Page 37 of Identity Unknown
“We’re leaving it for now.”
Dripping as we climb into the van, Marino and I buckle ourselves into the cloth-covered bench seat, sliding the door shut. Then we’re following the Yellow Brick Road, no one saying much, the presence of the body in back palpable like an undertow. I’m staring out my window when the van suddenly brakes to a stop.
“Whoa!” Rob looks shocked.
“Holy shit!” Marino exclaims.
“Nobody open your doors,” Tron warns as I see what they’re talking about.
The spotted cat is the size of a Labrador retriever, standing on the yellow bricks in the flare of headlights no more than twenty feet from our van’s front bumper. A male leopard or a cheetahI decide as it comes closer. He seems unbothered by the rain, twitching his tail, staring at us with eyes glowing bright white like something supernatural.
“I wonder if he escaped from the wildlife institute near Monterey,” I suggest.
“That’s maybe thirty miles from here,” Tron replies. “Still a pretty good distance, though.”
“Hell, that would be nothing for a cheetah. They can run as fast as a car,” Marino says as if he’s an expert. “I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. Their heads are smaller than a leopard’s.”
“Why end up here?” Tron asks.
“That’s what I’m wondering,” I reply, the big cat standing as still as a statue, staring.
“Although it’s odd that the Brileys own this theme park and also give a lot of money to the wildlife institute,” Tron adds.
“Maybe someone’s illegal pet that’s wandered off.” Rob watches through the sweeping wipers. “It’s used to people or it wouldn’t be this close to us, just standing there like that. I bet if I got out it would come right up to me.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Marino says as I roll down my window halfway. “Whether it’s used to people or not it could tear you apart. And there’d be no way for us to stop it.”
“I may have seen him in a second-floor window of the Witch’s Castle as we were leaving. Maybe that’s where he’s been holing up,” I explain, not needing a cell signal to take a picture with my phone. “Poor thing’s probably hungry. Although he doesn’t look all that thin to me. His ribs aren’t showing.”
I think of what’s left in my briefcase, doubting he’d want a granola bar.
“Maybe he knows what we’ve got in the back of the van.” Marino adds a horrific thought. “If Lucy hadn’t found the body when she did, maybe that big cat would have gotten to it first.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Tron follows my lead, taking a picture through the windshield. “What’s strange is the body was there for a while before Lucy and I found it but the cat stayed away.”
“We need to report him to animal control and send a picture,” I explain, and the big cat saunters off as if he heard me, disappearing in the fog. “I don’t want him or something else hurt. And he can’t survive out here. If nothing else, someone will end up shooting him.”
“You got that right,” Marino says. “If he’d showed up while we were waiting in the tent I might have done just that.”
“There’s been enough death and destruction today,” I reply with a sudden spike of emotion.
“We’ll call it in.” Rob resumes driving slowly as I roll up my window, looking for the cat and not seeing it, the encounter surreal.
It feels symbolic, of what I don’t know, but I’m reminded of Sal. He was always kind to animals and especially fond of cats, although he hadn’t owned one in a while. But whenever he’d come to the house for dinner, he’d dote on Lucy’s rescued Scottish fold, Merlin, who stalks our property like something wild.
CHAPTER 14
We return to the parking lot, where Lucy waits inside the helicopter, the blades untied and rocking in the wind. She steps down to open the rear clamshell door used for stretchers as Marino and I climb into the back cabin. We help slide in the plastic-shrouded body, securing it with bungee cords attached to rings in the flooring.
Marino and I are dripping wet as we sit down next to each other, shutting the doors, another roll of paper towels waiting for us. We wipe off, fastening our harnesses as I’m conscious of Sal’s disfigured face and tangled gray hair, his flesh and wounds showing through the clear plastic. Lucy and Tron are in the cockpit going through an abbreviated start-up, stressed and in a hurry.
When the blades begin to turn, I put on my headset, looking out my window, the rain flooding the helicopter. Lightning flashes, thunder cracking unnervingly close, and I’m not liking this any more than Marino. But staying put in hopes the tornado will miss us would be foolish. I imagine a funnel cloud appearing in the distant eerie glow, then roaring like a trainbearing down, turning the roller coaster into a pile of twisted metal.
Not to mention what it would do to the helicopter, and I don’t want to wait around for that finale. Our options are limited, and I don’t blame Marino for chewing on another motion sickness pill, his headset off. I continue staring out at the frightening weather because I don’t want to look at Sal on the floor near my wet muddy boots.
His bent rigorous limbs push grotesquely against the pouches as if he’s trying to get out, and I can’t help but think of the indignity. In my head I hear his chuckle as if he’s next to me, bending close, taking me into his confidence, his voice quiet in my ear. I remember the spicy masculine scent of his cologne, the tickle of his hair touching my face.
No doubt he’d make some silly crack about being shrink-wrapped. Or sealed in a big sandwich baggie. He’d joke that if he had to go, at least it was entertaining.