Shallow Grave - Karen Harper MIRA

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you for that,” she said as the three of them began to walk toward the administration trailer. “Nick,” she rushed on, still gesturing wildly, “I’ll come into your office and sign whatever I need to. At all costs I want to save and build the BAA through all this, not sell it to be more citrus orchard land or part of that big game ranch. Mother will trust me on this, though I’ll have to buck Lane. But he’s taken himself out of control of this place, so he doesn’t have a legal or financial leg to stand on.”

      Claire couldn’t resist that opening. “Despite the fact he’s here today, I take it Lane and your father didn’t see eye to eye, on this place, or Lane’s chosen career.”

      “Well, Dad was wrong about that, but he was such an outdoorsman that Lane’s violin passion and career was like—like a foreign language, and it made them kind of—at odds sometimes.”

      “I can understand that,” Claire said, and then stopped since Nick cleared his throat as if to say enough for now. But everything she saw and heard here made her feel all in for helping Brittany. Who knew that this wasn’t helping future family if Jace and his “Brit” stayed together?

      As if he’d read her mind, Nick said, “Is it okay if we call you Brit the way Jace does?”

      “Yes—yes, fine.”

      “Claire,” he went on, “all right with you to come alongside as a support person, as long as you can work from home or the office?”

      That last comment was rather pointed, she thought. But maybe a cause and mental work was exactly what she needed until the baby was born. But staying home through it all?

      “We can discuss that later,” she told him, “but I want to help.”

      “Good. Brit,” Nick said, “our first goal is to keep this local and hope that it won’t explode to more.”

      She seemed to deflate. She stopped walking, and her shoulders slumped. “Oh, I did forget to mention something you should know. Not only did we receive an offer of baby animals from Stan Helter—maybe as a smoke screen of kindness, if you ask me—that envelope you saw also contained a big check. Twenty thousand dollars for our father’s burial and a memorial, his note said, and there would be another hundred thousand if we wanted to sell this acreage and move to some other place with better memories. Well, you know when someone dies, the bank freezes all their assets until they see the death certificate, so this is—is really needed, so it’s tempting.”

      “Glad you told us that too,” Nick told her. “So Stan Helter’s extended an olive branch, but with a sword attached.”

      Brit said, “The Lord giveth and He taketh away and so does the lord of all he surveys next door, that greedy wretch Stanley J. Helter, as the signature on the check reads. I wanted to tear it up, but Lane wouldn’t let me. We started to argue but with Mom there—we just put it unendorsed in the safe. It’s made out to Mother, not me or Lane.”

      She seemed to wilt even more, almost to stagger.

      “Did you get any sleep at all yet?” Claire asked, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders.

      “Only a nap on Jace’s lap before Lane came busting in yesterday. Then some in bed last night with—Oh, sorry, Claire, I—”

      “It’s all right. I think you two are good together.”

      “Oh, no!” Brit cried, squinting into the sun past Nick’s shoulder.

      “What?” he said as all three of them turned.

      “Somehow she got in!” Brit muttered as they saw a wiry, tanned, very old-looking woman run at them, swinging a long wooden pole with a hook cutter on the end of it. Two beefy, bald men ran behind her, both out of breath, either trying to catch her or help her. They lugged a big, dark plastic sack between them. In their free hands, one carried a hatchet, the other a butcher knife.

      “It’s Gracie Cobham,” Brit shouted, “the woman the state took the tiger from! Run!”

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      The old woman shouted to the men with her, “Cut ’em up, boys!”

      Claire sucked in a huge breath. Did these people intend to maim or kill them with the hatchet and big knife?

      Nick yanked her with him faster than she could run. He fumbled for his phone. Brit, just ahead of them, tried to jam a key from her ring of them into the door that led to the back of the tiger’s cage.

      Claire saw they were trapped by the tall, double fences of the BAA and Trophy Ranch. If Brit still had that tranquilizer gun or if the fire extinguisher had been replaced—In her haste, Brit dropped the ring of keys and scrambled for them as Claire darted a look back at their pursuers. But were they pursuers? The two men had dropped their big, gray garbage sack and were slicing it open. What looked like two dead possums fell out of it.

      “Fresh roadkill, Thunder,” Gracie Cobham crooned to the tiger. “Possum’s nice and fresh, just the way you like, poor boy. They the ones been treating you wrong, not me. That’s my Thunder, that’s my baby boy.”

      “Nick, wait!” Claire insisted and put her hand over his as he started to punch in 911. “She meant cut up the possums.”

      It was true. The two “boys”—who must be in their sixties—were skinning and cutting up the dead animals, and Gracie was picking up chunks of the bloody meat and tossing them against the bars of the cage. Tiberia/Thunder was pawing them inside and devouring them, not with a roar or growl but with what sounded like a loud purr.

      Grabbing the key ring from the ground, Brittany was noisily raking through keys for the one she wanted. She whispered, “I’ve still got the tranquilizer gun in here. I’m calling the cops again, if you aren’t. She’s trespassing at least, and I have a restraining order against her for trouble before.”

      “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

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