Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

smells good and attracts pleasant people—moms and little children and people who love plants. I was even more glad that I didn’t have to do what Sheila was doing right now. For the life of me, I don’t know how she does it, how any police officer does it, really. But I reminded myself that they do it for us, and that instead of relief, I ought to be feeling gratitude.
    As I came out of the bathroom drying my hands on a paper towel, Ruby bustled through the door that connects her shop to mine. She was wearing her weirdest Queen-of-the-Jungle makeup, complete with amber-tinted contacts and a pair of furry faux eyelashes. She was dressed in a pair of skin-tight black leggings with three half-dollar-sized gold buttons at each ankle, a silky leopard-print top with a boat neck and long, tight sleeves. Around her neck was a curious necklace of devil’s claw seedpods, painted in bright colors and decorated with feathers and beads. If you’re not used to Ruby, her bizarre style is likely to startle you, but this morning I found it wonderfully comforting. The world beyond our shops had gone completely and totally crazy. Ruby, on the other hand, was completely and totally normal.
    “Ruby,” I said happily, “you’re gorgeous. That necklace is
wild
.”
    “Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, fingering the painted pods. “These are magic, you know. When you’re wearing devil’s claws, you’re safe. They frighten away the evil spirits, so nothing bad can harm you.” Her long fake fingernails were painted with gold and brown stripes. Theydidn’t quite look like claws, but almost. “When you mentioned the police, I began to worry, China. Where have you
been
?” She gave me a closer look. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”
    Over the phone, I had told Ruby only that I would be late because I was waiting for the sheriff’s deputies to arrive at the scene of what looked like an accident, and asked if somebody was available to open the shop for me. I thought I should save the gory details until later, when I could take the time to answer her questions. Now was later.
    “It wasn’t me it happened to, Ruby,” I said soberly. “It was George Timms.”
    “Who’s George Timms?” Ramona wanted to know. Her question took me by surprise. I had forgotten that she hadn’t been around here long enough to recognize his name and be impressed.
    “George Timms is one of Pecan Springs’ biggest big shots,” Ruby told her. “He owns the Chevy dealership and property all over town. And he’s friends with everybody—the mayor, the city council. He gets his picture in the paper almost every week.” She looked at me, frowning, her head on one side. “What happened to him, China?”
    “A mountain lion happened to him,” I said.
    “A mountain lion!” Ruby and Ramona exclaimed, in unison.
    Keeping my voice low so that I wouldn’t alarm the customer and her little girl, I told them the first part of the story, the part where I found Timms’ faceless body down by the creek, buried under a tidy pile of twigs. The rest of it—the photographs in Timms’ bedroom—was a separate matter, as was the blackmail situation, which might or might not be related to Larry Kirk’s murder. That was Sheila’s territory, and I didn’t want to get into it. Not now, anyway. Smart Cookie would tell us about it when she had the case wrapped and ready to turn over to the DA.
    And anyway, the mountain lion was more than enough for them to handle right now. Both Ruby’s and Ramona’s cheeks were pale and their eyes wide and frightened by the time I finished telling them what I had seen—most of it, anyway. I left out a few of the gorier details, like the rip in Timms’ belly and the Nike-clad foot.
    “That’s
grisly
, China!” Ruby cried. She clutched at her necklace, as if it might save her from a similar fate. “Killed by a mountain lion! What a horrible way to die!”
    “It’s unimaginable,” Ramona whispered thinly. “I hope they
shoot
the beast! The idea that in this day and age, a person could be mauled to death by a brutal wild animal—”
    “It’s the natural order of things,” I countered, cutting Ramona off. “The mountain lions were here first.” It was my considered opinion that the lion had given Timms pretty much what he deserved, and that the jury was still out as to which of the two was the real “brutal wild animal.” But I didn’t share that. Instead, I said, “It’s pretty likely that the lion