouses and skirts and wore their hair in long braids. The men had lined weathered faces and dusty clothes. But what struck Louis was that another one of his assumptions about Indians was proving wrong. Every man he could see had short hair.

“I won’t be long,” Katy said, eyeing the women on the porch. “I’ll leave the engine going so you can have some air.”

“Thanks.”

Katy started toward Aunt Betty’s house. The few people outside turned their attention from the SUV to Katy herself. Louis watched closely, curious about the reception she’d get.

Katy paused under the tree and spoke briefly to the men. When they didn’t step back to let her on the porch, she steeled herself and slipped between them, disappearing into the house. For a moment, the men looked back at the SUV then went back to talking among themselves.

Louis sank back into the seat. Partly to be less obvious, but mostly because he was groggy. His aching ribs had kept him up most the night and about four in the morning he had finally relented and popped a pain pill. He laid his head against the window and idly watched the parade of people in front of the house.

One woman caught his eye. She wore a bright yellow sun dress and was coming down the street carrying a casserole dish covered with aluminum foil. A second woman followed her, slightly younger, carrying a basket of neatly folded laundry. The men parted to let them inside the house.

Suddenly Louis was somewhere else.

In Bessie’s old boarding house in Blackpool, Mississippi. A stranger in his own town of birth, sitting vigil by the bedside of a dying woman he could barely remember — his mother. Women had come then, too. Black women carrying clean linens for his mother and casseroles and cookies for him.

He remembered none of their names but he remembered their voices. Soft and soothing as they gathered by Lila’s bed, the sound carrying across the hall to his room where he took refuge when he could.

And then, after Lila died, came the sound of their voices raised joyously in song, drifting up from the parlor downstairs. He didn’t understand why they were happy, these strange women, because his mother had lived a short ugly life, given away her children, given him away, and then she had suffered a painful death. It made him angry to hear their voices.

Bessie had been the one to explain it to him.

Death was a relief from agony. Death was a return to Jesus. Death was a going home.

Louis looked back to the house. The men had wandered off and the porch was empty. There was no one on the street but a couple of kids on bicycles.

Then the house screen door slapped open and two young men exited. One was thin and wore a black t-shirt and jeans. The second was shorter and more tightly muscled, like a football running back. He wore a loose fitting plain white shirt with an odd heavy silver necklace, like a scythe blade on a chain. Both men had long black hair pulled back in pony tails.

The men took a long look at the SUV then lit up cigarettes.

Louis sat up straighter. The stocky kid was still staring his way and Louis knew the kid could see his face behind the glass. The kid tapped the other guy on the shoulder, said something in his ear, and both started away from the house.

Louis got out of the SUV.

The men were heading down the street at a quick clip. Louis had made enough traffic stops and interviewed enough suspects to sense fear. A shift of the body to avoid calling attention to the weight of a gun in a pocket. A twist of the shoulders to release tension. A suddenly quickened pace.

He knew he shouldn’t be doing this.

He was nosing around in Katy’s territory and she was going to be pissed. But something told him to stay with them, just for a block or two.

At the corner, the thinner guy broke off. The stocky one took one last look back at Louis before turning down a side street.

Louis followed, about thirty feet behind. The guy was walking fast and stiff, his head swiveling back at Louis every few feet. Finally, he reached a yellow house with a yard full of toys and a plastic wading pool. He cut across the grass and quickly slipped inside. Then, despite the heat, he slammed the heavy door.

Louis jogged back to the SUV. Katy was in the driver’s seat, both hands resting on the wheel.

As he got in she wiped her face quickly.

“You okay?” he asked.

She shrugged but he could see she was struggling to not cry.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“I followed someone,” he said. “A guy in his twenties, stocky.”

“Why?”

“He was acting hinky.”

“Hinky?”

“He went into a yellow house over on the next street.”

Katy frowned. “That might be Hachi or one of his friends.”

“You know him?”

She shook her head slowly. “Not really.”

“He didn’t like me following him.”

“A black guy gets out of a FWC vehicle and follows you. What young guy here would like that, Louis?”

“Fair enough. But I’m going to run a check on him. What’s his last name?”

She hesitated. “Keno.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble with Moses.”

She stared at him for a long time then with a final look back at Betty’s house, she jammed the SUV into gear and pulled slowly away.

They were out on Alligator Alley heading west into the setting sun before Katy spoke again.

“She’s dead,” she said softly.

For a second Louis thought she meant her great aunt Betty but then realized she was talking about Grace.

Katy flipped down the visor to retrieve her sunglasses and slipped them on, but not before Louis saw her eyes well with tears.

“You don’t know that,” Louis said.

She looked left, to the huge empty expanse of the Everglades. “We’ve increased our search flights, we’ve got every officer out there looking and all the hunters on alert,” she said. “There’s no sign of her. She’s gone, Louis, Grace is gone.”

Maybe it was the emotion of the visit to Betty. Maybe she was just exhausted. But this was the first time he had heard defeat in her voice.

“Look,” he said, “Things go cold on cases but then you get a break and things heat up. You have to stay with it, you have to stay positive.”

She glanced at him then looked back to the road.

“Go home and try not to worry,” he said. “Have a glass of wine and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll start again early tomorrow.”

She was silent.

“You’ve got to trust me on this,” Louis said. “We’ll find her, Katy. We’ll bring Grace home.”