Claw Back (Louis Kincaid) (5 page)

             
And that’s what was happening now.

             
He parked his Mustang in the
visitor’s
lot and picked up the envelope Katy had given him. He knew he would need ammunition to convince Mobley this panther thing was worth his department’s time
,
and Katy had obligated with some stunning photographs.

“Maybe it will make it real for him,” she had said.

Louis wasn’t sure anything could warm Lance Mobley’s heart besides a double shot of Jack Daniels but it was worth a try.

             
Mobley’s office was down the first corridor, the double glass doors marked by the five-star county seal and Mobley’s name in large gold letters.

             
The secretary was on the phone, but her eyes darted up to Louis as he came in. Louis didn’t know her but she bore a stark resemblance to all the secretaries Louis had seen at this desk before her.
A toned, sun-
streaked
blonde who wore a bright print blouse and a Slinky
-like bunch
of gold bracelets.

             
She finally hung up the phone and drawing a weary breath looked again to Louis. “Yes?”

             
“I’m Louis Kincaid. The sheriff is expecting me.”

             
He could see from the blank expression on her face she couldn’t place his name.

             
“I’m working with the Fish and Game --”

             
“Oh, ye
ah
.
I’m sorry. Things are a little chaotic right now.”

             
“What’s going on? I heard the sirens.”

             
“Armed robbery in Estero,” she said. “Three wounded officers, one suspect was shot at the scene, two others fled in a green Monte Carlo. The entire county is in pursuit.”

             
Louis looked toward Mobley’s open office door. The high-backed leather chair was empty. Mobley would be tied up all day with a situation like this, especially if it was his department that eventually took down the robbers.
             

             
Which meant
a missing panther was low priority for Mobley right now
. Still, Louis had
a crime scene waiting to be processed and each additional day left it open to contamination.

             
He looked back at the secretary. “Should I wait or --”
             

             
Suddenly, the door behind him banged open and Mobley came in. He was in full green and white uniform and dripping in sweat. His eyes shot briefly to Louis then he walked to the secretary’s desk, snatched his messages from her outstretched hand and moved quickly into his office. He left the door open and Louis took it
as
a gesture to follow.

             
The first thing Mobley did was reach over to turn up the volume
on the
police radio near his desk. Red lights zipped back and forth on five channels. To anyone else, the radio traffic would have sounded like excited gibberish but Louis understood every word. The wounded officers had already been released from the hospital, Collier County S.O. had joined the pursuit and the fleeing suspects had caused a traffic accident
on
Tamiami
but had managed to
drive
on, dragging a sparking fender behind them.

             
Mobley glanced at Louis. “I don’t have time right now for you and your dead cat,” he said.

             
“He wasn’t dead,” Louis said. “He was --”

             
Mobley held up a hand to silence him as he leaned toward the radio. The suspects had entered I-75, heading south at
a high speed
. One of Mobley’s deputies radioed in for permission to continue the pursuit in what
was
suddenly far more dangerous
conditions -- a crowded freeway. The deputy sounded young, his strained voice nearly drowned out by the screaming siren in the background. A superior officer, also in the chase, gave him the okay to continue.

             
Mobley hadn’t sat down, hadn’t moved from his spot behind his desk. He reminded Louis of how Susan Outlaw looked a few years ago when she was waiting for news on her son Ben
a
fter he’d been kidnapped. It was a combination of emotions: fear for those you cared about and helplessness because you couldn’t be out there -- wherever
there
was -- to help. 

             
For the next five or six minutes, they listened to the anxious chatter of officers and wailing sirens. Then suddenly it was over, the young deputy
’s voice
dominating the others as he announced that the Monte Carlo had clipped a
semi,
went airborne and flipped until it was nearly cut in half by a tree. With a small break in his voice he ended his transmission with, “both suspects appear to be DOA.”

             
Mobley keyed the radio and asked for the exact location of the roll-over. He was told the pursuit had ended two miles north of the Collier County line, in Lee County.

             
Mobley’s turf.
Mobley’s headlines.

             
Mobley turned the radio down, walked to the open door and told the secretary to schedule a press conference in an hour. He came back to his desk and dropped into his chair.

             
“You got about thirty seconds before I get slammed,” he said.

             
“The panther wasn’t dead,” Louis said. “It was illegally darted, fell from a tree and went looking for
water
.”

             
“Sounds like hunter trying to poach a trophy.”

             
“It’s not a poaching incident,” Louis said. “The wounded panther was not the same cat Fish and Game put the BOLO out on. That was a female cat named Grace. And we know for a fact that
she’s been abducted, probably by the same person who tried to take Bruce.”

             
“Bruce?”

             
“The male cat in Lehigh Acres.”

             
Mobley’s eyes came up to Louis’s face, flickering with disbelief. “I’m about to coordinate the processing of an armed robbery scene with multiple fatalities and you’re giving me some fairy tale about kidnapped cats?”

             
“I can appreciate your position,” Louis said. “But
there’s
only
a handful of
panthers left out there. Fish and Game monitors them very closely
.
It’s a
federal
crime to even mess with the cats.”

             
“But not our crime, Kincaid.”

             
“You’re wrong,” Louis said. “It
is
our crime. You gave it to me.”

             
Mobley smiled. “You thought I was serious?”

             
Louis felt sucker-punched. He
had
thought Mobley was serious, at least as far as seeing just how much shit Louis would take to wear a badge again.

             
“Yeah,” Louis said. “I
thought
you were being straight with me because I thought you were a man of your word.
Even when you were drunk.”

             
Mobley’s smile vanished and his face flushed with color as he glared at Louis. The phone started ringing but Mobley made no move to answer it. Finally, the secretary intercepted it and the office was quiet again. Mobley was still staring at him so Louis decided he’d simply keep arguing.

             
“I don’t think the cat-
napper
is a trophy hunter,” Louis said. “I think he wanted to mate the male and female panthers. But the male, Bruce, got away from him.”

             
“Okay, I’ll bite,’ Mobley said. “Why would a guy want a litter of panther kitties?”

             
“Maybe he wants his own family of cats,” Louis said, thinking of the strange people who lived in the Everglades in shanties and tents. “Maybe he’s trying to help stave off extinction. I don’t know. But I do know that if I’m right about hi
m
wanting to mate two panthers, he will come back for another male. And when he does, someone could get hurt.”

             
Mobley’s phone started ringing and again he ignored it. His gaze dropped to Louis’s hand. “What do you have in that envelope?” he asked.

             
Louis opened the envelope and dumped the photographs Katy had given him on
the
desk. Most were shots of Bruce and Grace, obviously taken with telephoto lenses, but with an artist’s eye for the beauty of the lithe animals.

             
The last four pictures were of Bruce lying half-dead on the Lehigh Acres patio, Bruce with his leg splinted, a close-up shot of Grace’s severed collar and last, a picture of Katy holding a
spotted
panther
kitten
, back-dropped by the green foliage of the Everglades.

             
“Who’s this?” Mobley asked.

             
“The Fish and Game officer in charge of the panthers.”

             
Mobley
sifted
through the photos. The phone started up again, this time followed a second ringing on the other line. Voices echoed from down the hall. Louis knew his time was running out.

             
“Sheriff,” Louis said. “Everyone loves a good animal rescue story. Think of the great PR you’ll get when we find Grace.”

             
“It’s only great PR if you find
the thing
alive, Kincaid.” Mobley tossed the photos down and stood up. “What do you need?”

             
“A CSI team in the Everglades as soon as possible,” Louis said. “I could use some techs
who
specialize in tire and animal tracks.”

             
Mobley gave him a withering look. “What else?”

             
“I want to talk to people who’ve been arrested for animal abuse or poaching in the glades,” Louis said. “So, I’ll need access to your criminal database.”

             
“I’ll have Ginger arrange authorization.”

             
“I’ll also
a
four-wheel drive vehicle.”

             
A clamor of voices rose in the outer office. Louis glanced over his shoulder to see a huddle of men in suits and sweaty uniformed officers waiting to see Mobley. Behind them, he spotted a TV cameraman. 

             
When he turned back, Mobley was holding out a small leather wallet.

             
“You’ll need this, too,” Mobley said.

             
Louis took the wallet and opened it. On one side was a gold deputy’s badge with the Lee County Sheriff’s seal. On the other, where the official ID would go, was a white card with the sheriff’s office logo embossed across the top. Underneath, it read:
The courtesies and law enforcement authority of this office have been temporarily extended to Louis Kincaid.
It was signed by Sheriff Lance S. Mobley.

             
“I do keep my word, Kincaid,” Mobley said. “Now go find that damn cat. Alive.”

CHAPTER SIX

After leaving Mobley,
Louis
felt the need to burn off the extra adrenalin of the day so he stopped by Gold’s Gym and did a quick hour in the weight room.

That wasn’t enough so he swung by Fowler Firearms and killed another hour target shooting
with his
Glock
. It was Friday -
Ladies Shoot Free!
-
and
the place was packed with women laying waste to paper Zombies with pink Sig
Skeeters
.

He didn’t mind being the lone male. He had been avoiding going to the Lee County Gun Range lately because he didn’t want to run into any cops who might get curious about why he was sharpening his shooting skills. Not yet at least. Not until he was sure he had a permanent deputy badge on his chest.

Eventually he’d have to break down and go to the Lee County range. He was going to have to do the tactical training course, test his accuracy shooting at the computer-controlled moving targets that mimicked what a cop might encounter on the street. It was one thing to shoot at static paper silhouettes. It was something else entirely to make split-second decisions on random moving targets.