Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“He dragged the body up onto the ledge,” said Rhodes. “We pulled her down to do CPR.”

Maura looked up at the boulder and saw the dried stream of blood that had trickled from the ledge. “He got her all the way up there?”

Rhodes nodded. “That’s how powerful they are. They can haul a heavy kudu into a tree. Their instinct is to go high and leave the carcass hanging over a branch, where they can gorge undisturbed. That’s what he was about to do when Greg shot him. By then, Debbie was already gone.”

Maura donned gloves and crouched down to pull aside the blanket. One glance at what was left of the victim’s throat told her that the attack was not survivable. In appalled silence she stared at the crushed larynx and exposed trachea, at a neck ripped open so deeply that the head lolled back, nearly decapitated.

“That’s how they do it,” said Rhodes, his gaze averted, his voice unsteady. “Cats are designed by nature to be perfect killing machines, and they go straight for the throat. They crush the spine, tear open the jugular and carotids. At least they make sure their prey’s dead before they start feeding. I’m told it’s a quick death. Exsanguination.”

Not quick enough . Maura pictured Debbie Lopez’s agonal seconds, the blood pulsing like a water cannon from her severed carotids. It would also flood into her torn trachea, drowning her lungs. A rapid death, yes, but for this victim, those final seconds of terror and suffocation must have seemed an eternity.

She pulled the blanket back over the dead woman’s face and turned her attention to the leopard. It was a magnificent animal, with a massive chest and a lustrous pelt that gleamed in the dappled sunlight. She stared at razor-sharp teeth and imagined how easily they would crush and tear a woman’s throat. With a shudder she rose to her feet and saw, through the exhibit bars, that the morgue retrieval team had arrived.

“She loved this cat,” said Rhodes, gazing down at Rafiki. “After he was born, she bottle-fed him like a baby. I don’t think she ever imagined he’d do this to her. And that’s what really killed her. She forgot he was the predator, and we’re his prey.”

Maura peeled off her gloves. “Has the family been notified?”

“She has a mother in St. Louis. Our director, Dr. Mikovitz, has already called her.”

“My office will need her contact information. For the funeral arrangements after the autopsy.”

“Is an autopsy really necessary?”

“The cause of death seems obvious, but there are always questions that need to be answered. Why did she make this fatal mistake? Was she impaired by drugs or alcohol or some medical condition?”

He nodded. “Of course. I didn’t even think of that. But I’d be shocked if you found any drugs in her system. That just wouldn’t be the woman I knew.”

The woman you believed you knew, thought Maura as she walked out of the cage. Every human on this earth had secrets. She thought of her own, so closely guarded, and how startled her colleagues would be to learn of them. Even Jane, who knew her best of all.

As the morgue retrieval team wheeled the stretcher into the enclosure, Maura stood on the public pathway, gazing over the railing at what the visitors would have seen. The spot where the leopard first attacked was out of view, hidden by a wall, and shrubbery would have obscured the dragging of the body. But the rock ledge where he’d guarded his kill was clearly visible, and it was now marked by the gruesome trail of blood that had dripped down the boulder.

No wonder people had been shrieking.

A shiver rippled across Maura’s skin, like the chill breath of a predator. Turning, she glanced around. Saw Dr. Rhodes huddled in conversation with worried zoo officials. Saw a pair of zookeepers comforting each other. No one was looking at Maura; no one even seemed to notice she was there. But she could not shake the sensation of being watched.

Then she spotted him, through the bars of a nearby enclosure. His tawny coat was almost invisible against the sand-colored boulder where he crouched. His powerful muscles were poised to spring. Silently tracking his prey, his eyes were fixed on her. Only on her.

She looked at the placard mounted on the railing. PUMA CONCOLOR. A cougar.

And she thought: I never would have seen him coming, either.

“JERRY O’BRIEN’S A BOMB THROWER. OR HE PLAYS ONE ON THE RADIO, anyway,” said Frost as they drove northwest into Middlesex County, Jane at the wheel. “On his show last week, he was ranting about the animal rights crowd. Compared them to grass-eating rodents, and wondered how dumb bunnies got to be so vicious.” Frost laughed as he pulled up the audio file on his laptop. “Here’s the part you’ve got to hear, about hunting.”

“You think he really believes the shit he says?” she asked.

“Who knows? It gets him an audience, anyway, ’cause he’s syndicated all the way to the moon.” Frost tapped on his keyboard. “Okay, this is last week’s show. Listen to this.”

Maybe you eat chicken or enjoy a steak once in a while. You pick it up at the grocery store, wrapped up nicely in plastic. What makes you think you’re morally superior to the hunter who hauls himself out of bed at four A.M., who endures the cold and exhaustion to hike through the woods with a heavy gun? Who waits patiently in the brush, maybe for hours? Who spends a lifetime honing his skill with a firearm—and trust me, people, it is a skill to be able to hit a target. Who on God’s green earth has the right to begrudge the hunter his right to engage in an ancient, honored occupation that has fed families since the beginning of human history? These metrosexual snobs who have no problem eating their steak frites in a fancy French restaurant have the audacity to tell us red-blooded hunters we’re cruel for killing a deer. Where do they think meat comes from?

And don’t get me started on wild-eyed vegetarians. Hey, animal lovers! You got a cat or a dog, right? What do you feed your beloved pooch or puss? Meat. M. E. A. T. You might as well take your anger out on Fluffy!

Frost paused the recording. “Which reminds me, I dropped by Gott’s house this morning. Didn’t see the white cat, but all the food I left last night was gone. I refilled the bowl and changed the litter box.”

“And Detective Frost gets the merit badge for pet care.”

“What’re we gonna do about him? You think Dr. Isles wants another cat?”

“I think she already regrets the one she has. Why don’t you adopt it?”

“I’m a guy.”

“So?”

“So it’d feel weird, having a cat.”

“What, do they steal your manhood?”

“It’s all about image, you know? If I bring home a girl, what’s she gonna think when she sees I have a fluffy white cat?”

“Oh yeah, like your goldfish gives a much better impression.” She nodded at his laptop. “So what else does O’Brien have to say?”

“Listen to this part,” said Frost, and clicked PLAY.

… but no, these grass-eating rodents, vicious bunnies who dine every day on lettuce, they’re more bloodthirsty than any carnivore. And believe me, friends, I hear from them. They threaten to string me up and gut me like a deer. Threaten to burn me, cut me, strangle me, crush me. Would you believe this comes from the lips of vegetarians ? Friends, beware the lettuce eaters. There’s no one on earth more dangerous than your so-called animal lovers .

Jane looked at Frost. “Maybe they’re even more dangerous than he realizes,” she said.

WITH A WEEKLY SHOW syndicated to six hundred radio stations, reaching an audience of over twenty million listeners, Jerry “Big Mouth” O’Brien could afford the best, a fact made abundantly clear from the moment Jane and Frost drove past the guarded gatehouse onto O’Brien’s estate. The rolling pastures and grazing horses could be on a farm somewhere in Virginia or Kentucky; it was an unexpectedly bucolic setting only an hour outside Boston. They drove past a farm pond and up a grassy slope dotted with white sheep, to the massive log-built residence at the top of the hill. With its wide porches and massive timber posts, it looked more like a hunting lodge than a private home.