Cat's Claw

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “What was all that?” I asked worriedly. “Who did Tom shoot? Who’s long gone?”

  “Not who,” he said, opening the freezer and getting out a carton of vanilla ice cream. “What. A mountain lion.” He carried the ice cream to the counter and found a large mug. “There were two. They panicked Sylvia’s sheep, but Tom got out there with his gun before they killed any.”

  “He shot a mountain lion?” I asked, thinking immediately of the lithe and lovely wild animal I had seen crossing the road.

  “Yeah. Six-foot male, measured nose to tail. The female got away. She’s probably long gone, but he wanted to warn us to keep tabs on our animals.” He turned to me, holding up the root beer. “I’m making a float. Want one?”

  “That would be nice,” I said. Root beer floats are a special treat at our house, and Saint Arnold is a favorite, brewed in a Houston microbrewery and sold (among other places) at the Pecan Springs Farmers Market. But I was still thinking of what I had seen.

  “I may have seen that mountain lion tonight,” I said. “Crossing Limekiln Road, heading north. A beautiful animal, silvery, pale—almost like a ghost. I’m glad to hear that Sylvia didn’t lose any sheep. She loves those creatures.”

  “Tom said the male had a four-inch open gash on his head,” McQuaid said, scooping ice cream into two mugs. “Not a bullet wound—almost like he’d been hit with an implement, a spade or something.” He popped the cap on the bottle and poured fizzy root beer over the ice cream. He added a couple of spoons and brought the mugs to the table.

  “Thanks,” I said, picking up my spoon. “Is there a season on mountain lions?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. They’re not considered a game animal. No bounty, either, although the ranchers around here probably wish there were. It might encourage hunting.” He picked up the egg and frowned at it. “I didn’t know eggs came this small, China. If they’re all the size of golf balls, we’ll need a dozen for a decent breakfast.”

  “That one’s just practice,” I said. “They’ll get bigger. I hope.” Still thinking about that mountain lion, I put my spoon down, went to the door, and called Howard Cosell, who had gone out to take care of his evening business. He always goes all the way to the end of the stone fence, where the woods threaten to spill over into our yard. He trotted back without complaint, although I’m sure that if he’d suspected that a mountain lion was lurking out there in the rainy dark, he would have insisted on staying out to patrol the perimeter. But Howard is a well-fed basset and would be a tasty snack for a hungry mountain lion. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Do you think the chickens will be okay?” I asked worriedly, closing the door behind Howard.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting that Caitie take them upstairs for the night,” McQuaid said with a chuckle.

  “I’m not, and she won’t—not after she had to clean up after them the last time. Lesson learned. Chickens live in the chicken house.”

  He nodded. “Anyway, I’m sure they’ll be fine. A lion isn’t going to waste his time on a few chickens. Her time,” he amended. “She’s probably out looking for a deer, since Tom drove her away from the sheep. And anyway, if she’s the one you saw crossing Limekiln, she’s already miles from here. She and the male that Tom killed were hunting together, I guess. Both the male and female are solitary, except when they’re breeding.”

  We shared a moment of silence. I was glad that Sylvia’s sheep were safe and hoping that the cat I’d seen had found an unwary deer for dinner, out there in the rainy darkness. Mountain lions have been making a comeback in the past couple of decades, with reported sightings and kills—most of them road kills, like my near miss—in Adams County and the counties around us. Hill Country ranchers have been selling out to developers in record numbers, which means that more and more people are moving into prime lion habitat. The Banners’ sheep weren’t the first livestock to be attacked, and they wouldn’t be the last. It was a sharp reminder that the boundaries between our human-built world and the natural world are not fixed, that humans don’t control nature (even though we might like to think we do), and that wild cats are not as tame and well-behaved as the domesticated cats that share our homes and backyards.

  “Mom,” Caitlin called from the top of the stairs. Her tone was plaintive. “I can’t find my camera. I’ve looked everywhere. Do you know where it is?”

  I grinned at McQuaid on my way out of the room. “Better put that egg down. If it gets broken, your daughter will never let you hear the end of it.” Over my shoulder, I added, “Don’t go away. I have something important to tell you. And keep your mitts off my root beer float.”

  Caitlin was with me when I came back to the kitchen, after we found her camera behind the books on her dresser. She took several photos of McQuaid admiring the miniature egg on the palm of his hand, then fixed a root beer float for herself and one for Brian and carried them both upstairs. She was going to email the photographs to her grandmothers—McQuaid’s mother in Seguin and my mother, who lives on a ranch near Kerrville. She hoped they would be her first customers, although McQuaid pointed out that it might be a while before the girls produced eating-size eggs.

  “Something bigger than a marble,” he said, and laughingly pretended to be injured by the girl-size shoulder punch that Caitie threw at him.

  When she was gone, McQuaid picked up our empty mugs, rinsed them off in the sink, and sat down at the table again. “So what did you want to tell me?”

  It took a little while to relate what I knew about Larry Kirk’s death and George Timms’ disappearance before his scheduled arrest.

  As the tale unfolded, McQuaid regarded me with increasing disbelief. He just misses being handsome—his nose was broken in a football game and there’s a jagged scar across his forehead—but he’s ruggedly good-looking, with slate blue eyes and dark hair that falls across his forehead and dark eyebrows that pull together when he’s puzzled. Now, his brows were firmly knitted together, and when I was finished, he gave a low, incredulous whistle.

  “George Timms?” he asked, shaking his head. “Sheila had better be dead sure she’s got the right man, or the department will be facing a suit for false arrest. Timms is a litigious sonuvagun.” He sighed. “And I would never have figured Larry Kirk for the kind of man who would shoot himself. I read his letter to the editor in the Enterprise a while back, arguing against concealed-carry on college campuses. I got the impression he was anti-gun in a big way.”

  “I guess I’m not surprised to hear that,” I said. “Of course, you never know what’s going on inside people’s heads, but Larry didn’t strike me as the suicide type, either. I didn’t see any sign of self-pity, depression, sadness—the kind of feelings somebody might have if they were thinking of suicide.” I paused. “As far as Timms is concerned, Charlie Lipman confirmed that Timms was due to surrender on the charge. It apparently has something to do with extortion. Timms’ computer was in the shop for repair. Maybe there was an incriminating file or two on it.”

  “Hmm. Yeah, well, that could be a pretty powerful motive, depending on what was in the file. Photos of Timms with a naked beauty or two? That could be embarrassing. But Charlie will be able to leverage it into a plea deal, especially if nothing else was taken. Name the extortionist and—”

  “Charlie’s not going to leverage anything,” I put in. “He’s off the case. Apparently, he and Timms weren’t getting along before this, and when Timms didn’t show, he decided to call it quits.”

  “I guess I’m not surprised,” McQuaid said thoughtfully. “They weren’t all that friendly when Charlie was representing him on that land deal. In fact, their relationship turned pretty frosty by the time everything was all over. Timms doesn’t like to lose, especially when it comes to property.” Howard Cosell came over and leaned against McQuaid’s leg. He reached down to gently tug on the dog’s long ears. “Hey, Howard—see any mountain lions out there, old buddy?” He looked up at me. “You know, the piece of land Timms was suing over i
sn’t far from here.”

  “I guess I knew that—but I don’t know exactly where. I never knew the details of the lawsuit, either. At the time you were working on the case, I was pretty busy with Sheila’s wedding.”

  “It wasn’t complicated,” McQuaid said. “One of Timms’ neighbors filed an adverse possession claim against about thirty acres of Timms’ family ranch. Timms wanted the claim thrown out, but he couldn’t make it happen. Charlie’s a damn good lawyer, but he couldn’t make it happen, either. The neighbor’s documentation was too strong: photographs of the fence he put in ten years ago, a survey, plus the filing in the county clerk’s office. He’d been in possession of the property for over fifteen years. Really pissed Timms off, but there was nothing he or Charlie could do about it. Adverse possession is written into the law.”

  “Ah. So that’s what it was,” I said. Texas, like many other states, permits land to be claimed by “squatter’s rights,” on the theory that abandoned land isn’t any good to anybody and ought to be put to use—if not by the owner, then by somebody else. As I remembered it from a class in real estate law, somebody could move onto a piece of land and start using it. If he got away with this “adverse possession” claim for at least three years—that is, if the owner failed to notice, or noticed but failed to kick him off—the squatter could begin the process of claiming the property, including whatever mineral rights went with it. I even remembered Section 16.021 of the Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code, the elements of which generations of law students have reduced to a clever mnemonic device: Adverse possession is a HELUVA problem. A successful claim involves hostile, exclusive, lasting, and uninterrupted possession, both visible and actual. H-E-L-U-V-A.

  Howard licked McQuaid’s hand, yawned hugely, and padded over to his basset basket beside the stove. He climbed in and circled several times, putting himself to bed. Of course, he wouldn’t stay there. Howard is a people dog. He’d be on the foot of our bed when we turned out the light.

  “Where exactly is Timms’ property?” I asked curiously.

  McQuaid drew an imaginary map on the table with his finger. “You go west on Limekiln, about two miles past our turnoff. Hang a right at Paint Horse Road, left at a pair of mailboxes a couple of miles later. Down that gravel road another mile or so, you’ll see a sign for Paint Horse Ranch. That’s it, although it hasn’t been used for actual ranching for fifty years or so.” He sat back in his chair. “It belonged in the family, all twelve hundred acres of it, going back two or three generations. Timms inherited it from his older brother, minus the disputed chunk, which is a bluff with a spectacular view. That’s the piece that the neighbor adversely possessed, during the years when Timms’ brother had the property. The brother lived in Houston, Timms said, and never paid any attention to the land.”

  As I remembered the professor’s lecture on this subject, that was the way adverse possession usually happened. Land was passed along in a family, the property wasn’t used, perhaps not even visited, and pieces of it were appropriated by other people—usually the neighbors.

  “But Timms was making the best of it,” McQuaid said. “Last time I was out there, he had just finished building a cabin on Paint Horse Creek, where he could throw parties.” He chuckled wryly. “A cabin. That’s what he called it. To me, it looked like a fancy bachelor pad, with plenty of parking, a couple of guesthouses for overnighters, and no neighbors to get pissed off when his friends are drinking and the music’s too loud. Kind of a secret getaway, where he could hide out from his ex-wives. Not my style, but it fits good old George.” He pushed back his chair, stood, and stretched.

  “Hmm,” I said, frowning. “I wonder if Charlie thought to have a look out there. Maybe Timms—”

  McQuaid interrupted. “Did you remember that I’m going to El Paso tomorrow?” He picked up the empty Saint Arnold bottle and dropped it into the recycle bin. “Blackie’s already out there. I talked to him on the phone earlier this evening.” He went to the back door and checked the lock. “He’s got a couple of good leads, although it looks like we’ll have to cross over to Ciudad Juárez.”

  “That’s the missing boy?” I asked. I wasn’t thrilled at the thought that McQuaid and Blackie might go into Mexico. Juárez is especially dangerous territory. The drug cartels own the city, and scores of young women factory workers have been murdered there. But I had seen the boy’s picture on Austin television. The little guy was only seven, with dark hair and flashing brown eyes in a delicate face. He’d been gone for over a week. The custodial parent, a single father, was desperate. He had come to McQuaid for help in getting his son back. It was a case that tugged at our hearts, McQuaid’s and mine. Brian had been taken by his mother once, without permission or notice. He was gone for only a few hours and no harm was done, but the experience had been harrowing. I knew how the little boy’s father must feel.

  McQuaid nodded. “The mother apparently took him from school. She has family south of Juárez.” He came close, dropping his face to nuzzle my throat. “Will you miss me, wife?”

  “I miss you already,” I said truthfully, and my arms went around his neck. I didn’t say so out loud, but I didn’t want him to go. Not this time. Not to Juárez.

  “Prove it,” he whispered against my cheek, after a minute. He took my hand, his voice softly urgent. “Come on, babe. Let’s go to bed.”

  I didn’t need to be asked twice. We locked the doors, turned off the downstairs lights, and climbed the stairs. But just as McQuaid was pulling my T-shirt over my head, the phone in our bedroom rang.

  “Rats,” I said eloquently.

  McQuaid dropped my shirt on the floor and began unfastening my bra. “Let it ring, China.”

  I thought of what had happened that afternoon, and shook my head. “It’ll just take a minute,” I said, reaching for the phone. “Might be important.”

  McQuaid growled between his teeth and pulled off my bra, brushing his hands across my breasts.

  It was Ruby. “Sorry to bother you, China,” she said tersely, “but Ramona and I just thought of something. Larry Kirk did not kill himself.”

  “How do you know?” I sat down on the bed and listened, but McQuaid was beginning to strip, so I have to admit that I was a little distracted. My husband has a terrific body, lean and muscular, and I enjoy looking at him—especially when he’s not wearing clothes.

  But what Ruby had to tell me was pretty urgent, persuasive, too. When she finished, I thought I’d better telephone Smart Cookie and pass the information along. But before I could do that, my naked husband dove into bed and pulled me in after him.

  Who says married sex is dull?

  Chapter Ten

  Richie Potts lived in a second-floor apartment in the university’s graduate student village, not far from the campus. As Sheila walked up the outside stairs, she saw a bike with a child’s seat on the back, chained to the balcony railing. A baby stroller with a blue plastic canopy was folded and propped against the wall beside two pots of dead plants. Sheila could hear rock music and feel the rhythmic thump-thump vibrations of the heavy bass, although it was difficult to tell whether the noise was coming from the apartment in front of her or the one on the other side of the double entrance. From somewhere close by, the odor of marijuana wafted into the night, mixed with the sour smell of cooking cabbage. A typical student apartment complex, she thought, remembering her own college days, which seemed like a century ago now. She knocked, then knocked again, louder. The door, on the chain, cracked open an inch.

  “Police,” Sheila said to the crack, and held up her badge wallet. “Looking for Richie Potts.”

  Richie Potts was twenty-two, twenty-three at most, red-haired and freckled, with an acne-scarred face and a thin stubble of gingery beard. A red-haired baby—a boy, about eighteen months old—clung to his blue-jeaned leg. A pretty young woman, heavily pregnant, appeared in the kitchen door, then disappeared. The sound of rock music (but not of the bass) was partially shut out when Potts closed the apartm
ent door. When Sheila introduced herself, he pointed to one of a pair of living room chairs, arranged on either side of a sofa and coffee table. She sat down and told him that Larry Kirk was dead.

  Watching the young man closely, Sheila thought that the announcement was news to him. Like Palmer, he seemed taken completely by surprise. But his first thoughts were focused more on the future of his employment than on the death of his employer—understandable, since he had a wife, a child, and another on the way.

  “Jeez,” he said, blinking. “The shop isn’t going to close, is it? Will I be out of a job?”

  “I don’t know,” Sheila said, taking out her notebook and pen. “You’ll need to keep in touch with Mr. Palmer. He may be able to tell you something.” She paused. “When did you see Mr. Kirk last? What can you tell me about him?”

  If Potts wondered about the reason for her questions, he didn’t say so. He couldn’t produce much information, though. He hadn’t seen Kirk that day. In fact, he hadn’t seen him for several days—they hadn’t happened to be in at the same time. He had worked at the shop off and on for only a few months and didn’t know Larry Kirk very well—couldn’t say much about him, except that he was pretty obsessive about stuff being done according to the book, his book. What else? Well, the guy hated guns, which was kind of ironic, wasn’t it? In fact, he had taken a day off to protest the student concealed-carry proposal in Austin, which Potts himself supported.