Karen Harper - Shallow Grave

“What?” he said as all three of them turned.

“Somehow she got in!” Brit muttered as they saw a wiry, tanned, very old-looking woman run at them, swinging a long wooden pole with a hook cutter on the end of it. Two beefy, bald men ran behind her, both out of breath, either trying to catch her or help her. They lugged a big, dark plastic sack between them. In their free hands, one carried a hatchet, the other a butcher knife.

“It’s Gracie Cobham,” Brit shouted, “the woman the state took the tiger from! Run!”

8

The old woman shouted to the men with her, “Cut ’em up, boys!”

Claire sucked in a huge breath. Did these people intend to maim or kill them with the hatchet and big knife?

Nick yanked her with him faster than she could run. He fumbled for his phone. Brit, just ahead of them, tried to jam a key from her ring of them into the door that led to the back of the tiger’s cage.

Claire saw they were trapped by the tall, double fences of the BAA and Trophy Ranch. If Brit still had that tranquilizer gun or if the fire extinguisher had been replaced—In her haste, Brit dropped the ring of keys and scrambled for them as Claire darted a look back at their pursuers. But were they pursuers? The two men had dropped their big, gray garbage sack and were slicing it open. What looked like two dead possums fell out of it.

“Fresh roadkill, Thunder,” Gracie Cobham crooned to the tiger. “Possum’s nice and fresh, just the way you like, poor boy. They the ones been treating you wrong, not me. That’s my Thunder, that’s my baby boy.”

“Nick, wait!” Claire insisted and put her hand over his as he started to punch in 911. “She meant cut up the possums.”

It was true. The two “boys”—who must be in their sixties—were skinning and cutting up the dead animals, and Gracie was picking up chunks of the bloody meat and tossing them against the bars of the cage. Tiberia/Thunder was pawing them inside and devouring them, not with a roar or growl but with what sounded like a loud purr.

Grabbing the key ring from the ground, Brittany was noisily raking through keys for the one she wanted. She whispered, “I’ve still got the tranquilizer gun in here. I’m calling the cops again, if you aren’t. She’s trespassing at least, and I have a restraining order against her for trouble before.”

“Could they have been here on Saturday?” Nick asked Brit. “They’d have a motive to hurt your dad.”

“I don’t know how in hell they got in, but they can’t feed Tiberia that roadkill. It could mean maggots—rabies. I’m going to get those Florida crackers arrested.”

But some instinct in Claire told her that gun plus cops was not the way to go here. She’d seen people of all kinds in psychological distress before. Her heart was still pounding from exertion and shock, but she peeked around Nick, who was blocking her against the building, and called to the old woman, “Was that your name for the tiger, Ms. Cobham—Thunder?”

Nick swore under his breath, and Brit finally got a key to work. She quickly disappeared inside the dim enclosure. Nick tried to push Claire in behind her, but she’d seen Gracie’s look of pain and determination on other faces before. And for an old woman to take in a tiger and baby it—and to boss around those two big louts who were probably her sons...

“Nick, we’ll never get anything out of her on this case if we get her arrested,” Claire muttered and shook his restraining hand off her shoulder. To make things worse, Claire saw Jackson on a dead run across the bridge, and he had a gun.

“Sure was his name,” Gracie called to Claire. “Still is, first name he had. I read in the paper ’bout the accident. It’s s’posed to be Tiberia now. But his roar sounded like distant thunder to me, ’specially when he was small, so Thunder it is and will be till the cows come home.”

“A very good name,” Claire said, careful to take only one step past Nick so he wouldn’t pull her back. She had to act fast before Brit came out with the tranquilizer gun she’d mentioned or Jackson used his gun. The “boys” had only used their potential weapons to tend to the meat so far. “So, how did you get Thunder in the first place?” she asked, taking several more steps.

Gracie threw the last big hunk of meat at the bars, then wiped her bloody hands on her jeans. “Told all this to the wildlife officers who stoled him,” she said, coming closer to Claire.

“Careful, Ma,” the larger of the two men said. “We did what we come to do. Paper said they won’t kill Thunder.”

At least, Claire saw, Jackson had stopped where he was on this side of the bridge. He kept edging close, but he hadn’t raised the gun. She thought to hold up a restraining hand, but then the Cobhams might react to him and the gun. Her heart beat so hard she could hear drums in her ears.

Trying to keep her voice steady, Claire said, “Brittany argued with them when anyone tried to talk about putting Thunder down. She loves him too.”

“‘Put him down.’ Pretty way to say kill him, right?” Gracie challenged.

Up this close, Claire noted the woman’s sun-bronzed skin was tight yet webbed with wrinkles. She looked wiry, strong and emanated stubbornness. Talk about endangered species: this woman and her boys were remnants of “old Florida,” either the best or the worst of the fading past. Behind the Cobhams, Jackson kept shuffling slowly closer.

“You part of the Hoffman family?” Gracie asked, squinting at her. The sun was not in her eyes with that billed cap she wore, so she evidently needed to see Claire better.

“Just a family friend and friend to Thunder. We brought some children here the other day to admire him, and they thought the big cat was really beautiful and impressive.”

“And he’s in mourning. Not for the captor he kilt. For me. Paces all the time,” she insisted, though Claire had no idea how she’d know that. “See how calm he is now?” Gracie challenged, pointing, as Brit came back out, thankfully, with no tranquilizer gun in sight. “It’s my voice, my being here, calms him.”

Brit challenged, “You’re not even looking at him, so how do you know what he’s doing?”

Claire wished she’d change her tone of voice. She wasn’t close enough to elbow her. Surely, despite all she’d been through, she knew not to upset this woman and her sons. Evidently Jackson had assessed things correctly, though, since he had stopped and moved behind a big gumbo limbo tree.

“I know him, my Thunder,” the old woman said, and it was true. Lying down, the tiger was calmly washing his paws with a huge tongue. The appearance of the Cobham clan, despite the movement and raised voices, had seemed to calm the beast.

“No one listens to me ’bout I know best for him,” Gracie went on, cutting off another comment from Brit. “Got him as a kitten from a real phony, but I’m not. So wrong to steal him from me, give him to someone goes to school to learn about him,” she said and spit on the ground in Brit’s direction. Gracie crossed her arms over her flat chest and stomped once on the ground. “Real tired of peeking at my Thunder through the fence. Glad someone fin’ly listened to me,” she added as she glared at Nick and Brittany, nodded at Claire and turned away.

“Clean up that mess,” she muttered to her sons, who jumped to obey, then scurried to follow her out the way they had evidently come in. She didn’t look back.

“She’s trouble,” Brit whispered, and walked behind them, evidently to be sure they left. Claire noted that when Jackson saw the intruders were on their way out, he held his gun to his side and followed them ahead of Brit.

Nick and Claire started to walk out too. Yes, the Cobhams were gone and Jackson was asking Brit why no one told him they’d gotten in. “And how did they get in?” he asked her, his voice rising. “Thought it better they just leave, or I’d have confronted them on it.”