Lady Killer

by Kathleen Creighton

“What are you doing, man?” Al Hernandez, the other deputy, jerked at Lonnie’s arm and half spun him around.

  Lonnie shook off Al’s hand. “What I shoulda done years ago. What I told Dunk he shoulda done. Shoulda drowned that cat the day he brought it home. I told him he was crazy. And lookit what’s happened. Now I’m gonna kill that thing. I’m gonna shoot it right here and now!”

  Al touched Lonnie’s arm again. “Come on, man-”

  “Not without a warrant, you’re not.” Brooke spoke loudly and calmly, and both men jerked their heads to look at her the way they might if the cougar itself had spoken. “This animal belongs to me,” she went on, trying to keep her voice from quivering. “She is not an imminent threat to anybody now. You don’t know what happened, or how it happened. You have no cause to shoot her, and if you try, you’ll have to do it through me.”

  She saw Lonnie’s small blue eyes glitter with a dangerous light, saw his jaw jut forward in a way she’d seen it do before, and wondered if she’d gone too far. She felt Daniel creep out from behind her to stand at her side. She felt his arm slip around her waist and wished, for his sake, she could stop shaking. She braced herself as Lonnie took a threatening step toward her.

  But then Rosie came walking up, peeling off her gloves and shaking her head as she joined the two deputies. She spoke to them in a voice too low for Brooke to hear over the pounding in her head, and the two men turned and walked back to where the second EMT was packing up his gear. But not before Lonnie stabbed a finger at Brooke and said in a voice hoarse with fury, “This ain’t over, Brooke. Count on it.”

  Rosie paused, looking uncertain, then came over to Brooke and reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Brooke, Daniel-I’m so sorry. We did everything we could.”

  “I know you did. It’s okay.” Brooke felt her head nodding up and down, like a mechanical toy.

  “Is there anything I can do? You want me to call Pastor Farley?”

  “Yes, thank you. I’d appreciate that,” Brooke murmured, although at that moment she didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. All she wanted was to be alone with her son in her house, where she could fix him hot dogs for dinner and pretend the past thirty minutes or so hadn’t happened. That it had all been a dream-a nightmare. She wanted desperately for it to all be a dream, a mistake, for there to be some sort of magic pill she could take to make it all go away.

  Except she knew that wouldn’t happen. And that the nightmare was just beginning.

  Numbly, she watched the EMTs pack up their gear and make their way back through the barn to their parked vehicle. Al was speaking into the radio on his shoulder, calling for a forensics team, and Lonnie went loping off to the department SUV and returned carrying a roll of yellow plastic tape. Brooke had been the wife of a law enforcement officer for seven years; she knew what it all meant.

  Her ex-husband, Daniel’s father, was dead. This was a crime scene now.

  Al finished talking into his radio and came over to where she and Daniel were standing, Daniel with his arm around her waist, still, his body rigid and straight as a post. Brooke, with her arm protectively around his shoulders, was the only one who’d know he was shaking, too. Al hauled in a breath and took on a cop’s authoritative stance, with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his chest out.

  “I’m gonna have to ask you to go on to the house now, if you wouldn’t mind. We’re gonna need to ask you some questions, but for right now, I need for you to move out of the way so we can do our job here, which is findin’ out exactly what happened. You understand? We’re gonna find out what happened to your husband.”

  My ex-husband! Brooke thought but only nodded.

  Beside her, Daniel was shaking his head violently. “No-uh-uh, I’m not leaving. If we do, you’ll shoot Lady. And it wasn’t her fault, what happened to Dad. I know it wasn’t.”

  The deputy’s stern cop face softened. He gave a little cough and said, “Now, son, nobody’s gonna shoot your cat. I’m not gonna let that happen.”

  Daniel drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “You better promise.” Brooke felt so proud, she almost smiled.

  Al Hernandez did smile. “Yeah, son, I promise. There’ll be an au-” he threw Brooke a look of apology, coughed again and said “-an investigation, and then a judge is gonna decide what to do about your cougar. Until that all happens, nobody’s gonna touch her. Okay?”

  Daniel didn’t reply, and Brooke felt the resistance in his rigid body. The distrust. Though she understood just how he felt, she tightened her hold on his shoulders, and they left the compound together.

  On the way to the house, she remembered the groceries still sitting in the truck. Daniel helped her carry them into the house and put them away, but when she asked him what he wanted for supper, he told her he wasn’t hungry. Again, she knew how he felt but poured him a glass of orange juice, anyway, and as an afterthought, poured one for herself, too.

  She pulled out a chair, and Daniel hitched himself sideways onto another, and they sat facing each other across the kitchen table, not looking directly at each other. Daniel took a cautious sip of his orange juice, then said, “I have homework.”

  Brooke took a sip of her juice and said, “What kind?”

  “Math,” said Daniel. “And social studies.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that right now,” Brooke told him, and he nodded and didn’t ask why. That was the thing about Daniel; he understood so much without being told. Maybe too much for a child his age. Seen too much, too. Things no child of any age should have to see.

  Brooke folded her hands together on the table in front of her and stared at them, marveling at how calm she felt. She wondered when it was going to hit her, the fact that Duncan was dead, killed by an animal she’d hand-raised from a kitten. And that he’d been found in a bloody mess by his nine-year-old son. She wondered when it was going to hit Daniel. She took a breath and looked at him and felt an awful twisting pain just below her heart.

  “We have to talk,” she said. “About what we’re going to say when they ask us questions.” Daniel continued to stare at his glass of orange juice. “Honey, I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

  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 prote
ct 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.