Читать книгу Cordi O'Callaghan Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - Suzanne F. Kingsmill - Страница 24

On the way home Martha rummaged around in her bag and took out a CD and inserted it into my CD player. I was expecting something musical like the Rolling Stones or even Elton John but what came blasting out was the play-by-play of a hockey game. I stared at Martha open-mouthed and then said, “What in heaven’s name are we listening to a hockey game for? Or hadn’t you noticed it’s summer.”

“But, Cordi, this is the Montreal Canadiens. Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean we fans go to sleep.” She wasn’t kidding. Martha was not exactly reticent about where she stood when it came to the Habs. All the way home we listened to the Montreal Canadiens getting thrashed by the Florida Panthers, while I chewed over in my mind the significance of what I had learned so far. I wasn’t sure what I’d found but I was on the verge of something, I just knew it. Something in the back of my mind was screaming to get out — it just couldn’t find a route.

I was so lost in thought that when Martha suddenly bounced up and down on the edge of her seat and screamed, “Go Habs!” I nearly lost control of the Land Rover. When I finally wrestled the beast back onto the road I marvelled that Martha had been so engrossed in an old game that she hadn’t even noticed the Land Rover and the side of the road making intimate eyes at each other. I listened to the game, my mind now frayed from too much thought to want to do anything else. It sounded bad for the Habs. I glanced over at Martha, wondering why she’d want to listen to a losing game.

“I brought the wrong CD,” she whispered as the Habs went down in a shootout.

Martha was deathly quiet and the announcers from the U.S. channel were having a field day. “The Panthers have won it!” they yelled. “The Florida Panthers kick butt. The stealthy cats came out soft-footed and strong.” The game swirled into my mind, infecting my thoughts, and suddenly I knew what Diamond had been doing up in those woods in the weeks before he died.

The sun was dripping off the escarpment like gold as it moved toward dusk when I finally wheeled the Land Rover into the farmyard. The smell of freshly cut hay was heavy in the air and the indolent mooing of the cows out in the paddock indicated that it was getting close to milking time. I could see Mac in the paddock and waved at him as I saw Martha into her little Volkswagen and watched as she bounced down the road toward the highway. Ryan’s motorbike was parked outside his office, and I raced upstairs two at a time to his loft. He was reviewing some photos by the skylight as I came in and wound my arms around him from behind. He stopped as he saw my face splitting in a grin from ear to ear.

“What’s up?”

I turned on the computer before even sitting down, barely holding in my excitement, and said, “I’ll show you in a minute, I hope.”

Ryan came and peered curiously over my shoulder as I inserted Shannon’s disk and then opened the files for each of the six cats Diamond had been monitoring that spring. I moved the cursor, looking for their vital statistics. There were no vital stats for the sixth cat, but I knew Diamond must have recorded them somewhere. I looked up at Ryan, who was now standing beside me wondering what was up. I pointed to the files for the other five cats.

“Look at this, Ryan. For each cat Diamond has recorded their weight, length, and other physical characteristics, how often they had travelled, and how far.”

“So? Isn’t that standard information anyone would gather?”

“Exactly,” I said excitedly. “No biologist worth his salt would track an animal and then not weigh and measure it. He’s done that for five of the cats.”

“What are you getting at, Cordi?”

“The sixth cat has no physical characteristics recorded.” I clicked the window and pointed to the computer screen. “He’s recorded movement and activity and general location in western Quebec, but no physical characteristics at all.”

“It must have been accidentally deleted.”

“Does this word processing program have hidden text capability?” I said, trying to contain my growing excitement.

Ryan looked at me curiously and nodded. “Yeah, sure it does. Move over and I’ll see if I can bring anything up.”

Ryan keyed in some commands and suddenly the text of Diamond’s sixth cat doubled in size. I grabbed the mouse from him and scrolled to the beginning of the document, and there it was. Height. Weight. Length. My heart was beating like a bloody racehorse at the photo finish.

“Take a look at the weight, Ryan.”

“Fifty kilograms. What of it?”

“That’s a hell of a size for an adult Canada lynx.”

Ryan looked at me, and then clicked on all the other file windows. Not one of Diamond’s adult lynx weighed more than ten kilograms. Not surprising, since female lynx average about 8.6 kilograms.

I looked at Ryan, blowing out my cheeks in excitement. I pointed at the computer screen. “This cat’s at least five times the weight of an adult lynx. There’s only one cat in Canada that big.”

I let the words hang in the air for effect. This was my moment of triumph and I wanted to savour it. Ryan looked at me expectantly.

“It was a cougar, Ryan. Diamond was monitoring a pregnant cougar!”

Ryan stood looking at me, uncomprehending, my dramatic little revelation having had no effect on him.

“So what? Even if he was studying a cougar I don’t see what that has to do with Diamond’s death. He was a cat man. He studied cats. What’s the problem?”

“Cougars haven’t been found in Western Quebec for generations.”

Ryan let out a long, low whistle and said, “You’re joking. Are you sure?” Ryan’s shift from boredom to excitement was palpable, and I spoke quickly.

“Of course I’m sure. Lots of people have claimed to have seen them over the years but there’s been no believable evidence. Most biologists think they are extinct, gone, vanished, forever dead here in Quebec, but they are officially listed as endangered in eastern Canada because there have been so many unconfirmed sightings over the years. Recently someone found a small population in New Brunswick. If Diamond really had found a cougar, it would be dynamite. Logging would stop on the instant. The spotted owls in the old growth on the west coast forced the loggers to stop out there not too long ago.”

Ryan heaved out of his chair. “I’m famished. Let’s celebrate with something from your fridge.” Ryan was going to eat me out of house and home before Rose and the kids returned from her parents’ cottage. Still, it was nice to have him around to myself every night to talk things over. I knew I’d miss his nightly company when Rose got back. Oh sure, I’d get my fill by visiting them as I always had, but it wasn’t the same. I wouldn’t have his undivided attention. I thought of Patrick then, as Ryan and I linked arms and walked across the farmyard and down the road to my house.

The sun was spilling its guts all over my porch when we got there. I threw some steaks on the barbecue and Ryan made a salad. The crickets serenaded us as we continued our conversation on the porch.

“How the hell did you make the connection?” he asked.

“The baseball game, a necklace, and that crumpled scrap of paper I found by Diamond’s pack.” I told Ryan what I thought I’d read on the paper. “Anyway, Shannon had a necklace with a tooth embedded in silver. She told me it was a cougar tooth and that Diamond had found it in Florida. I didn’t make the connection then, but when I listened to the uproar as the Panthers won the game I realized that what was written on that smudged scrap of paper wasn’t ‘antlers’ at all. It could just as easily be ‘panthers,’ another name for cougars. I suddenly figured the cat with no statistics might have no stats for a reason.”

“You’re talking about a career-making discovery here, and he sits on it? Why didn’t he break the news earlier instead of radio-collaring the beast and following it around for a few months?”

“He wanted solid, irrefutable proof I guess. Not just a photo of a cougar but a photo of a cougar with cubs! What a coup! He’d never lack for grant money again.”

I was on a roll. Theories leaping all over the place.