Claw Back (Louis Kincaid)

by Parrish, P. J.

  Louis peered at the collar through the plastic, fingering the cut in the heavy leather. It had been sawed off with a large blade.

  “Did you find any blood here?” he asked.

  “Blood?” Katy asked.

  “From Grace.”

  She shook her head. “We looked, in about a twenty-yard radius but we didn’t see anything to indicate she was hurt.”

  “Then she had to have been tranquilized.”

  Katy just nodded, still looking around the brush like she had maybe missed something.

  “He wanted her alive,” Louis said. “What would someone do with a live panther?”

  She looked up at him. “I don’t know.”

  Louis walked away, eyes to the ground. Every crime scene was the same – the perp always left something of himself and always took something away. It could be a discarded cigarette butt or dirt picked up in the tread of a sneaker.

  In this jungle, evidence was going to be hard to find. But not impossible. Lee County’s CSI team was one of the state’s best. It was just a matter of getting Mobley to cough up the money and manpower for a missing cat.

  The squawk of a radio drew Louis’s attention back to Katy. He was too far away to hear the conversation. When Katy signed off, she waved him over.

  “I got the lab work on Bruce,” she said. “They found acepromazine in his system.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a tranquilizer,” she said.

  “I thought you tranquilized him on the patio?”

  “No, acepromazine is a fucking horse tranquilizer,” she said. “The injection site was his chest. He was darted.”

  Louis was confused. “So how’d he break his leg?”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring at something in the distance, her jaw clenched.

  “Katy? How’d he break his leg?”

  “He must have climbed a tree,” she said, pointing to a towering tree. “They do that when they feel threatened. He was darted and fell.”

  Louis shaded his eyes to look up at the spindly cypress tree. “How long do they stay out?”

  “Half hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”

  “Plenty of time for someone to load a panther into a cage in a truck and get away someplace isolated.”

  Katy nodded.

  “Grace went missing first, right?” Louis asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe he wanted two,” Louis said. “A male and a female.”

  He wiped the sweat from his face and looked back at Katy.

  “How many panthers are left in the wild?” he asked.

  “Maybe thirty,” Katy said. She hesitated. "We’re losing them fast.”

  “Well, maybe someone’s building an ark,” Louis said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  All the way across town, he heard sirens. As he pulled into the parking lot of the Lee County Administration Building, he remembered something a female cop had once told him. The sudden swell of multiple sirens was like a baby’s cries -- experience told you just how serious it was.

  A couple sirens, combined with an ambulance or two, probably indicated a traffic accident on a major road. Sheriff’s cars streaming in one direction was likely a backup situation for an officer in trouble. Cruisers from every agency whizzing through every red light meant something big was going down.

  And that’s what was happening now.

  He parked his Mustang in the visitor’s lot and picked up the envelope Katy had given him. He knew he would need ammunition to convince Mobley this panther thing was worth his department’s time, and Katy had obligated with some stunning photographs.

  “Maybe it will make it real for him,” she had said.

  Louis wasn’t sure anything could warm Lance Mobley’s heart besides a double shot of Jack Daniels but it was worth a try.

  Mobley’s office was down the first corridor, the double glass doors marked by the five-star county seal and Mobley’s name in large gold letters.

  The secretary was on the phone, but her eyes darted up to Louis as he came in. Louis didn’t know her but she bore a stark resemblance to all the secretaries Louis had seen at this desk before her. A toned, sun-streaked blonde who wore a bright print blouse and a Slinky-like bunch of gold bracelets.

  She finally hung up the phone and drawing a weary breath looked again to Louis. “Yes?”

  “I’m Louis Kincaid. The sheriff is expecting me.”

  He could see from the blank expression on her face she couldn’t place his name.

  “I’m working with the Fish and Game --”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. Things are a little chaotic right now.”

  “What’s going on? I heard the sirens.”

  “Armed robbery in Estero,” she said. “Three wounded officers, one suspect was shot at the scene, two others fled in a green Monte Carlo. The entire county is in pursuit.”

  Louis looked toward Mobley’s open office door. The high-backed leather chair was empty. Mobley would be tied up all day with a situation like this, especially if it was his department that eventually took down the robbers.

  Which meant a missing panther was low priority for Mobley right now. Still, Louis had a crime scene waiting to be processed and each additional day left it open to contamination.

  He looked back at the secretary. “Should I wait or --”

  Suddenly, the door behind him banged open and Mobley came in. He was in full green and white uniform and dripping in sweat. His eyes shot briefly to Louis then he walked to the secretary’s desk, snatched his messages from her outstretched hand and moved quickly into his office. He left the door open and Louis took it as a gesture to follow.

  The first thing Mobley did was reach over to turn up the volume on the police radio near his desk. Red lights zipped back and forth on five channels. To anyone else, the radio traffic would have sounded like excited gibberish but Louis understood every word. The wounded officers had already been released from the hospital, Collier County S.O. had joined the pursuit and the fleeing suspects had caused a traffic accident on Tamiami but had managed to drive on, dragging a sparking fender behind them.

  Mobley glanced at Louis. “I don’t have time right now for you and your dead cat,” he said.

  “He wasn’t dead,” Louis said. “He was --”

  Mobley held up a hand to silence him as he leaned toward the radio. The suspects had entered I-75, heading south at a high speed. One of Mobley’s deputies radioed in for permission to continue the pursuit in what was suddenly far more dangerous conditions -- a crowded freeway. The deputy sounded young, his strained voice nearly drowned out by the screaming siren in the background. A superior officer, also in the chase, gave him the okay to continue.

  Mobley hadn’t sat down, hadn’t moved from his spot behind his desk. He reminded Louis of how Susan Outlaw looked a few years ago when she was waiting for news on her son Ben after he’d been kidnapped. It was a combination of emotions: fear for those you cared about and helplessness because you couldn’t be out there -- wherever there was -- to help.

  For the next five or six minutes, they listened to the anxious chatter of officers and wailing sirens. Then suddenly it was over, the young deputy’s voice dominating the others as he announced that the Monte Carlo had clipped a semi, went airborne and flipped until it was nearly cut in half by a tree. With a small break in his voice he ended his transmission with, “both suspects appear to be DOA.”

  Mobley keyed the radio and asked for the exact location of the roll-over. He was told the pursuit had ended two miles north of the Collier County line, in Lee County.

  Mobley’s turf. Mobley’s headlines.

  Mobley turned the radio down, walked to the open door and told the secretary to schedule a press conference in an hour. He came back to his desk and dropped into his chair.

  “You got about thirty seconds before I get slammed,” he said.

  “The panther wasn’t dead,” Louis said. “It was illegally darted, fell from a
tree and went looking for water.”

  “Sounds like hunter trying to poach a trophy.”

  “It’s not a poaching incident,” Louis said. “The wounded panther was not the same cat Fish and Game put the BOLO out on. That was a female cat named Grace. And we know for a fact that she’s been abducted, probably by the same person who tried to take Bruce.”

  “Bruce?”

  “The male cat in Lehigh Acres.”

  Mobley’s eyes came up to Louis’s face, flickering with disbelief. “I’m about to coordinate the processing of an armed robbery scene with multiple fatalities and you’re giving me some fairy tale about kidnapped cats?”

  “I can appreciate your position,” Louis said. “But there’s only a handful of panthers left out there. Fish and Game monitors them very closely. It’s a federal crime to even mess with the cats.”

  “But not our crime, Kincaid.”

  “You’re wrong,” Louis said. “It is our crime. You gave it to me.”

  Mobley smiled. “You thought I was serious?”

  Louis felt sucker-punched. He had thought Mobley was serious, at least as far as seeing just how much shit Louis would take to wear a badge again.

  “Yeah,” Louis said. “I thought you were being straight with me because I thought you were a man of your word. Even when you were drunk.”

  Mobley’s smile vanished and his face flushed with color as he glared at Louis. The phone started ringing but Mobley made no move to answer it. Finally, the secretary intercepted it and the office was quiet again. Mobley was still staring at him so Louis decided he’d simply keep arguing.

  “I don’t think the cat-napper is a trophy hunter,” Louis said. “I think he wanted to mate the male and female panthers. But the male, Bruce, got away from him.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,’ Mobley said. “Why would a guy want a litter of panther kitties?”

  “Maybe he wants his own family of cats,” Louis said, thinking of the strange people who lived in the Everglades in shanties and tents. “Maybe he’s trying to help stave off extinction. I don’t know. But I do know that if I’m right about him wanting to mate two panthers, he will come back for another male. And when he does, someone could get hurt.”

  Mobley’s phone started ringing and again he ignored it. His gaze dropped to Louis’s hand. “What do you have in that envelope?” he asked.

  Louis opened the envelope and dumped the photographs Katy had given him on the desk. Most were shots of Bruce and Grace, obviously taken with telephoto lenses, but with an artist’s eye for the beauty of the lithe animals.

  The last four pictures were of Bruce lying half-dead on the Lehigh Acres patio, Bruce with his leg splinted, a close-up shot of Grace’s severed collar and last, a picture of Katy holding a spotted panther kitten, back-dropped by the green foliage of the Everglades.

  “Who’s this?” Mobley asked.

  “The Fish and Game officer in charge of the panthers.”

  Mobley sifted through the photos. The phone started up again, this time followed a second ringing on the other line. Voices echoed from down the hall. Louis knew his time was running out.

  “Sheriff,” Louis said. “Everyone loves a good animal rescue story. Think of the great PR you’ll get when we find Grace.”

  “It’s only great PR if you find the thing alive, Kincaid.” Mobley tossed the photos down and stood up. “What do you need?”

  “A CSI team in the Everglades as soon as possible,” Louis said. “I could use some techs who specialize in tire and animal tracks.”

  Mobley gave him a withering look. “What else?”

  “I want to talk to people who’ve been arrested for animal abuse or poaching in the glades,” Louis said. “So, I’ll need access to your criminal database.”

  “I’ll have Ginger arrange authorization.”

  “I’ll also a four-wheel drive vehicle.”

  A clamor of voices rose in the outer office. Louis glanced over his shoulder to see a huddle of men in suits and sweaty uniformed officers waiting to see Mobley. Behind them, he spotted a TV cameraman.

  When he turned back, Mobley was holding out a small leather wallet.

  “You’ll need this, too,” Mobley said.

  Louis took the wallet and opened it. On one side was a gold deputy’s badge with the Lee County Sheriff’s seal. On the other, where the official ID would go, was a white card with the sheriff’s office logo embossed across the top. Underneath, it read: The courtesies and law enforcement authority of this office have been temporarily extended to Louis Kincaid. It was signed by Sheriff Lance S. Mobley.

  “I do keep my word, Kincaid,” Mobley said. “Now go find that damn cat. Alive.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  After leaving Mobley, Louis felt the need to burn off the extra adrenalin of the day so he stopped by Gold’s Gym and did a quick hour in the weight room.

  That wasn’t enough so he swung by Fowler Firearms and killed another hour target shooting with his Glock. It was Friday - Ladies Shoot Free! - and the place was packed with women laying waste to paper Zombies with pink Sig Skeeters.

  He didn’t mind being the lone male. He had been avoiding going to the Lee County Gun Range lately because he didn’t want to run into any cops who might get curious about why he was sharpening his shooting skills. Not yet at least. Not until he was sure he had a permanent deputy badge on his chest.

  Eventually he’d have to break down and go to the Lee County range. He was going to have to do the tactical training course, test his accuracy shooting at the computer-controlled moving targets that mimicked what a cop might encounter on the street. It was one thing to shoot at static paper silhouettes. It was something else entirely to make split-second decisions on random moving targets.

  He hadn’t done tactical training since the academy. He knew he was rusty. Just like he knew his body had gone a little soft and his credit needed cleaning up. It didn’t matter. He was willing to do whatever it took to get back inside.

  It was past five by the time he got home. He fed Issy, peeled off his sticky clothes and took a long cool shower to get rid of the film of sweat and Avon Skin So Soft.

  A breeze was blowing in from the Gulf when he emerged from the bathroom, towel around his waist, so he didn’t bother to turn on the air conditioning. When he went to the refrigerator to get a Heineken he caught the faint scent of gunpowder. His Glock was lying on the kitchen counter where he had left it.

  He had planned to go through his mail and phone messages but all that would have to wait.

  He pulled what he needed from a kitchen drawer, tucked the towel tighter around his waist and sat down on a stool at the counter.

  The ritual was always the same. And there was something oddly calming about it.

  He grasped the Glock firmly and dropped out the magazine, setting it aside. Next he made sure the chamber was clear. He’d never accidently fired a weapon while cleaning it but he once knew a cop who did. The stray bullet had killed him.

  Dismantling the Glock had taken him some time to master. It wasn’t like the old model 10 revolvers or the simply assembled shotguns he’d used as a rookie. The Glock was a little like one of those wooden block puzzles where each movement had to be done in the correct order to open it up.

  First, he pulled the trigger until it clicked back into place. With a claw-like grip on the top of the gun, he pressed a tab and the slide came off.

  He squirted a little Hoppes oil into the three pieces – the spring, the slide and the barrel - then wiped each dry with a piece of an old t-shirt. The Glock’s frame was polymer but he always took the time to blow away the gun powder residue from the crevices.

  As he reassembled the Glock, he thought suddenly of Bud. He was his firearms instructor back at the academy, a small soft-spoken bald man whose quiet reverence for guns had earned him the name of the Buddha. He could still hear Bud’s words.

  Take care of it and it will take care of you. For those of you who ride alone it is the only pa
rtner you’ll have.

  Louis reassembled the Glock, slid it back in its holster and set it on the counter. The phone messages were still waiting. He hit the rewind button.

  “Hey Rocky, how the hell are you?”

  It was Mel. He had met the ex-Miami detective on a case here on Captiva Island years ago and they had forged one of those old-marriage bonds that withstood the benign neglect that colored most male friendships.

  “Look, we need to get together,” Mel went on. “Yuba and I are going over to the Roadhouse Saturday night to see Lou Colombo. We want you to come with us and don’t give me that shit that you have plans because I know you never do. Call me.”

  Louis took a long draw from the Heineken. He hadn’t seen Mel since that case they worked together over in Palm Beach last Christmas. Yuba was a lovely East Indian bartender who had followed Mel back to Fort Myers. Mel never admitted it, but Louis knew they were in love.

  Shit, that Palm Beach case had been seven months ago. Where had the time gone?

  The next voice was a male and at first Louis didn’t recognize it.

  “Hey, Louis, are you there? Pick up, dude! I guess you’re not home. But you’re never home.”

  It was Ben, the boy whom Louis had befriended years ago after rescuing him from a kidnapping. He didn’t recognize him because the last time they had talked Ben’s voice had been an octave higher.

  “You aren’t going to believe this, but she’s finally doing it,” Ben said. “Mom and Steve are getting married.”

  Louis leaned closer to the phone.

  “Anyway, it’s nothing fancy. You know Mom, she’s not even going to change her name.”

  Well, what woman named Susan Outlaw would? Especially since she was a public defender. The fact that Steve’s last name was Fuchs might have figured into her decision. Despite that, Louis had to admit Steve was a good man. And he’d make a good stepfather for Ben. Still, it stung a little to know that Ben just didn’t seem to need him as much as he used to.

  The next message on the machine began with a gruff cough.

  “Yeah, this is Ned Willis, and this call is for Louis Kincaid, the private investigator.”