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  “It’s possible,” Corrie conceded. “But more likely he’s holed up somewhere cleaning the wound with his tongue. That’s what cats do.”

  “Never did like stinkin’ cats,” Oliver muttered.

  Before they’d gone to the site of the Castlewood attack, Corrie had taken Oliver home to change clothes. He didn’t like to be out of uniform, but she told him with all the police gear he wore on his uniform belt, he clanked and jingled as he walked. That wouldn’t do when hunting in the woods. Stealth, that’s what they wanted. Clothes with soft, smooth finishes; shoes with soft soles. She told him he’d have to keep his footsteps close to the ground, and his feet pointed straight ahead; splayed feet snapped more twigs.

  Now, as they were about to enter the trees, Corrie brought up one last point. “You’re sure you don’t want a rifle? I’ve got another Winchester in my truck.”

  “What, a little toy cowboy rifle like yours?”

  “In 1901, Teddy Roosevelt killed fourteen mountain lions in one hunt with a little toy cowboy rifle like this. The ammo’s 190-grain Silvertips I hand load. Believe me, the combination will get the job done.”

  The deputy chief was not persuaded. “I take range practice twice a week with my handgun. I don’t know from rifles. Only cops who do are the SWAT boys.”

  “Okay, well, now’s the time to draw your weapon. What we’ll do is follow the blood trail and the lion’s tracks. I’ll lead; you follow. When we get into the trees, move as quietly as you can and keep looking all around you. Don’t forget to look up. You ready?”

  Oliver nodded, his face grim.

  They stepped off the highway.

  The deputy chief told himself this wasn’t any worse than going after an armed gang-banger in a South Central alley. Certainly not as bad as a high speed pursuit down the Santa Monica Freeway in heavy traffic. He made a hundred other comparisons to the dangers of being an L.A. cop.

  The problem was, he didn’t believe any of them.

  Chapter 42

  Ron Ketchum wasn’t the only one who thought What the Hell would make a great restaurant franchise concept. Sherm Mason’s daughter, Carolyn, a business administration major at UC-Davis felt the same way. She’d been working in her daddy’s restaurants ever since she was a little girl. The first one had been in San Bernadino where she had been born.

  Carolyn Mason had learned to do arithmetic by making change for her father’s customers. She’d learned about inventory control. She’d learned about profit margins. She’d learned that greeting people with a smile didn’t add a penny to your overhead, and it kept the cash register ringing all day long.

  When she was seven, Carolyn started to develop asthma from the exhaust pipe air quality of San Bernadino. The doctor told her parents that moving to a place with clean air would be of great benefit to Carolyn. Sherm Mason asked the doctor what kind of air he was talking about. Like up at Arrowhead or Big Bear? The physician said that would be good, but he vacationed in a little town in the Sierra. He’d never breathed cleaner air than up there.

  Within a month, Sherm had sold the restaurant it had taken him years to save for, and more years to turn into a thriving local institution. When it came to the health and welfare of Sherm and Geneva Mason’s little girl, every other priority got bumped down a notch or off their list entirely.

  Because both residential and commercial real estate in Goldstrike sold at a considerable premium above that of San Bernadino, the Masons had to move into a much more humble house, and the first What the Hell site had previously been a two chair barber shop.

  But they’d kept smiling and serving the best, biggest, juiciest burgers anybody could wrap their hands around, and now they had a considerably nicer house and a restaurant on Pinnacle Drive that seated forty and served take-out to a small army of regulars.

  Given her lifetime of practical experience, Carolyn was an honors student. She kept her father’s books via computer when she was away at college. During summer vacation, she worked out of a small office at the back of the restaurant, keeping the books each day before Daddy opened for business. She’d finished her spreadsheet work an hour ago, pleased that, as ever, What the Hell continued to be a small gold mine.

  What occupied Carolyn’s thoughts at the moment was how she could duplicate that gold mine back in Davis. She wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps. She had already found the location she wanted. She knew she could find investors among her father’s customers. She knew the nuts and bolts of the business.

  Her only concern was whether she had her father’s joie de vivre, and his ability to find employees with similarly sunny dispositions. She was certain that these would be absolutely essential elements to her success. Along with getting Daddy’s permission to use his restaurant’s name as her own. She felt there was magic in those three insouciant words: What the Hell.

  She also felt hopeful Daddy would go along with her once she laid out her plans for him. He’d never denied her anything she’d really wanted and showed a willingness to work for. A happy smile had just settled on Carolyn Mason’s lips when she heard a tremendous crash of shattering glass.

  Horrified, she realized that someone had just smashed the restaurant’s front window. Her fear grew exponentially when she threw open the office door and saw that What the Hell had become an inferno akin to its name. Just the other side of the wall of flames, Carolyn saw the indistinct figure of a man on the sidewalk out front.

  He must have seen her, too, because he shouted: “That’s for Terry Castlewood!”

  Carolyn had no idea what he meant, but she darted back into the office for the fire extinguisher that was kept there.

  She wasn’t going to let her father’s restaurant burn down without a fight.

  Ron had just finished another futile interview in his hunt for Didi DuPree, this one with the manager of the Log Cabin Lodge, when his BlackBerry chimed. He answered the call and Sergeant Stanley told him What the Hell had been firebombed.

  The chief was rolling with his lights and siren on within seconds. His arrival, however, was not as swift as he would have liked. Pinnacle Drive was blocked for half a block by media vehicles. Two fire trucks and an ambulance had gotten through, but he couldn’t. Not until he got on his loudspeaker and announced that any vehicle blocking the thoroughfare would be towed and impounded. That got some action: The newsies quickly moved their cars onto the sidewalk.

  When he reached the burger joint, the fire was out. But he arrived in time to see someone being loaded into the back of an ambulance. That person was burned and moaning. Ron’s heart sank when he thought who the burn victim must be. The doors of the ambulance slammed shut and it roared off down the street the chief had just cleared.

  Clay Steadman was already on the scene, standing just behind the group of firefighters who were making sure the blaze had no chance to rekindle itself. It was clear that the reporters wanted to talk to the mayor and the firefighters about the blaze, but the look on Clay’s face was so deadly than none of them dared to approach him.

  Ron knew just how he felt.

  “Was that Carolyn Mason they just took away?” the chief asked.

  The mayor nodded.

  “Sherm and Geneva know yet?”

  “No. They’re on their way here. I’ll take them to the hospital and stay with them as long as they’ll have me.”

  “It was definitely arson?”

  Clay informed Ron that Carolyn had been able to tell him what she’d seen and heard — how she’d tried to save her father’s business.

  “Sonofabitch,” the chief whispered.

  “Find this guy, Ron. Right away.” Then the mayor nodded at something behind the chief.

  Ron turned and saw Special Agent Horgan arrive with his two minions. Well, there was no question that this was a hate crime. That gave the feds all the opportunity they’d ever need to stick their noses back into things.

  What was ironic, Ron wouldn’t have minded some help at this point — if Horgan had b
een an actual human being.

  “I’ll get right on it,” the chief said.

  “Do that, but do one other thing for me first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go to the Hyatt and get Mahalia Cardwell. Tell her that she’ll be a guest in my house for the remainder of her stay in town.”

  Ron knew Clay was concerned for the old woman’s safety.

  Still he thought: Better your house than mine.

  Mahalia Cardwell kept Ron waiting thirty minutes while she completed her packing, all the while complaining about how she was being inconvenienced. Ron was entirely lacking in sympathy and didn’t keep it from showing on his face. The old lady made him carry her bag to his car.

  Once they got underway, Mahalia Cardwell turned to the chief and said, “You don’t like me, Mr. Chief of Police, do you?”

  Ron took his eyes off the road long enough to answer. “Not a bit.”

  Mahalia nodded as if she’d not only expected the answer but also derived satisfaction from it. Maybe it confirmed her opinion that he was a cracker. But Ron couldn’t worry about that.

  He had some questions for the woman. “Mrs. Cardwell, did your grandson do anything between the time Colin Ring first visited you and the day he left with Ring to come to Goldstrike?”

  “Do anything like what?”

  “Like maybe try to learn about who his father was from an objective source.”

  “I told Isaac everything he needed to know about that Jimmy Leverette.”

  From the way the old woman sneered at the mere mention of her former son-in-law, Ron thought Mahalia Cardwell was going to spit in his car. But she restrained herself.

  “I’m sure you did. But did he talk to anyone else?”

  “He went to the library.”

  “In Oakland?”

  “Berkeley. Went to read up on what a famous man his daddy is.”

  “Do you know if Isaac made any notes on his research?” Ron inquired.

  “I didn’t see any. Would’ve torn them up if I had.” She put a hand on Ron’s arm and he was surprised by the strength of her grip. He stopped for a red light and looked at her until she removed the hand. “I told your boy, and I’ll tell you, too. It was Jimmy Thunder who killed my baby, and nobody else.”

  The light changed and Ron stepped on the gas.

  “You know that, do you?” he asked.

  “I surely do. I also know a rich black man is the hardest man in America to bring to justice these days. He gets himself some fancy lawyers and a black jury, he could probably nail the governor of California to a tree and not lose any sleep. Tell me you don’t think that’s true.”

  Ron had strong feelings about jury nullification and other miscarriages of justice, but he wasn’t going to get into all that with Mahalia Cardwell. “I think pretty much everybody gets what’s coming to them, one way or another.”

  “I do, too. I truly do.” The old woman regarded Ron with a smile that was anything but warm. Like she knew some secret about him that he didn’t know himself.

  The chief thought this lady was fast approaching Marcus Martin status in the select company of black people he really disliked. Not that he could admit it. That would never do for a recovering bigot.

  By the time they arrived at the Steadman house, the mayor had returned home. He met Mrs. Cardwell and the chief at the front door. Clay’s houseman took the old lady’s bag to her room, and the mayor escorted his guests to the living room.

  When they were all seated, the mayor spoke bluntly. “Mrs. Cardwell, there was another attack by the lion this morning. A teenage boy was seriously hurt.”

  “And so was a young woman when her father’s restaurant was firebombed by a moron who believes in your curse,” Ron added, feeling a sudden rush of anger at what had happened to Carolyn Mason. “Who do you think that girl’s mother and father should curse, Mrs. Cardwell?”

  The old woman regarded Ron with cold eyes and a stony silence. She didn’t like him muddying up the purity of her desire for vengeance. Not that she was about to take responsibility for causing harm to an innocent person. You can’t feel guilty and be self-righteous at the same time.

  The mayor cleared his throat and gave the chief a look: This wasn’t a good cop, bad cop scene. This was a star turn. Indignant second bananas were not required.

  Ron got the message. He went and looked out a window at the front grounds of Clay Steadman’s house.

  He saw Art Gilbert lovingly pruning a flowering plum tree.

  Over his shoulder he heard the mayor tell the old woman, “I’m not superstitious, but apparently a lot of people around here are starting to take your words seriously. Worse than that, they’re taking them as license to commit crimes. You’ve made things very difficult for everyone.

  “You could make them a lot better by issuing another statement that you’d spoken in anger, and that your feelings had been misinterpreted. I never had the good fortune to meet your grandson, but I think that any clergyman who truly believes in his calling would prefer forgiveness to vengeance. I think that’s what Isaac would have wanted.”

  Mahalia rebutted, “You tell me this, Mr. Steadman. You think my baby wanted to get killed the way he did? No, sir! He did not! Things get bad enough around here, somebody’s gonna tell what they know about Jimmy Thunder. How he murdered my Isaac. That happens, you can arrest him and your town will be right with the Lord again. This is His curse, not mine. Or do you think on old woman can make wild creatures do her bidding?”

  A silence followed, and Ron thought — hoped — that Clay would drop the kid gloves and tell Mahalia Cardwell to hit the road. But he showed a greater forbearance than Ron would have and simply had his houseman show his new guest to her room.

  The mayor came to join the chief and look out the window.

  Clay said, “The only thing I can say for her is that in her place I’d probably be just as bloody minded.”

  Ron didn’t dare get started on the subject of Mahalia Cardwell. He didn’t want to say anything unfortunate. Instead, he inclined his head in the direction of Art Gilbert.

  “Man does beautiful work, doesn’t he?”

  Clay nodded. “If Art loved film the way he loves plant life, he’d make a great director. He has an instinctive sense of visual composition.”

  “How long has he worked for you?” Ron wanted to know.

  “Two and a half years. Got his name from Pat Sims, down the road.”

  “Beautiful,” the chief repeated.

  Then he said he had to go catch an arsonist.

  Chapter 43

  Terry Castlewood was out of surgery when Ron got back to Community Hospital. His prognosis was guarded. Maybe he’d walk again, maybe he wouldn’t. There were a lot of people in the hospital chapel saying prayers for him. Others congregated in the lounge outside the recovery area and talked in hushed tones. It was these people the chief wanted to see. He wanted to know who among them would react so violently — dementedly — to the lion attack on the young football star.

  Ron was sure the firebombing at What the Hell had as much to do with sports as it did with race. Most of the outrage people felt was focused on the fact that Terry Castlewood had been a local hero, one who showed the potential to be a big league jock. Hell, even Ron, who didn’t follow any team except the Los Angeles Lakers, had remembered seeing the boy’s picture on the sports page of the Goldstrike Prospector. So it stood to reason that Terry’s fans would be the ones who could point the finger at the most twisted among their number.

  The problem was, Ron had been anticipated. By the feds and the media.

  He saw Horgan and his minions talking to a distraught middle aged couple — Terry Castlewood’s parents, the chief would guess — in a glass walled office behind the nurse’s station at the entrance to the intensive care unit. Reporters buttonholed people right and left. Ron was amazed the FBI men were allowing the newsies to conduct their interviews without hindrance. Maybe the feds hoped to get their leads fro
m the nightly news or the morning paper.

  Or they figured he’d show up and play the heavy. He could give the media the bum’s rush. He could suffer their noisy wrath when he did. Ron was about to run that risk when his BlackBerry chimed again.

  Sergeant Stanley was calling once more, this time with good news.

  “Somebody dropped a dime on the firebombing,” the sergeant said.

  Ron looked around. Nobody had noticed him yet.

  “Does it sound legit?” he asked.

  “Woman says she’s the perp’s mother.”

  “Was she broken up about calling in?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tears, sobs, the whole nine yards.”

  Regret was always a good indicator of a snitch’s sincerity, especially when it was a parent turning in a child.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She overheard sonny-boy bragging on the phone in his bedroom about what he’d done: ‘Charbroiled a nigger.’ He went on about how it was tough to know when they were done cooking, though, since they’re black to begin with. Mom didn’t appreciate his comedy routine. She said she hadn’t raised him that way.”

  “Is this moron a kid, still at Goldstrike High?”

  “He’s thirty-four, unemployed, lives with Mom. Dad’s dead. Junior is supposed to be a former jock himself. Now he’s a booster. He’s taking a nap after his busy morning.”

  “You’ve got cars at the house already?”

  “Front and back, Chief. I just called to see if you wanted to be in on the arrest.”

  Ron looked around again. This time Horgan was staring at him. Ben Dexter, too. Both doubtlessly wondering who the chief was talking to.

  Ron told the Sarge, “No, go get him right now. Bring him in quietly. Call the mayor, Annie Stratton and the DA. Let them figure out how they want to handle everything.”

  “Will do, Chief.”

  Ron hung up. He walked past Horgan who’d come out of the room where he’d been conducting his interview. He walked past Ben Dexter who’d been talking to a high school kid. He acknowledged neither of them.