Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr Read Free Book Online Page B

p.m., as she drove back to Guadalupe, Patsy singing "Too Many Secrets," Anna began again to worry at the edges of the Drury Lion Kill.
    Beside her on the seat, atop an accumulated pile of rubble, were the slides she'd taken on the lion transect and of the Dog Canyon Ranger's corpse. Anna had taken them to Wal-Mart's one hour photo service and paid for the developing out of her own pocket.
    Technically she should have turned the roll in to the clerk, filled out a form for funding, and waited the requisite eternity for the machinery to grind out one small task.
    Patience was not Anna's strong suit.
    Contemplating the envelope she had assiduously ignored all day, she wondered what it was she was so anxious to see. Sheila Drury's intestines festooning the front of her uniform like macabre confetti?
    Most definitely, she wanted to see the blood again. If she remembered correctly, there'd been very little. Surely that indicated the lion had clawed Ranger Drury sometime after she had achieved corpse-hood.
    That might be an argument that would quicken some kind of interest in Paul. Then he would stop the hunt. If he could. Corinne Mathers wasn't known for her willingness to listen to her District Rangers. Mathers acted like a woman with a political itinerary. Guadalupe was a stop along the way.
    "Be fair," Anna chided herself, but this time she expected she was being fair. Maybe even generous. Corinne was a woman on her way up.
    Mankins was in the Cholla Chateau with Cheryl Light, watching television when Anna pulled in. She could see the blue-gray light through the windows. Manny would be three sheets to the wind by this time of night.
    Fleetingly, Anna wondered if his wife, Yolanda, cared that he drank so much beer. Guadalupe, like so many parks, was isolated, the employees living in rented government housing miles from anywhere. It became its own small, sometimes incestuous, society. Loneliness, boredom, and booze were occupational hazards.
    The light in Craig's apartment was out. There was only the eerie purple glow of his snake aquarium light through the white curtain. Either he'd already gone to bed or he was camping on the West Side despite the invasion of the space aliens.
    Anna smiled at the thought. Then she remembered Harland's warning.
    Feeling a fool, she locked her door behind her after she'd brought in the groceries.
    The slides were tossed into the bag with the onions and the chocolate pudding. Leaving the frozen goods to hold their own for a few minutes more, Anna took them out and carried them over to the desk. The little slide viewer was in the top drawer with pens and .357 cartridges.
    With hope but no expectations, she peered quickly through the transect photos, then dropped the first corpse shot into the viewer and held it up to the light.
    Nothing had changed. The images that she held in her mind were accurate.
    The shots of the scratches and the puncture wounds were disappointing.
    The light was so poor when she'd taken them that the colors were faded.
    It was impossible to tell where the blood ended and the mud began. Not enough proof to impress Corinne Mathers with the lion's innocence.
    Anna sat back. Piedmont had leapt silently to the desk top and was pushing the slide box back and forth between his paws. Soon he would grow bored and the box would be knocked to the floor with one sudden swat.
    Was that the way it was with Sheila? Had she delicately made her way into the saw grass, protecting her arms and face, then, with the sudden swipe of one deadly paw, been struck down? And, before the lion dragged or worried at his prey, he was frightened away?
    It could have happened that way. But, Anna didn't believe it. "Just being stubborn," she told Piedmont as she risked a skewered finger, rescuing the box of slides from his paws. She replaced it with another toy, a plastic ball with a bell encased inside.
    The cat would have nothing to do with it. Anna had ruined everything.
    With a flick of his sausage tail, he