Shallow Grave

Claire leaned closer to Brittany and put her arm around her back.

“I swear,” Brittany choked out, “I—this place—we are going to need a lawyer. We’re running on financial fumes here, but we’ll pay.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” Nick told her, crouching in front of the two of them. “My interest in this case would not be only to help you, as a good friend of Jace, and therefore of ours too, but to protect the BAA from state or federal fines or bad publicity. The firm has done pro bono work before. Brittany, I know the ME has ruled the death accidental, but for some reason, your father entered a tiger cage, knowing it was certain death. Or else he was forced to enter. That interests me too, not only for professional reasons but personal ones.”

“Forced to enter? That’s crazy! By whom?” she cried, lifting her tear-streaked face. “He had to be alone here!” she went on, gesturing so wildly Claire shifted a bit away. “You yourself saw the place was deserted when we took the kids away, and people can’t just fly in here. We have that fence—a double fence, counting the one from the ranch where those gun-happy people kill animals!”

“Look, I get your frustration and anger,” Nick said. “My father was once found with a bullet in his brain and the gun in his hand. But he didn’t kill himself. Someone else did. It took me years to prove it. I’m not saying it’s the same, but something’s wrong here. And if you trust me on this—and Claire will help too,” he added with a nod at her, “I’ll need access to your father’s laptop, his correspondence, his desk, and I don’t think your brother, maybe your mother either, is going to be thrilled about that. I’d need all that soon in case this turns into something worse than it is, and the police or other authorities confiscate all that.”

Claire stared wide-eyed. Nick Markwood at his determined best, and after he’d told her to avoid getting involved. But he probably still meant that his law office would oversee things, not that he—and she—would stay involved. Although, he’d just volunteered her to help too.

“I guess, then, we’d better move fast,” Brittany said, bouncing up as Nick stood too. “Dad’s death is more than newsworthy, as his Naples Daily News advertising friend warned me on the phone earlier today. This is all going to blow up. I’ve already been contacted by the American Zoo Safety Commission, as well as state authorities.”

Nick said, “I think OSHA, you know, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, might get in the mix too.”

“All I wanted to do was educate children to love animals and save more abused big cats. Yes, I’ll be sure you get those things from Dad’s office here right now and from their house tonight. Give me your address, and I’ll get them to you, or send Jace with them. I know he’s with your daughter right now, but I’ll see him later. He’s been a big help and—except for you two—my only support right now, and that counts my brother, Lane. Who needs outside enemies when there’s a traitor in the family?”

Nick told her, “I want to assure you that your legal team can be your biggest supporters. Claire and I admire what you’re trying to build here.”

“Thank you! Thank 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!”

8

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 who stoled him,” she said, coming closer to Claire.

“Careful, Ma,” the larger of the two men said. “We did what we come to do. Paper said they won’t kill Thunder.”

At least, Claire saw, Jackson had stopped where he was on this side of the bridge. He kept edging close, but he hadn’t raised the gun. She thought to hold up a restraining hand, but then the Cobhams might react to him and the gun. Her heart beat so hard she could hear drums in her ears.

Trying to keep her voice steady, Claire said, “Brittany argued with them when anyone tried to talk about putting Thunder down. She loves him too.”

“‘Put him down.’ Pretty way to say kill him, right?” Gracie challenged.

Up this close, Claire noted the woman’s sun-bronzed skin was tight yet webbed with wrinkles. She looked wiry, strong and emanated stubbornness. Talk about endangered species: this woman and her boys were remnants of “old Florida,” either the best or the worst of the fading past. Behind the Cobhams, Jackson kept shuffling slowly closer.

“You part of the Hoffman family?” Gracie asked, squinting at her. The sun was not in her eyes with that billed cap she wore, so she evidently needed to see Claire better.

“Just a family friend and friend to Thunder. We brought some children here the other day to admire him, and they thought the big cat was really beautiful and impressive.”

“And he’s in mourning. Not for the captor he kilt. For me. Paces all the time,” she insisted, though Claire had no idea how she’d know that. “See how calm he is now?” Gracie challenged, pointing, as Brit came back out, thankfully, with no tranquilizer gun in sight. “It’s my voice, my being here, calms him.”

Brit challenged, “You’re not even looking at him, so how do you know what he’s doing?”

Claire wished she’d change her tone of voice. She wasn’t close enough to elbow her. Surely, despite all she’d been through, she knew not to upset this woman and her sons. Evidently Jackson had assessed things correctly, though, since he had stopped and moved behind a big gumbo limbo tree.

“I know him, my Thunder,” the old woman said, and it was true. Lying down, the tiger was calmly washing his paws with a huge tongue. The appearance of the Cobham clan, despite the movement and raised voices, had seemed to calm the beast.

“No one listens to me ’bout I know best for him,” Gracie went on, cutting off another comment from Brit. “Got him as a kitten from a real phony, but I’m not. So wrong to steal him from me, give him to someone goes to school to learn about him,” she said and spit on the ground in Brit’s direction. Gracie crossed her arms over her flat chest and stomped once on the ground. “Real tired of peeking at my Thunder through the fence. Glad someone fin’ly listened to me,” she added as she glared at Nick and Brittany, nodded at Claire and turned away.

“Clean up that mess,” she muttered to her sons, who jumped to obey, then scurried to follow her out the way they had evidently come in. She didn’t look back.

“She’s trouble,” Brit whispered, and walked behind them, evidently to be sure they left. Claire noted that when Jackson saw the intruders were on their way out, he held his gun to his side and followed them ahead of Brit.

Nick and Claire started to walk out too. Yes, the Cobhams were gone and Jackson was asking Brit why no one told him they’d gotten in. “And how did they get in?” he asked her, his voice rising. “Thought it better they just leave, or I’d have confronted them on it.”

“You know, Nick,” Claire told him, putting a hand on his arm to halt his steps for a moment, “Gracie let slip that she was tired of watching the tiger through the fence. Through what fence?” she asked, looking around at the perimeter of the BAA. “Could she have a hiding place just outside to spy in here? Even to slip in? And Jackson—if he’s so in charge, how does he keep missing all the action?”

“As for Jackson, it’s a big enough place with lots of sight barriers. Probably chance or bad timing, but what a character the old woman is, one we may have to watch.”

“A real frontier woman,” Claire insisted. “If I question her again—on her turf—who knows what she might tell us about the tiger or if she resented Ben Hoffman. Those ‘boys’ of hers would probably do anything she asked.”

“You mean sneak in here like storm troopers, hit Ben on the head and shove him in the cage, and not be noticed? Wouldn’t they be scared that Momma only wants her Thunder to have possums, not humans? But, yeah, she sure calls the shots. And no, don’t even suggest you’re going anywhere near Everglades backcountry to question some old woman or those two with her.”

Claire heaved a huge sigh and leaned against him. “I think we’re both back on a case—accident or murder or suicide—aren’t we?”

“I guess I am, but you’re pregnant.”

“No kidding. And don’t be sexist. If I go anywhere dangerous, I’ll take Bronco or Heck—or even you—with me.”

“Let’s just get Ben Hoffman’s stuff and get out of here before something else happens. I’m starting to think I need some of that calm-down herbal tea of yours.”

* * *

Nick had their master bathroom so steamed up from his shower Claire could hardly see in her vanity mirror to take her makeup off. Sitting in the low-backed padded chair, she leaned closer to the glass. “You know,” she said as he stepped out of the shower to dry himself off, “this tiger cage case we’re working on now—”

“It’s not an official case. It doesn’t mean we’re all in for it.”

“Nick, you said different earlier today. What if that old woman gets blamed for harassment or even murder? And Stan Helter wants the BAA land, maybe at any cost. Lane didn’t get along with his father, and also wants his family out of there. We have plenty of places—people—to start with. Anyhow, I was going to say that Ben’s murder—if it’s murder—is kind of like a classic locked room mystery. You know, like Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ or Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.”

“Haven’t read those,” he said, tying a dry towel around his waist and quickly running his electric shaver over his day’s growth of beard. Her antenna went up. They hadn’t made love for a while, and he usually didn’t shave until morning. So why was he being difficult if he had that in mind? In general, she was learning to pick up on his actions and body language, so why couldn’t she figure out what he was really thinking about Ben’s death? She had to keep prying and prodding.

“Well, I haven’t read them either,” Claire told him, “but my mother’s years-long mania reading instead of taking better care of Darcy and me means I know all about them. You know, a locked room murder would fit this—the cage was locked, and anyone who got in to murder Ben would have been attacked too, and why would he go in there on his own? The place is double fenced, and the entry wasn’t open that morning except for our group. Nick, we’ve got to find some serious reasons and answers, and it can’t be something stupid like the Poe story where a woman was murdered in a closed upper room because an escaped ape got in there with a razor and killed her.”

Nick looked at her in the blurry mirror where he was now combing his wet hair back. “You’re kidding,” he said, straightening to face her. “An ape with a razor? Next we’ll be thinking the tiger jumped through the bars and pulled Ben in because it was missing roadkill possum.”

He tossed his comb on the counter and leaned stiff-armed on the marble sink top while she began to smooth moisturizer on her face. The intensity of his perusal of her made her feel she wasn’t wearing a nightgown and her terry-cloth robe.

“Sorry for that,” he said, straightening and coming over behind her to put his big hands on her shoulders. His thumbs stroked the back of her bare neck. Every muscle, every thought, began to go lax. He whispered, “The thing is, I’m still torn about spending time on this case with the baby coming, and now that we’re finally safe to have family time.”

“Maybe Heck will ferret something out of Ben’s records you gave him. He often does.”

“And you’re itching to ferret out something about Ben—if he had an enemy hateful enough to kill him—from talking to people he knew. But enough of all this right now. Let’s go to bed. Talking about locked rooms, I think I’ll lock ours for a few minutes so we don’t have Miss Lexi in here asking me why I’m kissing Mommy places besides her cheek or mouth.”

A jolt of lightning shot straight to Claire’s belly. She might be pregnant, she might be married, she might have made love to Nick Markwood for months now, but it was always like that first time on the yacht when she gave herself so totally to him—and, she believed, conceived this child. When he bent to kiss her throat, she twisted in his arms and kissed him back hard and hungry.

He loosed the towel around his hips, helped her out of her robe and nightgown, and lifted her into his arms. In their bedroom, he bent to click the lock on their door, then laid her on the bed and got in beside her.

Everything fled—disappeared—except Nick when he touched her, when he took over like this.

“I’ll be careful,” he said, keeping his weight off her.

“Yes. Tonight, but also with getting too involved...”

Her words weren’t making sense.

“I’m always too involved with you,” he murmured in her ear as he slid his tongue from her neck to her breasts.

She shut out everything except their love, but when he had her purring, she thought of that tiger again and went so crazy with passion that she accidentally scratched his back.

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