by Diane Kelly
Norman Peele led us into the lodge. The place had wooden walls, a wooden ceiling, and a wooden floor. It was like being inside the hollow of a tree or a beaver dam.
The open foyer resembled a pro shop. Rounder racks of camo gear and T-shirts. A display of hats, including a souvenir cap with plastic antlers that said I SHOT MY TROPHY AT SOUTHERN SAFARI! A bookshelf with various nonfiction offerings on hunting-related topics, as well as several novels with hunting themes. Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway. Moby Dick. My Side of the Mountain. But, sadly, no Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. One of my favorites, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, was also absent.
An open doorway on the left side of the room led to a cozy lounge where the men I’d seen outside now sat in leather barrel chairs around a circular table, toasting each other and their successful hunt with amber liquid in highball glasses, just as Paleolithic men toasted each other with cholera-laced river water. Clink! Clink! Clink!
Peele stepped behind the sales counter. The wall behind him was hung with photographs of trophy hunters and their dead prey. A couple of beefy men with another of the scimitar-horned oryx. A tall, thin woman holding on to the antlers of a barasingha deer. A smiling young boy, who appeared to be no older than ten, with his arm draped over the gaping mouth of a bear with lifeless eyes. The images were disturbing enough, but knowing the animals had been trapped inside the fences with no possible means of escape made their deaths seem unacceptably unfair.
Peele looked at me expectantly. “Got your card handy?”
In preparation for today’s sting operation, I’d had Viola order me up a credit card under my alias. I pulled it out of my purse and handed it to Peele. He sat down, ran it through a little black scanner, and handed the card back to me. When the screen popped up with the authorization, he pushed the button to print out a receipt for me to sign.
He handed me the receipt along with a pen. “I just need your John Hancock and we’ll be on our way.”
I looked down at the slip and nearly choked. Six thousand five hundred dollars? Holy crap! It was more than the man had quoted me on the phone, but no sense arguing with him. I’d have the charge reversed anyway, so what did it matter? I signed the slip and handed it back to him in exchange for a copy.
He led us back out front. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
He stalked off in the direction of a detached prefabricated building that resembled an airplane hangar. He slid the wide front door open and disappeared inside. There was a roar as an engine fired up and, a moment later, Peele emerged, sitting atop a tall, open hunting vehicle that provided a wide field of vision, giving his customers another advantage over their prey.
“How about I take y’all on a tour of the place?” he suggested, his gaze running from one of us to the next. “You might see something else you’d like to shoot.”
Oh, I saw something else I’d like to shoot, all right. Him.
My father glanced over at me for direction. I nodded. Might as well get a better sense of the place if I planned to implicate this man in tax evasion.
Dad looked back up at Peele. “Sounds great.”
“Fan-damn-tastic!” Peele said, virtually salivating. “I can just add your kills to your bill when we get back.”
I quickly retrieved my pillow and foam doughnut from Dad’s truck, and the three of us climbed up to the benches. Dad sat next to Peele in front, while Eddie and I took spots on either side of the bench behind them. I slid the pillow and doughnut under my hindquarters and my cheap rectangular sunglasses onto my face.
Peele punched the gas, taking off down a dirt path, seeming to hit every possible hole or bump. We bounced along, sparks of pain shooting up my spine. After several attempts to find a comfortable position, I discovered that if I leaned on the safety bar to my right, it would take the pressure off my tailbone. Of course I risked falling over the edge of the vehicle and breaking my neck, but at least that would be a quick, painless death.
Peele stopped after driving a hundred yards or so, and pushed a remote control to open an extra-tall gate. The two sides separated, swinging inward with a jerking motion until stopping with a clang. After he’d driven through, he turned in his seat and aimed the remote once again at the gate. The gate swung shut behind us, emitting another clang as it closed us in with the animals.
Like Paradise Park, the land here was equal parts open grassland and stands of scrubby trees, mostly cedars and mesquites. From our vantage point atop the hunting vehicle, we could see for quite a ways into the distance. Mostly what I saw was animal scat and haylike grass.
As Peele drove, he gave us some details about the game ranch. “We’ve got two hundred acres here. Three large stock ponds. Fifteen species of game.” He then proceeded to drop names like the deer had dropped their dung. “A number of famous people have hunted here. Dick Cheney. Shaquille O’Neal. That country star, Brazos Rivers. You hear about him? Got his-self thrown in jail for something or other.”
“Yeah,” I said, exchanging a knowing glance with Eddie. Nick and I had been the ones to take down the singer for tax evasion. Boy, had that case been a fiasco. “I heard about that, too.”
Just ninety seconds into our ride, our guide lifted his foot off the gas and let the vehicle roll for a moment before applying the brake. “Looky there.” He raised a finger and pointed toward the horizon slightly to our right. “A herd of barasingha at two o’clock.”
I squinted. “Looks more like two-fifteen to me.”
The man glanced back and gave me an odd look. Not everyone gets my sense of humor. He turned to my father. “What do you say, Gary? Want to take one of them barasingha home with ya’? Hang the head on your wall? I’ve got one on my wall at home. Makes a nice conversation piece.”
How, exactly, would that conversation go?
Norman: Do those antlers on my wall make my dick look bigger?
Hunting buddy: Hell’s yeah! Now pass me another beer.
Dad raised his field glasses to his eyes, took a look at the herd, and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve hunted deer for years. One species seems pretty much like another. Hard to get too excited about that.”
Gary turned back to Eddie. “How ’bout you, Teddy? You look like a man who might enjoy taking down a large deer.”
“No, thanks,” Eddie said. “I’m with Gary on this one. A deer’s a deer.”
For a guy who’d never been on a single hunting trip, Eddie played a pretty convincing hunter.
Disappointment darkening his eyes, Peele turned back around and slid the truck into gear.
“You didn’t ask me if I wanted to bag a deer,” I said to the back of Peele’s head.
He slid the truck back out of gear, his face brightening again with the thought of padding my bill. “You want to take a shot?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m more of a gatherer than a hunter.” It was true. I had quite a shoe collection. “I just wanted to be asked. Women’s rights and all that, you know.”
The man simply stared at me for a moment, as if trying to get a read. “Right,” he said finally before proceeding on.
We drove on for another minute or two, passing a couple of automatic feeders, before we came upon a trio of oryx drinking on the other side of a stock pond.
Peele braked to a stop and cut the engine. “What about one of them?” he said in a whisper as if afraid they’d flee. Little chance of that. Two of them glanced up at us and went right back to drinking, our presence barely registering with them. The third didn’t even bother to look up. Obviously, they didn’t consider us a threat. They were used to humans coming around, filling the feeders, checking on things.
Dad stroked his chin. “They sure are pretty. I think maybe I could see one of their heads on my wall.”
Buoyed by the possibility of more profits, Peele said, “Their hides make a nice rug, too. Wouldn’t a skin like that look great in front of your fireplace?”
Dad narrowed his eyes. “Let me think about it. I’ve kind of go
t my heart set on hunting that lion. I’ve never hunted something that might want to hunt me back. That’s gonna be quite a thrill, I expect.”
“Oh, it will be,” Peele said with a certainty that didn’t reach his eyes. “’Course my insurance company puts all kinds of rules on me. They don’t want any of my clients getting eaten out here.” He followed his words with a forced chuckle. “Heh-heh.”
He started the engine again and headed straight across the middle of the field to another gate on the far side. An oryx stood right in front of the gate, munching on grass.
Peele gave a quick tap on the horn. Honk.
The oryx lifted its head, but continued chewing the grass, which hung out of both sides of his mouth. Sheesh. Between the high fences, the tall hunting vehicle, and the prey that was used to humans, this place was like preschool for hunters.
“Shoo!” hollered our guide, waving his arm. “Get out of the way!”
The oryx merely put his horned head back to the ground for another helping of grass.
Peele shoved the gear into park, jumped down from the truck, and stomped over to the oryx, slapping it on the ass with a resounding whap! I half expected him to pull a Jennifer Lawrence and holler, “Screw PETA!”
“Norman’s a little kinky, huh?” Eddie said under his breath as the oryx bounded away.
I had trouble finding anything funny in the situation. Even with the Vicodin dulling my pain, that slap on the ass hit too close to home.
Back on the truck now, Peele retrieved a second remote from a plastic bin at his feet, opened the gate, and drove through. He pushed the button again to close the gate behind us.
“Everybody keep on the lookout,” he said now, scanning the area. “We don’t want that savage lion sneaking up on us.”
He drove around the perimeter of the enclosure, which appeared to be about ten acres in size. When we didn’t spot the lion he circumnavigated the space again, this time in a tighter loop.
On our third go-round, my father spotted the lion. “Is that him at that trough over yonder?”
Sure enough, the lion was drinking from a large metal horse trough. Hardly what anyone could call savage. He looked no different than a housecat drinking from its water bowl, just on a larger scale.
“That’s him,” Peele said, stopping the truck. “Good eye, Gary.”
Good eye, nothing. The lion was out in the wide open.
I put my field glasses to my eyes. Is this big cat the same lion I’d seen at Paradise Park? There was no way to tell for certain, though he appeared to be the same size.
As we watched, the lion turned, spotted us, and began walking our way.
“Get your gun ready, Gary,” Peele said. “That cat may charge us.”
My dad raised his rifle. “I hope he does. I want to look that son of a bitch in the eye when I kill ’im.”
A shiver ran down my fractured spine. My father was playing a role here, but he was playing it far better than I’d expected. Hell, he’d sounded downright bloodthirsty. A moment later, though, I saw him cast a cutting look at Peele when the man bent down to retrieve his binoculars. Obviously, the anger in my father’s words, though directed at the lion, had been truly meant for our guide.
As we all watched, the lion walked toward us at an even pace. He didn’t crouch to ambush us and he didn’t run as if to attack. He was simply strolling over to see what was up, probably hoping we had a fresh leg of lamb to toss to him. It was no different than when my cats followed me into the kitchen, hoping for a treat.
The lion was fifty feet away when he sniffed the air, seemed to realize we had no fresh meat with us, and abandoned his plan to come check us out, distracted by a monarch butterfly fluttering past him. He leaped after the bug like a kitten going after a fly. He pounced, but missed. As long as he was down on the ground, he figured it was a good time to roll around in the grass and sunshine. He rolled over onto his back, his big paws in the air, and wriggled happily.
“How the Sam Hill am I supposed to shoot that thing?” my dad snapped, turning away from his scope to put his eyes on Peele. “It would be like killing Garfield.”
“You know, Gary,” the guide said in a placating tone, “even lions in the wild take some time to nap and play like this.”
My father huffed. “I doubt they do it when they’ve got a rifle aimed at ’em.” Dad put his gun down. “Sheez Louise. I don’t need a gun to take down that cat. All I need is a lasagna.”
The lion wriggled some more and swatted at another bug.
“Where’d you get this lion, anyway?” I asked Peele. “A zoo?”
Before the man could come up with a lie, the lion opened his mouth for a yawn. Sure enough, his lower left fang was missing. This lion was Simba, no doubt about it.
“Look.” Peele’s face grew red with rage. “What’s it matter where this lion came from? A lion’s a lion. You wanted your trophy.” He motioned to the cat lying on his back, licking its paw. “There he is. If you choose not to shoot him, that’s your own business. But I’m not going to give you a refund if you choose not to take a shot. I’ve kept up my end of the bargain.”
Push had come to shove.
“What do you say, Teddy?” I asked my partner. “Ready to do this thing?”
Eddie lifted his chin in agreement.
I pulled my badge out of my purse and displayed it to Norman Peele. Eddie pulled his from his pocket and did the same.
The guide drew back in confusion. “What the—”
“I’m Special Agent Tara Holloway with the IRS,” I said, adding an “ow” when a fresh jolt of pain raced up my spine.
“Senior Special Agent Eddie Bardin,” Eddie said, tipping his beer hat.
I pointed to Simba. “That cat came from Paradise Park, which purports to be a nonprofit animal rescue charity. Obviously, that is not the case.”
Norman sputtered. “You don’t know that.”
“He’s missing the same tooth as a cat we saw just days ago at Paradise Park.” I pulled out my phone and brought up the picture I’d taken on my screen. “See?”
“Could be coincidence,” Norman spat.
“Could be you’re a lying sack of scat,” I spat back. “And as long as we are on that subject, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. You—”
“What?” he cried, shaking his head as if the motion could somehow clear it of the words he’d just heard. “You’re going to arrest me?”
Eddie pulled out his cuffs. “Looks that way.”
“For what?”
“Aiding and abetting tax evasion,” I said. “Unless you can take me to your office right this minute and show me that you paid for that cat with a credit card or check or in some traceable manner other than cash, it seems pretty clear you were helping the Kuykendahl cousins cover their tracks. Their so-called sanctuary is nothing more than a way station for animals headed to one or another of these canned hunting places.”
Peele stared at me a moment, put his thumb to his mouth, and chewed it. “What if I was to help you? You know, turn state’s witness and testify against those two.”
I lifted a shoulder, noncommittal. “You have evidence that could help us?”
“I sure do! Those boys breed the deer and oryx. Hell, they provide stock for half the game ranches in Texas. The big cats and bears and stuff is just a side thing for them.”
“How do you know this?”
“Heard it from their own mouths.”
“You paid them cash for the animals?” I asked.
He nodded. “That’s all they’ll take. They claim it’s because it would be difficult to repossess the animals if a check bounces.”
That would probably be true. Still, it didn’t negate the fact that they were running a livestock operation, not a rescue operation.
“But they also told me they wanted cash so that they could hide it from the government,” he added. He probably didn’t realize it yet, but that little tidbit furth
er implicated him in their scheme, made him a knowing participant in tax evasion. “They even laughed when they told me. They said they’d been doing this for years and nobody had caught up with them.”
Well, somebody had certainly caught up with them now. And her name was Sara Galloway. Oops, I mean Tara Holloway.
“How many animals have you bought from them, all told?” I asked.
He looked up in thought. “Six or seven bears. Couple of tigers. A panther. Probably a hundred or more each of the barasingha deer and the scimitar-horned oryx.”
“You don’t breed those yourself?”
“No,” he replied. “People see babies running around, they lose interest in the hunt. It’s bad for business.”
My father and I exchanged glances now. I could tell he was as disgusted with Peele as I was.
“Look,” I told the man. “I appreciate the information, and your continued cooperation will only be to your benefit. A plea deal might be possible. It’ll be up to our lawyers and yours to work it out. But I’ve still got to take you in and we still have to seize the animals as evidence.”
Though I was sure about the former, I wasn’t so sure about the latter. Nonetheless, if I could save Simba in any way, I would. He looked so cute over there, napping in the sun.
chapter thirty-three
Swamped
An hour later, via a series of conference calls and private conversations, Norman Peele had contacted a criminal defense attorney who worked out a deal with Ross O’Donnell under which Peele would turn himself in voluntarily. Ross had advised that bail would likely be set at a small amount given that Peele wasn’t the primary target in the case and had only incidentally aided and abetted the Kuykendahls in their charity fraud and tax evasion scheme. The attorneys also agreed to a moratorium on hunting at the ranch until a judge could more fully consider the legal issues.
When we were done at Southern Safari, we met up with two federal marshals on the side of the road leading to Paradise Park.
“Wait here,” I told my father. “We’ll be back as soon as we get the kooky cousins rounded up.”
Disappointment flickered over my father’s face. “You mean to tell me that I drove all the way out here to help you, and you’re not even going to let me watch this bust?”