Cat's Claw (20 page)

“You’re welcome, Detective,” she said.

Chapter Nine

Caitlin was still upstairs. I was finishing my tea and studying the new egg on the table (are first eggs always so
small
?) when the phone rang. I got to my feet to answer it, but McQuaid came in at that moment, shrugging out of the yellow poncho and brushing the rain out of his dark hair with one hand. Since he was nearer, he picked up.

“Hey, Tom,” he said. “What’s up, fella?”
Banner
, he mouthed to me. Our neighbor up the lane.

Whatever was up, there must have been a lot of it, for the conversation went on for several minutes. It was mostly Tom talking, though,
with McQuaid listening, occasionally saying things like, “You actually
shot
him?” and “How many did you lose?” and “
That
big?” (in a surprised tone). Then, “You’re going to report it to Parks and Wildlife?” Finally, he said, “Thanks for letting us know, Tom. We’ll keep our eyes peeled, but she’s probably long gone by now.” He hung up the phone, went to the fridge, and took out a bottle of Saint Arnold root beer.

“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 isn’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
h
ostile,
e
xclusive,
l
asting, and
u
ninterrupted possession, both
v
isible and
a
ctual. 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.