Track of the Cat (25 page)

She'd watched the storm build. The lightning had started a couple of hours before sundown.

Sheila had been alive and pursuing her hobby around six p.m. Less than nine hours later she was dead in Middle McKittrick, miles across the park's ruggedest country. In her stomach were the remains of a meal the other half of which Anna had found in her daypack with the camera. In her neck a puncture wound half an inch deeper than it should've been. Sheila had not gone to McKittrick under her own power and she had not been killed there.

The Rambler rolled out of the hills and onto the long straight road hemmed close on both sides by Paulsen's new barbed-wire fence. Ahead was a gate made of welded lengths of pipe under an arch of weathered tree trunks bearing the JP brand.

Anna pulled the car into the dirt lane and sat for a moment behind the wheel wondering just how she would handle the next couple of hours. She wished she were not tackling Paulsen alone. Of all the strong-arm people in her life-Karl and Rogelio and Paul-it was Christina whom Anna wished for; Christina with her dark eyes and credible lies and good sense.

Before leaving Guadalupe, Anna had put a note in Chris's mailbox. She'd tried to avoid the dramatic cliché, but her note conveyed the same basic idea: If I'm not back by dark, call the police.

Reminding herself that she'd not come to Paulsen's like the Earps to the O.K. Corral, that she had come to look, to talk, mostly to listen, Anna was comforted. No lights and sirens, no accusations; there had been, after all, no official crime-simply a string of freak accidents. At best she would find a few more answers. At worst, Paulsen would.

"Quit stalling," Anna said and levered herself out of the car to open the gate. It was the first in a series and she began to wish she'd brought Christina along for reasons other than company and courage. Passengers traditionally opened and closed all the gates.

A grove of ponderosa pine and fine old cottonwoods let her know she was nearing the end of her journey. Nestled in the vee of two skirting foothills, near the main spring, the dependable water source that guaranteed life to his ranch, would be Jerry Paulsen's home.

The rutted dirt road Anna had been following for four miles through cow pastures didn't prepare her for the imposing formality of the Paulsen homestead. Built of white-painted clapboard, it rose two stories over lawns that had once been groomed to east-coast standards but had since succumbed to drought and pine needles. Traditional green ornamental shutters framed the windows. A deep portico with antebellum-style pillars protected wide double doors.

There were no flowers of any kind. Window boxes were empty, the planters lining the short front walk were bare. To Anna it indicated that there was no Mrs. Paulsen and that either there once had been or Mr. Paulsen had once hoped there would be.

The old Rambler couldn't face the snobbery of the portico. Anna parked off the gravel in the shade of a cottonwood and walked the twenty yards to the front door. The knocker, two horseshoes hinged together, was jarring in the context of the house's architecture. In front of the formal doors lay a worn mat reading WELCOME Y'ALL. Beside it was a rudely welded boot-scraper.

Anna lifted the knocker and let it drop. Against the thick oak it made a pathetic "plink." Using more vigor, she banged it again. From inside she heard a voice. The words were unintelligible but the singsong rhythm clearly telegraphed: "Just a minute."

The door was opened by a Mexican woman in jeans and a T-shirt with the America's Funniest Home Videos logo on the front. She was probably near Anna's age but an extra thirty pounds and a bad perm made her seem older.

Cold air poured from inside the house.

"You better come in," the woman said. "We don't wanna air-condition alla New Mexico." A cheeky smile wrinkled up to her eyes and made Anna smile back. "You looking for Jerry or Jonah?"

Vaguely, Anna remembered Mr. Paulsen had a son of that name. "Jerry," she said.

"Good, 'cause Jonah's away at college." The woman laughed then as at a favorite joke, one that never palled no matter how many times she played it. "Jerry's out back havin' his cigarette. I'm Lydia." Lydia led the way back into the refrigerated house. They passed through a formal parlor with wing-backed chairs which Anna surmised were never touched by anything but a dust cloth from one year to the next. Down a long hall lined with animal prints and through a smaller room that had been a butler's pantry, Anna followed. Abruptly, Lydia stopped. The old pantry opened directly into the den. Clearly this was the house's heart; where people did their living.

Anna found it oppressively masculine. The walls were done in dark wood and adorned with the severed heads of animals. Mostly indigenous-or once indigenous-to the United States: grizzly bear, big-horned sheep, bobcat, mountain lion, moose, elk, pronghorn, wolf, and the pathetic little joke of the Southwest: the jackalope-a bunny's head with the horns of a young antelope glued on.

The severed parts; Karl unhooking the kitten's claw. Two more pieces clicked in. Suddenly Anna knew when a lion wasn't a lion: when it's dead.

And she knew how Sheila Drury had been killed. Tearing her gaze from the dismembered creatures lest the knowledge could be read in her eyes, she surveyed the rest of the room.

Guns finished the decor. The collection was impressive. German dueling pistols from near the turn of the century, a pearl-handled revolver, several long rifles, an ornate iron tube that could only be a custom-made silencer.

The owner and sole inhabitant of this lair was seated in a bentwood rocker looking out over a flagstone patio to the brown hills beyond. He held a cigarette between his thumb and index finger, smoking with careful pleasure. Though surely he had heard their clattering entrance a second or two before, he turned with evident surprise.

"Mr. Paulsen, this is..." Lydia turned to let Anna finish the introduction.

"Miss Anna Pigeon of Guadalupe," Jerry Paulsen filled in. "We've met before."

They had. Twice that Anna could remember. Both times fleetingly, both times she was merely "another ranger" hovering impatiently at Corinne or Paul's elbow while short insincere exchanges were made at gate and cattleguard. Not really enough to spark this instant recognition unless Mr. Paulsen had a phenomenal memory. Or someone had been talking about her; and recently.

He rose and took Anna's proffered hand. In lieu of shaking it, he clasped it between his own, patting it in an avuncular fashion. He had the look of a kindly old uncle as well as the manner: He was not tall but of good size-five-foot-ten or -eleven with the boots-broad shouldered with a bit of a belly hanging over his silver-dollar belt buckle. The deep leathery tan of the Southwest looked good over a ruddy complexion. White mustache and thick white hair with its natural wave coaxed to perfection set off very keen blue eyes.

A Good Old Boy, Anna thought as he played the host, beaming her into a chair, sending Lydia to the kitchen to make coffee. Anna wondered what he knew. More than she did, probably.

"You're looking fit," he remarked when his duties had been done and he sat again in the bentwood opposite her. His eyes took all of her in from stem to stern. Or withers to rump. He had the look of a man admiring a bit of horseflesh.

"I heard you'd taken a tumble above Turtle Rock."

"Stepped into nothing," Anna said and accepted the coffee Lydia brought.

The usual cowboy-sized mugs were missing. The coffee was served in white fluted china cups bordered with gold. She took a sip: instant. Anna added a generous dollop from the cream pitcher and the mess turned bluish gray: skim milk.

Paulsen drank his steaming hot and black. "Bad luck. Y'all have had a rash of bad luck from what I hear. Some old boy just got himself snakebit? Hate those damn things. I know you folks over at the park coddle 'em like new calves but by God I still stomp every one that slithers across my path. Hating snakes is the natural state of man."

Anna looked at him over the rim of her cup. The only thing the blue eyes gave away was a pleasant twinkle. Jerimiah D. was enjoying himself, Anna realized. He'd sparred with the National Park Service for twenty years.

It was probably his favorite sport next to hunting.

Jerimiah D. Bells rang in Anna's head.

"What's the 'D' for?" she asked suddenly. "Jerimiah D. Paulsen."

"Well, now, where did you hear that?" he drawled and the twinkle in his eyes grew, if anything, brighter. Anna'd stumbled onto something but she had no idea what and, as he seemed to enjoy it, she suspected it was of no value.

Unable to remember where she'd heard it, Anna just smiled.

Paulsen rocked back, crossed his legs, resting his ankle on his knee, and grinned hugely. "Since you been so nice as to come all the way over here to pay me a visit, I'll tell you."

Now she knew it was of no value. Or he was going to tell her a lie.

"Dalrimple. My momma's maiden name. Daddy built this house for her.

Jerimiah D. Paulsen. My old friends call me Jerimiah D."

With a start, Anna remembered then where she'd heard it. The information wasn't nearly so useless as he'd thought. Maybe she didn't have what she wanted, but she had enough.

Sheila had seen something-probably stumbled on it by accident while patrolling the park perimeter for lightning strikes. They, in turn, had stumbled on her. Whatever the specifics were, Anna did not doubt Paulsen knew. She also knew this was not the way to outfox the bluff and hearty Mr. Paulsen. He'd been at it too many years, enjoyed the game too much.

Time had come to leave.

"You've an impressive collection," Anna said, looking at a Sako hung above a wide mantel made of native rock. The barrel was polished with love and long use. The stock was intricately carved dark wood.

Paulsen, following her gaze, stood and walked over to the fireplace. He lifted the weapon down with the reverence of a pilgrim handling a piece of the true cross.

"This is my baby." He sounded as if it were the literal truth. "Finest weapon ever made. Bar none."

Anna put down her coffee and joined him by the cold grate. "May I?" she asked holding out her hands for the rifle.

He all but snatched it away, holding it possessively to his chest, then chuckling at his own reaction. "Sorry, honey. Nobody touches her but Jerimiah D. Nobody. A man's got to have something that's all his own."

Reverently he replaced the rifle on its stone pegs.

"Now," he said turning to Anna. "What's on your mind? Much as it flatters an old man, you didn't drive all this way to have a cup of coffee with me."

"I've been nosing around about the Dog Canyon ranger's death," Anna told him. He would already know that much. "There's talk of local ranchers wanting to wipe out the lion population in retaliation."

Paulsen laughed, a series of voiceless gusts that came out his nose.

"Hell, we've been trying to do that for years. Y'all breed 'em up there in that damned park. It's a wonder there's a cow left west of the Pecos."

Anna let that pass. She wanted to get on with her lie and get home. "I was hoping I could convince you to speak out against it. You're one of the most influential ranchers on the New Mexico side."

Paulsen was used to the ineffectual flattery and pleas of environmentalists. Anna hoped hers was commonplace enough to be believed.

He draped an arm around her shoulders. "It ain't gonna happen. You got a lot to learn about ranchers. We defend what's ours. From varmints and the goddam Park Service."

Anna shrugged off the heavy weight. "Thanks for the coffee," she said.

"I'll show myself out."

The snorty chuckle followed her as far as the butler's pantry.

21

DR. Pigeon is in session... ah ... Just a moment. Hold please."

Anna sat in the semi-darkness of the Cholla Chateau's laundry room listening to Cheryl's laundry squeak around and around in the dryer.

The voice returned. "May I say who's calling?" Molly had had the same receptionist for eleven years, an efficient woman who steadfastly refused to recognize Anna's voice.

"Her sister," Anna said. The Open Sesame.

"One moment please." There was a click, then strains of Handel's Water Music filled the earpiece. Molly soothing the savage beasts.

"Hallelujah!" Molly came on the line.

Anna glanced at her watch: five-thirty in Texas, seven-thirty in New York. "You ran late with your last client."

"Silly bugger wouldn't stop crying. I couldn't get a profound sentence in edgewise. And I was feeling particularly insightful today. What's up? You don't usually call this early in the week."

The sucking sound: toxic, killing smoke going deep into her sister's lungs. Anna repressed a comment. It crossed her mind that, were she gone, there would be no one left to nag Molly, get her to quit before it was too late. "Not much. Another 'accident.' A herpetologist bit the dust.

Death by snakebite this time."

"Jesus!" Molly laughed with the career New Yorker's reliance on black humor. "Lions and tigers and snakes, oh my! You're on hold . . . can I pour you a drink?"

"Got one," Anna replied and clinked her wine glass against the plastic mouthpiece.

"It figures," Molly said. Handel flooded in. Anna was sorry she'd refrained from comment on the cigarette.

"Cheers." A glass containing one careful shot of scotch clinked down the two thousand miles of wire from Manhattan.

"To old friends and better days," Anna said and they drank in silence.

"I'm coming to New York," she announced, deciding it in that instant.

"I'm going to camp on you and make end runs up to Westchester County to see Edith."

"When? When are you coming?" Molly didn't sound as pleased as Anna had anticipated.

"I don't know..." Anna faltered. The plan was too new for dates. "I've got a ton of annual leave coming to me. I thought I'd come in September if-"

"Ha!" Molly exploded. "IF. What in the hell are you up to, Anna? What's going on? You're doing some silly damn thing with that snake and lion business."

"What makes-"

"Hmph!" Molly cut her off. As children they'd both practiced doing hmph like it was spelled in books. Molly had become very good at it.