P. Parrish - Claw Back

Louis took a slow breath. “Katy, I have to consider all possibilities or I’m not doing my job,” he said.

“It is not y our job anymore,” she said. “I don’t need you. I don’t want you here anymore.”

He stared at her in disbelief. He knew the Seminoles, much like the illegal Hispanics in Immokalee, resented outsiders even when they wanted to help. And he respected that. But she had invited him in her world, her uncivilized world of poisonous snakes, rare orchids and panthers that perched in trees. She had introduced him to the cats and somehow, just by the way she spoke of them, she had made them almost human.

He didn’t want to walk away from this. He wanted to find Grace and he wanted to find her alive. Not just for Katy, but for himself. It was going to be his only way back in.

“Take your techs and leave,” Katy said. “I will find another investigator.”

She turned and walked away from him, her step quickening as she neared her swamp buggy.

“Katy. Stop.”

Without a look back, she climbed into the high seat of the buggy and started it up. The roar split the silence and the tech guys looked up in surprise. Then the big buggy rumbled away into the brush, leaving only the retreating growl of its engine in the sticky air.

Louis picked up the laundry basket, used a foot to slam the dryer door shut and headed back to his cottage.

He was coming around the rain-puddled yard when he saw the Game and Wildlife truck parked near the Bransons on the Beach sign. A moment later, Katy came off his porch, stopping short when she saw him.

“Oh, you’re here,” she said. “The door’s open but there was no answer when I knocked.”

“I was around back doing my laundry.” He came onto the porch. “Come on in.”

Inside, he set the basket on the counter. When he turned to Katy she was standing awkwardly just inside the living room. His radio was tuned to a classic rock station out of Tampa. Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” was playing.

“I came here to apologize,” she said.

“What for?”

“Leaving you stranded out in the slough this morning.”

“I got a lift back with Mickey and Buck.”

She gave a curt nod. She looked uncomfortable, like she wanted to say something else but didn’t know how to begin.

“I was just going to have a beer,” he said. “Want one?”

She nodded and ventured further into the living room, looking around. “Nice place,” she said.

He nodded toward the plastic bucket he had set by the stove before he ducked into the refrigerator. “The roof leaks, there’s no water pressure and the A/C is shot. Other than that, it’s paradise.” He handed her a beer. “Let’s go out on the porch. It’s cooler out there.”

Katy settled into the old chaise so Louis took the wicker chair. She was quiet, sipping her beer as she looked out at the pale smudge of sun sinking slowly into the bank of rain clouds over the gulf.

“You’ve got a great view,” she said finally, using her beer bottle to point to the swaying sea oats.

“Like I said, paradise,” Louis said.

“Okay, this is tacky but I gotta ask. How do you afford a beach house on Captiva working as a PI?”

“Well, you are looking at the head of security for Bransons on the Beach,” Louis said. “I get all the laundry tokens I can use and a break on the rent. All I have to do is make sure the kids don’t play their radios too loud, check the locks on the empty cabins and make sure the trash can lids are shut to keep the raccoons out.”

“How come you’re working for Mobley?”

Louis took a drink before he answered. “I’m trying to get a job on the force. Your panther case is a kind of a test.”

She considered him for a moment before she took a long draw on the beer. “How long you been doing PI work?” she asked.

“About four years. Sort of fell into it after I moved down here from Michigan.”

Katy’s gaze wandered back to the water. “Man, I’d love to live near the water,” she said softly. “I share a shitty apartment with a roommates out near the Miromar outlet mall. I have a great view of I-75 from my bedroom and one shelf in the refrigerator.”

“How long you been in Florida?” Louis asked.

“Thirty-three years. I’m a native.”

This morning, when he brought up the Seminole angle Katy had almost bit his head off. He was almost sure she was Indian but there was no easy way to bring it up.

In his five years as a Florida PI he’d never had any direct contact with either the Seminoles or Miccosukees, the only two surviving tribes in Florida. All he knew was that they ran a high-stakes bingo hall on the reservation west of Fort Lauderdale and were pressuring Florida politicians to open a real casino. They also sold the tax-free cigarettes at smoke shops scattered over on the east coast. And like all tribes, they were sovereign nations, exempting them from the normal reach of the law. They policed their own, with their own cops, courts and moral codes.

As Katy looked out over the water, Louis took the moment to study her.

She was dressed in baggy white linen clam-diggers, orange flip-flops and a blue t-shirt so faded he could barely make out the lettering on the front — BOB SEGER AMERICAN STORM TOUR 1986.

There were no angles to her profile, except maybe the high plateau of her cheekbones on her round face. Her skin was smooth and almost the same light brown tone as his own. He hadn’t really seen her hair before now because she had always stuffed it up in her ball cap. But he could see it now, a long straight black sweep as magnificent as a thoroughbred’s tail. Except for her hair clip, the only adornment she wore was a bracelet made of small blue and red glass beads.

He focused on the bracelet as she raised the beer to her lips.

“I like your bracelet,” he said. “Is it Indian?”

Her eyes, when she turned to him, were as black and still as the slough water. “Yeah, it’s Seminole,” she said. “So am I.”

Louis took a drink of beer. “I didn’t mean to offend you this morning.”

“You didn’t.”

Lightening zigzagged silently over the gulf. It was quiet except for the music coming from the radio inside.

“Oh man, I love this song,” Katy said.

Louis strained to listen but he couldn’t recognize it. That’s why he liked this Tampa station. It played the obscure stuff.

“What is it?” he said.

“‘Pretty As You Feel’.”

It took him another full stanza before he recognized the singer’s distinctive contralto. And another minute before he understood.

“Grace Slick,” he said.

Katy looked over at him with a sly smile.

“And the other panther is named after Bruce Springsteen?” he asked.

She raised her beer in a salute.

Louis sat back in the wicker chair, propping his legs up on the table. “Why do you name them?” he asked.

She gave a small shrug. “So they aren’t just numbers.”

They were quiet until the song ended.

“I was reading about panthers today,” Louis said. “I saw something that said they are sacred to the Seminoles.”

It was getting dark and he couldn’t see Katy’s face. But she had relaxed some, her body sort of melting into the lounge. Whether it was from the beer or from being more comfortable around him he didn’t know.

“Sacred,” she said softly.

He waited.

“My great aunt used to tell me stories,” she said. “They were like our fairy tales or like the Greeks making up stories to explain things that couldn’t be explained.” She looked over at him. “You want to hear one?”

“Please.”

“Well, the Creator made all the animals but he loved the panther best,” she said. “The panther would sit beside him and he would pet its soft furry back.”