Forcing herself not to look at the fine blue veins in his eyelids or the bright spots of pink in his otherwise pale cheeks, Brooke persisted. “Honey, I’m sorry. They’re going to ask you these things. Did you, um, look at your dad? Did you see any…” But she couldn’t bring herself to ask him about the wounds. She didn’t want to know about the wounds. Instead, choosing her words carefully, she said, “Daniel, did you see Lady bite your dad?”
He shook his head violently, and she saw him press his lips together hard for a moment before he answered, “No! I told you. She was just crouched down beside him, and she sort of…sniffed him, and then she pushed at him with her head-like this.” He demonstrated. “Then she saw me, and she jumped back and started snarling and making that screaming noise and batting her paws at me. It was like-” He stopped, and the pink in his cheeks deepened.
“What, honey? It’s okay. You can tell me.”
He looked up at her at last, almost defiantly. “It was like she didn’t want me to come in there, okay? Like she was trying to make me stay away. I know it sounds weird, but it was like she was trying to protect me. Like she didn’t want me to see-”
“Oh, Daniel.” Brooke wanted to smile at him, but the ache in her throat and in her whole face made it impossible. She could think of another reason for the cougar’s behavior, of course, one more in keeping with the nature of a predator. She was probably trying to protect her “kill.”
But she didn’t say it. So what if her son had found his own way of coping with the awfulness of what had happened? She’d let him keep whatever comfort he could for as long as he could.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Daniel said as he scooted back his chair and carried his juice glass to the sink.
He was heading out of the kitchen, probably going to his room, but at that moment there was a knock on the kitchen door-the back door, the one they and nearly everyone who came to visit always used. Brooke could see Al Hernandez standing on the porch steps, looking off across the yard, where the CSI van and the medical examiner’s wagon had joined the two sheriff’s department SUVs.
When she went to let the deputy in, she saw that he had Hilda with him, on a makeshift rope leash. The dog was panting and grinning, interrupting herself frequently to lick her chops, a sure sign she was agitated. She’d been sitting quietly at Al’s side, but when Brooke opened the screen door, she bounded past her, into the house, and Brooke could hear the scrabbling of toenails on the linoleum as she streaked across the kitchen, making, no doubt, for her favorite refuge, Daniel’s room. She heard Daniel talking to the big dog in quiet tones as she nodded at the deputy and said, “Come on in, Al.”
“Sorry about that,” Al said, with a nod of his head in the general direction Hilda had taken. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep her in here until we’re…uh, everything’s done out here. She’s been raising quite a ruckus.”
“I can imagine,” Brooke said, with a small huff of laughter-the nervous kind-and she wished she hadn’t done it and made a note to herself not to do it again. She took a quick breath and added, “It’s fine. I should have thought to bring her when I came in.” She gestured toward the chair Daniel had been sitting in. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”
“No, ma’am. I am gonna need to talk to the boy, though. Is he-”
“I’m right here,” Daniel said, coming into the kitchen. To Brooke, he said, “I put Hilda in my room, Mom. She’s pretty upset.”
“Daniel-” She held out her arm to bring him close, but he evaded her and instead pulled out another chair and sat down.
“I know. You want to ask me questions about what happened to my dad.”
Brooke felt an unexpected urge to cry and clamped a hand over her mouth to stop it. Al Hernandez said, “That’s right, son. I need you to tell me everything you can about what happened out there. Can you do that?”
Daniel said, “Sure,” and went on to tell his story again, without the smarty-pants tone he’d used with Brooke, while Al jotted notes in a notebook he’d taken out of his uniform pocket.
“So, that’s the first you knew anything was wrong?” Al asked when he’d finished. “When you heard the dog barking?” Daniel nodded. “And you didn’t see anybody around the place? Hear anybody? Any cars?” Daniel shook his head. “And your dad-he didn’t come here, to the house?”
Daniel shook his head again, rapidly this time, and began to fidget in his chair. “No, I didn’t see him. I haven’t seen him for a while, actually. Next weekend’s his weekend to have me. I don’t usually see him otherwise.” His face was very pale, so that the freckles across his nose and the tops of his cheeks stood out like sprinkles of sand.
Al must have noticed it, too, because his eyes and voice were kind as he said, “Okay, son, that’s fine. I think that’s all. You did fine.”
“So,” said Daniel, “can I go now?”
“Sure, go on. Take care of your dog.” The deputy waited until Daniel had disappeared down the hall and they heard the thump of the closing door. Then he leveled a look that was considerably less kind at Brooke and said, “Okay, now I’ll ask you the same thing. Tell me exactly what you saw and did. Your son said you were gone when this happened?”
She cleared her throat and nodded. “Yes, that’s right. I’d gone to town for feed and groceries, and I was late getting back because-” she gave that nervous laugh she’d promised herself she wouldn’t “-well, I guess you don’t want to know all that.”
Al just looked at her and waited for her to go on. She told herself she had no reason to be nervous, but she was. So nervous her mouth felt like dust. She clasped her hands together in front of her on the tabletop and tried to make them look relaxed. Natural.
“Um…anyway, when I got home, the first thing I saw was Duncan’s SUV parked on that back road, the one that goes around the property. I thought-” She paused, but Al just nodded and didn’t interrupt. “I thought it was strange, him being there, but I came on to the house, and then I thought it was strange that Hilda-that’s the dog-and Daniel didn’t come running out to meet me, like they usually do. It wasn’t until I turned off the motor and was getting out of the truck that I heard the noise.”
“What did you hear, exactly?”
“I heard Hilda barking, and then I heard Lady-the cougar-scream. And that’s when I ran.” Her voice had begun to shake. She fought to control it while the deputy waited patiently, staring down at the notes he’d made.
She wished she could get up and get a glass of water. She wished she could run to her bedroom and crawl under the covers and pull a pillow over her head.
After a moment, she drew a quivering breath and went on. She described everything that had happened, and when she was finished, she was surprised to discover she’d been crying. For some reason, that embarrassed her, and she tried to wipe the tears away surreptitiously while Al was still looking down, writing in his notebook. She waited for him to ask more questions, and when he didn’t, she cleared her throat again and said, “Al, can I ask you something?”
He glanced up, frowning.
“What did he-I mean, how did he look? You know, were the wounds…” She touched her lips with her fingertips, and more tears rolled down her cheeks. This time she didn’t try to wipe them away. “I just really need to know. Did Lady kill him?”
“Ma’am, I can’t make that kind of judgment. That’s up to the ME.” He paused, then seemed to relent. “I will tell you there’s some blood on Dunk’s clothes, and some-not a lot-on the ground. We’ll just have to wait for the autopsy to determine how he died. Now, if you don’t mind, I have just a few more questions…”
He asked her about the compound, the gate, how it was locked up and who had a key. He asked her how she thought Duncan might have gotten into the pen with the cougar, and why.
“That’s what I can’t imagine,” Brooke said in a whisper. “Duncan was deathly afraid of that cat, although he’d never have admitted it. He always wanted to get rid of it. When I told him I wanted to start a refuge for big cats- you know, like, animals people take as pets, then can’t take care of when they get big and dangerous-he thought I was nuts. He even insisted on buying a tranquilizer gun, just in case, because he said he knew I’d never be able to shoot her, if it came to that.” Her voice broke, and as she paused to control it, a thought occurred to her. “I wonder why he didn’t-Duncan, I mean. Didn’t he have his gun?”
Al gave her an unreadable look. “It wasn’t on him, no, ma’am. We found it in his vehicle.”
