“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.”
“You know, Nick,” Claire told him, putting a hand on his arm to halt his steps for a moment, “Gracie let slip that she was tired of watching the tiger through the fence. Through what fence?” she asked, looking around at the perimeter of the BAA. “Could she have a hiding place just outside to spy in here? Even to slip in? And Jackson—if he’s so in charge, how does he keep missing all the action?”
“As for Jackson, it’s a big enough place with lots of sight barriers. Probably chance or bad timing, but what a character the old woman is, one we may have to watch.”
“A real frontier woman,” Claire insisted. “If I question her again—on her turf—who knows what she might tell us about the tiger or if she resented Ben Hoffman. Those ‘boys’ of hers would probably do anything she asked.”
“You mean sneak in here like storm troopers, hit Ben on the head and shove him in the cage, and not be noticed? Wouldn’t they be scared that Momma only wants her Thunder to have possums, not humans? But, yeah, she sure calls the shots. And no, don’t even suggest you’re going anywhere near Everglades backcountry to question some old woman or those two with her.”
Claire heaved a huge sigh and leaned against him. “I think we’re both back on a case—accident or murder or suicide—aren’t we?”
“I guess I am, but you’re pregnant.”
“No kidding. And don’t be sexist. If I go anywhere dangerous, I’ll take Bronco or Heck—or even you—with me.”
“Let’s just get Ben Hoffman’s stuff and get out of here before something else happens. I’m starting to think I need some of that calm-down herbal tea of yours.”
* * *
Nick had their master
