Track of the Cat Read Online Free PDF

a question, clarifying, Anna knew, the very precise picture she was putting together in her mind.
    Mrs. Claremont had been cooling her heels in the Park View Clinic's opulent waiting room for ten minutes by the time Anna had finished.
    Another brief silence. Anna waited for the summation. Already, just from talking to Molly, she felt better.
    "Okay," Molly said finally. "You didn't give a damn one way or another about this Sheila Drury. Right so far?"
    "Right," Anna admitted. She wished Molly would sugarcoat things now and again, but she never would.
    "Death, darkness, vultures munching, brought back the bad old days after Zach was killed. That's pretty straightforward. But what I'm hearing through it all is an outraged sense of injustice. Am I close?"
    Anna felt around inside her brain, probed down her esophagus, took a left at her sternum, and peered into her heart. "I guess that's right." The surprise sounded in her voice and she heard Molly's foreshortened chuckle, almost the "heh heh heh" of the cartoons.
    "Because some of the wrong people die?" Molly was fishing.
    "Ah . . . Nope."
    "That you weren't hailed a hero for finding her?"
    "Nope."
    "Because you had to be the one to find a stinking corpse?"
    Anna thought about that for a second but it wasn't it, either. Horrible as it was, she loved a good adventure. "Nope."
    "I give up," Molly said. "Gotta go. Call me when you hit on it."

    There was a click and Molly was gone. Ushering in Mrs. Claremont without apology, Anna didn't doubt.
    Craig Eastern came in with a blue plastic basket full of uniforms and white Fruit of the Loom underpants. He didn't look at Anna as he loaded the washer and put two quarters in the slot. Maybe he figured it would make less of an intrusion that way.
    Anna realized she was still holding the receiver to her ear and replaced it in its cradle. "I'm done," she announced and Craig cranked in the quarters, starting the noise of the washer.
    Outraged injustice.
    Anna pondered it as she walked back to her residence. Molly had put her finger right on it. That was the feeling. Anna had mixed it with other emotions, not really even recognized it. Outraged injustice. It was an emotion for the young, for those who still believed in some pure, shining vision of absolute Justice, a virgin to be outraged. Anna had felt the outrage for years when she'd been simpler, blessed enough to see the world in clear crisp black and white.
    Over the years she'd been introduced to "mitigating circumstances."
    Everything had softened, muted into the more interesting but less dramatic shades of gray.
    Why outraged injustice now? Anna rubbed the fine scratches on her arms.
    They were beginning to itch with healing.
    Then it was clear, classic: the innocent wrongly accused.
    The lion didn't do it.

    4

    "ANNA, you saying The lion didn't do it' is like Jimmy Hoffa saying the Teamsters didn't do it."
    "Paul, there were no saw grass cuts on Sheila. None. Lions wrestle their prey around, drag it. Even if it just chased her into the saw grass and killed her clean, she'd've had to get cut up some."
    Paul sighed-a small one, barely audible. The sound of a patient man summoning up his reserves. Tilting back in his chair, he steepled his fingers. "Okay, let's go over this."
    Anna felt irritation boiling up inside of her and took a couple of deep breaths to try to dilute it. Paul was about to manage her. Anna loathed being managed. She leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers in conscious mimicry.
    They were in the Ranger Division's headquarters, the old Frijole ranch house. It was a two-story home built near a spring just after the turn of the century. Even in the heat of June it was cool. The native stone walls were nearly two feet thick and pecan trees, brought from St. Louis in tins and carefully tended, were now fifty feet high. The shaded oasis was a haven for snakes, scorpions, mice, and rangers. But for an ongoing battle between the District Ranger and the mice, they