The next morning, Cait got an early start after fitful sleep. Jack had rented an SUV the night before and taken off. She didn’t blame him for wanting to protect his parents, but his return to Albuquerque worried her.
After coffee, she gritted her teeth and phoned Larry Bison. The detective had turned adversarial, but she had to ask about news on Rod Stone or progress on getting Fern Bush’s money back.
Her call went to voice mail, so she set out for Tucson Medical Center and the Bushes.
After battling cross town traffic, Cait turned off Speedway Boulevard onto Campbell Avenue and entered the medical center parking garage.
Inside at the information desk, she learned that Clark was still in intensive care, but Fern had been moved to a regular hospital room.
On the second floor, Cait checked in at the ICU nursing station and was taken to Clark’s cubicle. He was alert but still laboring to talk because of a swollen mouth and missing teeth.
His mood was glum and he was self-conscious about his appearance. Police had told him he’d been clobbered with a cinder block found near the front porch. He still couldn’t recall what had happened after he had answered a knock at his mom’s front door. He hardly met Cait’s gaze as he confessed he had no idea how to help Fern recover from the loss of her money and her home.
Cait told him the police were working to help Fern. “I’ll let you know what they find out. Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.” She feigned a cheery goodbye and headed to Fern Bush’s room on the fourth floor.
The older woman barely acknowledged Cait. She stared at the wall, mired in the harsh reality of her situation.
“I cancelled my homeowner’s policy months ago after the premium went up so much.” Fern clenched her hands to her chest. “It’s hopeless. I can’t go on. Everything’s lost.”
Cait’s stomach knotted up. “You have a son who cares about you. At least both of you are alive,” was all she could think to say.
“I wish I wasn’t. I don’t deserve to live after doing such stupid things.” Fern sniffled. A tear leaked down her cheek.
Cait put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Don’t think like that. We’ll work out a plan. You have Clark as well as me and Jack. Have you been able to visit your son? I’m sure he’d feel better seeing you.”
“No. He hasn’t come by.” Fern mumbled as Cait ground her teeth. Didn’t the woman care about her son at all? “I’ll ask a nurse to arrange it so you can see Clark. I’ll be back soon as I can.”
Cait took off. She needed to call social service agencies and victim’s assistance organizations to arrange for housing and financial aid for Fern and dental work for Clark. She had no idea how long Clark might be incapacitated. Once he left the hospital, he’d need transportation, since his truck had burned up in the explosion at his mother’s house. She made a note to ask Jack to stop by Clark’s Albuquerque gemology and lapidary business, the Rock Hound, to make sure the place was secure.
As she got off an elevator in the lobby, her cell phone whirred. The caller’s voice was familiar. “Cait Zapata? I met you out walking on Freeman Road.”
“Estrella, right? How are you?” Cait pictured the woman’s wrinkled, coffee-colored face and infectious smile. She thought she heard the jangle of silver bracelets.
“You told me your brother is a park ranger at Saguaro. He should be aware of bad things going on in the park.”
“Like what?”
“Evil doers who come and go as they please, hunting the animals.”
“Can you elaborate? Is someone taking reptiles?” Cait was frustrated by Estrella’s vagueness.
“We need to talk in person. Please come see me.”
“Ok, I’ll get hold of my brother, too.” Cait told Estrella about the man who had fired at her and Jack. She described the plastic boxes he carried to his vehicle. “He acted like he was stealing something.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. But there’s more. Can you both stop by, maybe this evening around seven? It’s very important. You know where I live. My husband would like to meet you, too.” With that, Estrella hung up.
Cait puffed out a breath and headed for the hospital cafeteria for a cup of coffee. There she sat and made some calls. An hour later she had located temporary housing for Fern and Clark. A local charity would allow them to use a unit in an old motel that had been renovated and converted into living quarters for victims of domestic abuse. The solution was a short-term one, since they could only stay for three months.
Next Cait tried Larry Bison’s number again. To her surprise, the Tucson PD detective answered.
“Ah, Fern Bush. One lucky lady. She told me something woke her up that evening. She smelled gas fumes in the house and ran out her front door, where she found her son coldcocked on the ground. The two of them were able to get away before the house blew sky high,” Bison said.
“Her son Clark suspects Rod Stone. We’ve been looking into this guy.” Bison added that Stone’s bank had knuckled under when presented with a warrant for the wanted man’s account history. “Someone named Rod Stone opened that account in 1989. He lived in an a condo over on Tucson’s west side for many years before the mailing address and phone number changed last year. The account balance increased substantially after the address change. For about twenty years, the real Rod Stone had kept less than a thousand in his bank account. In the past year, the balance has ballooned to several hundred thousand.”
Cait felt goose bumps sprout on her arms. “Go on.”
“I paid a visit to Rod Stone’s old condo. It was vacant. The utilities had been cut off and the property taxes haven’t been paid. The place looks unlived in. It’s as if the person who lived there was abducted by aliens. I got a license plate photo of Rod Stone from the state, and guess what?”
Cait knew what had happened. “He doesn’t look anything like the crook who runs Galaxy Financial. The real Rod Stone’s identity was stolen. So where is he?”
“Probably in a shallow grave out in the desert. He was in his forties and worked as a maintenance man for an apartment complex. When he didn’t show up for work one day, he was fired and forgotten. Somehow he must have met up with Jerry Fleming, who killed the man, assumed his identity and took over his bank account. We may never find the body.”
“What’re the chances Fern Bush can recover her money? Her house wasn’t insured and she’s lost her savings. As a widow, all she has to live on is her husband’s Social Security payments, a little over $20,000 a year. It’s going to be hard for her.” Cait felt anxiety rising in her chest.
“Here’s the deal,” Bison said. “Rod Stone’s bank account has been seized by the feds. I understand it’s sizeable, at least a couple hundred thousand in it. But Mrs. Bush won’t be the only claimant for those funds. Other people may show up arguing the fake Rod Stone hoodwinked them. To lay claim to any of that money, the lady has to prove Stone defrauded her.
“By the way, Christy Mossman said she had no clue who shot up the house next to hers. If you have any idea, now’s the time to spill it.” Bison’s tone indicated he thought Cait and Jack were holding out on him.
“I don’t know. Maybe a drug dealer used to live there. The gunmen thought he was still around?” Cait shot out a reply, realizing Jack hadn’t told Tucson PD about the tracking device hidden under her Jeep. He had his reasons for keeping quiet about his history with Sonny Para.
“That’s your story?”
“If Rod Stone turns up, please let me know.” Cait could feel the detective’s attitude cooling. Still, he’d given her more information than she’d expected.
“I’ll consider it. Gotta run.” Bison hung up.
Cait headed to the parking garage. She didn’t blame the Tucson detective for being peevish. She and Jack hadn’t told Bison what they suspected about the gunmen on Sandario Road. Still, she didn’t want to tell him anything before running it by Jack first. Her fiancé might be overly cautious, but he had his reasons, and she didn’t want to second-guess him.
She was also sure that Bison had heard about an Albuquerque cop found shot to death in January, and another injured in a bombing attributed to a gang. Bison was sure to dig up news reports on the incidents, and put two and two together.
After paying the parking attendant, she exited onto Campbell Avenue and started toward Saguaro National Park East. Next on the agenda was finding an attorney who could try to claw back Fern Bush’s investment, someone familiar with elder law and investment fraud.
Back at Chris’ place, she started looking into legal representation for Fern. By late afternoon she’d found a lawyer, Judith Bucky, who promised to contact Detective Bison and visit Fern and Clark at the medical center in the morning.
Cait had been impressed with the woman’s proposed strategy to rectify Fern’s bad money moves. If only she and Jack had a clear battle plan for dealing with Los Brutos.
***
The shadows were long when Cait spotted the Reynolds’ mailbox and turned down a circular gravel driveway. Estrella’s Southwest-style stucco home was hidden behind a grove of twisted old mesquite trees. Cait parked and walked down a brick pathway to the front door.
Footsteps pattered inside and Estrella opened the door. Her flowing white dress contrasted with her dusky skin. “Hello, my friend. Come in.” An old gray-muzzled black lab crowded behind her and wagged its tail.
Estrella looked past Cait. “Your brother didn’t come?”
“He had to go somewhere this evening.” Cait had invited Chris, but he had declined. He’d asked Cait to vet the woman’s claims. “Find out what she’s talking about,” he’d asked Cait. “If she sounds legitimate, I’ll go see her.”
Estrella pressed her lips together. “Too bad. Please come in.” She waved Cait into a cozy living room. A beehive-shaped fireplace occupied a corner. A pair of dark leather couches were arranged on either side of a tiled coffee table. The buckskin-colored walls were accented with striking desert landscape paintings.
“Would you like something to drink? Coffee, water, juice?” The older woman drew herself up and stood tall despite being all of four-foot ten.
“Water is fine, thank you.” Cait sat on a couch and looked around. A large watercolor caught her eye, a Tohono O’odham man-in-the-maze design surrounded by scenes of wildflowers, cactuses and desert animals.
Estrella returned with water glasses clinking with ice cubes.
She sat near Cait. “Thank you for coming by. Been walking?”
“I’ve been too busy, unfortunately. Maybe we can walk together soon?” Cait was anxious to cut to the chase. “Tell me about the problems in Saguaro National Park.”
The woman took her time with a reply. “I sense you are a good, honest person. I assume your brother is, too. As a park ranger, he should be aware there are people here who enjoy killing animals. Not for food but for kicks. They go after whatever lives in the desert and the mountains above. Coyotes, deer, bobcats, mountain lions, bears, birds.”
“That’s terrible. And illegal.” Cait wondered if Estrella had in mind the men who almost ran her over on their way to the house on the south side of Estrella’s property.
“These people aren’t bound by laws. They do what they want.” Estrella’s eyes burned into Cait. “I hope you’re open-minded. I dream about things, and what I see in my dreams often comes to pass. Last night I heard shooting and loud voices. I think it was these men who live near me. When I fell asleep, I dreamed about a big wild cat, golden with many black markings. These creatures used to live in the Southwest until they were hunted out many years ago. Anyway, this cat was being chased by hunters, who treed it and shot it.”
Cait’s pulse quickened. “A jaguar? I’ve heard some of them wander over the border from Mexico.”
Estrella nodded. “El tigre norteno. I’ve dreamed for years about them. This particular one exists not only in my dreams, but up in Cew Do’ag.” She pointed toward the Rincon Mountains, visible through her living room windows. “The cat came to me while I slept. It was injured by gunshots. I helped it get away from the hunters. So I invited you here to tell you this. It’s not something I wanted to discuss over the phone. There is a jaguar up there that is in danger. I’m asking you and your brother to help protect this cat. I hope you don’t think I’m some crazy old woman.”
Cait was stunned. “Have you seen an actual jaguar? How do you know for sure one’s up there?”
“I’m advanced in years but I have strong legs and heart. I often walk many miles on the trails up Long Mountain. I know this land well. My family has harvested the fruit of the Saguaro people for generations, way before this federal park was created. Each year in early summer we come, as my people have done for as long as there have been cactuses.” Estrella gazed at the 8,664-foot hump of Mica Mountain, the tallest peak in the Rincons.
Cait guessed she was Tohono O’odham, one of the Desert People. The tribe’s vast historical homeland, Papagueria, had once extended into Sonora, Mexico, into Central Arizona north of Phoenix, to the Gulf of California, and to the San Pedro River east of Tucson.
Estrella continued. “I have seen this cat several times this past year. It stays up in the mountains near water and places where deer go. It shows itself to me and comes out of the trees. It trusts me.”
“You’ve seen a jaguar in the Rincons?” A sliver of excitement shot up Cait’s spine. Her brother was going to wish he’d come along to hear the woman’s tale.
Estrella ignored the question. “There’s a reason it reveals itself to me and visits my dreams. It’s trying to tell me something.”
“Has anyone been with you the times you’ve seen it?” Cait tried not to sound incredulous.
“I wish I had been there. My wife knows what she’s talking about.” Cait started at a voice behind her.
A short, chubby man maneuvered a walker through an arched doorway leading to a hall. White curls framed a pink, cheerful face.
“This is Arthur, my husband.” Estrella smiled at him and patted a pillow on a couch by her.
He trundled over to Cait and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. I was stuck on a Skype conference call about a grant proposal. Chasing research money is a never-ending process in academia, I’m afraid.”
“He’s a sociology professor at the U of A.” Estrella tilted her head at him, and Cait noted the couple looked at each other with affection.
“Estella’s told me an amazing story,” Cait said.
“Now you know our little secret.” Arthur eased out of the walker and settled in a chair by his wife. “You’re the first person we’ve told. I suppose we should have talked to a park ranger or biologist. We were afraid no one would believe us. And it would be awful if word got back to types like Jer and Curt Wester, our creepy neighbors. If they knew about that cat, they’d go on safari and hunt it down."
Cait described her encounter with a truck. “Was that the Westers?”
“That’s them,” Arthur said. “Those two are a real piece of work.”
“They don’t work for the park, do they?” Cait frowned.
“Jer works in maintenance for Saguaro East and West,” Arthur said. “Unfortunately he doesn’t subscribe to the ethics and values of his co-workers. Curt manages a shooting range south of Tucson. We’ve suspected for some time the brothers have been behind killings of wild animals in this area. Dead deer out by Redington Pass. Javelina and bobcat in Saguaro East. It’s not unusual to see those two driving around with a rifle or two in the gun rack of their pickup. Early one morning we were walking along Freeman Road, heard gunshots and saw their truck go by. Later we discovered two javelinas on the road shoulder. Still alive but barely. They had to be euthanized.”
“I’m sure my brother will want to talk to you about the Westers. And the jaguar. Is your concern about the jaguar based on your dreams, or do you know for certain it’s being hunted?” Cait hated the doubt in her voice. She knew her blunt question pitted new world skepticism against ancient intuition, implying that Estrella’s dreams and hunches had no basis in reality. A good friend of Cait’s, Bonita Sanchez, had been raised by Apache elders who believed in and prayed to mountain spirits. Cait’s own upbringing on the Zuni Pueblo had involved beliefs in myriad spiritual beings that revisited her people each year during ceremonies. In both cultures, dreams were considered pipelines to the spirit world, not frivolous brain byproducts.
Storm clouds gathered over Estrella Reynolds. She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “There is a jaguar, no doubt about it. And I can guarantee there’s trouble on the mountain. Knowledge doesn’t always arrive by way of scientific proof. Sometimes the truth becomes evident through other ways.
“One day last year, Arthur went hiking in the Catalinas. Late that morning, I was overcome by anxiety. I called the authorities to tell them he was in trouble. They brushed me off when they realized I called them because of intuition. That afternoon, other hikers heard his cries from the bottom of a drop off. He had fallen on a rough section of trail and broken his hip. How did I know he was hurt? I can’t tell you how, but the point is that I knew. It’s happened before when I sensed there was a problem, and it turned out I was right. If I hadn’t paid attention to those feelings, he would have died out there.”
“I’m sorry to question you like this,” Cait said. “I just wondered if your neighbors had said something, maybe bragged about going after a jaguar.”
“We don’t talk to them. Not after they shot at our dog and denied it. I know something’s wrong because I dreamed those two were tracking the jaguar. Sometimes the answers are right in front of your nose.” She sat back and rested her hands on the chair arms.
“I will talk to my brother as soon as I get back. Can he call you tonight?”
“Of course. The sooner we do something, the better.” Estrella’s expression brightened.
“Are you going hiking in the Rincons soon? I’d love to go with you.” Cait’s words rushed out.
“How about tomorrow morning? Would your brother come?” Estrella tented her fingers.
“He’s working, so I don’t think he can get away. But I can. I have an errand first thing, but would mid-morning work for you?”
“Can you pick me up? Arthur is driving to the university tomorrow.”
They agreed on ten am. Cait said goodbye and headed back up Freeman Road. She passed by the Wester house but saw no vehicles or signs of life. It was hard to believe a national parks employee could be involved in poaching and wanton destruction of wildlife.
Back at Chris’ apartment, she listened to her messages, including a brief one from Jack, who had arrived at his parents’ home in Albuquerque: “This could have been a disaster. None of Julius’ friends were watching the place. Maybe they told him they would, but riffraff aren’t dependable. Thank God I got here before anything happened.”
Jack answered quickly when she called him back.
“I miss you.” Cait longed for one of his bear hugs.
“I wish you were here.” Jack sounded pensive.
“How are your parents?”
“Good so far. I’m going to have a high fence installed around the property, as well as motion detectors and cameras. Mom says her old Chihuahuas are good guard dogs, but they sleep more than they watch the place.” Jack managed a chuckle.
Then it was Cait’s turn to talk. She described Estrella Reynolds’ jaguar-in-distress story.
“I don’t put much stock in dreams or things like clairvoyance. There was a clairvoyant who guided authorities to the body of a missing person a year ago. But in that case, it was more a matter of following deductive logic than relying on a psychic’s sixth sense,” Jack said.
“Probably.” She filled him in on authorities seizing Rod Stone’s bank account, along with Detective Bison’s belief that Jerry Fleming had killed the real Rod Stone and assumed his identity. She said she’d found housing for the Bushes and an attorney for Fern. “That poor woman’s lost everything. Her house wasn’t insured. And it’s obvious that explosion was arson. Stone knocked out Clark and monkeyed with the gas line in the kitchen. He wanted to eliminate mother and son. I’m worried he’ll go after them again once he finds out they survived, especially since Clark might remember him.”
“Wonder why he didn’t kill Fern when he got into the house?”
“He didn’t see her napping in the living room. The couch faced away from the hallway.” Cait paced, phone to her ear.
“You talked to Detective Bison?”
“He thinks we know who shot up that house, so he’s turned stale crackers.”
“That’s too bad. It’s not clear who those guys were, though I can take a good guess. And I don’t know if Los Brutos has Tucson cop connections, so I’d rather not confide in Bison,” Jack grumbled. “The fewer people know what we’re doing, the better. At least the Bushes will have security at the hospital.”
“I’ll see them tomorrow morning.” Cait hoped Jerry Fleming, aka Rod Stone, had already skipped town. Although from her experience, the con artist was driven by vengeance as much as by greed.