Claw Back (Louis Kincaid) (12 page)

             
“No.”

             
Her eyes stayed on him for a moment then drifted off to something on the left. Louis saw it was a photograph of a panther. He couldn’t be sure but he thought it looked like Grace. Katy blew out a long breath and rose, taking off the plastic apron and picking up her ball cap.

“Let’s get going,” she said.

             
The Seminole Indian reservation was located just off Alligator Alley – the old name
for Interstate 75 that
everyone used
f
or the highway that cut an east-west slash across the Everglades.

             
The tribe had turned their access to the interstate into a profitable oasis that offered the only gas, food and reliably clean bathrooms for anyone traveling the hundred and fifteen miles between the South Florida coasts. If you wanted some
entertainment, the Seminoles also provided airboat rides in the swamps, a tour of an authentic Indian village, a museum and an alligator wrestling show.

             
A couple miles north of that lay the real reservation. It was a simple grid of
concrete block
houses and trailers interrupted by the occasional store. Black-haired boys in t-shirts and Nikes played soccer in a dirt yard, chased by dogs. A knot of women, arms draped with plastic bags from
Walmart
and Publix, talked on a corner. Two men stood outside the open door of a cinderblock Baptist church smoking cigarettes. It looked like any of the hard-scrabble little towns that dotted the southwest Florida landscape.

             
“How’s the tribe doing?”
Louis
asked.

             
Katy gave him a glance as she swung the Bronco down a side street.
“Better than most, worse than some.
They’ve made some money on cigarettes and bingo but the chief is pushing hard for a real casino. And I wouldn’t bet against him.”

Louis knew that Indian tribes all across the country were talking about casinos now. A mega-resort was planned for the lush Connecticut countryside and he had heard a Michigan tribe was also fighting
to build one
. Seeing the humble houses made him think that a business that employed a couple thousand people with benefits could do nothing but good for a place like this. But from the tone in Katy’s voice, she didn’t sound as if she approved.

             
“You don’t want to see a casino here?” he asked.

             
“I’m not sure,” Katy said. “It’s sort of like winning the lottery. It doesn’t always bring what you expect.”

             
“Unemployment is high here, right?” Louis asked.

             
She nodded.
“And too many of the kids drop out of school.”
She was quiet for a long time. “I was lucky. I got a scholarship from the tribe to FSU. But the money’s dried up.”

             
“Why?”

“I d
on’t know,” she said quietly. “I think they’re afraid the kids won’t come back.”

             
Katy swung the Bronco around a corner and stopped in front of a one-story brick building with a colorful tribal seal mounted near the glass doors. They climbed from the Bronco but before Louis even closed the door, a man emerged from the building. He was well over six feet with the build of a wrestler and the posture of man ready to defend his territory. Short cropped black hair framed a face that told Louis he was close to forty and had sent a good part of his life in the Florida sun.

             
“Katy
Letka
,” the man said.

             
Katy stopped a few feet in front of him. “Hello, Moses.”

             
“It’s been a long time. You look well.”

             
“I am. You look well, too.”

His black eyes shifted to Louis. “Who is this?”

             
“Louis Kincaid,” Katy said. “He’s working with the sheriff’s office to help locate a missing panther. Louis, this is Moses Stanton, the tribal chairman’s executive assistant.”

             
Stanton studied Louis for a moment then turned back to Katy. “You are also looking for this panther?”

             
“Yes, I’m still with the Fish and Game department,” she said. “And yes, I still love it.”

             
“Your skills could be useful here.”

             
Louis glanced at Katy. She suddenly seemed very stiff, staring at Moses Stanton with a hard squint. He suspected there might be more history here than just a tribal member who had left the flock.

             
“I
’m
useful where I am,” Katy said.

             
“Then why are you here?” Stanton asked.

             
“The missing panther is a female,” Katy said. “
She has been gone
four days now but she wasn’t the only cat involved in
whatever is going on. Before she was taken, a male panther turned up wounded. We think
whoever
took Grace tried to take
the male panther but lost him.”

             
“
Capturing t
wo large cats
.
Not an easy task.”

             
“You’re right,” Katy said. “He would have to be someone who knows the Glades and is familiar with the panthers.”

             
“He also has access to animal tranquilizers,” Louis added.

             
Stanton gave Louis a dismissive glance before his eyes moved back to Katy. “So I ask you again, why
are
you here?”

             
“We have a description of a man who has been seen in the hunting camps,” Katy said.
“Long dark hair, brown skin, good at eluding the hunters.”

             
“An Indian,” Stanton said.

             
“Yes.”

             
“No Indian would harm the panthers.”

             
“I’m not sure he’s looking to harm them,” Katy said. “I believe he may be trying to mate them.”

             
“For what purpose?”

             
“I don’t know. I can only guess he thinks a cub will somehow bring him something he cannot otherwise obtain. Peace.
Happiness.
Some kind of special power maybe.”

             
“He sounds like a crazy man,” Stanton said.

             
“Most criminals are,” Louis said.

             
This time Stanton didn’t even look to Louis. His eyes drifted away from Katy to the street. He was quiet for a long time before
he looked
back to Katy.

“You have not been here to see your great aunt Betty in a long time,” he said.

             
Katy looked suddenly stricken. She took a step toward Stanton as if trying to cut Louis off from hearing. “Does Betty ask about me?” she asked softly.

             
“No. She recognizes no one now. Your cousins sit around her bed and sing for her soul.”

             
Katy pulled the brim of her ball cap lower and looked to the ground.

             
“The Alzheimer’s is bad,” Stanton said. “Her body is giving up. She is giving up.”

             
Katy looked up. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

             
“No one should have to.”

             
Katy’s face was slick with sweat. Louis could almost feel the heat of shame radiating off her.

             
“Katy,” he said, “I’ll go wait in the truck.”

             
“No, wait,” Katy said, grabbing his arm. She turned back to Stanton. “I will go to see Betty today, Moses. But right now, I need to talk about the panther. Please. I need, we need, your help.”

             
Stanton didn’t move a muscle. Then he looked over Katy to Louis, meeting his eyes. Louis had the weirdest feeling suddenly, like the man could almost read his thoughts. Like he could almost sense that the missing panther wasn’t important to Louis, that it was just a means to an end. Louis forced himself to hold Moses’s Stanton’s eyes.

             
“Moses,” Katy said, “you know everything that goes on here. I need you to tell me if anyone has been acting strangely. Has anyone moved away and taken a home in the swamps? Have you caught anyone stealing supplies or drugs from the clinic?”
             
Moses finally broke his stare with Louis and crossed his arms. “I know no one who would interfere with the panthers. And I am not sure I would tell if I did.”

             
“Moses,” Katy said softly. “You know what they mean to me.”

             
For the first time Louis detected a crack in the man’s façade.

             
Stanton looked away toward the knot of kids kicking a soccer ball. “All right, Katy
Letka
,” he said quietly. “I will help you. I will conduct my own investigation and if I find you are right, I will let you know so you can find the panther and take her back where she belongs.”

He looked back to her. “But I will give you no names and you will not walk through these streets looking behind doors. If I find someone here is involved in this, we will deal with it ourselves.”

             
Katy said nothing but Louis could tell from the sudden sag of her shoulders that she knew she would get no
thing else.
She said a brisk goodbye and started back to the Bronco. Louis hurried to catch up with her. Moses Stanton stayed in front of the tribal headquarters doors watching them.

Katy remained silent as she drove around the corner and down a street, pulling up in front of a small stucco house with a concrete porch cluttered with folding chairs. There had once been flowers in the window boxes but they were wilted now, victims of the searing summer sun and neglect.

             
The front door was open. There were three women on the porch and
three
men standing in the sparse shade of a tree
smoking cigarettes
. The women were dressed in cotton blouses and skirts and wore their hair in long braids. The men had lined weathered faces and dusty clothes. But what struck Louis was that another one of his assumptions about Indians was proving wrong. Every man he could see had short hair.

             
“I won’t be long,” Katy said, eyeing the women on the porch. “I’ll leave
the
engine going so you can have some air.”

             
“Thanks.”

             
Katy started toward Aunt Betty’s house. The few people outside turned their attention from the SUV to Katy herself. Louis watched closely, curious about the reception she’d get.

             
Katy paused under the tree and spoke briefly to
the
men. When they didn’t step back to let her on the porch, she steeled herself and slipped between them, disappearing into the house. For a moment, the men looked back at the SUV then went back to talking among themselves.

             
Louis sank back into the seat.
P
artly to be less obvious
,
but mostly because he was groggy.
His aching ribs had kept him up most the night and about four in the morning he had finally relented and popped a pain pill. He laid his head against the window and idly watched the parade of people in front of the house.

             
One woman caught his eye. She wore a bright yellow sun dress and was coming down the street carrying a casserole dish covered with aluminum foil. A second woman followed her, slightly younger, carrying a basket of neatly folded laundry. The men parted to let them inside the house.

Suddenly Louis was somewhere else.

In Bessie’s old boarding house in
Blackpool
, Mississ
i
ppi.
A stranger in his own town of birth, sitting vigil by the bedside of a dying woman he could barely remember -- his mother.
Women had come then, too. Black women carrying clean linen
s
for his mother and casseroles and cookies for him.

He remembered none of their names but he remembered their voices. Soft and soothing as they gathered by Lila’s bed, the sound carrying across the hall to his room where he took refuge when he could.