Night Of The Jaguar

“You think the killer used an ax?” asked Fi

She shrugged. “I didn’t, I mean, I couldn’t look at the body, I mean, examine it, but it was just smashed and torn up so much, I guess…you know the phrase ‘ax murder’ just came into my mind. And that kid they took away, the guard. I saw him pretty well. His face and his neck were just shredded.”

“All right,” said Fi

“Oh, that was the vandalism. Someone clawed up our front door about-what’s today, the twenty-fourth?-oh, maybe three weeks ago. And left, um, some fecal matter on our walk.”

“Fecal matter,” said Fi

“I don’t know, Detective. I’m not an expert on fecal matter. We disposed of it and replaced the door.”

“And you didn’t call the police about this.”

“No, my father likes…liked his privacy. He wanted to take care it himself, so he hired guards.”

Now the follow-up questions, as the detectives tried to reconstruct the events of the victim’s last day on earth. Fi

His thoughts here were interrupted by a man in the doorway, gesturing urgently. Fi

So he was a little gruff with Wyman in the hallway.

“What is it, Wyman? I’m in the middle of an interview here.”

“We found a bullet in the study, a nine millimeter, in the couch back. It’s in real good shape. So the story about the shot is true, at least.”

“This is what you came in there for, a fucking bullet?”

“No, Fi

“Look up there,” said Wyman, pointing to the rear wall of the house. “That’s where we think the perp entered.”

Fi

“It was open at the time of entry. I guess the victim felt pretty secure because there was a guard in that Florida room we just passed through. We found cigar butts and coffee cups.”

“Yeah, that’s what the maid said.” Fi

“He could’ve,” said Wyman, “but what he actually did was, he jumped right up to the window from the ground there and grabbed the wall and the window frame with his claws.”

Fi

“It could’ve been some kind of ladder, with hooks…,” Fi

“Yeah, that was our thought at first. Until we found these.”

Shining the flashlight on the limestone slabs of the patio, he led the detective some twenty-five feet from the house. There in the center of the path were four reddish marks. They were smeared but unmistakably the pad marks of a large cat.

“The floor of the study and the area just outside were soaked with blood. I mean, both victims were almost entirely exsanguinated, that’s over two gallons of blood. There are these same pad marks all over the place up there and on the windowsill, too. It jumped from the window and landed here, then a couple of steps and it jumped over that hibiscus hedge and landed in the next yard. Then it, or they, turned the inside key of a wrought iron gate and went down a service alley out to Montoya Avenue. And then they were gone.”

“So what’re you saying, a guy and some kind of animal?”

“I can’t think of any other explanation,” said Wyman. “And believe me, I tried. It certainly explains the apparent damage to the victim. The man’s skull was crunched up like a piece of tinfoil. His belly was ripped open, and it looks like half the liver is gone. And look over here.”

Wyman went to an island of plantings under one of the live oaks. He moved the foliage of a ginger plant aside and directed his flashlight beam to the loose earth below it.

“This is where it set itself before jumping over the hedge. We’re going to take casts, of course, but I can already tell you you’re dealing with a big animal. If I had to take a wild-ass guess, from the depth of that footprint, I’d say around four hundred pounds.”

“Good Lord! What, some kind of lion?”

“A tiger, more probably. Lions aren’t much for that kind of jumping. Or the world’s largest leopard. Or the jaguar from hell. Or extraterrestrials. This is a strange one, my friend.”

Fi

“I don’t know, Fi

Santiago Iglesias’s cell phone went off, snapping him out of his light doze. He looked out the window. The painted VW was still parked there, silent now. Beside him Dario Rascon snored intermittently.

Prudencio Martínez was on the line. “I need you here right now,” he said, and gave an address on Fisher Island.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Thechingada got himself killed, and whoever it was took out Torres, too.”

“¡Maldito!How could that happen?”

“How the hell should I know,cabrón? The thing is to stop it from happening again. Get moving!”

“What about the VW here?”

“Forget it. We have plates on them. We can find them when we want to.”