“He’s a little bit pissed.” Lil sighed. “I guess you are, too.”
“Good guess.”
“I did exactly what I thought had to be done, what I still think had to be done. Know had to be. But… The interns are coming,” she said as she heard the trucks. “I need to go deal with them. I appreciate you coming so fast, Coop. Appreciate everything you did.”
“Save it, and see how grateful you are once you and I are finished with this. I’ll wait for Willy here.”
“Okay.” She’d handled an escaped tiger, Lil thought, as she headed back. She could handle an angry man.
BY SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning, Lil felt as though she’d put in a full and brutal day. The emergency staff meeting left her with a headache and a clutch of uneasy interns. She had no doubt that if turnover hadn’t been only days away, some would have quit and walked away. Though she wanted to assist Matt with his exam of Boris, and the tests, she assigned interns. The work would keep them busy and focused. And reinforce the fact that everything was under control. Others she put to work on the temporary enclosure, and had no doubt there would be several pairs of eyes tracking warily over habitats throughout the day.
“A couple of them are going to be calling in sick tomorrow,” Lucius said when he and Lil were alone.
“Yeah. And the ones who do will never make it in the field. In research, labs, classrooms, but not fieldwork.”
With a sheepish smile, Lucius raised his hand.
“You’re planning to be sick tomorrow?”
“No, but I spend most of my time right in here. I can guarantee I wouldn’t have gone out armed with a drug gun to hunt me down a Siberian tiger. You had to be scared fully shitless, Lil. I know you relayed all this at the meeting as if it was almost routine, but this is me.”
“Fully shitless,” she acknowledged. “But more scared I wouldn’t get him tranquilized and contained. My God, Lucius, the damage he might have done if he’d gotten away from us. I’d never be able to live with it.”
“You weren’t the one who let him out, Lil.”
Didn’t matter, she thought as she went back outside. She’d learned a lesson, a vital one. Whatever the cost, she’d have the very best security available, and as quickly as it could be arranged.
She met Willy and Coop on their way back from what she supposed they considered a crime scene.
“We’ve got what’s left of that carcass bagged, and we’ll test it, in case it was doctored,” Willy said. “I’ve sent the men to follow the tracks. I’ll be calling in more.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to need a full statement from you, both of you,” he added to Coop. “Why don’t we talk in your place, Lil?”
“All right.”
At her kitchen table, over more mugs of coffee, she went over every detail.
“Who knew you were going to be here alone once Farley left this morning?”
“I don’t know, Will. I’d guess word got out that he was driving with Tansy to Montana this morning. I had arrangements to make, and I didn’t make them on the down low. But I don’t know if that’s relevant. If Farley had been here, everything would’ve gone about the same way it did. Except I wouldn’t have had to call Coop to help me get Boris back in his enclosure.”
“The fact is the cage door opened a few minutes after they left, and almost two hours before any of your people were scheduled to get here. Now, maybe that was just luck, or maybe somebody’s keeping track.”
She’d thought of that, of exactly that. “He’d have to know we have alarm signals on the cages we keep activated unless we’re working in them. Otherwise, it would be getting the tiger out, baiting him out that was the goal here. It could’ve been another two hours, easily, before anyone noticed the door was open, and by that time, Boris might have roamed off, or just as easily gone back inside, to his den. His home. If I can’t be sure, and this is an animal I’ve worked with-this is what I know-whoever’s doing this couldn’t know.”
“You’ve been here for about five years now,” Willy said. “I’ve never had a report from you on anyone trying to get one of your animals out.”
“No. It’s never happened before. I’m not saying it’s a coincidence, just that the purpose might have been to get one of the big cats out and cause havoc.”
Willy nodded, assured she understood him. “I’m going to coordinate a manhunt with the park service. I can’t tell you what to do, as sheriff, Lil, but I’m telling you as your friend I don’t want you here alone. Not even for an hour.”
“She won’t be,” Coop put in.
“I won’t argue that. I don’t intend for anyone, including me, to be alone here until this man’s found and put away. I’m going to contact a security company this morning and arrange for the best system I can manage. Willy, my parents live less than a mile from here. Believe me when I say I’m not taking any chances, any, on this ever happening again.”
“I do believe you. But you’re a lot closer than a mile to those enclosures, and I’ve got a fondness for you. I had a painful crush on her when I was sixteen,” he said to Coop. “If you tell my wife I said that I’ll say you’re a dirty liar.”
He pushed to his feet. “I went around, took a good look. All your enclosures are secure. I’m not going to shut you down. I could,” he added when Lil made a strangled sound in her throat. “And you could try to get that overturned, and we’d end up on opposite sides here. I want you to make that call about the new security, and I want you to keep me updated on it. I got a fondness for you, Lil, but I’ve also got people to protect.”
“Understood. We haven’t violated a single ordinance or safety measure since we brought in the first cat.”
“I know that, honey. I do. And I bring my kids here two or three times a year. I want to keep bringing them.” The gesture both casual and affectionate, he reached out to pat her head. “I’m going to go. I want you to remember I’m the first call you make from here on out.”
She sat where she was, stewing. “I suppose you have plenty to say now,” she suggested when she and Coop were alone.
“You should’ve stayed inside and waited for help. Two people with drug guns are better than one. And you’re going to say there wasn’t time for that.”
“There wasn’t. How much do you know about tigers as a species, and Siberians as a subspecies?”
“They’re big, have stripes, and I’d have to assume come from Siberia.”
“Actually, the correct name for the subspecies is Amur-Siberian’s the name commonly used, and it’s misleading, as they live in the far east of Russia.”
“Well, now that we’ve cleared that up.”
“I’m just trying to make you see it. It’s fiercely territorial. It stalks and ambushes, and can reach a speed of thirty-five miles an hour, maybe forty.”
She took a breath, easy in and out as the idea still made her belly quake. “Even an old guy like Boris can book when he wants. It’s strong, and can carry a prey of, say, a hundred pounds and still leap a six-foot fence. Man isn’t its usual prey, but according to most accepted records, tigers have killed more humans than any other cat.”
“You seem to be making my point for me, Lil.”
“No. No. Listen.” She dragged at her hair. “Most man-eaters are older-which Boris is-often going for a man because they’re easier to take down than larger prey. It’s solitary and secretive, like most cats, and if interested in man meat would hunt in sparsely populated areas. Its size and its strength mean it can kill smaller prey instantly.”
Desperate to make him understand, she squeezed her hand on his on the table. “If I’d waited, that cat could’ve been miles away, or it could’ve wandered into my parents’ backyard. Your grandparents’ front pasture. It could’ve roamed to where the Silverson kids catch the bus for school. All while I was sitting inside, waiting for someone to help.”