by Dave Daren
She gave me the address.
“Alright,” I told the animal control guys. “I know where the tiger is, but let’s keep it on the down low. We don’t want all these news crews scaring away the animal.”
They nodded, and I gave them the address. They discreetly exited the scene, and Earnie turned to me.
“Let’s take my Escalade up there. I’ve got the tranquilizer,” he said.
I nodded and hopped in his SUV. We left the media and emergency crews to speculate and sit around doing the equivalent of, “here kitty, kitty.”
We followed the animal control van up to the red rocks, to a different bluff than I had gone yesterday. This place was supposedly at the mountain base, where meth heads typically like to set up. It was only about a ten minute drive before we arrived at the address AJ had given me.
It was an open field, directly in front of the butte. There were about a dozen travel trailers scattered over about a hundred yards. Dotted between the trailers were wading pools, knocked over lawn chairs, and rusted barbeque pits. There was no one in sight. I assumed there was a very good reason for this.
The animal control van pulled into the lot ahead of us, and we stayed close behind it. A young man in ill-fitting jeans, no shirt, and a long, stringy mullet, approached the animal control van, and talked to them for a bit. He pointed in a direction.
The man finally went back to his trailer, and the van slowly moved in the direction he had pointed. I saw the tiger first. The big cat was mulling around behind a trailer, walking around in circles.
“There it is,” I told Earnie.
Earnie stopped the car, and we silently watched the tiger. The animal control van was ahead of us, and it was clear that they had finally seen it, but were not in the right shooting distance.
The tiger was agitated now, and paced, its orange and black striped muscular body now penned into a small area between the two vehicles and a trailer. It was roaring repeatedly, showing its massive teeth.
I had the best view of the tiger, as my passenger door faced him directly. It also meant that I was in the most danger. Suddenly, the tiger jumped up and attacked the Escalade. We sat perfectly still, careful not to make any sudden moves.
The vehicle rocked so hard I was concerned it would tip. The big cat’s massive underbody filled up my window, and I was acutely aware that just a thin piece of General Motors glass was all that separated me from one of the earth’s fiercest creatures.
“Shit,” I said.
Without taking my eyes off the window, I reached over to Earnie who handed me the tranquilizer gun. The tiger was now batting at the side mirror as if he were trying to understand this odd appendage. Then he backed away from the vehicle and continued to pace.
He would be back, I knew. I examined the tranquilizer gun. The animal control van was now trying to back up and get a better angle to shoot. But, I was in the perfect position.
“It’s pretty straightforward,” Earnie told me about the gun. “The trigger is here, and you just point like this.”
“Yeah,” I said.
I positioned the gun right at the window and got the angle I wanted. Then, I slowly cracked the window about an inch, just enough to get the dart through.
I was suddenly aware at the point that there was absolutely nothing between me and this roaring tiger. I felt exhilaratingly intoxicated by the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I read once that if you look a tiger dead in the eye, you can cause it to back down. I didn’t know if that was true, but I did it anyway. I stared right into his green pupils, and he froze. Then I pulled the trigger.
The dart hit him right in the neck, and the tiger roared in pain. I had enough time to pull the gun out of the window and shut the crack. With the tiger distracted, the animal control officers actually exited their vehicle, and shot two additional darts. That was what finally brought it down.
Earnie and I watched as animal control placed a net over the unconscious beast and then used an electronic stretcher to get it into the van.
One of the officers came to our window, and Earnie gave him the O’Brien’s address. He went back to his van, and after several more minutes they finally pulled out, and we followed them.
I texted Vicki and AJ. “Tiger captured. En route to mansion.”
Next I called Manuel. He answered in about a half ring.
“Hello?” his voice was frantic.
“Hey, Manuel,” I said. “I got good news for you, bud.”
“You found him?” his tone was hopeful.
“We did,” I said. “Animal control has him down, and we are headed your way.”
“Oh,” the relief came flooding out of his voice. “Thank goodness. I was so worried. What if he had attacked someone? I mean, Khan is tame, and Mr. O’Brien would sometimes let him walk around the house. But you know, he is a tiger.”
“Right,” I said. “It doesn’t look like any harm was done. He scared the hell out of everyone, but no one was hurt.”
“So good to hear,” he said.
“Do you have any idea how he might have gotten out?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I have noticed now that his gate was left open. Which is strange, there are two gates, and one in the front and one in the back. It was the one in the back that was open, which is odd because I only use the one in the front. I don’t even think I have a key to the one in the back. So that’s how I know I couldn’t have left it open by accident.”
“Right,” I said. “So you think someone purposefully let him out?”
“I hate to say it,” he said. “But that’s what it looks like. I don’t know who would do such a thing.”
I had a few ideas, but I wasn’t about to accuse anyone just yet. I did pick up pretty early on that Manuel was worried I would fire him over the blunder. If anything, it showed me that we needed a zookeeper now more than ever.
“Thanks, Manuel,” I told him. “You did a good job. Hang tight, we’ll be there soon with the tiger.”
“Okay,” he said. “The back gate is locked. I put a new lock on it this time.”
“Good job,” I said. “See you in a bit.”
I ended the call and turned to Earnie.
“Manuel thinks it was sabotage,” I said.
Earnie laughed. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“What would letting a tiger loose in town accomplish?” I wondered.
“It would make us look incompetent,” he said. “If someone could prove that we couldn’t handle the estate, they might be able to challenge the will.”
I nodded. “Something tells me it wasn’t thought out that completely. It was just pure spite.”
Earnie laughed. “I would wager on that more than anything.”
I sighed and finally noticed that my heart was beating out of my chest.
“Wow,” I whistled. “That was intense.”
“Holy fuck,” Earnie breathed. “That was.”
We both laughed, releasing the tension.
“You just shot a tiger,” Earnie said.
“I did,” I said.
“They’re right about you,” Earnie told me. “You are a badass.”
I laughed. “Really? Is that what they say?”
He smiled and nodded. “You have quite a reputation to live up to. But I just watched you stare down a tiger! I will tell that story for the rest of my life.”
“So will I,” I laughed.
We arrived at the O’Brien mansion, and Manuel was waiting at the gate. He was a skinny Hispanic man in his early thirties. He appeared to be wearing some sort of staff uniform, a button down hunter green shirt, and utilitarian blue work slacks. He waved us through and motioned for us to follow him in his golf cart.
The animal control van stayed in front of us, following Manuel directly, and we followed it. We drove down a long sidewalk. It must have been about a mile to the back of the property.
“I had no idea all this was back here,” I said.
Earnie had a faraway l
ook in his eye. “Yeah,” he said. “A lot of history back here. A lot of history.”
“Sorry, man. Must be hard to come back here.”
He shrugged. “I knew Alister for a long time. He wasn’t a whole lot older than you when I met him. He took me in as a business intern straight out of Notre Dame.”
“I did not know that,” I said.
Earnie nodded. “I knew him better than anyone in the world. Even Vera said he trusted me more than her. I’m just glad I get to be part of making sure his legacy is protected in the way he wanted it.”
“Leaving it to Neptune?” I asked.
He smiled. “You know why he did that.”
I nodded. “Do you agree that it was right?”
Earnie sighed. “It’s hard to say what’s right and wrong between fathers and their children. I know Alister was a very hard man to love. Those kids never really stood a chance in understanding him. I think they tried at some point, but they all gave up. And that’s why he did what he did in the end. But was it right? I don’t know. I think those kids deserved something. They are everything they are, but cheating them out of their birthright, I don’t know. But what’s done is done.”
We reached our destination. It was a massive garden with a fenced in enclosure. There was vibrant green grass and a natural looking pond with a built in waterfall. The other tiger paced nervously in front of the gate when our caravan pulled up.
Manuel chatted with the animal control guys for a few minutes. Then they opened the back door of the van. They pushed a button, and the stretcher came out with the still body of the tiger. They removed the net from the unconscious animal. Manuel came up to Earnie’s window.
“Do you have the gun?” he asked. “We will need it just in case for Sher, while we lower Khan.”
“Of course the other one is named ‘Sher,’” I laughed as I handed the gun through the window. It still had another dart left. He thanked us and left.
The van backed right up to the gate, and Manuel threw a meat bone over the enclosure to distract the other tiger. Then he opened the gate and held the tranquilizer gun. The other tiger paid no attention. Through the use of the electronic stretcher, the van was able to lower the tiger’s body onto the grass. Then the van retreated, and Manuel locked the gate back.
The animal control guys then got out of the van and motioned for Earnie and me to do the same. We met them out on the sidewalk and Manuel joined our little entourage.
“We got it all under control,” the officer said. “But this had better not happen again.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re having the entire population transferred to Tucson. My office is making arrangements as we speak.”
He handed me a bill. “Good. See that it doesn’t happen again.”
I looked at the bill. Ten thousand dollars.
“Geez,” I whispered and flashed it to Earnie. His eyes widened and he shook his head.
“We take Visa, Mastercard or Discover,” he said.
Manuel actually had the estate’s card and charged it.
“Well,” I told Earnie. “That was close.”
“Yeah,” Earnie said. “Too close. Let’s get these animals out of here.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Chapter 9
We should have been ticketed for the tiger escape, but Leonard, my old friend on the police force, called me. He and I had worked together on a couple of cases in the past, and I was banking on that, hoping that he wouldn’t throw the book at me.
“Henry, old bud,” he said. “I heard about the tiger escape.”
“Yeah,” I said and leaned back in my chair. “Not exactly what I had in mind for a Tuesday morning.”
“Look,” he said. “The boss wants me to call you. We should issue you a citation, but you’ve done a lot for us around the town, what with Reba, Shawn, Brook and all.” He was referring to the last big case I did that brought down an embezzlement scheme that went all the way up to the city council.
“Yeah,” I said. “How is all that going?”
He laughed. “That cast of characters keeps us busy around here, sheesh.”
“I’ll bet,” he said.
“We appreciate everything you’ve done around here, and we expect you’ll be doing us a lot more favors in the future,” he said. “So, from now on, just keep your tigers under control, alright?”
“Will do, Leonard, thanks,” I said.
“You bet, Henry,” he said. “See you around.
“See you around,” I said, and ended the call.
It was getting late, and AJ was already gone, so I decided to call it a night. After an exhausting day of tiger hunting, I headed home to our little cottage and my lovely lady. Because of all the chaos today, I guess I had forgotten that we had company. I walked in, and the room was full of voices.
“Hello, everyone,” I called out.
Vicki was in the kitchen, with some sort of batter in a bowl and a kitchen mixer. I didn’t even know we owned a kitchen mixer. She caught my gaze and shot me a look. Then I noticed her mother pulling a glass dish out of the oven, while the timer obnoxiously beeped. I didn’t even know our oven had a timer.
“Hello,” I greeted her as she turned off the timer.
Seoyon Park was a petite and slender Korean woman that I would not have guessed old enough to be Vicki’s mom. Vicki had once told me about this proven Asian remedy to prevent sagging and wrinkles that her mom taught her. It involved stimulating the facial nerve endings by repeatedly thumping the bottom of the cheeks in daily sets and reps.
I guess the cheek thumping thing had done Seoyon well. She only looked about a decade older than Vicki and I. I wasn’t, however, going to be the cheesy boyfriend and point out that they could be sisters, even though this was my first thought.
Seoyon had shoulder length black hair, and today wore white cotton capris and a purple tank top with a light green sweater wrap. She smiled beautifully when she saw me.
“Hello,” she said in a soft tone.
“Mom, this is Henry,” Vicki said. “Henry, this is my mom, Seoyon.”
“Well, good to meet you, Seoyon,” I said. “Welcome to our humble abode.”
“Nice to meet you too.” She smiled. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Well,” I said. “It can’t all be true.”
They laughed, and Seoyon shot Vicki a look of approval and rattled off in Korean at Vicki. Vicki blushed, and I was surprised to hear Vicki launch quickly into the tongue herself. Her tone sounded characteristically exasperated, but it still felt so odd. This must have been what she felt like when she first came to Sedona and met my family.
“Why hello, there,” Vicki’s father joined the conversation from the other side of the room.
“Hi,” I offered my hand. “I’m Henry.”
“Joowon Park,” he said and shook it.
He adjusted his waistline and clearly sized me up. Joowon had also largely missed the aging boat, save for the salt and pepper in his hair. He was about Seoyon’s height, and similarly slender. He wore khaki pants and a blue cashmere blazer over a white button-down shirt. He had thin rimmed glasses and his lips smiled, but his dark eyes held me with an undecided skepticism.
“Is that a Rolex Submariner?” I asked after I noticed the watch on his left wrist. I didn’t notice an accent coming from either of the Parks, so I felt like I could relax in conversation without worrying my meanings might get lost.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “You know your watches?”
A Rolex Submariner retailed for about twenty grand, give or take. I wasn’t a huge watch guy, but most of the partners at my old firm in Los Angeles were, so it was on my bucket list of status symbols.
I smiled. “I have a Blue Oyster,” I said.
Blue Oyster was the Submariner’s red-headed step cousin that cost about five grand. Joowon smiled with slight approval. We chatted for a while about watches, and then cars, and then careers. I learned that he had been a neurosurgeon at UC
Davis Medical Center in Sacramento for thirty years, when they were raising Vicki and her older brother.
“You are practicing law, then?” he asked.
“I am,” I said. “Vicki and I have our own firm.”
I couldn’t quite place his expression, but it wasn’t the approval that I had expected.
“You are young. I trust you worked for many years in your field first?” he asked and looked at me down the rim of his glasses.
I cleared my throat. “I did,” I said. “I practiced with a firm in Los Angeles for about five years.”
“That is not so long to be setting off on your own,” he said.
“Dad!” Vicki chided. She went off at him in rapid fire Korean, and her dark eyes flashed.
“No, no,” I interrupted. “It’s fine. You’re right. I am young. But in the years that I worked for a firm I made junior partner in two and brought in millions for the company. And then, after making senior partner, I decided that that was a lot of money to share with the other partners.”
They laughed, and the tension in the room eased just a bit. I vaguely remembered something about them both being business owners themselves, so I played the card.
“I never saw myself working for someone else for the rest of my life,” I said. “You won’t ever make enough money doing that to be truly independent. Shortly after my promotion, I decided that it was time for a new challenge. L.A. is full of big time lawyers, and they wouldn’t care if they lost one. Sedona, however, could use someone that had the experience that I had gained out there. I thought that this was the time to start working for myself and see what I could accomplish on my own.”
It was only half BS, and I deliberately left out the whole thing about my sister being accused of murder since I didn’t think that would play too well. Joowon and Seoyon looked me over, and I saw them both smile a bit. Vicki looked like steam was about to come out of her ears, but I didn’t know why.
“This one is either full of shit, or full of fire,” Vicki’s father said.
“Eh, a little of both,” I answered.
Seoyon and Joowon both laughed.
“He’s not wrong,” Vicki chimed in, and I shot a grin in her direction.