Double Prey by Steven F. Havill Read Free Book Online

a bad thing, sir.”
    “Ah.” He waved a hand with impatience. “You know, just too much nonsense. I got a notice here a day or two ago discussing electronic tagging, and everything else we’re going to have to do to accommodate that. Jesus, it’s just a goddamn cow, for Christ’s sakes. It seems to me that we ought to be able to manage a goddamn cow without a digital infrastructure.” He said the last two words with considerable distain.
    “One would think so.”
    “You know, it’s just because they can. No reason other than that. So I told ’em to hell with it. Next they’ll think about implanting a GPS chip in each little calf ear. Nah, they can have it. I got things to do.”
    They settled in the car, and Estelle took a moment to clear with dispatch and make her log notations. “What’s your next project?”
    “I don’t know why I’m so damned interested in history, but I am, so there it is. Did Irma pass on my message to you, by the way?”
    Estelle nodded. “She mentioned your interest in the jaguar. And then I got side-tracked when I saw the wedding invitation. I should have called you, but I didn’t.”
    He waved a hand in dismissal. “I wouldn’t have answered anyway. I was out roaming. Did you see it?”
    “It?”
    “The jaguar skull.”
    “Not yet.”
    “I stopped by yesterday afternoon and what’s-his-name, the teacher, showed it to me, along with all the measurements that they took. He and his class, I mean.”
    “Nathan Underwood.”
    “Yup. He says that they did a quickie class project with it, right there on the spot. Pictures, measurements, the whole nine yards. They’re sending all the information to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and over to the university.”
    “They’re going to need permission from the feds to keep it, no?”
    “Underwood knows all about that. He’s pretty sharp, I gotta say. Anyway, that got me thinking. Those cats haven’t ever been common around here…just way too dry. They don’t have
agua
in their name for nothing. And then I remember your great uncle talking about seeing one. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he’d been in the sauce again. But if he says he saw one, then that’s it. He saw one.”
    “Nothing about Reubén would surprise me,” Estelle agreed.
    “You still have his journal, I would hope?”
    “
Sin duda
. ”
    “I’d like to look through that and find a date. I can’t imagine him seeing a cat like that and
not
mentioning it in his diary.”
    “I’m sure he would. It’s all in Spanish, you know.”
    “Ah, but I have access to a most accomplished translator,” Gastner said. “All I’m after is the date, and that should be easy enough.”
    “Odd place for a big cat to show up,” Estelle mused. “The Cristóbals aren’t the most hospitable place in the best of times.”
    “For us. For an old kitty being chased, maybe just fine.”
    “You think chased?”
    “I do. And caught. I’m no forensic specialist, but I know a bullet hole when I see it. The old guy’s last moments weren’t the most peaceful, I’d guess. Some bastard put a bullet in him.” Bill Gastner touched his head just behind his right eye. “Didn’t detonate the whole skull, so it wasn’t a hi-powered rifle. Thirty-eight caliber or a little bigger.”
    Estelle looked across at her old friend.
    “Interesting, eh?” Gastner said.
    “Most,” she replied. “Most people go through an entire lifetime and never see a big cat in the wild, much less up close and personal. And a
jaguar
? That’s not even once in a lifetime.”
    “As far as I know, springs are few and far between up there, not that I’ve trekked it all. But Bobby has, and he’s going to be interested in all this, I would think. He’s going to want to know exactly where the Romero kid found it. I was going to ask the boy the same thing, but I got over there after school let out. Didn’t catch him.”
    “You’re not the only one,” Estelle said, and briefly